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captainsblogOur newly-elected Congresswoman got herself in a bunch of hot holy water a few weeks ago when some Knights of Columbus-type activists ambushed her at a town meeting, with video camera rolling, and demanded that she identify "Under what portion of the Constitution is the government allowed to require a private or religious organization to pay for anything for free?"
Kathy muffed the punt, plain and simple. She should have pointed to the Commerce Clause, or the Elastic Clause, or just pointed out that there isn't a specific provision of the 1787-era Constitution allowing drone bombings of civilians, or regulation of the Internet, or 225 other things that have come up in the past 225 years. Instead, she said something about "we're not looking at the Constitution at that aspect" and its contextless FAIL went viral.
Not long thereafter, Limbaugh went on his own warpath against the birth canal, and all kinds of bizarre proposed regulations have been popping up like unwanted pregnancies all over the lej's of this country. The most infamous of them, introduced in several states, would require a transvaginal ultrasound prior to an abortion being performed. This is not your mother's (or our unborn daughter's) friendly viewing with cold cream and an oversized computer mouse. No, it's about as disgusting as it sounds. It deserves to be defeated (and thus far, it has been), and even more it deserves to be made fun of.
Which Doonesbury did, beginning yesterday. Not that anyone in the old-school newspaper world of Buffalo will see it; our paper has chosen to censor the whole week's strip, moving the entire collection to next Sunday's Viewpoints section.
The editor justifies the move on her paper-based blog with this spin of Trudeau's intentions:
His treatment of the touchy topic has caused some newspapers to pull the cartoons, instead substituting some older Doonesbury strips this week.
"For some papers, phrases such as 'slut' and '10-inch shaming wand' were a bit too hard to take," the Baltimore Sun reported. "The harshest bit of dialogue may be the day-four bit comparing a transvaginal sonogram to rape."
Like some other newspapers editors across the country, I believe the strips -- given that language as well as their depiction of a woman with her feet in stirrups in a gynecology clinic -- are clearly inappropriate for our comics pages, where readership is more likely to include children. They won't appear there this week.
Funny. As much as Limbaugh got his anal-zitted tighties in a wad over his own "slut" remarks, I don't recall any of his affiliates exercising prior restraint and moving his show to the late-night hours to protect what he calls the "churlins." But parents- who can take away a comics page a lot faster than they can turn off a radio dial- can't be trusted to explain issues to "children" who are, or will soon become, old enough for these issues to be relevant.
In response to her ending her piece with an invitation to read the weeklong series in Sunday's opinion section and "judge that for themselves," one rather noted commenting wag responded to the editor's view with this:
Oh, we'll have judged long before you offer this sad week-late sop to justify your censorship. We'll have read and discussed the comics online long before you get around to burying the issue in the opinion section.
Even more shameful than the censorship, though? The media's enabling of this Inquisition-style attack on a long-established right of women in this country, and on an even longer-established obligation of the government to keep religious hands out of its decision making. You've helped legitimize these attacks- and, in the case of the TVPs, as this first day's strip makes clear, that is what they are- by the far and religious right wings on more than half of our population.
I only wish other cartoonists would join in supporting Garry's first amendment rights. Beakman and Jax could teach the kids how to do a TVP in their own home! Prince Valiant could smite an entire Planned Parenthood clinic with his mighty sword! And the Catholic bishops could store all of the contraceptives in America on the grill next door to Moose and Molly's house- so Moose will jump the fence and steal them!
Yes, our Sunday paper still runs those three incredibly unfunny funnies in their comics sections. If they wanted to censor those, and permanently, I'd have no problem at all.
Meanwhile, since the Snooze is not alone in this censorship, I thought I'd link to the contraband in question; here's the first:
and, now, today's:
I'll probably add the rest of them at the end of the next days' entries.
Kathy muffed the punt, plain and simple. She should have pointed to the Commerce Clause, or the Elastic Clause, or just pointed out that there isn't a specific provision of the 1787-era Constitution allowing drone bombings of civilians, or regulation of the Internet, or 225 other things that have come up in the past 225 years. Instead, she said something about "we're not looking at the Constitution at that aspect" and its contextless FAIL went viral.
Not long thereafter, Limbaugh went on his own warpath against the birth canal, and all kinds of bizarre proposed regulations have been popping up like unwanted pregnancies all over the lej's of this country. The most infamous of them, introduced in several states, would require a transvaginal ultrasound prior to an abortion being performed. This is not your mother's (or our unborn daughter's) friendly viewing with cold cream and an oversized computer mouse. No, it's about as disgusting as it sounds. It deserves to be defeated (and thus far, it has been), and even more it deserves to be made fun of.
Which Doonesbury did, beginning yesterday. Not that anyone in the old-school newspaper world of Buffalo will see it; our paper has chosen to censor the whole week's strip, moving the entire collection to next Sunday's Viewpoints section.
The editor justifies the move on her paper-based blog with this spin of Trudeau's intentions:
His treatment of the touchy topic has caused some newspapers to pull the cartoons, instead substituting some older Doonesbury strips this week.
"For some papers, phrases such as 'slut' and '10-inch shaming wand' were a bit too hard to take," the Baltimore Sun reported. "The harshest bit of dialogue may be the day-four bit comparing a transvaginal sonogram to rape."
Like some other newspapers editors across the country, I believe the strips -- given that language as well as their depiction of a woman with her feet in stirrups in a gynecology clinic -- are clearly inappropriate for our comics pages, where readership is more likely to include children. They won't appear there this week.
Funny. As much as Limbaugh got his anal-zitted tighties in a wad over his own "slut" remarks, I don't recall any of his affiliates exercising prior restraint and moving his show to the late-night hours to protect what he calls the "churlins." But parents- who can take away a comics page a lot faster than they can turn off a radio dial- can't be trusted to explain issues to "children" who are, or will soon become, old enough for these issues to be relevant.
In response to her ending her piece with an invitation to read the weeklong series in Sunday's opinion section and "judge that for themselves," one rather noted commenting wag responded to the editor's view with this:
Oh, we'll have judged long before you offer this sad week-late sop to justify your censorship. We'll have read and discussed the comics online long before you get around to burying the issue in the opinion section.
Even more shameful than the censorship, though? The media's enabling of this Inquisition-style attack on a long-established right of women in this country, and on an even longer-established obligation of the government to keep religious hands out of its decision making. You've helped legitimize these attacks- and, in the case of the TVPs, as this first day's strip makes clear, that is what they are- by the far and religious right wings on more than half of our population.
I only wish other cartoonists would join in supporting Garry's first amendment rights. Beakman and Jax could teach the kids how to do a TVP in their own home! Prince Valiant could smite an entire Planned Parenthood clinic with his mighty sword! And the Catholic bishops could store all of the contraceptives in America on the grill next door to Moose and Molly's house- so Moose will jump the fence and steal them!
Yes, our Sunday paper still runs those three incredibly unfunny funnies in their comics sections. If they wanted to censor those, and permanently, I'd have no problem at all.
Meanwhile, since the Snooze is not alone in this censorship, I thought I'd link to the contraband in question; here's the first:
and, now, today's:
I'll probably add the rest of them at the end of the next days' entries.
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no subject
Date: 2012-03-14 01:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-13 05:47 pm (UTC)*Covers one eye*
Yarr...
no subject
Date: 2012-03-13 09:48 pm (UTC)