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.
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.
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).
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.
And look, now the link points to a comic where he uses an anti-Japanese racial slur.
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! 
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
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.
However, this phrase no doubt was frequently used during the Pearl Harbor attack itself. 
Sure. And leprechauns sneak into my room at night and steal my socks.
I genuinely laughed out loud at that. Thanks!
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
- The Japanese haven’t finished repaying Americans for WWII war crimes.
- Peaceful muslims should be persecuted
- All muslims should be in internment camps
- Americans can be bought with beads
- Americans should refuse Japanese immigration
- 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.
Someone quoting from Robert Hughes’ “The Fraying of America”
Well, that wasn’t too hard.
Now, go play with your leprechauns. 
Targo
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.
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.
Oh I don’t know. He’s gotten controversial with regularity for over a decade now.
Here’s another article on his controversial side from a few years ago: http://www.comicsreporter.com/index.php/briefings/commentary/1858/
Certainly the most bizarre interpretation of the strip we have had in this thread so far.
The agenda doesn’t show up every day or even every week, but it does appear with a certain regularity.
Nah, you’re just ignorant of Hart’s history, as you have already admitted.
In a related story, Hart reveals how he constructs a joke:
Step 1: Collect socks
Step 2: ?
Step 3: Make laughter.
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. 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.
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.
And I say that Hart wishing to put the Japanese back in internment camps is your fantasy.