Letters to the Editor
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Looks like I was right.....
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.
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steve dallas is funny
there are a million men just like him in dallas. he's one of my favorite characters! berkeley is an exquisite comic stripper! ...and how so many newspapers could be afraid this would offend...who, again? is beyond me. thanks for running opus, salon.
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The Burqini and Human Progress
Check out the swimwear for “Today’s Muslim female” at www.ahiida.com. (Note: It’s not “today’s Muslim woman” – it's interesting that an objectifying term like “female,” which could apply to your bitch [dog] in heat, is used here). Oh such lovely people (although as an Australian company, it could be Muslims, others, or a combination – but that’s beside the point).
Have a look at the Burqinis (oh yes, there is a Burqini – although the name is the last of the semblance to the bikini that you’ll find).
I had difficulty seeing the difference between the “slim fit” and “modest fit” Burquinis. However, a noticeable difference has been explained elsewhere. It seems the “slim fit” will result in an Honor Killing in certain communities and countries, as the “female” is clearly not chaste enough for Islam’s standards, and by wearing the slim fit Burqini, a female has clearly dishonored not only her immediate family with her selfish expression of pride in her womanhood (femalehood?), but has brought dishonor to Islam and the prophet Mohammed. Allah Akbar
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Steve Dallas
A life of hard drinking, hard partying and general mild depravity will age you pretty quickly. Whereas, the life of a yoga-loving Amish Nudist probably keeps you young forever :)
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Censorship
Yes we have censorship in the US - and since it is not done by the government, but by the varies newspapers, we don't think we are as bad as China - but sometimes, it means we actually have less access to news, with the illusion we have complete access to the information.
So some newspapers didn't show this strip or the last one - they were conservative rags, that don't give a damn about Muslim feelings, they are among the newspapers that have the attitude that is closer to "bomb them all , and let god sort it out" types.
The newspapers have also censored this strip before - remember when he did a whole series on abortion? Tons of newspapers didn't carry that - and tons of folks wrote in to complain - even my local middle of the road paper didn't carry it, they instead put a letter of apology in the spot, and a website you could go to if you really needed to read the terrible comic.
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deep pogoland
I've always liked Mr. Breathed's work. So it's getting a bit more surreal: cool.
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congrats!
So, this was it? I get to see the controversial cartoon series that filled the Post with dread and, of course, inspired emotional responses from muslim staff. I thought journalism was all about speaking truth to power?
Thanks for posting this.
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Censor the infidel!
I, too, would censor this particular comic strip. Why do we have to constantly deal with the muslims and what offends them? Why can we not just ignore them? I am sick and tired of hearing and reading about Islam and muslims everywhere!
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Banned where?
I am surprised that this comic strip was banned anywhere. It appeared intact yesterday in the San Diego Union-Tribune, a notoriously right-wing paper.
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Not censored
This cartoon was "censored" nowhere. It was edited. Newspapers and Web sites have editors, not censors. Governments have censors.
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Of course the government censors
Ever heard of the FCC?
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Religion, Politics and The Great Pumpkin
I'm not sure what editors are REALLY afraid of with Breathed's latest strips. Linus once said in Peanuts that there were three things he learned never to discuss with people. Religion, politics and The Great Pumpkin. Fortunately, all three make for good cartooning.
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The NEWS
I'm getting to hate the goddamned news, you know?
What I hate is religion always means the five traditional religions and there's not a man, woman or child among them who knows a goddamned thing about Real Religion or Real God.
You know what I mean?
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Boring uninspiring cartoon
Why is this pedestrian drivel interesting? Who cares about these mind-numbing characters? Does anyone really believe that this cartoon is somehow profound? Why the fawning over such cliches as the objectification of women, the blindness of love and religious tolerance as if they were somehow avante garde?
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The media is the message
The remarkable aspect of the cartoon is that it was suppressed. This indicates that coercion is successful, especially when used against weaklings, who have been sheltered from violence or the threat of violence, and are thus confused as to how to respond.
Originally, during the "Free Speech Movement," and "The Dirty Speech Movement," at UCBerkeley, the school adminstration was unable to cope with the unfamiliar contumnacity. Later, Dr. Hayakawa distinguished himself by "cracking down" on the "rebels," and consequently won election as US. Senator predicated on the reputation that he had established. He had set guidelines by action and so reduced anxiety induced by the previously amorphous situation.
Salon and some few other publications are not succumbing to the expressed supersensitivity of Islamic groups, which use their unbridled response as a form of control. What is remarkable is that the "respect" accorded Islamics is not reciprocated, and they are unbridled in their attempts to insult those who profess other beliefs, or who are not complicit in the Islamic movement to spread sharia to the West.
Democracy has been declared by sharia supporters as merely an instrument to help impose sharia and to be discarded once such goal is attained. Islam and the beliefs set forth in the Koran are antithetical to democratic thought as in Islam sovereignty is vested not in the people, but in the theocrats.
In Iran, the burkha is commanded and refusal to wear it, punished. Homosexuals are persecuted. Non-Muslims in all Islamic countries, are relegated to the role of dhimmis, second class citizens, whose "rights" are so restricted as to make them very vulnerable to deprivation of property and severe physical punishment on the whim of a Muslim. And if a person were to blaspheme, death is the consequence.
For me, the Opus cartoon illustrates the irony involved in a woman submitting herself to second-class status throught symbolic acceptance demonstrated by compliance with "rules" imposed for the purpose among others, of demonstrating inferiority. That a women, who had experienced the relative freedom of the West, could deliberately demean herself by subjecting herself to such restrictions in compliance with arbitraily imposed authoritarian guidelines, is the gist of the message.
The acquiescence of so much of the Western media in accepting constraints on the depiction of the servile role of women in (and other aspects of) Islamic societies, is distressing and a cautionary tale in that the West demonstrates its lack of vigorous belief in its values, and retreats when confronted. If we have nothing of value to us, we'll lose and be subject to those who promote their beliefs with such uncompromising zeal.