By Jay Ambrose
Scripps Howard News Service
``For some Muslims, it’s Salman Rushdie time again,’’ I said to the Tall Man as he and I engaged in our weekly coffee-shop survey of the passing scene.
``Because the British knighted him, they're burning the Union Jack and effigies of Queen Elizabeth II and one cleric is saying Rushdie should be killed, assassinated.’’
``I feel for Rushdie,’’ said the Tall Man. ``He had police protection for what? A couple of decades? And now he will need it again, all because he once wrote `The Satanic Verses,’ which many Muslims found offensive. Step on some toes in some cultures, and it can cost you your head.’’
``In the West, people can also get furious at someone's free speech, but you don't ordinarily get advice to resort to violence in this day and age,’’ I said. ``One of the British officials pointed out that the Monty Python crowd once made a movie poking fun at the life of Jesus, but that those offended understood the great, overriding value of being allowed to express yourself. No one threatened to grab a shotgun.’’
``Maybe,’’ said my friend, ``we ought to resuscitate `Monty Python and the Flying Circus’ to lampoon these fanatics who so richly deserve it. They scream they will kill those intolerant of Islam, thereby demonstrating an intolerance that puts ordinary intolerance to shame. Remember how another Python movie, `Monty Python and the Holy Grail,’ showed a hero doing the opposite of what he intended?’’
``Go on,’’ I said.
``Well,’’ he said, ``Sir Lancelot figures he will save this damsel being forced to marry against her will, and kills some guards and a bunch of people in the wedding party, only to discover it wasn't the prospective bride who was against the marriage, but the prospective groom, who preferred singing pretty songs.’’
I laughed and said that, in my view, the old ``Python’’ show on the BBC was magnificently representative of a certain spirit in our civilization, a cheerful zaniness liberated from the forces that would control our every move.
``I somewhat agree, but don't get too self-congratulatory about how far our civilization has come,’’ the Tall Man said. ``There are still those who would clamp down on any view different from their own. There are those awful college speech codes, for instance, and the left is absolutely beside itself these days because of all the conservatives on talk radio.’’
``Some Democrats want to bring back the rules that required equal time for political opinions, which would pretty much kill off many talk shows. I ran across a report on how the Center for American Progress and Free Press wants firmer rules again on what stations are obliged by law to do and a change of ownership.’’’
``This group has 'free press' as part of its name?’’ I asked. ``That reminds me of how the Soviet Union used to call its totalitarianism `democracy’ on the grounds that true democracy could only be achieved by controls. Talk radio is predominantly conservative because free people vote that way with their listening habits. The excuse for controls is nonsense in an era of more information outlets than anytime in the history of the human race, and worrying about conservatives on radio is absurd when so much of the mainstream media is dominated by liberals.’’
``You're right, of course,’’ said the Tall Man. ``The left says its true interest is free speech _ nudge, nudge, wink, wink, say no more. The `Holy Grail’ movie had a nice example of this kind of thing, too, when the Legendary Black Beast of Aaaaarrrrrrggghhh ate the scholar who was deciphering some kind of message of just where the grail was to be found.’’
``I am not sure I get the connection,’’ I said.
``OK, maybe I am stretching things a bit,’’ he said. ``Except there's this _ that the people who would shut up others are like that `Python’ beast in maybe keeping us from finding some truth or the other or at least interrupting the pursuit.’’
``I’ll buy that,’’ I said.
``And now for something completely different,’’ he said as he introduced a new topic and we continued our session.
Jay Ambrose, formerly Washington director of editorial policy for Scripps Howard newspapers and the editor of dailies in El Paso, Texas, and Denver, is a columnist living in Colorado. He can be reached at SpeaktoJay@aol.com.