# B.C. From Fundie Fun Time to Bigoted Asshole. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [December 8, 2006, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/b-c-from-fundie-fun-time-to-bigoted-asshole/383374 "2006-12-08T17:48:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Oakminster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/77aa72/32.png) [@Oakminster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oakminster)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2006, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/b-c-from-fundie-fun-time-to-bigoted-asshole/383374/41 "2006-12-09T03:35:00Z")
[QUOTE=Marley23] And his use of “infamy” suggests that he thinks we should be mad. [/QUOTE] Not to me. He defines the term as one “seldom used after Toyota sales topped 2 million.” Sticking to the way I read it in my first post in this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Duke\_of\_Rat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Duke\_of\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duke_of_Rat)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2006, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/b-c-from-fundie-fun-time-to-bigoted-asshole/383374/42 "2006-12-09T03:50:58Z")
[QUOTE=Evil Captor] They shouldn’t be held to account for what their grandfathers and great-grandfathers did 63 years ago. [/QUOTE] Every now and then the issue of slave reparations come up, I’m glad to hear the voice of reason regarding the actions of distant relatives. My dad fought in WWII and has three 280Zs right now, he’s buried his hatchet. ---
**Author:** ![Pine\_Fresh\_Scent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/43a26b/32.png) [@Pine\_Fresh\_Scent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pine_Fresh_Scent)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2006, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/b-c-from-fundie-fun-time-to-bigoted-asshole/383374/43 "2006-12-09T04:19:00Z")
This thread reminded me of one of the funniest comic strips I’ve seen in a long time. I’m pretty sure it was linked by another doper in another thread, but I couldn’t find it. Anyway, enjoy this [B.C. parody (third strip down).](http://www.drinkatwork.com/mediumlargewk46.html) ---
**Author:** ![brossa](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brossa/32/3040_2.png) [@brossa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brossa)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2006, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/b-c-from-fundie-fun-time-to-bigoted-asshole/383374/44 "2006-12-09T04:24:37Z")
FWIW, my first reaction on reading the comic was ‘what a dick statement to make.’ I was expecting someone to start a thread about it sooner or later. It sounds like Hart is trying to shame us for dishonoring our dead by cozying up to the Japanese over the last sixty years. As though we’re just sweeping Pearl Harbor (and by extension Bataan, Nanking, etc.) under the rug for the sake of cheap consumer goods. The more I try to parse the comic, the more pissed off I get, because it’s so damned elliptical. It just doesn’t work as a ‘given enough time, even bitter enemies can become close allies, huzzah’ because he threw that ‘infamy’ bit in there - a totally loaded word. ‘Infamy’ just poisons it for me. What a fucking douchebag move. Fucker. What does he want us to do? Not be allies with the Japanese? Not purchase their consumer goods? Plan for the inevitable betrayal by the Emperor? Jesus wept. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2006, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/b-c-from-fundie-fun-time-to-bigoted-asshole/383374/45 "2006-12-09T05:49:13Z")
And look, now the link points to a comic where he uses an anti-Japanese racial slur. ---
**Author:** ![Faruiza](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecd19e/32.png) [@Faruiza](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Faruiza)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2006, 9:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/b-c-from-fundie-fun-time-to-bigoted-asshole/383374/46 "2006-12-09T09:01:08Z")
I’m enjoying the hell out of this discussion. I’m really getting something out of differing points of view here. Unfortunately, I’m going to be afk for a day or two. I just wanted to let the posters know that I’m interested and reading…I just don’t want to be accused of dumping a thread. I’ll be back if it lives and anyone gives a crap! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Aquila\_Be](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a698b9/32.png) [@Aquila\_Be](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aquila_Be)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2006, 9:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/b-c-from-fundie-fun-time-to-bigoted-asshole/383374/47 "2006-12-09T09:23:17Z")
[QUOTE=thelurkinghorror] And look, now the link points to a comic where he uses an anti-Japanese racial slur. [/QUOTE] Ah yes, the word “nippy”. Don’t laugh. There exist people who are so precious that they’ll jump on you if you ever dared use the expression: “There’s a nip in the air.” (even in Calgary at mid winter). As for me, I found the cartoon quite innocuous. The fixation by some on the “2M Toyotas” is unjustified. It’s merely a symbolic way of saying: “The enormous increase in trade"between the US and Nippon has rendered obsolete use of the word: ‘ïnfamy’ in the context of current relations between the two countries.” _Targo_ ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2006, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/b-c-from-fundie-fun-time-to-bigoted-asshole/383374/48 "2006-12-09T13:05:54Z")
[QUOTE=Aquila Be] The fixation by some on the “2M Toyotas” is unjustified. It’s merely a symbolic way of saying: “The enormous increase in trade"between the US and Nippon has rendered obsolete use of the word: ‘ïnfamy’ in the context of current relations between the two countries.” _Targo_ [/QUOTE] Of course, the increase in trade has nothing to do with the obsolescence of the word, but rather time has been the culprit. Hart hit upon that fact, but couldn’t make it “funny” without his slant(sorry) on the matter. He just forced the issue to be funny. He’s clueless. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2006, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/b-c-from-fundie-fun-time-to-bigoted-asshole/383374/49 "2006-12-09T16:39:16Z")
[QUOTE=Aquila Be] There exist people who are so precious that they’ll jump on you if you ever dared use the expression: “There’s a nip in the air.” [/QUOTE] However, this phrase no doubt was frequently used during the Pearl Harbor attack itself. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2006, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/b-c-from-fundie-fun-time-to-bigoted-asshole/383374/50 "2006-12-09T18:17:27Z")
[QUOTE=Aquila Be] There exist people who are so precious that they’ll jump on you if you ever dared use the expression: “There’s a nip in the air.” (even in Calgary at mid winter). [/QUOTE] Sure. And leprechauns sneak into my room at night and steal my socks. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2006, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/b-c-from-fundie-fun-time-to-bigoted-asshole/383374/51 "2006-12-09T18:35:39Z")
[QUOTE=Pine Fresh Scent] Anyway, enjoy this [B.C. parody (third strip down).](http://www.drinkatwork.com/mediumlargewk46.html) [/QUOTE] I genuinely laughed out loud at that. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2006, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/b-c-from-fundie-fun-time-to-bigoted-asshole/383374/52 "2006-12-09T21:01:51Z")
[QUOTE=Faruiza] Am I reading this wrong, or is the message, “Americans never give thought to what’s really important as long as you dangle something shiny in front of their faces.”? Is he saying that we should be continuing to harass the Japanese people 75 years later instead of buying their things and letting them live here in peace? Is that it?! That we’re incapable of patriotism because Japanese products are more important than remembering an act of war against our country? If I’m reading this right, Johnny Hart can go get fucked, because I just find it a little sickening, although I can’t say I’m ever surprised, really, that there are still people walking around this planet who think that generations later, an entire race of people should be paying for the actions of their ancestor’s country. For that matter, I guess that if that IS the message, we can deduce that he’s trying to make some kind of contemporary tie-in to 9-11, and the fact that peaceful muslims shouldn’t get a pass because members of their religion killed our people. Can you imagine a modern day witch hunt designed to place muslims in internment camps? I’ll bet that backwards ass slack jawed dumbfuck Johnny Hart can. Seriously, am I getting this wrong? [/QUOTE] Seriously, if Johnny Hart succeeded in conveying a message with eleven words that requires you about ten times that amount to restate he must be one hell of an artist. According to you, Johnny Hart means to convey 1. The Japanese haven’t finished repaying Americans for WWII war crimes. 2. Peaceful muslims should be persecuted 3. All muslims should be in internment camps 4. Americans can be bought with beads 5. Americans should refuse Japanese immigration 6. Americans are incapable of patriotism. You have one hell of an imagination. I don’t think there is a person in America who believes all 6 points. When I read the strip, I just thought about how proud Americans and Japanese should be for burying the hatchet in the face of some absolutely atrocious war crimes. ---
**Author:** ![Aquila\_Be](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a698b9/32.png) [@Aquila\_Be](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aquila_Be)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2006, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/b-c-from-fundie-fun-time-to-bigoted-asshole/383374/53 "2006-12-09T21:15:41Z")
[QUOTE=Marley23] Sure. And leprechauns sneak into my room at night and steal my socks. [/QUOTE] Someone quoting from Robert Hughes’ “The Fraying of America” [Nip Nip](http://mtprof.msun.edu/Win1994/BeckRev.html) > [@](#): > > We also have the “PC claptrap” from the academic left serving up a “delicious array of targets for cheap shots” from the right. Hughes cites the UC-Santa Cruz administrator who campaigns against phrases like “a chink in one’s armor” and “a nip in the air,” Well, that wasn’t too hard. Now, go play with your leprechauns. 😛 _Targo_ ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2006, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/b-c-from-fundie-fun-time-to-bigoted-asshole/383374/54 "2006-12-09T23:20:24Z")
An article mentioning a single, unnamed person and not mentioning when, where or in what context he’s alleged to have said those expressions were offensive, or providing citations of any kind? VERY convincing! I searched at the UC-Santa Cruz Web site, and found no hits for “chink in the armor” or “nip in the air.” I also found nothing in the archives of the campus paper. And some Web searching turned up none of the details that Hughes failed to provide. Not only that, but your reliance on a single person [you did say that those people exist, not that there might only be one of them] is underwhelming. Does targo mean “bullshit?” If so, targo. Mucho, mucho targo. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2006, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/b-c-from-fundie-fun-time-to-bigoted-asshole/383374/55 "2006-12-10T00:24:24Z")
[QUOTE=Frank] Attempted joke aside, as **tomndebb** said, long ago B.C. was superb - insightful, sometimes subtle, and almost always, above all, funny. Those days are long gone, and given the fundamentalist, jingoist jihad Hart has been on lately, I don’t believe there is any doubt of how this should be taken. [/QUOTE] I haven’t read B.C. for 30 years, and the fundy conversion is news to me so I took the opportunity to view the past several weeks of toons provided in the link. As far as I’m concerned his style remains the same as I remember and I couldn’t find anything remotely resembling a fundamentalist agenda. This whole thread is paranoia gone rampant. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2006, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/b-c-from-fundie-fun-time-to-bigoted-asshole/383374/56 "2006-12-10T00:49:27Z")
[QUOTE=The Flying Dutchman] I haven’t read B.C. for 30 years, and the fundy conversion is news to me so I took the opportunity to view the past several weeks of toons provided in the link. As far as I’m concerned his style remains the same as I remember and I couldn’t find anything remotely resembling a fundamentalist agenda. This whole thread is paranoia gone rampant. [/QUOTE] Oh I don’t know. He’s gotten controversial with regularity for over a decade now. > [@](#): > > In the 1990s, Hart became an evangelical Christian, as did his wife Bobby, and began to reflect his beliefs in B.C., persisting despite criticism from some newspaper editors and readers. This has caused some controversy in the past. For example, on March 31, 1996, the Los Angeles Times refused to publish Hart’s Sunday strip because it showed the character Wiley writing a poem about Christ, which the newspaper associate editor Narda Zacchino said “contained a definite religious message that we viewed as inappropriate for the comic pages” (Los Angeles Times 4/16/1996). Readers quickly complained, forcing the Times to publish the strip on April 6, 1996, in a story the Times itself did about the controversy. Another controversy occurred about the April 15, 2001 strip, which showed a menorah being transformed into a Christian cross, accompanied by “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” “Hart insisted he was trying to honor Jews as well as Christians, but the burned-out candles of the menorah seemed to tell Jews that their religion was defunct” > **[Johnny Hart](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Hart)** > > John Lewis Hart (February 18, 1931 – April 7, 2007) was an American cartoonist noted as the creator of the comic strips B.C. and The Wizard of Id. Brant Parker co-produced and illustrated The Wizard of Id. Hart was recognized with several awards, including the Swedish Adamson Award and five from the National Cartoonists Society. In his later years, he was known (and sometimes criticized) for incorporating Christian themes and messages into his strips and seeming to denigrate other religions. H Bo... Here’s another article on his controversial side from a few years ago: [http://www.comicsreporter.com/index.php/briefings/commentary/1858/](http://www.comicsreporter.com/index.php/briefings/commentary/1858/) ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2006, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/b-c-from-fundie-fun-time-to-bigoted-asshole/383374/57 "2006-12-10T05:20:26Z")
[QUOTE=The Flying Dutchman] When I read the strip, I just thought about how proud Americans and Japanese should be for burying the hatchet in the face of some absolutely atrocious war crimes. [/QUOTE] Certainly the most bizarre interpretation of the strip we have had in this thread so far. > [@](#): > > I haven’t read B.C. for 30 years, and the fundy conversion is news to me so I took the opportunity to view the past several weeks of toons provided in the link. As far as I’m concerned his style remains the same as I remember and I couldn’t find anything remotely resembling a fundamentalist agenda. The agenda doesn’t show up every day or even every week, but it does appear with a certain regularity. > [@](#): > > This whole thread is paranoia gone rampant. Nah, you’re just ignorant of Hart’s history, as you have already admitted. ---
**Author:** ![Subterraneanus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Subterraneanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Subterraneanus)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2006, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/b-c-from-fundie-fun-time-to-bigoted-asshole/383374/58 "2006-12-10T05:58:43Z")
[QUOTE=Marley23] Sure. And leprechauns sneak into my room at night and steal my socks. [/QUOTE] In a related story, Hart reveals how he constructs a joke: Step 1: Collect socks Step 2: ? Step 3: Make laughter. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2006, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/b-c-from-fundie-fun-time-to-bigoted-asshole/383374/59 "2006-12-10T15:02:41Z")
[QUOTE=The Flying Dutchman] I haven’t read B.C. for 30 years, and the fundy conversion is news to me so I took the opportunity to view the past several weeks of toons provided in the link. As far as I’m concerned his style remains the same as I remember and I couldn’t find anything remotely resembling a fundamentalist agenda. This whole thread is paranoia gone rampant. [/QUOTE] This is just plain stupid. You haven’t read the strip in 30 years. Why do you think that reading a couple of weeks will suffice? A few weeks out of 30 years is less than one percent of the strips that have run in that time. Please, please, tell me an alternative explanation for [this strip.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:BC_Hart_turtle.gif) I’m sure you can do it. I guess there’s some good news here: If people actually interpret this strip to mean “it’s so great that we’re buying cars from the Japanese,” Hart is a failure as a provocateur. He’s not exactly going to stir the American people to put the Japanese back in internment camps if they’re not even sure what he’s trying to say. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2006, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/b-c-from-fundie-fun-time-to-bigoted-asshole/383374/60 "2006-12-10T17:32:12Z")
[QUOTE=Marley23] Please, please, tell me an alternative explanation for [this strip.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:BC_Hart_turtle.gif) I’m sure you can do it. [/quote] I’ll give you my explanation, though I don’t know if it is an alternative one. Here you have a preacher(church) using the US mail(state) as a pulpit. As a result, the preacher’s message gets drowned out by the state and the preacher drags down the swift delivery of the mail. Neither objective is served. The poor clam waiting for his mail recognizes the problem as the conflation of “church and state”. Clearly if their is an agenda here it is for the “separation of church and state”. I actually think this strip is quite funny. > [@](#): > > I guess there’s some good news here: If people actually interpret this strip to mean “it’s so great that we’re buying cars from the Japanese,” Hart is a failure as a provocateur. He’s not exactly going to stir the American people to put the Japanese back in internment camps if they’re not even sure what he’s trying to say. And I say that Hart wishing to put the Japanese back in internment camps is your fantasy. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/b-c-from-fundie-fun-time-to-bigoted-asshole/383374.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/b-c-from-fundie-fun-time-to-bigoted-asshole/383374.md?page=4)