I may return to my increasing involuted reflections on the writings on David Foster Wallace at a later stage, but events, as they say, have intervened. The increasingly bizarre and sinister protests over the putatively anti-Islamic cartoons that appeared in the Danish paper Jyllands-Posten have already generated a few clich�s, which are being readily embraced by those struggling to adopt an impartial stance on the issue. The other morning I heard an Irish libel lawyer glibly proclaiming that �freedom of speech� does not entail a licence to �shout fire in a crowded theatre.� Now, such a comparison might have struck an opponent dumb in the L&H or wherever, but I was provoked beyond measure by this facile analogy. First, the Danish cartoons were almost certainly not intended to put anybody�s life in danger�the cartoonists would surely have made the calculation that if their work did jeopardize anyone�s existence, it would be their own.Second, anyone who is familiar with the origins of the phrase �shouting fire in a crowed theatre� would be reluctant to use it as good example of how freedom of expression should be fettered in certain cases. In the case Schenck v. United States (see Wikipedia for full details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._U.S.), the eminent American jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes used the phrase in an opinion rejecting the argument that Charles Schenck had the right, under the U.S. Constitution�s First Amendment, to circulate pamphlets to recently conscripted men exhorting them to resist the draft for World War I. When the Supreme Court of the United States in 2000 halted the ballot recount in Florida, thus handing the presidency to George W. Bush, many people were shocked at the Court�s apparently partisan actions. This is nothing new. Schenck v. United States is viewed by many historians as part of a larger campaign, which unfolded in the first two decades of the 20th century, of crushing socialist parties (Schenck was General Secretary of the Socialist Party of America and spent six months in prison) and radical trade unions (most notably the Industrial Workers of the World (the IWW, AKA �the Wobblies�), and also the target of judicial hounding)).Incidentally, Holmes�s stance was effectively effaced by several later judgements by the Supreme Court. So, given the catchphrase�s rather tarnished origins, I would advise those who wish to impugn the motivations of the Danish cartoonists�some of whom have reportedly received death threats and have now gone into hiding�to employ a parallel that is a little less resounding, and a little more relevant.