was the web site reference at the end of the strip. Why is Berkely Breathed giving free advertising to a Muslim fundalmentalist merchant? Why does he feel the need to do that?

This was what drove Ayaan Hirsi Ali away from liberal politics and I know other people who are fed up with it also, based simply on this one issue, the knee jerk support for Islamic fundie weirdness in the name of anti-colonialism (as we can see in the rest of the cartoon). This is a perfect example. Women should be able to swim without being fully encased in rubber (or whatever it is). So why give applause to a businessperson who makes money from telling women they must dress like that?

It's stupid. So is the cartoon. It would be more accurate if Lola came out wearing a burqini because her Muslim husband and family members commanded her to do so. This is the case in the real world.

the WaPo did not choose to support Aheda and her viciously sexist enterprise "Ahiida". If that is the case, kudos to WaPo. Make fun of the Burqini if you will, but don't promote the damn thing. And that is what Breathed is doing.

It seems the LA Times did, indeed, balk at the cartoon over inclusion of the web site at the end. It's one thing to write a cartoon about Burqas, quite another to endorse them.

Zanetti, you like the cartoon because it gives more publicity to your understandably controversial product. That's all.

are both right. It's a messy world out there. However, as many have pointed out, these women can mail in their ballots if they want to. There's really no voting issue involved, nor is anyone being denied the right to vote.

was a huge crashing bore, badly written. I stumbled across it during a too-long wait in the Amsterdam sirport. I'm surprised to even see it mentioned in this article; I thought it was very dull and not insightful, and even the promised titillation wasn't delivered. Skip it.

I thought the "Burqini", swimming garb for the burqa set, was a wonderful, liberating thing...? Now it's not, now a fashion show is....? Dunno, me no unnerstand.

"Silenced" gives the correct interpretation of this event. It doesn't mean much, really. Will you please let us know when there is some important news out of Aghanistan?

Turkish history before they start yapping about this subject.

The secularism that Turkey now enjoys IS their hard-won right. Not the hijab.

There are sufficient fundamentalist males in Turkey that "allowing" women to wear hijab will force it upon many women against their will.

Americans just need to please shut up on this one. The Turkish feminists know what they are doing, thank you very much.

the secularism of Turkey is rather fragile, and if you want to start going backwards, its best to start with the women and children. This is the first, apparently harmless, step. The last is the mandatory stonings and public flogging of Sharia. Remember the ban is about to be lifted not by a liberal thinker who cares about women not having access to education, but an Islamist who has promised to drag the country towards fundamentalism. Why is the West applauding? Have you all gone insane?

to all the posters or the poster who keep harping on the "live and let live" issue, it's not that simple. The fundies have political takeover as their stated goal, and don't wish to rest until they force all of us to live as they do. Same with the hijab-pushers, but they don't have the clout in America that Christian fundies do. As such, it is NOT a live and let live issue because those are not the parameters set by the fundies themselves. So, it is our responsibility as liberal humanist thinkers to keep ourselves informed, to call things that are ridiculous and creepy and weird and ineffective and dangerous by their real names, and to keep our heads up--because we wouldn't be free to criticize fundie practices if the fundies were in power.

They are actively seeking power, and I see articles like this as a form of self defense, thank you very much. So take your trolling elsewhere.