http://www.zombietime.com/mohammed_image_archive/

Scott

Do you know, my High School juniors have been able to articulate the concepts and ideas that Gabe seems singularly unable to conceptualize. My fear of the UofO and the education it provides. Long live Mohammed, and his 76 virgins. Peace out from Vegas, where we live in sin and teach morality……or something like that.

Austin

Also, grammar skills are not required!

(Sorry, I couldn’t resist!)

What Ian said, he’s running the show now, I’m just the old guy who pays for the website. And, hell, the OC is always looking for smart folks to contribute.

Also, as none of us are paid so we use the term “job” rather loosely.

I would just like to say that I have a lot of respect for you guys. I’ve seen numerous publications on campus and the Commentator is by far the best. No beating around the bush, no regrets, and no restraint. And you guys are very informed. I like that.

That said, want to give me a job? I’d like to help out with the Commentator. I’m a Journalism and Poli Sci major. I don’t like to go out of my way to offend people, but maybe we can work something out?

Oreily pointed out yesterday that the NY Times would print the cartoon because it thought it would incite violence, and it censored itself. But yesterday in their arts section they also printed a painting that depicted the Virgin Mary covered with shit. So maybe muhammed being violated with by a dog wouldn’t be that far off…

What I mean by this is that people choose what to be offended by, and that’s a very individual decision. I’m offended by socialists and religious extremists, some people are offended by female breasts, some by benign depictions of one particular guy who made up one particular book for one particular group of nomadic desert sheep hearders a few thousand years ago. Your milage may vary.

Publishers aren’t responsible for how people react to what is published, they don’t have any control over that. They print what they see fit, and people are responsible for their own reactions. If they’re offended, fine, they’re free to write letters or publish other things or draw holocaust-denial cartoons. The answer is not to demand “responsibility” or “respect” from the press because that undermines the entire purpose of a free and independent media: to comment and report on the issues of the day, in whatever manner they see fit, without fear of government or violent reprisal.

By “Press” I mean anybody in what the blogosphere has dubbed the MSM. Newspapers, TV, radio, magazines, etc. I also mean, in general, private citizens who produce content read/seen by a wider audience: bloggers, cable access people. Essentially, freedom of expression extends to, well, everyone so long as that expression takes a non-violent form. Insults and mocking are, in fact, not violent. Riots, however, are quite violen (obviously).

Publishers of responsible newspapers do have a responsibility to remain objective in their content. Most newspapers are not propaganda, or at least not blatantly so. And this is a good thing. Can you imagine the response from all corners if the New York Times ran on its front page what you linked to above? It wouldn’t happen because that’s bad judgement and cheap. [Emphasis added]

The New York Times can run whatever it wants on its front page: they pay for the time and the ink, it’s their damn paper, they can do what they want with it. That said, it’s probably a bad business plan to go around pissing off your readership, but as Olly mentioned above the appropriate response is a cancelled subscription and a stern letter. Not, say, burning down an embassy.

Further, publishers do not have a responsibility to keep all of their content “objective” or opinion free. I actually don’t think they have a responsibility to keep any of their content “objective”, but do have an obligation to make their biases known. Even presuming that news providers have a duty to keep news as objective as possible, that duty cannot be extended to the editorial and opinion pages. These editorial cartoons are, clearly, not news.

But to distribute them through a medium of massive scale where they will receive maximum viewership is something that should be reconsidered.

Again, this holds publishers responsible for the actions of persons other than themselves which is, firstly, unfair and, secondly, counter productive. This is analogous to a situation I found myself in years ago at the end of high school: I was accused of “incitement” for wearing a t-shirt to school. Not even an offensive t-shirt to any reasonable person, it was just a t-shirt from the “rival school” across town and I happened to wear it on “school spirit day”. Apparently I was responsible for the immature jackasses who couldn’t comprehend the joke throwing food at me and causing a disturbance during lunch. My principal said that because I anticipated that people would react (I had assumed by laughing) it was my fault they threw food at me.

Jyllands-Posten published cartoons, on its editorial page, intended for a Danish audience in Denmark. Months later some humorless, violent sociopaths in the Middle East decide to get offended and cause havoc over them. That is not the fault of the press, but rather the fault of the violent sociopaths.

I really just don’t see where you’re coming from. The press has no responsibility for who is offended by what is published? What do you mean when you say press? Who are you talking about?

Publishers of responsible newspapers do have a responsibility to remain objective in their content. Most newspapers are not propaganda, or at least not blatantly so. And this is a good thing. Can you imagine the response from all corners if the New York Times ran on its front page what you linked to above? It wouldn’t happen because that’s bad judgement and cheap.

I’m sure that even the wisest anarchists can see why big publishers wouldn’t put junk like that out. It’s stupid and it’s mean. And everyone knows decent people hate stupidity and that mean folks always get what’s coming to them.

People should be able to publish these images. But to distribute them through a medium of massive scale where they will receive maximum viewership is something that should be reconsidered.

There is a saying that one should not poke a hungry dog.

Crossing religious lines is for mudslingers and fools. The modern citizen should know that a little respect makes the world go round.

To play devil’s advocate for a moment, the press has, if not a responsibility, then certainly a professional obligation to consider the feelings of their audience. You have a right to call a bunch of war protestors “fucking racists”, but (with a rueful nod to previous OC administrations) that doesn’t mean it’s a wise thing to do.

The two issues here are, firstly, the cartoons are not an offense to any reasonable (defined here to mean “reasonable to Olly”) definition of propriety. And, secondly, even if they were (as, I think, for instance, the faked cartoon of a Muslim being raped by an amateurishly Photoshopped dog would have been), the appropriate response would be a cancelled subscription and a stern letter to the editor, maybe even a public boycott or, as Tim says, counter-speech in some other forum.

I used to think the second point, which Tim is addressing here, was the important one. Increasingly, though, I think the first one is crucial, subjective definitions and all.

I just wish there was a depiction of an animal. Dead…in steak form…on my plate…

Islamic art classes are good for something, I guess.

Originally there was a ban on portraying images of human being in there entirity in Islam; this has been attributed to close contact with the Byzantine Empire during the Iconoclasm controversies. It is not a mandate that is layed out in the Qur’an.

But, like so many other religious practices over time the rules are not hard and fast(much like the ban on the consumption of alcohol), and I have physically seen manuscipts dating from as early as the 16th century that depict scenes from the life of the Prophet. Manuscript pages like this: http://www.tuerkenbeute.de/window/illustration/S31B-5Me00il4_de.php
litter the archives of many libraries.

But let me stress that you will never, ever see an “illustrated” Qur’an in this sense. That would be something to get theologically uppity about.