On Friday I had lunch in Philadelphia's Chinatown area. Friday being delivery day around there, the streets were crowded with trucks, which were unloading restaurant supplies and piling them on the sidewalks. One delivery especially caught my attention, and while I didn't have my camera, I did have my cell phone, and I managed to take a photo which will give a general idea:

It was a warm day, and the flies found the pigs irresistible. I wish the photo was of better quality, as the pig eyes seemed to be staring at me. The smell wasn't bad, and I almost found myself getting hungry.

For some strange reason, as I was passing the pigs, I thought about Zarqawi's recent, um, passing. And about how Zarqawi's skin color was almost as pink as that of the dead piggies. (I hope that doesn't make me a psychopath.) This made me think that dead pigs piled in the street might -- how does it go? -- "offend the sensibilities" of radical Muslims, and how fortunate we are that we live in a free country that does not have to worry about things like that. Only other countries with less democratic traditions (like Brunei, or the United Kingdom) worry about the alleged "offensiveness" of pork.

In this country, we even have free speech, which would give a store proprietor a right to put offensively sarcastic signs on the pigs.

"Zarqawi special on pork!"

"Sorry, we don't have Halal pork! Please do not ask!"

Things like that.

What I have never understood is why anyone would get upset simply because other people do things that they don't do. Plenty of us have different traditions, different religious laws. Jews share with Muslims a prohibition on eating pork, yet I am sure that innumerable Jewish Philadelphians regularly walk past the Chinatown pigs without giving them more than a passing thought.

Before the suicidal Saudi Salafists struck on September 11, it wouldn't have occurred to me to even think these passing thoughts about pork. Now I think them.

Not that I'm worried about pork, mind you. I'm worried about the people who are worried about the pork. People who would place the sensibilities of suicidal Saudi Salafists ahead of things like national defense, and people who think that the prison cell suicide of a suidical Saudi terrorist is more offensive than freeing him to kill himself and take others with him.

(Almost makes me feel like taking counteroffensive measures with PhotoShop. . .)

UPDATE: My thanks to Pajamas Media for linking this post.