The Great Cartoon Fiasco

So, out there, somewhere, exists an enigmatic racist cartoon. You have surely heard about it. The cartoon from the Danish paper that has ignited protests worldwide... people have died over this cartoon! There are protests at embassies over this cartoon. Conservative British papers are getting into the action by defending free speech and in so doing re-printing the cartoon. Scottland Yard tells this paper they can't be assured police protection and the paper pulls the cartoon. This cartoon apperently has the prophet Mohammed with a bomb in his turban telling suicide bombers as they get to the gates of heaven: I'm sorry, but we're all out of virgins..
Wucka wucka.
Now that is a racist knee slapper if I ever heard one.
But has anyone seen this cartoon? ?Well, isn't that the joke? You can only have the cartoon described.. Did you see it as I described it? Was it a Dilbert-sort of aesthetic? Maybe Doonsbury? Peanuts? What about Family Circle? Or maybe Farside? In what illustrative manner was this bad joke depicted? We may never know.. Hold on. I will now use Google to find out...
I will first put in the words: racist muhammed cartoon
It worked!
Much better than I ever imagined in fact. Wow. Now check out what I found:
"Why did Jyllands-Posten publish the cartoons? The Copenhagen Post explains: “Jyllands-Posten called for and printed the cartoons by various Danish illustrators, after reports that artists were refusing to illustrate works about Islam, out of fear of fundamendalist retribution. The newspaper said it printed the cartoons as a test of whether Muslim fundamentalists had begun affecting the freedom of expression in Denmark.”
Holy moly!
A test?! A test?! Now, that is sure one way to test your market. You know that thing you hear on the radio when that voice comes on, "This is a test of the emergency broadcast network." Now, while enigmatic, I would say that is a reasonable major media test. Actually come to think of it, that test is ridiculous too. (Might have to get back to that idea in a different blog). But this test? This is the Danish newspaper racism test? Can you imagine the New York Times saying, we printed these cartoons of exaggerated jewish film producers and bankers in order to test whether or not that might aggravate someone. Bare with us. We must conduct a test.
http://forum.newspaperindex.com/Mohammed-drawings-newspaper1.jpg
On the surface one might say that these protests are quite insane. Protesting a cartoon? Well, I don't really know. It seems like a perfect opportunity for the white white west to sit back and say, "Man, those people are fucking crazy! Protesting over a cartoon! Talk about needing a sense of humor!" But then again, what the fuck? How lame is it that a newspaper prints all these flagrantly racist cartoons in the name of freedom of speech? Now, liberals and conservatives can jointly castigate the muslim world as they pat themselves on the back for having a tremendous Western sense of humor. God, the west knows how to take a joke. We're just so flexible.
Funny it's the Danes that started this too. The Danes?!

-February 10, 2006