Militant Islam Monitor > Satire > Belmont University employee resigns after posting stick figure holding bomb 'Muhammed' drawing on his website
Belmont University employee resigns after posting stick figure holding bomb 'Muhammed' drawing on his website
April 17, 2006
MIM: Bill Hobbs own website seems to be blank now. http://www.billhobbs.com/
On April 16th he requested that the News2 post a short message about his resignation which generated numerous comments.
http://nashvillefiles.com/blog/archives/001355.html
The man who 'exposed' the cartoon Mike Kopp, has been taken to task for deleting comments on his blog about and by felllow blogger Bill Hobbs:
http://blogs.knoxnews.com/knx/silence/archives/2006/04/comment_deleted_1.shtml
In the wake of the Bill Hobbs saga, the above comment seems to be the most prevalent one over at Mike Kopp's place. And this seems to be the most common phrase in discussion over there: "This post has been removed by the blog administrator."
From Blake Wylie: Mike Kopp is deleting comments. Apparently he can't handle dissenting views. Sharon Cobb commented the following after having all of her's deleted:
From Nathan Moore: The rather pathetic response by Mike Kopp in the aftermath of the Bill Hobbs (character) assassination has a number of comments. Here's the rundown
Comments: 16
Removed by Administrator: 9
Removed by Author: 1It looks like TeamCensor has a friend on the other side of the blogosphere.
Three of the comments that were removed were by Bill Hobbs. I don't know how Blogger works, but when I do occasionally have to delete a comment, it goes away entirely - nothing is left unless I write something else in.
From Mark Rogers: I do find one aspect of this to be deliciously ironic though. During the 2000 presidential race a memo surfaced from the Gore for President campaign of 1988. The memo, written by one of Gore's Tennessee advisers, warned about the candidate's tendency to exaggerate about certain types of things. At that time the Vice President was being hurt by questions relating to exactly this sort of thing. In that context, the memo was more than a little harmful to the Gore campaign.
The author of that memo was, I believe,… Mike Kopp.
If so, it seems that he has figured out how one way to deal with inconvenient thoughts.
From Katherine Coble: I commented on his blog where I said something along the lines of "you sound ridiculous, and you've abused a stereotype to inflame opinion, just as Hobbs tried to do", but with a lot more words. Other people commented as well. As of right now, all the comments that disagreed with Kopp are deleted. 11 out of 16.
Cut Kopp some slack, folks. He used to work for Al Gore and it is, after all, Gore's Internet.
MIM:The most recent news, Belmont University has issued no comment or returned email requests for more information on the matter, It is unclear as to who or if someone demanded Bill Hobbs resignation.
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Well-Known Blogger/Newspaperman Quits Over 'Muhammad Cartoon'
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002344808
Published: April 16, 2006 11:00 AM ET
NASHVILLE A popular conservative blogger and former newspaper journalist has resigned from his job at Belmont University in response to a cartoon he drew depicting Islam's Prophet Muhammad holding a bomb.
Bill Hobbs, who operated the Web log BillHobbs.com, announced his resignation from Belmont's marketing and communications department Friday on another blog, http://www.nashvillefiles.com/blog.
"I am resigning from Belmont University in an amicable and mutual parting of the ways, effective Monday," he wrote.
The announcement came two days after the cartoon was the subject of a story in the Nashville Scene, a local alternative weekly paper.
Hobbs, a former reporter at The Tennessean, posted an earlier message at the Nashville Files site apologizing for the cartoon, which represented Muhammad as a stick figure. He called his cartoon appalling, saying it was drawn in a "moment of personal weakness."
Belmont offices were closed Friday for the Good Friday holiday. Neither Hobbs nor Belmont's communications director, Greg Pillon, responded to calls or e-mails Friday seeking comment.
The drawing was posted to a Web site in late February after caricatures of Muhammad appearing in a Danish newspaper caused a worldwide furor among Muslims.
Hobbs' cartoon has since been taken off the Internet, according to his own Web posts.
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