Francine Prose makes a Charlie of herself | Disjointed Ramblings

This morning, I discovered the Grauniad was running a blog post in their Comment is free section, entitled "I admire Charlie Hebdo’s courage. But it does not deserve a PEN award". It is signed by somebody rejoicing in the moniker of Francine Prose. Yeah, I thought so too, but apparently it’s her real name. As far as I can tell, her forte is writing constipated verbiage reminiscent of the more indigestible 20th century French authors…

Read on: Francine Prose makes a Charlie of herself | Disjointed Ramblings

“Charlie Hebdo and the culture of offence” – LSS Secretary’s speech at UCL | Lawyers' Secular Society

Hello everyone. Je suis Charlie.

I have to say, when I looked at Twitter on 7th January and everyone was talking about “Charlie”, and “Je Suis Charlie” was trending, I thought to myself: what have I done now? Sadly this is as funny as it gets.

Well we’re here to talk about “Charlie Hebdo and the culture of offence” so let me start by offending you.

I don’t think the discussion about Charlie Hebdo is necessarily one about “offence” at all...

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 Comments will be left open here for a while as they are closed on the original post. You still have to read it first, though

In a week that has seen both the Grand Mufti of Egypt and the Pope come out as apologists for violence against peaceful dissent; in the wake of violent protests in some Muslim countries, leading to killings and arson over a message of peace and forgiveness, I urge you to read this excellent analysis by Stephen Law:

In the gallery of satirical art there’s a largely blank space where the work satirizing Islam should be. Here I argue that, where satirical work has been removed out of fear, it should be put back. I also deal with a couple of objections against doing so...

Read on: Charlie Hebdo and avoiding offence - two popular liberal arguments refuted | Center for Inquiry