We Wish We Could Draw
Your days and nights are assuredly occupied, like ours, with the Danish cartoon brouhaha. We're still pretty comfortable with our original analysis: unfettered public speech good, fundamentards bad. Nonetheless, now it turns out that the same newspaper refused to run some Jesus caricatures a few years ago. Sigh. The rationale? It might offend some readers. (Full story here.)
You're not surprised, of course: readership = advertising = $ in the newspaper biz, $ = tax revenues, and one doesn't build such an attractive middle-class society entirely upon tins of butter-cookies. And, while the Danes may not produce nearly as many reactionary jerkoffs as the U.S.A. (cf. The Minutemen), it's not as if Middle-Eastern and African immigration is a non-issue in Scandanavia, where justified smugness is only slightly more attractive than unjustified smugness. "Xenophobia" is currently the second-most popular name for Danish baby girls.
In the end, we have no real solutions to these complicated issues. We do feel, however, that the publishers could at least run a new cartoon. Picture, if you will:
A gas station outside of Las Vegas, where Jesus Christ wearing camoflage performs fellatio on George Bush, while Jack Abramoff in a pimp suit stands counting a fistful of dollars. Nearby, Alberto Gonzalez disguised in a freakishly oversized sombrero sneaks across the California-Nevada border while brandishing a surveillance microphone shaped like the Statue of Liberty. Meanwhile, a ghostly Ronald Reagan refuels an MX missle from a gas pump shaped like a coffin, wondering aloud "Is Tehran still thataway?" The caption reads "Emergency! Somebody call 9/11!"
Why produce and run such a cartoon? Because it would reframe discussions about the role of theology in the secular nation state? Because it would defuse global tensions and help rebuild the embassies in Beirut and Damascus? Because what this world needs is more poignant political allegory?
No. Because we think that would be a fuckin' sweet cartoon.
You're not surprised, of course: readership = advertising = $ in the newspaper biz, $ = tax revenues, and one doesn't build such an attractive middle-class society entirely upon tins of butter-cookies. And, while the Danes may not produce nearly as many reactionary jerkoffs as the U.S.A. (cf. The Minutemen), it's not as if Middle-Eastern and African immigration is a non-issue in Scandanavia, where justified smugness is only slightly more attractive than unjustified smugness. "Xenophobia" is currently the second-most popular name for Danish baby girls.
In the end, we have no real solutions to these complicated issues. We do feel, however, that the publishers could at least run a new cartoon. Picture, if you will:
A gas station outside of Las Vegas, where Jesus Christ wearing camoflage performs fellatio on George Bush, while Jack Abramoff in a pimp suit stands counting a fistful of dollars. Nearby, Alberto Gonzalez disguised in a freakishly oversized sombrero sneaks across the California-Nevada border while brandishing a surveillance microphone shaped like the Statue of Liberty. Meanwhile, a ghostly Ronald Reagan refuels an MX missle from a gas pump shaped like a coffin, wondering aloud "Is Tehran still thataway?" The caption reads "Emergency! Somebody call 9/11!"
Why produce and run such a cartoon? Because it would reframe discussions about the role of theology in the secular nation state? Because it would defuse global tensions and help rebuild the embassies in Beirut and Damascus? Because what this world needs is more poignant political allegory?
No. Because we think that would be a fuckin' sweet cartoon.
posted by Swill to Power at 10:58 AM
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