what price…fame?

I’ve a love-hate relationship with the Internet.

I realize its many benefits to the information age, as well as social networking. But just as the opening of the proverbial Pandora’s Box unleashed the bad with the good, so too has the Internet.

(Photo credit to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandora’s_box )

Of course determining what’s bad, and what’s good for that matter, is subjective. Bad to me might be good to you, and vice versa.

Two recent incidents have prompted me to script this, post-haste. The book authored by a retired Navy Seal detailing his shooting of Osama bin Laden, and the You Tube video by an American-Israeli, that evidently incited the mob protest in Libya in which U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens was killed.

Matt Bissonnette, aka Mark Owen, authored No Easy Day: The Autobiography of a Navy Seal. According to an article by The Huffington Post…

Little more than a day after killing bin Laden, Owen found himself driving home in Virginia Beach, Va. His disorientation was acute. He pulled into a Taco Bell drive-thru and ordered two crispy tacos, a bean burrito and a Pepsi. The reality of the history he had helped create began to sink in.

“This was pretty cool. It was the kind of mission I’d read about in Alaska as a kid. It was history,” he writes. “But just as quickly as those thoughts crossed my mind, I forced them out. The second you stop and believe your own hype, you’ve lost.”

Owen says he just wanted some quiet. And in telling his story, all of it, it seems clear he got it.

The Internet has given Bissonnette access to millions and millions more people than might have read his book, had it been relegated to bookshelves for much fewer to read…back in the good ‘ole days.

Sam Bacile, a 56-year-old California real-estate developer, created a YouTube video defaming the Islamic prophet Muhammad. According to The Huffington Post…

The protests were sparked by an obscure, two-hour movie titled “Innocence of Muslims,” which came to attention in Egypt after its trailer was dubbed into Arabic and posted on California real estate developer, said he wrote, produced and directed the movie.

Bacile told The Associated Press he was an Israeli Jew and an American citizen.

Israeli officials said Wednesday they had not heard of Bacile and there was no record of him being a citizen. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not permitted to share personal information with the media.

Bacile said he had not anticipated such a furious reaction. Speaking by phone from an undisclosed location, Bacile, who went into hiding Tuesday, remained defiant, saying Islam is a cancer and that he intended his film to be a provocative political statement condemning the religion.

Bacile said he believes the movie will help his native land by exposing Islam’s flaws to the world. “Islam is a cancer, period,” he repeatedly said in a solemn, accented tone.

Israel, however, sought to distance itself from Bacile.

“It’s obvious we’ll have to be vigilant. Anything he did or said has nothing to do whatsoever with Israel. He may claim what he wants. This was not done with or for or through Israel.” Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said on Wednesday.

Granted, both Bissonnette and Bacile are entitled to speak their minds. I only wonder if they are prepared for the consequences which may, or may not, personally befall them, and perhaps those about whom they care, as a result of having aired their thoughts.

Do they realize that Islamic terrorists will go to any extreme, even suicide, to avenge themselves against their enemies?

The world might have been ensconced in a bubble during the Victorian Age, but we’ve come a long, long way since. What remains, however, might still be the age-old adage…”an eye for an eye.”

Maybe my blogger friend earthriderjudy has the right idea after all…

…speak no evil…hear no evil…say no evil…