Letters to the Editor
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Courage
I'm with most of the other posters, this is a mild cartoon, making a comment about the American propensity for propagating our (patriarchal) ideals when it's convenient for us. AKA: Imperialism.
This pedantic fellow, Anonymous, should take some time away from smoking pot and come up with a good screen name. Since he's so interested in courage, this would show some.
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David Ogilvy
Dave said: you can't bore customers into submission--anybody need another reason why newslpapers are legally brain dead?
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Iran
Where is the coverage
Quit taking the weekend off
the Weekend is the news in politics
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Ms Simons
lola's peeping lock of hair...
Would be enough to get her arrested in Iran.
You are American, Right?
The worse thing that can happen to a liar is believe her own propaganda.
Showing your hair or showing as a woman in general will get you arrested in Saudi Arabia.
Oh, The ignorance . . .
http://www.worldisround.com/articles/98910/photo5.html
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Well well, my local rag, whose editor is a study in contradictions and hypocrisy decided to run this strip today
I'll be damned!
Last Sunday, he wouldn't run the first of the two strips. Readers jumped all over his ass. He even wrote a lame-o editorial about how his newspaper respects all religions. Of course, that was a crock. If I wanted to waste a few hours of my life going back through the editorial cartoons published on his watch, I could find dozens of cartoons mocking not only other religions, but the religious dress of those faiths. (No Mormon Holy Underwear yet, however).
So what does our local editor do this week? He runs this strip. Well, that's our local paper for you. A spine made of Jello.
You can't win.
Ptttht!
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Joan: Censorship is present @ Salon.... Please practice what you Preach.......
Joan, I will continue to sing the same note whenever these types of topics surface on Salon. My post regarding the lack of diversity @ Salon was removed and censored and you allowed it.
Please have the audacity to post it again. Please get your own house in order....
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Well, you completely wussed out on the Danish Muhammad cartoons
And didn't publish them on Salon. You published a link to the cartoons on another site, which is NOT the same thing. Seems like you pick your courageous statements pretty carefully and conservatively. As for this Opus? Pretty tame.
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Hurray for Freedom (but too bad the comic is dumb)
I frankly can't see how anyone could understand this muddled and stilted work enough to be offended by it, but I guess that's what makes America great.
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But it's a hollow victory, Joan
Nobody's laughing at that dumb strip. Instead everyone's trying to explain why it's funny. That's the death knell for humor, Joan, when people need an explanation for why something is funny.
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In fact I'm even starting to feel a little angry
How tribal women dress is not the problem in the Middle East that we're even TRYING to solve.
They have much bigger problems than their clothing.
Why is the clothing worn by tribal women supposed to be funny?
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Silenced, tribal dress isn't funny, but religious fundamentalism is both funny and scary.
I checked out the www.ahiida.com website, and those burqinis look like something out of THX 1138. Do the male religious fanatics who impose this kind of clothing restriction on women also wear full length robes at the beach, or do they enjoy more freedom?
A few weeks ago I was at the beach in Delaware. On a very hot day, I saw a woman in a burqa, complete with face mask. Her husband and son were wearing only shorts and sandals. Sorry, but that's unacceptable.
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I'll tell you what makes me sad
I'd like to insert a line here about Salon's courage in running these two strips, but I didn't see anything that made me think twice about them -- except the news that others wouldn't publish them. We're proud to have Breathed as a contributor, and sad about what this episode says about newspaper publishing today.
I'm sad about what this strip says about Berke Breathed's talent and comic imagination and even what it says about his basic understanding of the Middle East and the difference between urban and tribal Islam.
It's an old Dumb Westerner Trick to conflate tribalism with Islam. The Qu'ran, like the Old Testament, does tend to reinforce ancient tribal customs, but that's because, as with the Old Testament, tribal people were the dominant population during the period when it was written.
This cartoon encourages atheists and progressives to keep grooming their stupidity so they can keep playing the Dumb Westener Trick while convincing themselves they're vastly superior to typical Dumb Westerners.
I'd like to add one last thing: tribal customs that restrict women also require men to pay a terrible price. Tribal men are expected to kill or be killed to defend the social and economic standing of the tribe.
Why don't any progressives ever care about them?
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Opus Dei
Well, the cartoon not inherently controversial to my mind. It comments on America's flaky, salad-bar approach to religion. It comments on the impulse-driven, man-boy approach that many Americans have to life in general. It comments on America's juvenile understanding of the rest of the world. And, perhaps ironically, it comments on the superficial notion that one's clothing determines one's spiritual worth. That's a lot to wrap up in one cartoon.
On the last point the silliness of using clothing to determine godliness, Breathed chose Islam. But he might as well have chosen any number of religions: Mormonism, Hassidic Judaism, even Catholicism. His approach is fairly gentle, so I don't see anything to be offended about, unless one is looking for offense. And I would say the same if he chose one of those other religions.
As far as the cartoon goes, Breathed is no Walt Kelly. So it's mildy amusing, but not particularly deep or uncomfortably satiric, which raising the question: Why the controversy?
The controversy is not the cartoon. It is the gutless, softheadedness of the publishers. And I suspect that their concern is less about offending Muslims, and more about offending those who buy into the American approach to a world it doesn't understand: "You love that I'm so darn smart about what's best for you."
Finally: Courage? No, I don't think so. Salon jumped at the chance to highlight the strip, as well it should. But that's the opposite of courage. What's the repercussion? Nothing.
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*Sigh* Another empty claim...
Worry about the men? The man has a fighting chance in every case. If I, as a female, were to mess up in a Muslum country, I'm DEAD - no argument, no second chance; that's because I'M not anything more than a piece of meat to them.
So, the only thing I do when I hear anyone whine "What about the Muslum men?" is laugh and wait by the side with a bag of Marshmallows for the bonfire to start...