New York Post

[carolaa]

From the NY Daily News... "Travis, the crazed ape shot dead after chewing off a Connecticut woman's face, suffered the same fate as his mother, the Daily News has learned."

Seems like a shooting to me, Carolaa.

"Why are the police involved in the shooting?" Because they were the ones that shot the ape, Neil.

You're right. Apparently, the earliest reports on MSNBC only reported the stabbing, and I had not kept up with the latest on the story.

[carolaa]

Death of a President

British director Gabriel Range premiered the fictional documentary Death of a President in 2006. The film uses archive footage, actors, and computer effects to portray an assassination of President Bush.

If...

In his political comic strip If..., English cartoonist Steve Bell depicts President Bush as a chimpanzee.

Link to Palin hanging: http://uppitywoman08.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/palin.jpg

Link to McCain in flames: http://uppitywoman08.files.wordpress.com/2008/10/johnmccainmannequin.jpg

Quote from Jeremiah Wright: – September 2001: “The government lied about inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color. The government lied.”

I may have missed it, but did you express outrage over any of these?

All of those are in extremely poor taste, and it's right to express disapproval. I don't think I'd go so far as to squash free over them, but those who do it need to know that the majority are offended. Probably they don't care if the publicity is positive or negative as long as it sells, so it is up to the public to not buy.

[Dr. Shane]

I support freedom of speech. I have not taken the position that racists shouldn't be allowed to publish cartoons. I believe the KKK should have the right to hold a "White Pride" parade and march in the streets - but I still find it reprehensible. I am not suggesting the government should arrest this artist or close down the newspaper. What I am suggesting is that the artist and the newspaper should be labeled racist and good people should cancel their subscriptions.

[carolaa]

Yup. Agreed.

[Kountzer]

You woul think something like this would come from a newpaper from down south. Not from New York City.

DB

[Liz]

You woul think something like this would come from a newpaper from down south. Not from New York City.

DB

Because......Southerners.....are all......????? (tic--meant to be funny, not to start a fight)

[Kountzer]

NYC connotes sophistication. In reality that may no be true, but you expecf their media to be urbane and tolerant. I am an native texan. SE texas at that. I'v never seen anything so blatant in the papers here but, in certain parts of louisiana, or mississippi, maybe.

DB

[Neil D]

From the NY Daily News... "Travis, the crazed ape shot dead after chewing off a Connecticut woman's face, suffered the same fate as his mother, the Daily News has learned."

Seems like a shooting to me, Carolaa.

"Why are the police involved in the shooting?" Because they were the ones that shot the ape, Neil.

Know what? I'm done. The whole discussion was to be about free speech rights (I thought) and I got caught up in the whole 'who shot or stabbed who', 'was it a monkey or an ape', 'does this mean Obama is a porch monkey (give me a break!)' thing.

I'm guessing most of you probably don't understand Bloom County either.

Ryan Seacrest... Out!

Oh, I understand Bloom County too.....

The problem that I see here, KeyGuy, is that you want to interpret the cartoon....IMO, the cartoon is to stimulate private thought, not public discussion...But since there are some, such as yourself, who are interested in public interpretation of this,and because of that have limited themselves....because they did attempt to interpretate it publically....And since you have the police as being the ones who shot the ape over an animal/human incident, you have one problem with your interpretation....Why are the police the ones saying something about rewriting the stimulus package and what does THAT have to do with the ape biting a innocent bystander [or maybe she wasn't innocent, but nevertheless, you need to rectify that with the stimulus package]....

Then again, maybe you are not able to rectify all those loose ends...I don't seem to be able to tie up the loose ends without looking at it as a racist cartoon...And what do I want to do about this ?

The honest truth is that I am not sure.... Fire off an email that states my displeasure of the racist cartoon? Probably...

[Liz]

See for me, the problem with seeing this as a racist cartoon, was that I didn't know that Black people were ever referred to as "porch monkeys".

Career Builder's used to have commercials with apes, they were always messing things up; were those racist too?

[Woody]

How's the mush Neil?

[Bravus]

Liz - but were the apes in the builders' ads identified as the architects of a particular policy developed by a black person? Kinda doubt it...

[Liz]

My question wasn't rhetorical, I was actually asking it. But thanks for clearing that up, I actually "get it" now.

[Bravus]

[Tom Wetmore]

See for me, the problem with seeing this as a racist cartoon, was that I didn't know that Black people were ever referred to as "porch monkeys"...

Admittedly, many of us white folk are ignorant about such insults. That was quite evident by the discussion here about the Obama/Curious George T-shirt during the campaign. But such things are well known among African-Americans and most white folk from the South, and those of us willing to be educated on such things. And some folk choose to remain willfully ignorant, turn a blind eye, or are simply not open to learning on such things.

As someone pointed out on the news last night, this cultural sensitivity was like noticeably absent within the New York Post because they do not have African Americans on their editorial staff and in their newsroom that would have seen that cartoon and easily corrected the ignorance of those who didn't realize it would be offensively racist. The suggestion is that the problem goes much deeper than just one ill advised cartoon.

But that is also not accounting for the implication that whoever was responsible for the Stimulus Bill should be shot dead, regardless of the obvious racial overtones. There are enough nut-jobs out there that would see that as an open invitation to really go shoot someone over this. It does happen and has happened recently. And that is where free speech does have its limits. And when it comes to protecting the President, the Secret Service take any possible threat as a real threat and have the authority to take action to prevent harm to the President. If words are very likely to incite or lead to violence then they may be regulated. It is like shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater. Speech that causes injury (defamation), or is very likely to cause injury is not protected speech. And equally unprotected as free speech would be a credibly threat of violence that causes a real fear of immediate harm, such as a thug shaking his fist in your face and angrily shouting "I'm going to beat you to death you %*$(#!!" That is called assault and can be criminally prosecuted as such. Some legitimately see this cartoon as falling in this unprotected category, or at least coming uncomfortably close.

Tom

[Bravus]

Murdoch has now come out and apologised.