The maker of Innocence of Muslims, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, is now in custody because that unauthorised Internet use was a breach of the terms of his parole as a convicted fraudster.
He is, by the way, Coptic as a kind of ethnic identity and nothing more, although do not try and tell that to the BBC. His film has been roundly condemned by the Coptic Church both in Egypt and in California.
But Auntie is determined to aid and abet the scapegoating of that church and community in order to make of them the bait in a Straussian game of cat and mouse such as has already been played, again with the ancient indigenous Christians as the bait, in Iraq.
He is, by the way, Coptic as a kind of ethnic identity and nothing more, although do not try and tell that to the BBC. His film has been roundly condemned by the Coptic Church both in Egypt and in California.
But Auntie is determined to aid and abet the scapegoating of that church and community in order to make of them the bait in a Straussian game of cat and mouse such as has already been played, again with the ancient indigenous Christians as the bait, in Iraq.
The breathtakingly dishonest Today programme tried to suggest that there was no connection between his film and his present incarceration.
But then it also failed to point out that the Awami National Party of Ghulam Ahmed Bilour, the Pakistani Minister who has offered a reward of a hundred thousand dollars for the murder of Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, is an extreme left-wing party economically and an organ of Pashtun nationalism, but the latter in competition with "the Taliban" by defining that nationalism in strictly secular terms.
Until he made this offer, Ghulam Ahmed Bilour was a declared "Taliban" target. His party is also in a bit of electoral trouble, and he himself, being the Minister for Railways, is regularly burned in effigy, a practice which might reasonably be adopted in relation to his counterparts over here.
His party's spokesman in Britain was interviewed on a defective telephone in order to detract attention from his condemnation of violence, and there was no mention whatever of the fact that this threat had come from our ally, Pakistan. Not Morsi's Egypt. Not Assad's Syria. Not Ahmadinejad's Iran. Zardari's Pakistan, and specifically from within that country's governing coalition.
Speaking of Iran, the world and all four of his wives are going bananas over the new memoir by Sir Salman Rushdie. Read the likes of The Spectator and the Daily Telegraph, now uncritically pro-Rushdie both above and below the line.
Then try to remember that, as the Daily Mail still manifests up to an admittedly limited point, there were once writers in this country, and not least under those mastheads, who, whether or not they had any affiliation to that relatively recent and largely Liberal thing, the Conservative Party, gave voice to that far older and far deeper phenomenon, the Tory sensibility: Hugh Trevor-Roper, John le Carré, Roald Dahl.
But then it also failed to point out that the Awami National Party of Ghulam Ahmed Bilour, the Pakistani Minister who has offered a reward of a hundred thousand dollars for the murder of Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, is an extreme left-wing party economically and an organ of Pashtun nationalism, but the latter in competition with "the Taliban" by defining that nationalism in strictly secular terms.
Until he made this offer, Ghulam Ahmed Bilour was a declared "Taliban" target. His party is also in a bit of electoral trouble, and he himself, being the Minister for Railways, is regularly burned in effigy, a practice which might reasonably be adopted in relation to his counterparts over here.
His party's spokesman in Britain was interviewed on a defective telephone in order to detract attention from his condemnation of violence, and there was no mention whatever of the fact that this threat had come from our ally, Pakistan. Not Morsi's Egypt. Not Assad's Syria. Not Ahmadinejad's Iran. Zardari's Pakistan, and specifically from within that country's governing coalition.
Speaking of Iran, the world and all four of his wives are going bananas over the new memoir by Sir Salman Rushdie. Read the likes of The Spectator and the Daily Telegraph, now uncritically pro-Rushdie both above and below the line.
Then try to remember that, as the Daily Mail still manifests up to an admittedly limited point, there were once writers in this country, and not least under those mastheads, who, whether or not they had any affiliation to that relatively recent and largely Liberal thing, the Conservative Party, gave voice to that far older and far deeper phenomenon, the Tory sensibility: Hugh Trevor-Roper, John le Carré, Roald Dahl.
They knew nothing of the absurd fiction of absolute "freedom of expression", which is certainly not guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, not that that would have any application outside its own country even if did say such a thing.
They had no time for a man who very openly hated this country but who had moved here in order to avail himself of her genuine historic liberties.
And they felt no sympathy for him when he got exactly what he had wanted after publishing a wholly cynical device to make himself, previously a well-regarded but by definition fairly obscure author of high literary art, into the most famous living writer in the world, fabulously rich from the colossally increased sales of a book which hardly any of its new legion of purchasers would have read to the end.
They had no time for a man who very openly hated this country but who had moved here in order to avail himself of her genuine historic liberties.
And they felt no sympathy for him when he got exactly what he had wanted after publishing a wholly cynical device to make himself, previously a well-regarded but by definition fairly obscure author of high literary art, into the most famous living writer in the world, fabulously rich from the colossally increased sales of a book which hardly any of its new legion of purchasers would have read to the end.
Le Carré and Dahl had a particularly legitimate grievance. If you want sheer fame and the attendant wealth, then you should write Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory followed by the screenplays to a Bond film and to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
Getting it for the heady brew of magic realism and postcolonial politics is having your cake and eating it. That is what posh awards are for. Not chat show appearances, universally instant recognition in the street, and automatic conveyance to the best table in any restaurant on earth.
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