This article is a joke. Where is the editorial staff in Salon? You were supposed to print articles written by inteligent people, not racism obsessed short sighted defenders of Islam. I am disgusted!!!!

By the way - I like the idea of Monty Python like movies poking fun at Islam. Where are you brave movie directors?

Man,

could you get a little bit out of your rabid American patiotism and see the world around you. Global warming is not an American problem but the world problem and to solve this problem it will take the whole planet. It will not be this American cowboy riding into the village to save the situation, but a bunch of fighters from all over the planet. Holly cow, my American friends wake up and become the world citiziens - your patriotic village mindset led you already astray, to refuse Kyoto. Wake up, wake up. America is just a little part of the whole.

Andrzej

And the knife opens in your pocket when you watch this.

Itakto

Hey you, left wingi religion bashers (including Joan). Just cool off. What you are doing here is venting your anger that some right wing gonzo Donohue won the round about the chocolate Jesus. But honestly I think you should just ignore the whole thing and find some better battles.

I am myself an atheist and lapsed Catholic and I do not really understand why the other side was so upset with the chocolate Jesus. I suspect it was the genitals and the fact that the thing was to be displayed in an “in your face” manner during the Holy Week. Maybe this is an over reaction but so what. I think we should have some respect for the religious people feelings. And if they want it out, we should comply, because no important right of the society is lost here. Who cares about some chocolate Jesus not being displayed in a gallery window.

A few, I think important, points here:

1. Not being able to draw satirical cartoons of religious figures goes very much against established norms in our society, so do attempts to establish women-only hours at swimming pools or claims that Muslim women should not be required to show their faces to identify themselves while voting. So our strong reaction against such religious demands is very justified and needed. But come on, the right to make chocolate statues of religious figures with naked genitals and to display them in the public places during the holy time of respective religions is nothing that we terribly need and have to defend in this society.

2. I have to say that conservative Catholics are showing quite big restraint comparing to fundamentalist or even middle of the road Muslims. If the word went around that somebody made a chocolate sculpture of Mohamed with his genitals exposed (even without the additional insult of displaying it in the window during the Ramadan), Muslims around the world would go literally crazy. If you do not believe me just try to do it. But I hope you consult Pentagon first, so that they are ready with their nuclear weapons against all the Islamic armies trying to invade the USA after such provocation.

3. As much as I like to watch naked bodies of both sexes, Jesus and naked genitals do not go together well for me. His message (actually quite progressive in big part) was not about sex, urinating, defecation, etc. It is aesthetically displeasing to show Jesus as sexual being. You can do it, but why? By the same token you do not eat with your hands in a good restaurant and you do not piss in public. Imagine similar, genitals exposing sculptures of Mahatma Gandhi, Luther King, Abraham Lincoln or Albert Einstein. You could do it, but it seems to be unnecessarily provocative. Those guys deeds were not about sex.

Andrew

I hope that the culture bifurcation that you are talking about happens completely and soon. I do not need any stupid talking shopping cart. I do not need to know where all the stuff in the store is. I do not want to know, see and hear any info coming from the corporate or not content provider while I am shopping. And by the way I was getting veggies from such box delivery that you mentioned and that was not any problem for me. It's enough of this making world easier for us, why don't we start making it more difficult for a change. It is more fun. I hope all those guys from Microsoft who came up with this shopping cart idea will get buried in the coffins that blast eternal advertisement at them inside the box including the advice how to peddle more stuff to devils or angels.

Why on earth fighting the Wall Street criminals has to be done by a puritan saint. I have no problem with Spitzer having sex with a prostitute or having a secret lover. It is his wife's problem not ours.

Itakto