Go Free Yourself

Did you know that Rachael Ray is a terrorist sympathizer? Yeah, me either.

But yes, according to the latest in conservative brilliance, Rachael Ray—the gregarious host of the Food Network’s 30 Minute Meals and the creator of annoying phrases like “yummo”—sympathizes with terrorists because she wore a scarf in one of her latest Dunkin Donuts ads.

Seriously? Seriously?!

Is she annoying? Yes. Obnoxious? Definitely. But a terrorist sympathizer? Give me a break.

Nevertheless, some conservatives are all up in arms because Ray’s scarf evidently resembles a keffiyeh, which is a traditional headdress worn by Arab men. From the Boston Globe:

Some observers, including ultra-conservative Fox News commentator Michelle Malkin, were so incensed by the ad that there was even talk of a Dunkin’ Donuts boycott.

‘‘The keffiyeh, for the clueless, is the traditional scarf of Arab men that has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad,’’ Malkin yowls in her syndicated column.

‘‘Popularized by Yasser Arafat and a regular adornment of Muslim terrorists appearing in beheading and hostage-taking videos, the apparel has been mainstreamed by both ignorant and not-so-ignorant fashion designers, celebrities, and left-wing icons.’’

Dunkin Donuts initially dismissed the complaints, but later decided it’d just be easier to pull the ad.

Good grief.

I don’t know Adriana Nebbeling, owner of Chicago’s Orbit Room, but I think we could be friends. In an article today about how Chicago’s new smoking ban will affect the alfresco dining scene, Nebbeling told Metromix that while she doesn’t light up herself, she’d “rather have smoke in her hair than the government down her throat.”

Ditto. And while the fight against smoking bans appears to be a lost cause, it’s a sentiment that deserves repeating.

Nebbeling’s the Orbit Room is one of the city’s alfresco dining spots working to accommodate smokers—they’ve added a tent on the deck. (Remember, the law bans smoking in all indoor public places, as well as within 15 feet of any entrance, exit, window that opens, or ventilation intake that serves an enclosed area where smoking is prohibited.)

Sheffield’s, and the Pontiac Cafe & Bar are also working with smokers…but at Take Five, Sidetrack, and Moonshine, the government’s never-ending nannying has made accommodating smoking customers impossible.

Read the rest of the article here.

Sadly, this is no April Fool’s Joke. Today, the British newspaper The Independent writes:

Food stamps are the symbol of poverty in the US. In the era of the credit crunch, a record 28 million Americans are now relying on them to survive – a sure sign the world’s richest country faces economic crisis.

Read the whole piece here.

If I were a huge nerd, I would begin this post with a quote from Spiderman (”with great power comes great responsibility”). But I’m not going to do that. (Whoops! I guess I already did.) Anyway, nerd or not, the sentiment is still true.

Having the freedom (or power) to make your own decisions and plan your own life is of utmost importance. But this freedom doesn’t come without responsibility—you can’t use your freedom to harm others or infringe on others’ rights, and so on. Unfortunately, however, the whole responsibility part often gets drowned out by loud cries for freedom.

This seems to be especially true in cases of free speech. Take JuicyCampus.com, for example.

Their mission is simple: “enabling online anonymous free speech on college campuses.” Their content is is simple-minded.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m all for free speech. I looove the First Amendment. But Juicy Campus’s idea of preserving this fundamental freedom includes scintillating posts like, “Where are the sluts?,” “Who is the hottest soccer player?,” and lists of the “best bars to pick up drunk chicks.”

Really? Providing a forum where college students can “anonymously” post advice on where best to find inebriated girls is protecting free speech on college campuses? I think not.

Columnist Deb Saunders calls Juicy Campus’s take on free speech “a modern view…all of the privilege and none of the responsibility.” She goes on: “…this site encourages its anonymous participants to rate their professors, sorority girls, football players and other students by name. Don’t like your grade? Your advances were rejected? Juicycampus.com is the perfect venue for payback.”

Somehow, I don’t think this was what the First Amendment was intended for. (Read Saunders’s full column on Juicy Campus here.)

Tiptoeing the line between free speech and slander might sometimes be something like navigating a minefield—and to avoid disaster, we ought to remember the responsibilities that come with our treasured freedom.

(Hat Tip: Cagle Post Cartoons & Commentary. Do you subscribe? You should! The Cagle Post organizes all of America’s top columnists and political cartoonists by topic, and you can subscribe to your favorites. You can even purchase cartoons for your own publications!)

Last week, I posted a link to renowned playwright David Mamet’s op-ed about his journey away from the Left. Today, I read a piece in the LA Times by Andrew Klavan welcoming Mamet to the Right.

Klavan writes:

David Mamet’s public coming-out as a political conservative—done in a 2,500-word essay in the Village Voice last week—is wonderful news for the culture, far better, I fear, than many conservatives will appreciate. The left has monopolized the arts for so long that some on the right have lost the knack of them. We love to denounce Hollywood and indulge in paroxysms of rage about the latest artistic insults to patriotism and God. But when it comes actually to producing mature and complex works of art—or supporting the people who produce them—a good conservative can be very hard to find.

An excellent point. As a writer myself, one with aspirations to pursue an MFA and a published novel, I have concerns about entering the creative world as someone uninterested in being a liberal propagandist.

But, as Klavan notes, Mamet’s conversion is good for both him and the Right. “The big question,” he writes, “is whether the good men and women of the right will realize what a gift they have been given in Mamet.”

Time will tell, I suppose. I, like Klavan, hope the Right will celebrate the fact that “our side” has gained a brilliant artist. (In the meantime, check out Klavan’s piece here.)