If we told you that Apple (makers of the i-Pod) had a whole group of people mad at the company, who would be your first guess as to the offended party? Microsoft employees who are continually being forced to rise to Apple standards? Fans who object to the commercialization of U-2 songs?
What if we gave you a hint and told you that you need to think more globally?
If your mind is drifting toward the Middle East, you're getting warmer ....
Yes, from those wacky fundamentalists who don't like books, cartoons and certain papal speeches comes the latest complaint: Apple's store on Fifth Avenue in New York City is an insult to Islam.
Are they offering downloadable Salman Rushdie e-books or MP3s of the collected speeches of George Bush? No, it's even more sinister than that ...it seems that Apple's Fifth Avenue store resembles the sacred Ka'ba which is a large structure that sits inside the Masjid al-Haram mosque in Mecca.
To be fair, the Apple store does resemble the Ka'ba. But so do a few other things you can think of because the Ka'ba is shaped like ...wait for it ...a cube.
So, if you own an X-Box, a Rubik's cube or have fuzzy dice hanging from your car's rear view mirror, please be aware that you could be the target of a fatwa at any time.
So as not to needlessly inflame Islamic extremists, you'll also want to avoid using traditional trays for making ice, paintings by Pablo Picasso (famous cubist) and any rap CDs or movies featuring Ice-Cube.
At work, you are in immediate danger if you have a photo cube on your desk or if you work in a modular office in your own (have you no religious sensitivity?!) cubicle.
Not to be outdone other fundamentalist religious groups are expressing outrage at the co-opting of their religious symbols ...
Christian fundamentalists are said to be highly upset at blasphemous uses of the cross. We can only assume that there will be threats to blow up traffic intersections in gay neighborhoods and anyone who uses the letter "t" inappropriately. In a technicality ripped from today's headlines, fundamentalists point out that "prostitute" has three ts, but there are none in "Congressional page."
And that's only the start of things ...
Fanatical Buddhists are considering non-violent protests at the homes of fat people and pregnant women and some extreme devil worshippers are upset that non-believing farmers are allowed to use pitchforks.
We're not going to tell you there's a pattern here but, somehow, the only people who don't seem to have a chip on their shoulders these days are the atheists.
**Link to the Apple/Islam story here:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/10/11/apple_ny_store/
