Pink Eyed Jim’s Blog

MUMBAI (Reuters) - A restaurant in India’s financial hub has agreed to change its name from “Hitler’s Cross” following strong protests by the country’s tiny Jewish community and pressure from Israel.

“Hitler’s Cross,” which opened a week ago using posters of the Fuehrer and Nazi swastikas for publicity, initially refused to change its name, but relented Thursday and covered its signboards with white cloth.

The restaurant’s name and its marketing gimmick had infuriated India’s Jewish population, which had said it would fight any attempts at “rehabilitating Hitler.”

A small restaurant, featuring continental cuisine and hookahs, Hitler’s Cross aimed to distinguish itself as “different” amongst the crowded Mumbai restaurant market. The question is, did they go too far?

This reminds me a lot of the “Fat Bitch” controversy that went on here at Rutgers a while ago. I think it’s daft to think that something as simple as a restaurant could ever “rehabilitate Hitler.” I also think that simple boycotts are the proper way to resolve something like this. The restaurant owner should have every right to call his restaurant whatever he wants. People who may be offended by such a name have every right to boycott such a restaurant and to urge their friends to do the same. Granted they also have the right to protest such a name, but I just feel that attacking another’s freedom of speech is a negative use of protesting (considering it’s freedom of speech that grants one’s right to protest).

A restaurant called Hitler’s Cross would have failed in the long run anyway, methinks. All these protesters really did was hasten the process at the expense of the restaurant owner’s freedom of speech, and to me that’s no victory.

Sacramento — California lawmakers narrowly passed a bill Monday that would allow California’s farmers to tap into the $270 million hemp industry by providing the raw materials used to create hemp products.

The bill, AB1147, is a bipartisan effort by Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, and Assemblyman Chuck DeVore, R-Irvine ( Orange County ), that would allow California’s farmers to produce hemp oil, seed and fiber — the raw materials that are used in hemp products.