Salman Rushdie, 2014 photo
Salman Rushdie:
“I stand with Charlie Hebdo, as we all must, to defend the art of satire which has always been a force for liberty and against tyranny, dishonesty, and stupidity.
“Respect for religion has become a code phrase meaning ‘fear of religion.’
“Religions like all other ideas deserve criticism, satire and, yes, our fearless disrespect.”
(Editor’s note: Salman Rushdie is a British-Indian author who wrote Satanic Verses, a novel, in 1989. As a result of that, the Iran Ayatollah issued a fatwa on him. He had to go into hiding for years. He has lived in the U.S. since 2000 and currently teaches at a major American University. He is a courageous man.)
As a blogger, I feel strongly about freedom of the press/speech and the need for democracies to defend that idea. Blogfinger has had a few individuals in Ocean Grove go out of their way to actively try to diminish what I am doing, but their small and intolerant voices have only encouraged me to stay the course and to hopefully encourage you Blogarians to keep participating in our experiment in hyperlocal reporting. You may, at times, not like what I do, but it benefits everyone if you support the process.
CRAIG OGDEN “Cavatina” from the soundtrack of Deer Hunter, a film about men going to war to fight for freedom in Vietnam.