Not that the retraction of Newsweek's story about the Quran supposedly being mistreated down in Cuba by the American military started out being about modern art, but ...

How interesting that the Washington Post (owned by the Washington Post Corporation, the same entity that owns Newsweek) is now reporting in "U.S. Long Had Memo on Handling of Quran" that the Pentagon issued more than two years ago detailed rules for the handling of the Quran by U.S. military personnel at Guantanamo Bay. According to this article, the memo states that the Quran should be treated like a "fragile piece of delicate art."

Apparently, there's no mention in the memo about how the King James Version of the Bible is to be treated, so I guess we're left to assume that it's OK for the CIA to flush that book down any toilet they wish for any reason they believe is justified in support of advancing national security.

So what happens when the holy scriptures of some, posing as delicate works of fragile art, mix with paranoid Pentagon memos and false reports based on anonymous sources that don't pan out that are subsequently retracted by irresponsible news magazines?

Well, false reports that the U.S. military was flushing the Quran down toilets as part of a humiliation stunt to intimidate Muslim captives at Guantanamo Bay lead to Islamic radicals killing people and the liberal anti-American art world establishment demanding Bush's head a platter again before the facts are even known.

But, on the other hand, true reports that prints of a photograph taken of a crucifix dipped in urine (Andres Serrano's "Piss Christ") are celebrated as high art and are now regularly sold at Christie's and Sotheby's auction houses lead to artists who mock, insult and denigrate Christianity and Christian symbols being elevated and celebrated among the art elite in Manhattan.

The lesson: Desecration of religious symbols is considered high-brow social commentary in America – especially when government funded by taxpayer money – but only if it concerns desecrating Christian symbols.

One can't help but wonder about how many people will be killed by Islamic radicals once the trendy nature of modern art eventually moves in a new direction of encouraging, supporting and funding the flushing of the Quran down toilets and having that act blessed as high art by ivory-tower art philosophers in New York City.

One also has to wonder if Newsweek will feature that controversial high-art story on its front cover after its most recent Quran reporting debacle. Of course, if they do, and if even more people are killed as result, no doubt the Washington Post will pen a sanctimonious explanation giving cover to Newsweek and bury it deep on the inside of the Style section in the hopes that the problem will just go away.

But the real problem that's not going away (and that's also not being reported by Newsweek and the Washington Post) is that there are some very violent religious radical idiots in this world who thrive on using lies to justify killing innocent people. When the world of high art tires of bashing Christianity as being the sole source of all evil, maybe it will get around to supporting artists who take a closer look at what other religions are doing to motivate people in the evil department.

James W. Bailey