TOON-DEAF EUROPE waves the white flag

The Chicago Sun-Times now has two of the most incisive writers in the USA, and of the two, the inimitable Mark Steyn has the best dark humor, as noted by Roger Simon in today’s blogs. Mr. John O’Sullivan plays bad cop to seducer Steyn in the Sun-Times duo. Here is a Steyn series of one-liners:

From Europe's biggest-selling newspaper, the Sun: ''Furious Muslims have blasted adult shop [i.e., sex shop] Ann Summers for selling a blowup male doll called Mustafa Shag."
Not literally "blasted" in the Danish Embassy sense, or at least not yet. Quite how Britain's Muslim Association found out about Mustafa Shag in order to be offended by him is not clear. It may be that there was some confusion: given that "blowup males" are one of Islam's leading exports, perhaps some believers went along expecting to find Ahmed and Walid modeling the new line of Semtex belts. Instead, they were confronted by just another filthy infidel sex gag. The Muslim Association's complaint, needless to say, is that the sex toy "insults the Prophet Muhammad -- who also has the title al-Mustapha.''

Steyn has a hilarious scenario on just how a pious Muslim could run across Mustafa Shag in Ann Summer’s shop, but you have to read the whole gleeful put-down of sanctimonious politically correct pieties that motivate MSM capitulation to multicultural mantras. [Whew!]

Steyns comment has elicited lots of comments, except from the humor-challenged MSM groupies, and while I don’t think gratuitous offense to a world religion is in good taste, Roger Kimball in the New Criterion blog ARMAVIRUMQUE quotes Steyn thus:

If I were a Muslim, I'd be "hurt" and "humiliated" that the revered prophet's name is given not to latex blowup males but to so many real blowup males: The leader of the 9/11 plotters? Mohammed Atta. The British Muslim who self-detonated in a Tel Aviv bar? Asif Mohammed Hanif. The gunman who shot up the El Al counter at LAX? Heshamed Mohamed Hedayet. The former U.S. Army sergeant who masterminded the slaughter at the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania? Ali Mohamed. The murderer of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh? Mohammed Bouyeri. The notorious Sydney gang rapist? Mohammed Skaf. The Washington sniper? John Allen Muhammed. If I were a Muslim, I would be deeply offended that the prophet's name is the preferred appellation of so many killers and suicide bombers on every corner of the earth.

Nope, the Washington Post is afraid that the Washington sniper reference could hurt its readership's sensitivities.

Roger Simon also has a good observation on how craven liberals like Albert Brooks, who used to be funny, have retreated into political correctness, as in his Searching for Humor in the Muslim World movie set in Hindu India, since Brooks didn’t want to get too on-topic. Simon quotes Steyn:

In theory, this should have been the perfect moment for Albert Brooks to release his new film ''Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World.'' Instead, life is effortlessly outpacing art. Brooks had an excellent premise and, somewhere between studio equivocation and his sense of self-preservation, it all got watered down, beginning with the decision to focus the plot on a trip to India. Which is a, er, mostly Hindu country.

and then lapses into a generalization about the gentrification of Hollyweird. Simon says:

"I haven't seen Brooks' film. The reviews were pretty bad and kept me away. Also, traditional Hollywood libs like Brooks don't seem to have the guts for satire anymore. That's been left in the hands of the South Park gang. The Brooks crowd (all of them) are more worried about seeming "nice" these days then telling the truth. That's death for comedy. Mark Steyn could give them lessons."

The Oz blogger Tim Blair makes a list of recent Muslim incitements that might eventually activate the supine British police authorities, to avoid another July 7th catastrophe. The situation in Britain is serious, but in the EU, they are preparing for proactive measures. Europe has already started waving the white flag of surrender, as Steyn notes:

The European Union’s Justice and Security Commissioner, Franco Frattini, said on Thursday that the EU would set up a “media code” to encourage “prudence” in the way they cover, ah, certain sensitive subjects. As Signor Frattini explained it to the Daily Telegraph, "The press will give the Muslim world the message: We are aware of the consequences of exercising the right of free expression. . . . We can and we are ready to self-regulate that right."
"Prudence"? "Self-regulate our free expression"? No, I’m afraid that’s just giving the Muslim world the message: You’ve won, I surrender, please stop kicking me.
But they never do. Because, to use the Arabic proverb with which Robert Ferrigno opens his new novel, Prayers for the Assassin, set in an Islamic Republic of America, "A falling camel attracts many knives." In Denmark and France and the Netherlands and Britain, Islam senses the camel is falling and this is no time to stop knifing him.

Except for the fact that there is an Italian contingent in Iraq, I would make a comment about the nationality of the EU Commissioner, and to be fair, the EU usually selects the most craven spineless lefties to represent it in these matters. Signor Frattini fills that bill.

But Steyn ends up getting a straight to the heart of the matter, which demonstrates why he is too funny and relevant and boots-on-the-ground to work for the gelded MSM exempt media rainmakers:

The issue is not "freedom of speech" or "the responsibilities of the press" or "sensitivity to certain cultures." The issue, as it has been in all these loony tune controversies going back to the Salman Rushdie fatwa, is the point at which a free society musters the will to stand up to thugs. British Muslims march through the streets waving placards reading "BEHEAD THE ENEMIES OF ISLAM." If they mean that, bring it on. As my columnar confrere John O'Sullivan argued, we might as well fight in the first ditch as the last.
But then it's patiently explained to us for the umpteenth time that they're not representative, that there are many many "moderate Muslims.''
I believe that. I've met plenty of "moderate Muslims" in Jordan and Iraq and the Gulf states. But, as a reader wrote to me a year or two back, in Europe and North America they aren't so much "moderate Muslims" as quiescent Muslims. The few who do speak out wind up living in hiding or under 24-hour armed guard, like Dutch MP Ayaab Hirsi Ali.
So when the EU and the BBC and the New York Times say that we too need to be more "sensitive" to those fellows with "Behead the enemies of Islam" banners, they should look in the mirror: They're turning into "moderate Muslims," and likely to wind up as cowed and silenced and invisible.

Don't expect to see Steyn's humor on PBS Evening News or in the NYT, LAT, or WaPo any time this decade!