Let’s be fair, here. The OP was pretty incoherent. It was far from clear what his point actually was. Yeah, the gist was that he thought “Muslims killing Christians” wasn’t getting the same air time as “Christians killing Muslims”, but from reading the OP, you get the impression that he was irritated that it took two days before the AP printed anything about Nigeria. Or something like that.
Before I respond, let me say both this and my previous post were merely observations on the matter at hand, not any sort of indictment. Take them for what they’re worth.
Well, it’s a good thing they have the power to decide what we should see. God forbid our sensibilities be offended by anything that criticizes non-Christians. I’m thankful the mighty press has the proper filters to report to us what they think we should know.
That’s a given. It’s easier for Jerry Seinfeld to poke fun at stereotypical jewish mothers than it would be for David Duke to do so.
The point was, one was defended as art. The other is scorned as offensive. Whom decides what art is?
Of course it is. It was published knowing the controversy would sell papers. The cartoons weren’t published for fear of offending Muslims. Knowing Christians wouldn’t riot and burn the paper’s printing houses made it OK to defend it as “art”. Now that Embassies are being burned and people are being killed, suddenly “art” and :free expression" and “dissent” take a back seat.
The media is deciding what is and isn’t art.
I wouldn’t know. The paper hasn’t published them. It either isn’t really news and we should dismiss it, or it’s too much for us to handle and we should be thankful for being spared the offense and save the ink for cartoons referring to American Idol.
Of course they have the filters: it’s called freedom of speech. Of course they decide what they’re going to print on their own presses. Who do YOU think should have the power to decide what they print?
The answer is simple: everyone. You get to decide what you consider art; they get to decide what they consider art. Is anyone stopping you from writing an article for (for example) townhall.com with your own opinions?
Oh, bullshit. What possible proof do you have that the cartoons weren’t published for fear of offending Muslims?
Yes, and no. Each reporter is deciding what he or she believes is art, and is writing accordingly. No reporter is making the decision for anyone else, least of all for you.
And you’ve lost the ability to Google? Google “Danish Cartoons” and you’ll know. Here’s a good starting point.
Honestly. In this day, it is ridiculous to complain about how the media are keeping anything from you. If you don’t learn how to use Google, that’s not the New York Times’s problem.
Daniel
I’m thinking it is something cryptic like “new”. As in not old.
Silly me. I googled and by page 2 finally found a link that wasn’t just opinion peices over the matter. It was a Wiki link that offered a link to the paper that offered a low-res pic of the page. No detail or anything.
But if you think an internet connection, knowledge of the correct parameters for a google search and the time and patience to wade through pages of links equals open dissemination of news, we’re just not going to see this eye-to-eye.
Embassies burning, people being killed, international trade boycotts. It seems there should be fewer hoops to jump through to know what is causing it. But I guess I should just trust the press to know what’s best to report?
Talk about elitism. This is why people don’t trust the press. They make it very difficult to find the truth they claim to report.
There is no excuse for these artistic renderings to be more difficult to find than an article showing how Pope Benedict XVI will be the cause of life as we know it.
Depends what you think is important.
After all, a whole bunch of conservatives have been arguing that the actions of violent Muslim extremists are unjustified, no matter the content of the cartoons. And i happen to agree with them.
It seems to me that the violent reactions themselves, and the attitudes of these Islamic extremists, is more important than the specific content of the cartoons.
How would seeing the cartoons change your take on this story? Is there any cartoon image that would, in your mind, justify the violence and killings? Would seeing them substantially increase your understanding of the issues? And if not, why is it so important that those cartoons be published?
MSN? Man to man sex? And here I thought it stood for Methylsulfonylmethane, which I sold for a summer in university.
On another note, what ever happened to the rule that the first time you use an acronym you spell it out then put the acronym in brackets immediately following? I swear I spend more time figuring out acronyms everywhere these days (and I don’t mean l33t)
Okay, so apparently you DON’T know how to use Google. No big deal; this board is about fighting ignorance, after all.
When you’re looking for an image via Google, choose the “images” link, right above the search field. If you search for “Danish Cartoons,” the one I linked to is the second link.
Daniel
mhendo asks some good questions also, which get at my reasons for not having Googled the images earlier. What do I care what the cartoons look like? They don’t justify violence. I’ve also never Gogled Piss Christ, for essentially the same reason.
Maybe not, because i think the Internet has led to a broader and more open dissemination of news than at any previous time in human history. Knowing how to use a search engine is part of that.
YOu don’t have to, but if you don’t, you need to set up a proposal regarding whom you SHOULD trust to know what’s best to report. Who should decide for the reporters what to report: the government?
Fortunately, it’s not. Took me about twenty seconds to find the artistic renderings. lemme know how long it takes you to find that Pope article you’re talking about.
Daniel
Lol, Messenger is the first thing that came to mind for me too.
- As LHoD has demonstrated, the images are not remotely difficult to find.
- Supporting freedom of speech does not entail publishing all speech. The cartoons are, quite frankly, crap. If a newspaper would not have published them before the furore, and to be honest no paper with any editorial standards whatsoever should have, then I see no reason to publish them now.
Finally, 3) the Chris Ofili/Virgin Mary point you brought up earlier is a complete red herring. For starters it wasn’t even meant to be offensive (and shouldn’t have been to anyone with more brains than a whitebait), as it was rather an attempt to recast the Virgin Mary in an african context, inspiring some of the material choices. For seconds that picture wasn’t widely published at the time either (albeit more for copyright reasons, I suspect), and for dessert if you’d gone and found the now widely-accessible image itself, you’d have seen this for yourself. By the way: as you will note from my link, the “artist” in question won the Turner Prize.
If I’ve heard any editorial comment on controversial Christian-themed art from the MSM, it’s been in the context of a news-magazine-style outrage against public funding for them. The reporting has been neutral.
I haven’t heard any editorial comment at all about the Danish pictures, but I’ve certainly seen them a lot more than the Christian-themed art, just in the past 2 weeks alone. I don’t know what everyone’s talking about.
Well, shit. I’m still on page one of this thread, trying to figure out what “CPC” or “PCP” is–PCP is angeldust, a nasty street drug. I have no idea what CPC is.
Christian Protest Callings
Calling Protesting Christians
Cain Protects Christ
Chuthulu*Pains Christians
Christian’s Prominent Conspirators
I have no clue. Guess I’ll get on the short bus from now on.
*I have no idea how to spell that name.
Yes, there were riots over the weekend, but 30 churches, five hotels, an absurd death count, and the specific targeting of Christians is recent and deserves top billing. Can you imagine the coverage if 30 mosques were burnt down? The deaths are no longer collateral as the media reported previously. The killings are targeted and brutal. How many of those in this thread knew that Christians were being set ablaze or that something even close to 30 churches were burnt down? I appreciate your admittance of not having known of them. My point about the search was that someone shouldn’t have had to search. It should be front page news because it is NEW. Nigerian riots with collateral killings - not news. Nigerian riots targeting Christians and setting 30 churches and 5 hotels ablaze – news.
My second point was that the coverage of Muslim killing Christians was under the vague headlines of “Muslims rioting” or at least “X number dead.” When they cover the Christian retaliation its headlines “Anti Muslim riots kill X” Yes, it’s subtle, but spin is subtle. My OP perhaps wasn’t clear; it was written in a fit of rage. Having said that, the most of the replies of this thread by others have missed even the most obvious of points.
Well I knew about it because it was one of the top stories on every BBC news bulletin and mentioned prominently in quality newspapers. As far as I can tell I’d have to actively avoid news not to know about it.
Or just be wilfully blind and stupid.
I think it is Christian Persecution Complex
I was fully aware of it, but I get my news primarily from that hot bed of conservatism, NPR. They’ve had a story on it, I think, every day since the riots started and they have talked about the rioters targetting Christians. On the other hand, who did you think they would target? This was implicit. It became necessary to mention that the new riots were Christians targetting Muslims because if they did not people would just assume it was more Muslims targeting Christians. Thus, we see that it became necessary to mention who was targeting who in the headline because it had changed. I fully expect new stories (and headlines) on riots to mention who was going after who from now on in. If they do not, then you may have a point.
That being said I have to agree with duffer (wow, was that odd to type) in that major American papers did not publish the cartoons (they didn’t did they?) because of a desire to avoid spreading the same riots here. Or, in other words, cowardice. I am an atheist but usually come down on these issues on the Muslim side because in most of them they are the minority (I have that old natural American tendency to side with the under dog). Here, however, there seems to be a contagious insanity in a huge number of them. You can publish pictures of Piss Christ because Christians will yell, fume, and try to get a law passed to ban it, but for the most part won’t burn your house down. You can’t republish these cartoons (though they most definitely are news, and people should be shown what the commotions is about even if the response could never be justified) because you could expect to see torch wielding villagers converging on you the next day.
I think that some of my more liberal colleagues here are being a bit too defensive on this issue. The cartoons are news and are the spark, if not the root cause, of these troubles. News organizations should show them.
Well like I said, when you hear of deaths during Islamic rioting of late, it is usually concerning collateral damage or deaths resulting from police action. By default, “other muslims” would be implied. Apparently I’m not too far off here because that is what RickJay assumed I was talking about. In any case, your non-kneejerk response is appreciated.
you have got to be fucking kidding me. Christians have a Persecution Complex?
didn’t that end when they stopped being fed to the lions?
Jesus-one more reason to not go back to church–this is embarassing! It’s like the GOP whining that they can’t get anything done nowadays.
I’m vascilating between amazement and incredulity.
(and I never would have guessed CPC).
Me, moron.
It’s in the fucking New York Times article that i quoted, if you’d bother even to acknowledge evidence that’s placed in front of your stupid face.
As i said, that article appeared in the hard copy of the Times on Sunday morning.