More interesting news from Germany:

A leading opera house canceled a 3-year-old production of Mozart's "Idomeneo" that included a scene showing the severed head of the Prophet Muhammad, unleashing a furious debate over free speech.

In a statement late Monday, the Deutsche Oper said it decided "with great regret" to cancel the production after Berlin security officials warned of an "incalculable risk" because of the scene.

After its premiere in 2003, the production by Hans Neuenfels drew widespread criticism over the scene in which King Idomeneo presents the severed heads not only of the Greek god of the sea, Poseidon, but also of Muhammad, Jesus and Buddha. The disputed scene is not part of Mozart's original staging of the 225-year-old opera, but was an addition of Neuenfels' production, which was last performed by the company in March 2004.

It apparently has caused tremendous debate all across Germany. Google Deutsche Oper director Kirsten Harms' name and you'll find a lot of discussion.

Interesting times we live in. Nobody's standing up for Poseidon, Buddha and Jesus!

P.S. H: One thing that jumped out at me about your blog post on Benedict's statements: Judaism, Christianity and Islam are the three traditional Western religions. Benedict is only the #1 representative for the Catholics - Jewish people, non-Roman-Catholic Christians, and Muslims don't have any official heads (for better or for worse). I guess I got confused with the Bushie part - are there people out there looking to him for religious guidance? (Something like Protestant fatwas, maybe?) Anyway, the Pope’s comments were aggressive, to say the least, but seem to have accomplished what the Pope was looking for - it made his speech controversial, thus noticed by the media. He wanted to start a dialogue, and I think he did so...
JP: Thanks for the support!