Hairbrushed Out of History

Tim Cavanaugh | September 15, 2005

Must be stupid photo day. The Council on American-Islamic Relations' Photoshop censor needs to remember that Hadith where The Prophet says, "The first to be summoned to Paradise on the Day of Resurrection will be those who use the Airbrush or Paintbrush tools when doctoring a photo; but woe unto him who uses the Pencil tool for precision work!"

Comments

|9.15.05 @ 6:43PM|#

This is as stupid as bleebing curse words on TV or blurbing images of tits and other body parts. It is just that CAIR has a 'slightly' more strict censorship requirements than the FCC.

|9.15.05 @ 6:45PM|#

Tim, you have got some talent to be a muslim preacher. I almost fill for the hadith you quoted :-)

|9.15.05 @ 6:52PM|#

This is hilarious.

Shannon Love|9.15.05 @ 6:54PM|#

So this would be the "reappearing" commissar?

|9.15.05 @ 7:13PM|#

Charming. Looking at her outfit (and some of the comments on the linked page), I find myself wondering whether they "hijabed" a non-muslim, to boot.

I personally don't think Islam is any worse than Christianity, but CAIR is a damned creepy little organization.

|9.15.05 @ 7:16PM|#

The UNdoctored photo is now at CAIR's site, confirming that not only was the clumsy hijab added to the woman standing next to the speaker, but to two female heads in the audience.

hee hee! The joke's on them....those are both men in the audience!

("That's not a woman, that's a man, man!")

The Anti-Puritan|9.15.05 @ 8:07PM|#

Whatever anyone thinks of this situation, it shows that, in the information age, nobody's gonna get away with nothin'.

|9.15.05 @ 8:12PM|#

But one of the men in the audience had blonde hair. That's a sign of an infidel if ever there was one.

The Anti-Puritan|9.15.05 @ 8:19PM|#

Why use Photoshop to put a woman in a hijab when you can put a long Pinocchio-style nose on her instead?

The Anti-Puritan|9.15.05 @ 8:26PM|#

Oops! Somehow, the link in my last comment got messed up. Here it is.

Neb Okla|9.15.05 @ 8:56PM|#

So is it just me or does the "stupid photo of the day" link just go here: http://www.reason.com/hitandrun/2005/09/another_reason_7.shtml

The Anti-Puritan|9.15.05 @ 9:02PM|#

Neb Okla,
It's not just you. The new story is at the other link.

|9.15.05 @ 9:46PM|#

Well, having had experience with Muslims from various communities, I think this squarely puts CAIR in the Bin Laden fellow traveler category. I know plenty of Muslim women who do not wear the hijab, and they would be offended that the organization feels the need to "set them straight" with a godawful photo butchering.

I guess next they'll be offering "Home Genital Mutilation Kits" to keep those clits Islamically in line.

|9.15.05 @ 10:03PM|#

Can't say I'm surprised. CAIR is yet another manifestation of Saudi cultural imperialism. Though unlike many of the others, it's mostly a cause for mockery rather than concern.

Jeff P.|9.15.05 @ 10:09PM|#

Somewhere the first Photoshop development team is crying "I never intended it for evil purposes!"

For example: http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Image:ShotGun_Ed.jpg

The Anti-Puritan|9.15.05 @ 11:08PM|#

Somewhere the first Photoshop development team is crying "I never intended it for evil purposes!"

Just having looked at Talk Show Pinocchia again, I wonder when she'll give Nick Gillespie his jacket back.

raymond|9.16.05 @ 12:16AM|#

Wow. Almost as shocking as pixelating Janet's nipple-cum-sheriff's-badge. But not quite so shocking as a $550000 fine.

FCC, CAIR: Même combat?

|9.16.05 @ 12:58AM|#

"And the prophet said:

'And lo, the beast looked
upon the face of beauty. And
it stayed its hand from killing.
And from that day, it was as
one dead.' "

-- "Old Arab proverb" from the Book of King Kong.

You see, if we were allowed to look upon this woman's beauty uncovered, our hands we would be stayed from killing, and we would be as one dead.

It's just a safety precaution.

|9.16.05 @ 1:19AM|#

Whatever anyone thinks of this situation, it shows that, in the information age, nobody�s gonna get away with nothin�.

Actually, it makes me wonder how many times people get away with this and we never know, because unlike these people, there are some people who know what they are doing with photoshop.

|9.16.05 @ 9:00AM|#

On the other hand, she DOES look better in the hijab.

The Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be|9.16.05 @ 11:19AM|#

Verily, they shall be cast into the lake of fire who don't maximize the Zoom tool before doing detail work on doctored hijabs--and for Allah's sake, always work in 300 dpi or higher, for it is forbidden to let the infidels detect any false grain at the level of individual pixels.

|9.16.05 @ 12:22PM|#

BAI, FGM is not an "Islamic practice," any more than foot binding in China was a Buddhist practice. It is a tribal practice that occurs in some areas that are also Muslim, but it predates Islam, and is not a Koranic directive.

|9.16.05 @ 1:06PM|#

What does this have to do with a "jihad?"

The group is "Jihad Watch," right? Methinks they've got a wider group in their sites than just jihadis.

JSFan|9.16.05 @ 2:46PM|#

how is this different from the black bar pasties the FCC forces onto the Girls Gone Wild commercials?

|9.16.05 @ 3:24PM|#

how is this different from the black bar pasties the FCC forces onto the Girls Gone Wild commercials?

Nobody is supposed to believe that the girls were actually wearing black bars on their breasts, whereas the Photoshopped hijabs (if done properly) would have fooled people into thinking that's what the scene really looked like.

Side thought: have digital cameras and Photoshop had any effect on the use of photos as evidence in court? Think of the classic case of a guy filing for divorce and showing pictures of his wife walking into a motel room with someone else. With digital cameras and Photoshop, it would be easy for someone who knew what he was doing to fake such a photo.

|9.16.05 @ 6:04PM|#

What does this have to do with a "jihad?"

As I understand it, that site considers CAIR to be jihadi-symapthizers or a sort of Sinn Fein, hence the relevance.

I wouldn't go nearly as far as the first idea, as it's certainly possible to hold opinions vaguely - or sometimes not so vaguely - similar to those expressed by terrorists like the jihadis without actually being willing to engage in or even simply inwardly countenance violence. (After all, I want to strip down the federal government, but I'm not a "Timothy McVeigh sympathizer".)

I think CAIR is just a bunch of people who more fear violence against Muslims than really care about what happens to non-Muslims. However, they might possibly be more - CAIR is, again, a damned creepy group.

The second idea is just absurd. There've been accusations of links between CAIR and some terrorist organizations, but even if CAIR and some terrorists were intentionally cooperating (of which I've seen no evidence), there is no single unified organization for CAIR to be a mouthpiece for. More importantly, CAIR's message has often been that the jihadi threat is overblown (by evil racists out to hurt innocent Muslims) - not the stance any terrorists would ever want for a mouthpiece organization.

|9.17.05 @ 1:07AM|#

The group is "Jihad Watch," right? Methinks they've got a wider group in their sites than just jihadis

It's no more unusual than a "Klan Watch" keeping an eye on other right-wing racists who aren't technically in the Klan. CAIR aren't terrorists, but they're certainly terrorist sympathizers.

Justin Raimondo|9.17.05 @ 1:33AM|#

Cavanaugh reads "Jihad Watch"? Figures ....