Two vids from Nanaimo

My trip through Nanaimo last week was so quick and busy -- and the weather was so lovely -- that the whole thing seems a bit like a dream. I think I was in the city for three hours total, but for about a second I thought of not going home, and just staying on Vancouver Island forever. Obviously a lot of other people feel the same way -- especially Albertans, who have moved there in large numbers.

Over the past two months I have posted many video clips from my book tour, and some of them have been repetitive. Here are two clips that are largely new in content.

The first, taken by Pete, is a clip that goes deep into the details about the Danish cartoons. Did you know that the whole fuss started because a leftist Danish political activist and author, Kare Bluitgen, couldn't get anyone to illustrate his child's illustrated Koran? He was trying to do a multicultural thing, he thought.

Did you know that of the twelve cartoons that ran in the Jyllands-Posten, depicting "Mohammed", that the "Mohammed" in at least one of them was a Muslim cartoonist named "Mohammed"? Did you know that several of the others mocked Bluitgen and the Jyllands-Posten?

Did you know that when a Danish imam toured the Muslim world to whip up anger at his adopted country, that nobody cared -- and that an Egyptian newspaper actually reprinted one of the cartoons without incident?

Did you know that the Danish imam actually created three obscene, anti-Mohammed cartoons himself, and added them to the original twelve just to get a reaction?

You can hear those details in this clip by Pete. (Sorry, I'm having trouble embedding it -- you can see it here.)

And here's an interview I did at Nanaimo's airport, with Roger. I give some of my thoughts on where the true responsibility for reform lies, and other questions.

Finally, here's a photo of me (pre-haircut) taken at one of the three fundraising dinners I spoke at for the legal defence fund for Rev. Stephen Boissoin, the Red Deer pastor who is subject to a lifetime gag order by a human rights commission. He is currently appealing that outrageous ruling.

On the left is Rev. Boissoin's lawyer (and my former boss), Gerald Chipeur, who is a leading religious freedom lawyer. On the right is Tim Bloedow of the ECP Centre, that organized the dinners. Tim says they grossed $50,000 amongst the three fundraising dinners, and he seemed pretty pleased by that. A lot of people have chipped in to my legal defence fund -- so it felt like good karma to help raise a few bucks for Rev. Boissoin's fund, in turn.