HOME AGAIN, HOME AGAIN, JIGGITY-JIG: Drove back from D.C. in the teeth of the fearsome East Coast Blizzard, which in fact, at least on our travel route, was more like the Brutal Afghan Winter than, say, the Blizzard of ’93. Some snow and ice, and a few flipped 18-wheelers, but not very bad really.

Back later. In the meantime, a nice summary of what’s really at stake in the Cartoon Wars:

Sari Hanafi, an associate professor at the American University in Beirut, said for Arab governments resentful of the Western push for democracy, the protests presented an opportunity to undercut the appeal of the West to Arab citizens. The freedom pushed by the West, they seemed to say, brought with it disrespect for Islam. Hanafi said the demonstrations “started as a visceral reaction — of course they were offended — and then you had regimes taking advantage, saying, ‘Look, this is the democracy they’re talking about.’ The protests also allowed governments to outflank a growing challenge from Islamic opposition movements by defending Islam.”

And note this:

“The wave swept many in the region. Sheik Muhammed Abu Zaid, an imam from the Lebanese town of Saida, said he began hearing of the caricatures from several Palestinian friends visiting from Denmark in December but made little of it. ‘For me, honestly, this didn’t seem so important,’ Abu Zaid said, comparing the drawings to those made of Jesus Christ in Christian countries. ‘I thought, I know that this is something typical in such countries,’ he recalled.”

Like race riots in the early 20th Century, this is a case of ignorant yahoos being exploited by elites in order to protect the elites’ power against civilizing influences.