I would just like to take this opportunity to express my dismay that this is happening yet again and that I fully support any and all publication’s right to satirize anything.

I have not seen the cartoons published by Charlie Hebdo but it doesn’t matter. Anyone who shoots or otherwise harms someone else, especially over art, is committing a far greater crime than any perceived insult that resulted due to the art. An insult is not even really a thing – it is only an insult to people who interpret it as an insult. But these are people’s lives. Real people’s lives. And now people are dead because somebody doesn’t have a sense of humour. Again.

I am not feeling articulate today so let me leave you with two superior pieces on this tragedy:

Simon Jenkins’ piece in the Guardian and

Salman Rushdie’s brief thoughts:

Religion, a mediaeval form of unreason, when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedoms. This religious totalitarianism has caused a deadly mutation in the heart of Islam and we see the tragic consequences in Paris today. I stand with Charlie Hebdo, as we all must, to defend the art of satire, which has always been a force for liberty and against tyranny, dishonesty and stupidity. ‘Respect for religion’ has become a code phrase meaning ‘fear of religion.’ Religions, like all other ideas, deserve criticism, satire, and, yes, our fearless disrespect.

It is a very sad day. And what makes it sadder is that it continues to happen over and over. Being offended by something never gives you the right to harm another human being. Never.