As much of the blogosphere noted over the weekend, celebrated comic stripper Berkeley Breathed — he of Bloom County and Opus fame — had his work spiked by the Washington Post and other newspapers. Why? Because he decided to skewer radical Islam. And why might our courageous MSM be reluctant to print anything satirizing the Religion of Peace? As Captain Ed notes:
because radical Islamists react with violence rather than rational objections. And the newspapers, in all their collective courage, can’t find it within themselves to let a satirist do his work where it is most needed.
(The blasphemous strip in question can be seen here, by the way.) Worth pointing out is that other cartoonists — most notably Cox & Forkum — have been stating the obvious for years, but with much less fanfare than Breathed’s recent run-in with the thought police. Some C&F samples relating to cartoons and western media cowardice are here, here, here and here.
Still, as a stand against censorship, we here at Right Ringtail would like to remind readers they can view all kinds of offensive cartoons about Islam simply by clicking the Religion of Peace button under “Categories”.
Go ahead. Indulge your inner infidel.
UPDATED on 8/28/07 at 7:25am: DrewM over at AoSHQ has a follow up on Opus, the flightless fowl of blasphemy. FOX News also has a story on why the strip got spiked. Hint: it has something to do with our new, unofficial state religion.
Interestingly, it looks like the strip is actually up on the Washington Post’s website (h/t Media Blog) . Maybe their thinking is that radical Islamists can’t use the Internet but might get their hands on a hard copy. Which kind of begs a question about their readership.
