Slashdot Mirror
Where To Find Opus On Sunday
Berkeley Breathed has a note up on his site: "Note to Opus readers: The Opus strips for August 26 and September 2 have been withheld from publication by a large number of client newspapers across the country, including Opus' host paper The Washington Post. The strips may be viewed in a large format on their respective dates at Salon.com.."
Opus is political and social issues satire comic. In other words, it appeals to people older than you.
As for the censorism: I am sure Slashdot will be full of "we wouldn't censor stuff like this if it was about Christianity/etc., so why should we pander to Islam?". Now, technically that is correct - far worse material appears about Christianity than Islam; there is far more sensitivity towards Islam. However, I don't think that makes it wrong to do so. As I see it, there is a solid basis for attempting to not offend Muslims (whereas what I am about to say now is extremely offensive to them): They can't take a joke. Just like if you have a sensitive neurotic kid in your neighborhood, you wouldn't call him names in jest that you would call everyone else.
Some people deserve special treatment not because they are special in a privileged way, but because they are special in the 'Special Olympics' way.
Trying to pretend religion is the cause of humankind's problems and that people would all get along merrily if it were not for religion is just as absurd. It's as absurd as those who decry the "intolerance" of the religious while themselves being intolerant of the religious.
-- *~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...
... but in most of the rest of the world, that kid you just described gets it the worst.
Yes he does, and he's also the one that eventually loads up on high-caliber firearms or high explosive. Generally speaking, taunting mentally unstable people is a bad idea.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
If they can't take the soft stuff when they're kids (and when you're a kid, that's all it is), how are you supposed to handle being an ADULT?
All this toned-down crap for kids is preparing them to fail when they become adults. In baseball for kids now they don't keep score and nobody wins or loses, everyone gets the same sized trophy. Well, in the real world it doesn't work that way.
I can understand a parent wanting to protect their child, but that goes too far. Everyone experiences failure, why not prepare your child for the first time a girl turns him down (or the 94th time), the first time he's fired from a job, the first time he gets robbed, and so on. Your child may be your beautiful perfect child, but they will experience loss and failure in the real world just like everyone else. By not preparing them for that you're only making it harder for them when they experience it for the first time.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
"Yes he does, and he's also the one that eventually loads up on high-caliber firearms or high explosive. Generally speaking, taunting mentally unstable people is a bad idea."
In the case of Islam, the believers are not mentally unstable, and their goal is to use Political Correctness to stop any criticism of their beliefs.
It is working.
Slashdotters rage against government or business threats to freedom, but for some reason the most oppressive and backward (which given the competitiion is saying a lot!) religion in the world often escapes attack. Careful distinction is made between supposed religious theory and practice so that one avoids attacking the ideology. Odd since religion = political belief = superstition.
The freedom we enjoy today is not the result of religion. It is the result of freethinkers and the weakening of religions stranglehold on society. Islam in practice seeks to impose such a stranglehold. I therefore advocate attacking it, relentlessly and without apology. To defend religion is to endorse it. Ridicule is the best weapon against superstition.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Conversely, part of being civilized is to acknowledge that not everyone thinks the way you do, and that the world is full of offensive people. It just is, it always has been and it always will be, unless you manage to kill anyone and everyone who disagrees with you. Going postal over every offense, imagined or real, will do nothing but making you even more enemies than you've already acquired. Of course, if that's your intent, fine ... but just remember that some people will cheerfully kill you without a second's thought, and for even less reason. That's particularly true if they are threatened by your behavior. Civilization only works when people develop the ability to tolerate each other, at least to the degree that they don't kill each other on sight.
... grow up and get a goddamn life. Just DEAL with it! To my way of thinking, everyone has the right to go to Hell in their own way. They'd best give me the same respect, though, because otherwise I will do my damnedest to see they get there first!
I'm not picking on Muslims per se, either. I feel the precisely same way about the crowd of hypersensitive Christian assholes who go thermonuclear when somebody says something negative about Jesus. My answer to all of them is the same
From my perspective, many of these people (and I don't care how educated or erudite they may be) come across as either powerhungry or just childish. Some people never get past the terrible twos, I swear.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
There seems to be a view in America that something is only censorship if the government does it. This is nonsense. It's just that in America the constitution *prevents* the government from doing it. It's still censorship even if it's legal.
I'd say education is the best weapon against superstition, but failing that (or when dealing with people that refuse to be educated) ridicule is a good choice. It's more difficult to gain followers for your particular brand of religious mindgrabbing when most of the potential candidates are laughing at you.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Right--this comic is making fun of America way moreso than Islam (Lola's list of things she's not going to be is the caricature of the silly self-absorbed American girl). It seems that simply mentioning Islam is too frightening these days. Not encouraging.
Yo dawg, I heard you like the Ackermann function, so OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD
There are lots of different kinds of nut jobs, these are just some examples which will be familiar.
The punch line includes an element of irony. Steve's girlfriend will be submissive, and he likes that idea, until he realizes that he's also probably not going to get laid. It's a slapstick punch line to cap off what is really a more sophisticated sarcasm.
Of course, if you don't realize that this happens all the time, perhaps it's not so amusing. Stories of completely insipid "spiritual quests" like that of Lola Granola appear from time to time in the infotainment media. They always seem to be stories of weak minded people who must have a life philosophy handed to them on a platter, but somehow manage to reject one or two or three in a row before finding "the right one". The infotainment media inevitably dishes out these stories deadpan, like we're supposed to learn something from these people who clearly have demonstrated one overarching trait, which is a militant refusal to think critically.
Every time I see a story like this, I'm amazed that nobody ever points this out. Rational analysis, basic logic, and skepticism are not taught, and most people don't manage to acquire it on their own.
Here's the most recent example of a Lola Granola-style spiritual quest trumpeted as heroic in the media: Rejecting radical Islam -- one man's journey (Daveed Gartenstein-Ross ). Note the headline, then read the story. This dude didn't reject radical islam, he wandered aimlessly through major religions and dangerous philosophies, trying each on like a new shirt. Now he's apparently working for the FBI. I hope that this guy is closely and carefully supervised by somebody with stronger pro-democracy, free-thinking, free-living convictions. And for freedom's sake, don't give him a gun or access to any important secrets.
So, if you're aware that this stuff can happen in real life, the strip is really very amusing, subtle, and funny.
If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine.
This isn't about Islam, it's about the timidity of American newspapers. American newspapers exist mostly now to deliver advertisements to the people who still subscribe. And to provide a warm, old-fashioned 'newspaper reading experience' to their subscribers. They no longer are the primary news source or political support medium that they were 100-50 years ago. Most newspapers are owned by a handful of corporate chains who what the ad revenue flowing in from the local supermarkets and the columns filled with 'kittens stuck in trees' type of stories. The last thing that they want is biting social commentary in their comics sections.
... I don't understand this).
As you can imagine, newspaper readership is falling. Decades of boring trivia has decimated the numbers of intelligent readers. Plus the endlessly dumbed down writing style which makes every article read as if it were written for middle-school audiences (USA education level for 12-14 year olds). Bland, stupid, boring, and late with the breaking news, newspapers tend to focus on serving the needs of 'the upside of the bell curve' where few Slashdaughters are to be found.
It's interesting to see that the local heavy advertisers are also developing web sites to showcase their newspaper ads so people with broadband can simply bookmark and download whatever ads that they used to watch in the newspapers. Plus Craig's List and eBay are removing the need for classified ads (along with the tendency of newspapers to put these ads up on their own websites
So basically newspapers are becoming the prime information source for those people who can't handle going on-line. And those people are fewer every year.
Again, banning these comics has nothing to do with concern over offending Islam. It has everything to do with ensuring that the newspaper product will be as boring, sanitized, and removed from controversy as humanly possible.
Yes, it's funny that they have no problems bad-mouthing other groups like Catholics or Jews (i.e., Israel) or Christian Fundamentalists because they know that those folks won't get violent.
I'm getting a little sick of people who, to quote Dennis Miller, "start strapping bombs on themselves when the pizza toppings are wrong". I'm getting a little sick of hearing about the Religion of Perpetual Outrage. And I'm really getting sick of slack-jawed, know-nothing, but ego-inflated press abandoning all their principles at the drop of a turban.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
There have been "secular" (or at least non-theist) martyrs in the past. Ancient Rome didn't really have a doctrine of the after-life, and honor-suicides were a part of the culture. The kamikaze pilots of Japan weren't particularly motivated by promises of virgins in the next life, but rather by a sense of duty and obligation in this one.
That's nowhere close to being an accurate comparison. As others have pointed out, the conflict with the IRA was more about nationality than religion. That's why it was called the Irish Republican Army, and not something like "The Avenging Sword of Christian Supremacy".
Moreover, their bombings were much more rare, and they tried to focus on political targets because they were attempting to achieve a political goal. I'm not excusing their actions, nor am I saying that they didn't kill hundreds of innocent bystanders, but they generally didn't go out of their way to blow up coffee shops, discos, and bus stations. Nor did they fly airliners into buildings.
And finally, their goal was to achieve freedom for Ireland. Whereas Muslim extremist groups continue to target western civilians despite the fact that there are dozens of Muslim nations which hold full authority over their own borders. And many of these lunatics make it quite clear that their ultimate goal is the Islamification (yes, I know it's not a real word) of the whole world. Off hand, I really can't think of any Christian groups which preach that religious warfare should be used to convert the world to Christianity. Can you?
The real question is, are you, I or anyone else actually benefiting from making this particular criticism?
Absolutely. By making fun of Christians, the reality-based community makes it harder for you to impose your superstitions on the rest of us.
The difference between me and you is that once I convince you to keep your fractured, pathological myths out of the voting booth and out of my child's classroom, I'll go away and leave you alone.