Oriana Fallaci....

Died. I read quite a bit about her and some of her famous interviews a while back. Interesting lady. Notable was her recent trouble with Islamists and the courts over some of her writings in Italy...

Controversial Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci is to face trial for allegedly insulting the Muslim faith in her latest book, a court in Italy says. Ms Fallaci is being sued by the head of the Muslim Union of Italy, who says The Force of Reason is defamatory

But true to her own thoughts she did not waver...

She was a hell of a writer, too, one of the greatest of our generation. Her tirades against Islamic Nazi-fascism appeared in thirty different languages and sold more than three million books. In hard cover.

Her thinking is applicable to the clashes going on in the media between Islam and everyone else...

But we shouldn't be in a hurry to bury her. For the moment, she's still very much with us. All you have to do is look at the news of the day, replete with the grotesque distortions of Pope Benedict’s thoughtful speech in Germany. Those distortions are driven by one her pet peeves: the politically correct fear of offending Muslims, any Muslims, even those who want us dead and decapitated. She and Benedict evidently hit it off quite well, truly the odd couple, she the lifelong atheist (albeit, in her delightfully paradoxical formulation, a 'Christian atheist') and he the lifelong theologian.