Newspaper cartoons are funny, except when you’re serious

I’d like to think that I have some unique insights to add to the cartoon imbroglio, but I'm not sure I do.  It is all pretty simple to me.  Ordinarily I’m respectful of religious sensitivities.  My first lesson on Islamic sensitivies was a while ago – I think it was during publicity generated by Hollywood's making of (a no doubt over-the-top romantic Arabian Desert) epic about the birth of Islam – that Muslims had a unique take on images of the prophet. The movie makers had to be careful not to show any image of Mohammed.  Hmmm.  Kind of a tough rule when you're making a movie about Mohammed - even for Hollywood!   I never understood this particular preoccupying fixation myself. Images of The Almighty, Jesus, The Virgin Mary, the Holy Trinity and various saints and spirits have been enriching parts of my daily life from the get-go.  But hey, if believers in Mohammad say they want it that way, that’s cool.  What isn’t cool is any believer’s view that if some smart ass in the back of the room is disrespectful to this belief that the only acceptable response is that the offender should be killed.  Not cool.  The way disrespect of this type should be handled is one-on-one on the playground during recess in a brief and informal dust up that usually clarifies everybody’s feelings and attitudes. No biggie. As we all know, the world is full of smart ass weisenheimers, many of whom grow up to find employment in the print trades and who make their living saying, doing and printing outrageous things. This is life on earth. Get used to it. Usually cartoons are fun and cool. (Self-portrait of Jeff MacNelly, a Quillnews favorite, above.)  If you've got a problem with what is shown or said, write a heart felt letter to the editor and call the offender an idiot. And let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves about the nobility of the press in all this, because nobility and high-purpose, usually have absolutely nothing to do with the enterprise.  Mostly it’s all great fun. I mean some in the print trades will do noble things, but mostly the press behave like the human beings they are – imperfectly.  On this one, I’m giving all in the press a complete pass.  Just keep working guys.  As for the ranting street bone-heads, I don’t have much to add except to express my belief that the violent, intolerant, hateful, and downright stupid reaction by some rent-a-thugs to the cartoons in Denmark is not cool, not cool at all. 

Quillnews advice: Let’s remember to keep it simple. First point: most of these ranting young men wearing wraps around their heads and burning flags and promising death to the infidels are employed to make trouble by dictatorships (Iran, Syria, Egypt, et al), their opportunistic political operatives in foreign parts (Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, et al), and promised virgins upon death by those moronic no-work “Islamic clerics” whose only occupation seems to be to avoid personal hygiene and to take money from rich Muslims (Saudis, Iranian Mullahs, et al) for saying outrageous things.  Viewing the recent ginned-up street theater, the world’s established communities of government and commerce and respectable sociability will no doubt be making this point to their counter-parts in the Muslim communities: can't you get your guys to knock this sh*t off.  Besides, what is the deal with you guys?  Are your home communities this incapable of life on the planet earth with human beings?  Come on, get with it.  Send the stir-it-all-up morons to the unemployment line now where they belong. Tell these "Muslim leaders" and their followers to put down their religious texts for a while and study some engineering, some economics, some science, some world history and learn something useful for their future. Furthermore, make sure your kids take their studies in life-on-earth to heart. Which leads to my second point: This life-on-earth school will be very important because the success the Muslim community has in educating its young about how the world actually works, will determine how much life many of their young people get to experience. Because free people won’t tolerate intolerance.  If the believers want to impose their intolerance on free people, it’s going to mean a fight. And it’s a fight free people will win. No matter how long it takes, no matter the cost. Freedom is non-negotiable.  (Lifson, Kelly, NRO, WS, Levy) (Part 2)

Comments

[tara]

from one of your
life-on-earth
pals.
they are the
puritans of the
europe. their
own seriousness
will kill them
before anyone else
does.
when in doubt,
chill out.
i love you.
sis