Letters to the Editor
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Berk's a Genius!
The joke is on Western Media, and it's amazing that Americans and the West still don't get it.
Unless I am very much mistaken, I didn't see or hear any Islamic out-cry over last week's OPUS, and I doubt we will see or hear any Islamic out-cry over this week's OPUS. Last week's joke was about Muslim woman being able to "god willing(ly)" deny her man. No, nothing offensive about Islam in that. This weeks joke is about Muslim swim-wear made for woman, which is an item that Muslim women can actually buy online, and I predict Burqinis will be a big hit (and not just with Muslin women). No, nothing offensive toward Islam there either.
The jokes were about America's and the West's perception of Islam, which is considerably far off from reality, and the fact that the last 2 OPUS strips were censored by American news papers is proof of that fact.
Could Mr. Breathed have known he was going to get banned by Western Media for no logical reason what so ever?
The best jokes are the ones that the target is too stupid to understand, and Berk managed to pull off such a joke on the entire Western Media.
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a question of motive
Someone from the south of France could make a comic about how stupid Americans are to wear tops.
But the difference is, most American women won't go topless due to cultural custom and the resulting laws, not because they believe they need to wear what their invisible friend in the sky tells them to wear
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It's not about Muslims or the Media
The joke (however lame or not) is on white American males, which may be why it's being censored (under the guise of cultural sensitivity) by the MSM, which is run largely by white American males, as is the military-industrial establishment.
White American males is the only class of people made to look ridiculous by this strip. Women, children, Muslims, penguins and cats all come off in a better light. The white male is even depicted corrupting the mind of the innocent male child with his polemic drivel.
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I am SOooooo confused....
I just don't get it, don't get the responses, don't get the comic, don't get not showing it. It seems like a non-issue....
What am I missing?
THanks.
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Don't go through the looking glass
Well, I think a few of the letter writers "got" it, while it's amusing to note how presumptuous some are to rag on Berke for not being funny.
Seems to me Berke gives us a big hint when he has Steve say "I'm so darned smart about what's best for you," and then lets the mallet fly with "...that ... is how we're gonna straighten out the Middle East."
So yeah, there're messages about men and women, the cultural construction of modesty--but those provide the context for Berke's point that the US is chauvinistic.
Some of you should be careful if you try to read Alice in Wonderland.
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Cartoon as Political Satire
Americans' inability to understand, or even accept in many cases, a culture other than their own, causes them gyrations of guilt and apoplexy, here manifested in a 'cartoon'. Most people can only accept the modern day definition of 'cartoon'- they should check out Goya or Hogarth who's satirical commentary on contemporary politics took the form of the 'cartoon'. The American expectation of a laugh from a cartoon has rendered Berkeley Breathed's intelligent commentary indecipherable for the MSM and many commentators here.
Only one poster seems to have grasped the obvious: the guy's throw away commentary summing up America's attitude to the 'other': impose your will. Muslims everywhere will only succumb to God or Allah's will, and this, in all its glorious Judeo-Christian foundation, is incomprehensible to America. BB has shown Lola to be sticking to her choice, which is exactly what today's American Muslimiyah is doing. The fact that the cartoon has been censored in the MSM is because of US sensibilities, not Muslim. It is not within the Washington political mainstream's ability to permit lampooning its own attitude.
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Sexists are the enemy
"White American males is the only class of people made to look ridiculous by this strip. Women, children, Muslims, penguins and cats all come off in a better light."
The opposite of women is men. The opposite of males is females.
Women and men are kinds of people.
Males and females are kinds of animals and plants, including but not limited to human beings.
When someone calls women "women" and men "males" you know that they don't put them on the same plane - that women are people and men are "things." These people are just as much the enemy as those who force women to wear burkas, or prevent them from getting educations.
Sexism is a cancer.
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Lola and Steve have a son?
OMG!!
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Precision Hair Splitters
Gosh, Carmody, as one of those white American males myself -- excuse me, men -- I had thought the joke was on me.
Maybe it was.
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Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets!
"I thoroughly rejected the notion that I needed to cover up my body so that men could be protected from any temptation that the sight might cause in them."
Right. Wimmin want to wear what they want, whenever they want, however they want. What they DON’T want is for men to respond the way they want, how they want, whenever they want. That's verboten.
Feminists pretend clothing choice is neutral. It’s not. Like "body language," clothes make statements. Few would take seriously, for example, a CEO who held meeting in pajamas. Or shorts. Or naked. Yet feminists swear they KNOW what men think when they look at women. They never talk about what women think when choosing what to wear.
How Taliban-like! These clucking hens dub this or that male behavior "inappropriate" like maniacal, Victorian, Puritanical prudes. The liberation they profess is childlike. That is, without consequences. For example, feminuts in New York lobbied so womyn could go topless when men do. However, if cops arrest females and frisk them like guys, femaniacs cry bloody hell. They initiate lawsuits. They want equality when it “suits” them.
American women live in America...not France, Sweden, or Bulgaria,. There are cultural restrictions here. Just like in all cultures. (You know, CULTURE: that entity feminuts hector us to tolerate, respect, appreciate, honor when it involves women or other countries.). It’s insane to think how we dress/act has no impact. Yet feminists swear it doesn’t. Just like they insist a woman who drinks herself into a stupor and has sex has no responsibility.
How sexistly traditional these fembots be. They think men logical, honorable, responsible and adult. They think women are illogical, incapable of honor, irresponsible, and childlike. That's why feminists don't mind being called hypocrites. Personal integrity is not on their radar. Whatever they feel is good/bad must be. If not, well whatever. Feminists live in Such As Land surrounded by Caitlin Uptons.
On the other hand, they demand that men be strictly logical. They want guys to act in accordance with stated beliefs.
Feminism’s power rests on playing men for saps. It makes left-brain appeals to guys, issuing right-brain dispensations for women. It works.
It takes guys a long time to become bamboozled. If feminists pulled their crapola on 5-year-old boys there'd be no sale. Young guys can smell hype a mile away. They know what's unfair and have visceral reactions to injustice. After 30 years of socialization, though, that gets tamped down. Young men first learn to tamp down their emotional reactions (especially during puberty when they experience vaginates denying "goodies" to guys who actually treat them equally, not PC pseudo-equal). After years of such tamping down, most men lose the capacity to react to feminist hypocrisy, much less sense it. Look at the current emasculation of Femerica. Adult men do nothing as young boys in the millions get drugged in feminized schools. They let laws be passed that take kids from dads post-divorce. They settle for equal military pay while doing more than soldierettes.
Feminists love it. They have American men wrapped around their fingers. Women’s groups are free to care only about women. They cry crocodile tears for burqa-burdened women in Afghanistan. They care not a jot when men there get beaten/cut/tortured for shaving, listening to Western music, or wearing American-style clothes. They gave not a hoot when Muslim boys and men got rounded up in other parts of the world, slaughtered in soccer stadiums for the crime of having penises. What matters is not men's lives but women's clothing.
"our position in relation to the men in our community, … being lesser than, needing to be sheltered and protected and therefore limited..."
Whereas feminists want bars to keep college guys from "gray raping" coeds who drink to excess. And for companies to stop men from peering at women peers in short skirts or tight pantsuits. And for West Point to keep tests easier for womyn. In short, feminists want women to be…sheltered and protected and limited. Not because females are weaker or lesser, but because they’re worth more than men. The Pedestal uber alles.
"Now I wonder why, if men are the ones who have such difficulty controlling their senses, women are the ones who must cover up?"
Because men aren’t the problem. Guys are pretty straightforward. They know what they like and go after it. It's women who act coy, give mixed messages, avoid risk-taking (the better to blame men if things don't work out perfectly).
"Why don't the men in these restrictive religions wear blindfolds?"
Why don't women open their own eyes? Why don’t they say what they mean and mean what they say? Why don't they walk-the-walk? Why don't they take risks to get what they want? Why wear thongs and act shocked, shocked when men look at them hiked about low-slung jeans? Why keep thinking men are fools? Women spend hours putting on makeup, picking out clothes, coiffing hair for the EFFECT they hope all that will have. Do they really expect guys not to know…or notice?
Feminuts badger the world to understand the nuances, complexities, burdens, etc. facing modern women. When, do you think, they might begin to examine the equal nuances, complexities, and burdens facing modern men?
It’s tiresome to see feminists acting like strippers who pout at patrons for not appreciating their brains. What aspects of themselves do they emphasize? Don’t blame men for thinking “a behind is a terrible thing to waste” when women only collect for the United Nates-Gro Collagen Fund.