Orson Scott Card disusses (video) the difference between fantasy and science fiction.
It is a highly interesting debate, what is SF and what is F. Because it just can't be solidly defined. For example, if a Christian writer (and this has happened) writes stories in which Satan is real, then that's not fantasy to him and his co-believers. If an atheist writes it, then it's fantasy.
The same is true with a big number of other subjects you might mention. A big part of the population believe in telepathy, and another big don't believe it exists. The same is true for ghosts, reincarnation, etc etc etc. So that makes it hard to put hard limits on "what is fantasy".
And Scott Card says that faster than light travel is impossible, thuse SF which involves it is really fantasy. But many scientists are not convinced about the Einsteinian hard limit on speed of space travel, so...
Update: by the way, L. Ron Hubbard, in the introduction to Battlefield Earth, makes a big show about how one should not mix genres, and announces with not inconsiderable pride (to use phraseology he might have used himself) that the kilopage BE is full of all kinds of science fiction, but no trace of fantasy.
He defines SF as fiction dealing with technology which does not yet exist, buy may in the future, with a heavy slant towards imagining technology before engineers do, so engineers get a clue what to aim for. And he defines fantasy as "stories about spirits and magic and such" or words to that effect.
Himself, he wrote both kinds, sometimes really well, like BE, and sometimes really badly, like The Ultimate Adventure, in which the hero defeats a spirit by bobbing it over the head! A good fantasy story of his, though, is Fear, which is a classic.
My question is does it really make that much difference either way? I mean, when you get right down to it, aren't these just words we use for our own convenience?
ReplyDeleteYou might say that. But in my view, it is a process relevant to defining what is reality, how do we look at it, how do we think about it.
ReplyDeleteScrolling through my satellite channels, I once saw an Indian movie where somebody's intently praying Brahma... which himself and a few other divinities soon show up in haloes of golden light to give the hero some deep advice.
ReplyDeleteAnd how about the way japanese manga and anime make liberal use of their own religious lore... sometimes in a very un-serious way? Classic example: the DragonBall series. Not to mention video games, like Final FANTASY.
More subtle: the various alien gods of Earth's history in Stargate. I think there might even have been a episode with a mention of Yahve?...
Also, I'm convinced that the story of Star Wars, especially the first trilogy, could very easily has been set in a medieval frame with sorcery and dragons and gnome Ewoks and evil warlocks and... uh, no wait: that would become Lord of the Rings!
;-)
When I was a kid, Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon flew around in spaceships and fired off ray-guns, and we all thought that was pure fantasy. Guess again!
ReplyDeleteAs for the speed of light, as I understand it, the problem is energy.
To travel at the speed of light with anything bigger than an actual particle of the stuff, it would require huge amounts of energy - more than the travelling object could produce. So, unlike the Sound Barrier, it isn't likely we will surpass the Light Barrier. And what if we did? How are we going to see where we're going if we're moving faster than the source of the information - think about it.
Do we really want to do that? Not me. I like to see what I'm about to
run into...
Ray
When it comes to certain things in science, like this idea that faster-than-light (or even getting close to light speed) is impossible, we should remember how many things were at one time impossible and are now common place. People said the alternating current motor couldn't be built until Tesla did it. There's a lot of other things. If it ever is possible to break the light speed barrier it will probably not be in any way that science fiction has imagined, just like they didn't predict computers. It's funny to read a book like "Childhood's End," which is still a great story, but there's the added enjoyment of seeing how they missed certain developments and got other things partially right.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the physics knowledge of today, it's impossible to travel faster than light or even get close to it. Who knows what might be possible in hundreds or thousands of years, if civilization doesn't crumble, and our knowledge of science continues to increase.
I personally hate the idea of us possibly be trapped here on this one little world, tantalized by what could be out there, able to see a part of it only through telescopes.
Of course, we'd need something far better than warp drive or Battlestar Galactica's FTL drive to see very much of the universe.
Pascal wrote:
ReplyDeleteI think there might even have been a episode with a mention of Yahve?...
I haven't seen every episode (far from it), but I believe I read something somewhere that said they would avoid doing anything with any religion of today. So, no making Jesus a Goa'uld or an Ancient. They would offend too many people. (Personally I don't see why, since they're not seriously suggesting these aliens existed. As a hard core Snake Handler, I would not be offended.)
Might not surprise you guys but, to me, anything that cannot be touched, measured or somehow observed is fiction.
ReplyDelete[Large portion of post deleted. Methinks it's best not to comment on reality vs fiction, since it can't be done on a moderate tone. Could have been entertaining, though. ;-) ]
As for the line between SF and F, I guess it will forever remain blurred. One of my favorite authors, Clifford Simak, was a specialist at muddying that line. In the same story [The Goblin Reservation] he would use science to bring back goblins & dragons, and make it hilarious.
I love Simak despite the fact that his work is uneven, simply because he's a fantastic storyteller. He will sometimes drag you into the most unbelievable plots and have you enjoy it all thoroughly. Fritz Leiber is in that category too, although somewhat darker.
Generic expectations. If the story starts out like a Jane Austen romance, informing us of familial obligations, large manor houses, and a dashing dark man on a steed who saves a young heiress from a rainstorm, then we're surprised and disappointed, as readers, if it warps into a goblin attack or a bunch of ray guns ripping through her bodice. With that kind of start, we can either have a gothic horror or a romance, or (if the author is cagey) a deliberate melding and juxtaposition of two or more genres. A mystery starts with an unsolved crime, or with a discussion between two crime-solving accomplices. A school story starts with a trip on a train. A horror movie starts with a group of people who accidentally find themselves out of touch with the rest of society for a while. A fantasy starts with space flight ... no, wait, I mean, a sci-fi starts with space flight. A fantasy starts with a genial wizard.
ReplyDeleteI performed once in Sam Shepard's "Geography of a Horse Dreamer." In it gangsters are confronted by cowboys and we end up in a scene from a Pinter apartment drama. It's SUPPOSED to be weird, in that generic expectations are slashed and hacked.
But what this topic is discussing is not the rare instance in which genres are mixed, but rather the more common instances in which they are not mixed. The editor of "Analog" wanted sci-fi, and therefore rejected Card's story with trees and elves in it. Not that the story was good or bad; just, that it flouted convention. Generic expectation is a conventional thing.
For me, fantasy arises from Arthurian and other medieval Romance tales. Dragons, knights and ladies, woods and groves. Sci-fi has only ever been written for about 200 years, at the outside most ... in other words, since the dawn of the full industrial era. Without a social context in which science is "an entity" in and of itself, sci-fi can't exist independent of fantasy.
So, to draw another generalization -- in sci-fi, everyone has access to science. In fantasy, only a limited few have access to magic.
Might not surprise you guys but, to me, anything that cannot be touched, measured or somehow observed is fiction.
ReplyDeleteWow. That is profound.
Isn't there another term, Science Fantasy, which crosses over between the two.
ReplyDeleteThe terms SF and Fantasy are typically to separate the two main styles, one where you are looking at how people (critters) with wonderful powers do battle against each other. The other is typically how people who develop powers need to do so in a responsible manner.
I need to read more Fantasy, but it just seems to be about how to get through a saga, and is less about people. SF on the other hand is very much about how people are, how they respond to situations, and how people see each other.
There again, maybe my SF reading is very skewed into the writers who are exploring people, rather than those who are exploring space.
Every genre is probably 90% crap. For every Tad Williams or George R. R. Martin there is a Robert Jordan and a Terry Brooks.
ReplyDeleteI would think examining reality on the basis of different hypotheses concerning souls, psychic abilities, reincarnation, the speed of light, and so on would lead one to examining reality on the wrong level. It isn't as simple as, "this perspective is right, this perspective is wrong and everyone who thinks differently is delusional."
ReplyDeleteThe real question is why so many different perspectives seem to carry weight. If you take the time to listen to people who don't believe in any kind of supernatural deity and you spend just as much time listening to those who do, both sides have valid reasons for their beliefs. (This argument assumes that you take every variance of these beliefs into account. Not every atheist is strictly scientific and not everyone who believes in a higher power is associated with a religion. You can't get a good perspective on the issue by seeking only one variance, one representation, for a school of thought.)
I suppose this is why Einstein said, "imagination is more important than knowledge." (May be slightly inaccurate; I didn't look up the exact quote.) It is unlikely that reality can be adequately defined by our current models. That's not to say we toss them out the window, but we need to think in a manner that allows for flexibility otherwise dogma will cloud our judgement and we won't see the bigger picture.
Defining anything as impossible is a fool's game. It's an excuse to stop thinking. I've found that asking, "how might it be possible?" is far more constructive as it opens one's eyes to things he never would have seen or considered before and it grants a deeper insight into his fellow human beings. There's a lot of crazy mystics out there and there's just as many dogmatic non-believers, but they are the minority. By refusing to accept them as adequate representations for their respective beliefs one finds a humanity that is more varied and thoughtful than it at first appeared.
As for the subject of genres, frankly I never paid much attention. The only real difference between sci-fi and fantasy far as I've seen is the time during which the stories take place. There's often an equal amount of fantastic elements within the tales. One genre explains them through technical jargon, the other favors mystical forces and deities. Considering how varied reality itself can be I don't see the line between genres as being all that important. It seems like that would only limit imagination. After all, if things like magic and devils existed, no high-technology could enable permanent ignorance. In fact it would likely do the opposite as things were invented that allowed man to expand beyond the mundane physical senses.
It would be extremely arrogant of us to assume we can define what is and isn't real, what is and isn't possible, at this current time. We've gone a long way but we have so far to go that I can only imagine this will be called the dark ages by a future civilization.
Here's an amusing anecdote in support of Alex's view (""my SF reading is very skewed into the writers who are exploring people"):
ReplyDeleteAsimov's fiction works seldom included anything but humans and (human-made) robots. As he explained in the intro to one of his short stories, Campbell (Asimov's editor of choice in his beginnings) had a marked preference for stories where humans would prove superior to everything else, and Asimov simply didn't want to be forced to buy into this puerile attitude. So he decided to stick to humans alone, and apparently it wasn't a mistake. :-)
"It would be extremely arrogant of us to assume we can define what is and isn't real, what is and isn't possible, at this current time. We've gone a long way but we have so far to go that I can only imagine this will be called the dark ages by a future civilization."
ReplyDeleteWell put. But as much as I am open to the possibility of some higher being(s) governing the universe, for example, I certainly won't proclaim this to be real simply because it feels right on a certain level. And much less try to impose my views to anyone else.
And I certainly would never have the blind arrogance to postulate that such an infinitely superior being would make me, or even the whole of humanity, the center of its attention.
"But as much as I am open to the possibility of some higher being(s) governing the universe, for example, I certainly won't proclaim this to be real simply because it feels right on a certain level. And much less try to impose my views to anyone else."
ReplyDeleteNor would I encourage it. Myself, I take a mystical approach to life but I certainly don't expect anyone else to adhere to it. While there appear to be studies and even whole branches of science (ie, quantum physics) that support my views I wouldn't claim them to be absolutely true. I can only comprehend as much as my imagination, intellect and emotions will allow.
I will expound on my beliefs whenever I'm presented with an issue but the goal is not conversion so much as it is to expand understanding. The only thing I will state with absolute certainty is that my understanding of the universe is incomplete. Indeed, even the way I interpret my own experiences may be flawed. Nevertheless there is value in what I observe and experience and nothing will be furthered by withholding these sentiments. It isn't arrogant for anyone to say, "I am a worthwhile individual with a unique voice that should be heard." It's only when a dogmatic ego backs that statement that it becomes a problem. Of course it would add, "...at the expense of all dissenting voices, for surely these are fools who deserve whatever end their stupidity brings upon them."
"How are we going to see where we're going if we're moving faster than the source of the information - think about it."
ReplyDeleteIt's been thought about already.
From the opening panel of the MAD Magazine parody of Star Wars, aboard a spaceship: "We're travelling faster than the speed of light, and we have fired a laser shot, which only goes at the speed of light... so as a result we've shot ourselves down!"
"According to the physics knowledge of today, it's impossible to travel faster than light or even get close to it. Who knows what might be possible in hundreds or thousands of years"
But you CAN'T go faster than light! There are other solutions though, when you wield the omnipotent power of the Administration.
From Futurama: "Today in the 30th Century, the Government has raised the speed of light, so that space travel could become faster."
Re. Stargate: I've checked Wikipedia. No Yahve Gua'uld, but there was one that took for himself the name Satan.
It is not known whether these ancient pagan divinities WERE aliens, or the aliens just used their extremely advanced technology to claim they were the gods worshiped by the... "indigens of Earth".
Clifford Simak? Hey, I LOVE that guy too! Came up with some amazingly creative and entertaining stuff.
"Did Man really exist once?", the Dogs wonder at night aroud the fire while retelling the ancient legends.
:-)
"Sci-fi has only ever been written for about 200 years"
Ah, the precursors like Jules Verne and HG Wells... Classics!
"In fact it would likely do the opposite as things were invented that allowed man to expand beyond the mundane physical senses."
Infrared, ultraviolet, radio and radar waves, radio-activity, ultrasounds, viruses... A long list!
"I can only imagine this will be called the dark ages by a future civilization."
Considering the international news about society and politics, I'd say that's stating the obvious!
"But as much as I am open to the possibility of some higher being(s) governing the universe, for example, I certainly won't proclaim this to be real simply because it feels right on a certain level. And much less try to impose my views to anyone else."
Infidel! Heathen! Off with his head! Then quarter him! Then burn him! Then drown him! Then hang him! Then shoot him! Then gut him! Then crucify him! Then pour lead in his ears! Then make him listen to Jimmy Hendrix playing the Star Spangled Banner!
"And I certainly would never have the blind arrogance to postulate that such an infinitely superior being would make me, or even the whole of humanity, the center of its attention."
You mean... [turns livid] you mean... it's not ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that we are God's Navel? Oh, perish the thought!
A world where God isn't a scientific proof? Pah! Now THAT's a fantasy scenario!
Not Hendrix! Noooooo... I beg for your mercy!!
ReplyDelete"The only thing I will state with absolute certainty is that my understanding of the universe is incomplete."
ReplyDeleteCan you be sure? Sounds like an arrogant attitude, to be so assertive. ;-)
About the faster than light thing... it is very unlikely that anyone will ever be able to travel faster than light while remaining in the form of solid matter. The theory, which so far has been confirmed by all experimental evidence we could gather, says that upon reaching the speed of light, matter turns into energy. Now as to whether or not this energy could retain enough cohesion to be converted back to the original matter upon slowing down, your guess is probably as good as anybody else's...
ReplyDeleteBut if you think about it, you will quickly realize that it doesn't matter (no pun intended) much anyway, as the time it would take to reach such a speed under any survivable acceleration would exceed anyone's life expectancy anyway.
Of course, we could postulate that the even more improbable "inertial dampers" from Star Trek will have been invented by then...
For my part, I place a lot more hope in what the theory doesn't say. It is by no means a firm restriction of this universe that one would have to travel along the same paths as light does. Some quite valid speculations are open as to whether or not it would be possible to "bend space" in some way or another in order to travel between two points in no time.
Now, that's an appealing concept to me, and especially so since, by some estimates, the universe contains some 25 billion galaxies. If we are to grant Joe's wish to "see very much of the universe", then zero time is a must.
Peaceful Blade said I don't see the line between genres as being all that important. I have an old Penguin paperback of "The Invisible Man", a classic SF. Penguin actually bound it in the green trim of their Mystery series. Thinking about it, apart from the serum based invisibility it is a mystery, and I think it correct of Penguin to categorize it as such.
ReplyDeletePascal said was replying to "Sci-fi has only ever been written for about 200 years" and replied Ah, the precursors like Jules Verne and HG Wells... Classics!
ReplyDeleteSure the term "scientifiction" and "scientific romance" were not used until early last century, but are there not earlier examples? Do we take Icarus's failed flight as SF? I am drawing a blank on other stories oft cited as SF from before the 1800's.
I am now wondering where alternate history stories lay? They are not SF. Just take a battle, tweak the conditions and you have a whole new world. Some get lumped in SF because that is where the author is famous, others in historical fiction.
As Alex mentions, there are many older works that probably deserve to be classified as SF. Wikipedia's History of Science-Fiction page mentions that the oldest contender for the origin of SF is the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh, and cites many other works.
ReplyDeleteYet the term Scientifiction was coined by Hugo Gernsback (while sitting on a bench in Central Park, as the story goes), just shortly before he went on and founded Amazing Stories, in 1926.
I wonder when this labeling of literary genres started? Does it go back to the invention of the printing press, or was it created only much later by the "historians of literature"?
(Contemplating Bert's left big toe)
ReplyDeleteAlas, poor toe. I knew it well.
Wait! Part of his body miraculously remained? Could this mean...
Oh dear, I think perhaps we have executed a Saint!
Or was that Joan of Ark?
To be Saint B or not two-B, that is a question.
Sure, guys, Sci-Fi can be considered to be as old as written fiction itself. I only meant by "precursors" the first "modern-style" S-F.
ReplyDeleteDr Jekyll & Mr Hyde is as much S-F as it is a police mystery. Not to mention Tintin's Explorers on the Moon, which very convincingly told such an adventure a few years before the Apollo missions landed ("mooned"?) up there.
"I wonder when this labeling of literary genres started?"
ReplyDeleteIt must have started when literacy started. Seems like the need to classify is at the core of human reasoning.
"I verk alone." -- Arnold Schwarzenegger
The great American humorist and maybe one of the very first stand-up comics, Will Rogers, once said," It's not the things we don't know that get us into trouble - it's the things we do know that ain't so."
ReplyDeleteRay.
I see "Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde" as a study of drug addiction, and how, once one reaches that state of liberation induced by intoxication, then the veil of humanity is stripped and you swiftly can descend to pits of bestial behviour.
ReplyDeleteHow many stories in "I Robot" and Asimovs other Robot shorts are psychology studies? Including that one about the robot artist who was a mis-wired butler. That is a nice statement about autism, and whether mental disorders require "fixing". Seeing some statistics about the frequency of some disorders, one has to question what NT means anyway.
Oh, and since OSC was the inspriation for this thread, let us remember that Ansible or Philotic transportation is an FTL mechanism which is not necessarily relativistic, but conceivable more like wormhole teleportation.
"let us remember that Ansible or Philotic transportation is an FTL mechanism which is not necessarily relativistic [...]"
ReplyDeleteI also liked Frank Herbert's Taprisiot and Caleban (see The Dosadi Experiment and Whipping Star).
The Taprisiot find a means of subsistence for their species by renting their unusual ability to establish direct communications between two beings, irrespective of the distance (except when it comes to billing, apparently :). The Caleban, a much harder to define species, provide instantaneous transportation for everyone.
I prefer such stories where authors avoid entering in pointless detailed discussions of non-existent technologies. Although re-reading early Van Vogt can sometimes be entertaining in that respect (his humanoid robots still used vacuum tubes ;), I find it refreshing to be spared the techno-babble.
One wonderful instance of this was the movie Multiplicity with Michael Keaton and Andie McDowell, where the whole cloning process was reduced to the chime of a cooking timer! And the rest of the movie was simply delightful. This is one story that is hard to classify. Would you make it a SF story?
Btw, I just noticed the change on this blog's front page, which now sports the "English broken, without malice" motto. Good one, Eolake!
Thanks. :)
ReplyDeleteI was inspired by reading Pascal's e-mail signature, advertising his blog and saying "My blogue
English spoken. On parle Français."
his humanoid robots still used vacuum tubes
ReplyDeleteIf you ever read Harry Harrison's "A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!" you will see that the atomic locomotive is very compact, but needs several rail cars of "brabbage engine" for the compute power to control the system.
In "Star Trek: Next Generation" communicator badges are used since it was evident cell phone were approaching the size of Kirks communicators.
Watching "The Sweeney" and "Life on Mars" I am surprised at how little technology they had back then. Walkie Talkie radios being special issue as needed. Blood samples and finger prints taking weeks to correlate at Scotland Yard etc. You never know what technology will be in the future, and you always have to make a guess. One of the core entities in "Metropolis" (Von Harbou, 1926) is the Pater Noster. I've only seen two of these, one in Leicester University, and one in Newcastle, and a few on TV. They seem like a good idea, but escalators are more prevalent.
Well's demonstration of technology without explanation is more powerful than "hard SF" where they stop short of giving you the schematics (indeed, there is even discussion on blue print techniques in "Canticle for Leibowitz"). The fuzzy "science is here" approach lets the humanity issues be addressed.
"Watching "The Sweeney" and "Life on Mars" I am surprised at how little technology they had back then."
ReplyDeleteYes!
Also Life On Mars highlights the cultural changes which has happened over only thirty years.
Paternostas (an elevator/lift of open compartments that move slowly up and down inside a building without stopping) seem scary to me.
I like the name. "Our Father". TvH used the metaphor to great effect.
ReplyDeleteOne thing to remember is not only is a Paternoster continuously ascending to Heaven, it is also continuously descending to Hell.
Hmm, I never thought of the circuit of a Rosary in connection with The Lords Prayer. Shows what a bad Catholic upbringing I had. I thought that was more to do with "Hail Mary's".
Now why am I thinking of Vivian Wu, and Peter Gabriel?
"My blogue" is Frenglish. After breaking the English, I weld it with an equal amount of French, "and voilĂ ". Kind of trendy in France today...
ReplyDeleteNo malice taken, Captain. But YOU try coming up with titles for each post that are equally significant in two languages!
;-)
It's not like I can keep flaunting every day that I had a rendez-vous with a femme fatale at the restaurant...
Multiplicity was a brilliant philosophic comedy. I really enjoyed it. So anti-Batman for Keaton!
:-)
(Or was Batman played by BUSTER Keaton? No, that probably was the Phantom.)
I agree about ST communicator badges: they need to remain large enough to be convenient, otherwise Starfleet personnel would waste countless hours looking for them every time they do the laundry.
ALREADY a problem with modern cell phones!...
About blurred genres, I've just discovered that Allah had already told us about the secrets of trans-planetary space-time bending teletransportation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tay_al-Ard
Either that, or I misunderstood the mysteries of on-field arabian origami.
"Paternostas [...] seem scary to me."
This probably explains why this nifty futuristic idea was scrapped in our 21st century of the advanced Future, eh my good Astro? Good old-fashioned visual acrophobia...
Might also explain why it's named after a prayer? ;-)
"Allah had already told us about the secrets of trans-planetary space-time bending teletransportation"
ReplyDeleteDoes this mean that the Quran should be classified as SF?
religion is magic. The answer to every riddle in the universe is, "A magic man did it."
ReplyDelete"Does this mean that the Quran should be classified as SF?"
ReplyDeletePerhaps... As long as you're careful to first mention that you're NOT Danish. Otherwise you'd be considered as having suspicious motives these days. For a measly cartoonist's murder plot, these infidels went and retaliated by republishing the blasphemous sketch that claims a link between the One True Faith and terrorism, can you imagine the nerve? I'm telling you, you just can't have a civilized debate with these Danes...
During the month of Ramadan, there's a tradition called fawazir. Basically, "riddles". On TV, these take the form of daily short movies, with an associated small enigma, and a contest for callers with the correct answer.
A few years ago, I saw a bit of one of those. It was a tale with a hero in the desert, who meets two extra-terrestrials. Fully humanoid in aspect, skintone included. Their dressing style and language: arabic. Religion: islam. Means of space travel across the infinity of Cosmos: incanting the classic formula "Bisillahil rahman arrahim." ("By the name of Allah, the merciful and powerful forgiver", an equivalent to the latin "Madre de Dios".) In other words: Tay-el-makan. While those American dogs and Soviet heathens were racing to that dead rock of a Moon in machines, for milleniae true believers had been surfing the silvery vastness between the Galaxies in the Fantastic Four Directions of the Golden Compass, by sheer virtue of the genuine Faith.
SF? Fantasy? Faith? Sorry, sidi effendim, the jackal got my tongue on this one, I give up.
;-)
Anyway, you could consider Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments as SF too. Definitely wasn't a realistic historical fresco. Essentially a stunning visual legend, going overboard even next to the original biblical retelling.
I've read a lot of crackpot theories "explaining" religion with the alien hypothesis. I admit the "chariot of fire" image is quite evocative, as are a few others, but still, my own beliefs refuse to consider any advanced galactic species as divine, period. That's just a dumb temptation to mix the modern tales that are SF with a mentality of ancient superstitious paganism. "The white-skinned man had a stick that spews lightning and rolls thunder, he must be a god! All hail."
Puh-leeze! Any belief that needs the alibi of some pseudo-scientific explanation to justify itself, I consider basically flawed and neo-paganist. Me, I have a faith that's spiritual in nature. Belief in the Good in man, helping the downtrodden, a higher purpose than just gathering cash and fame, the nobility that our spirit has the potential to achieve... that sort of quaint stuff.
"can you imagine the nerve"
ReplyDeleteMy first thought was that they were nuts, but after a bit of thought I actually admire it. Especially since they got all the other newspapers to do it too!
I raise my hat to the Danes for that one, too. <| :-)
ReplyDeleteIt baffles me that people can lecture you about respect by demonstrating such fanatism... what a crackpot nursery Islam can be.
"My first thought was that they were nuts, but after a bit of thought I actually admire it."
ReplyDeleteThe two are not mutually exclusive! ;-)
Bert,
Nice hat.