Two Chains Reject Magazine With Muhammad Cartoons

Washington Post ^ | 3/30/06

[steve-b]

Borders and Waldenbooks stores will not stock the April-May issue of Free Inquiry magazine because it contains cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that provoked deadly protests among Muslims in several countries....

[steve-b]

So much for Bendovers and Wimpoutbooks....

[AmishDude]

Lesson: rioting works.

[sarasota]

Let's all go into these two chains and ask for this publication.

[dhuffman@awod.com]

And because they've run most all of the mom-and-pops off there is nothing yu can do about it. Think WallyMart, think China, think monopoly money.

[Fighting Irish]

I'm thinking billboards...all along I95.

[Dark Skies]

At least Borders is honest about its reason...

"For us, the safety and security of our customers and employees is a top priority, and we believe that carrying this issue could challenge that priority," Borders Group Inc. spokeswoman Beth Bingham said.

[newzjunkey]

They're both actually part of the same company. Just as Barnes & Noble, B Dalton and Bookstar are all part of one entity which competes with Borders/Waldenbooks.

[steve-b]

Let's all go into these two chains and ask for this publication.

Quite a few FReepers would be pretty offended by the other contents of this magazine (though not, one hopes, to the point of rioting over it). The bottom line, however, is that the publishers of FI are among the very few with the guts not to bow to intimidation.

[newzjunkey]

So much for the "religion of peace" angle, eh?

[BibChr]

[Dark Skies]

Ironically, Free Inquiry is a secular-humanist mag. This is what is said about them at Amazon...

Countering religious fundamentalists, the humanist scholars who write this controversial magazine promote secularism in the contemporary world.

[Truth29]

It will be interesting to see the reactions when the reading areas keep having copies of some of the cartoons left on the tables.

[CROSSHIGHWAYMAN]

Lesson: rioting works.

The day the average white American gets fed up and decides to change the system....the riots will be war!!!

[al_again]

"For us, the safety and security of our customers and employees is a top priority, and we believe that carrying this issue could challenge that priority," Borders Group Inc. spokeswoman Beth Bingham said.

Why does anyone have a problem with this? I think it is the responsible decision - this is not their fight. It is up to responsible governments around the world to fight this battle and make it so that private companies don't need to make these types of decisions.

[Darkwolf377]

The day the average white American gets fed up and decides to change the system....the riots will be war!!!

No--then the descendants of Peter Jennings will get on the air and call it "an angry white-male temper tantrum over equal rights being for all, not just for them."

[sarasota]

I'm not familiar with the magazine, and may want to google it before it get too serious.

[Darkwolf377]

Why does anyone have a problem with this? I think it is the responsible decision - this is not their fight. It is up to responsible governments around the world to fight this battle and make it so that private companies don't need to make these types of decisions.

And the rest of us don't have to do a thing in support of that fight. Yeah, that's the government's job--we don't even have to act in accordance to our values of freedom of the flow iof information, freedom of speech.

In fact, I'm going to go take my American flag down from outside right now--I don't need to show my unity against terror, that's the government's job.

[Dark Skies]

Why does anyone have a problem with this? I think it is the responsible decision - this is not their fight. It is up to responsible governments around the world to fight this battle and make it so that private companies don't need to make these types of decisions.

By their actions, they are paying for protection...they are permitting themselves to be the victims of extortion. By their cowardice, they are emboldening the enemy.

[erics-chi town]

Meanwhile neither of these two companies have any problem carrying the anti American Newsweek or Time magazines. I had a free subsciption to both and couldn't get pass the first 4 or 5 pages before tossing them into the garbage in disgust.

[gaijin]

No Muhammed cartoons, but if you fill a book with photos of an acrylic cross filled with PEE, then they'll give it a place of true marketing prominence...