:: Running from the Thought Police ::

:: Monday, February 13, 2006 ::

Weekend Cartoon Roundup

Weekends are slow affairs, and the Daily Illini doesn't publish on them, so there's not too much on that front to comment on (yet), but in the blogosphere there's been a bit of activity.

First up to bat, Bill Dennis of Peoria Pundit went back on his pervious decision and has decided to put the Muhammad cartoons up on his blog anyway. He claims this is in response to the reaction that the DI got from the Chancellor, et al. Principled stand and all that.

Next up is Steve Donohue of A Republic, Madam, If You Can Keep It, who took exception to my ascribing malice to him in my previous post on the subject. Well, thanks to his clarifying the matter, I can safely move him from the maliciously wrong category to the "inadequate justification" category a certain pair of Daily Illini editors now inhabit:

And I credit the Daily Illini for running the pictures mostly because they themselves have no duty to do so. The DI would come under no criticism for not running the cartoons; only the New York Sun and Philadelphia Inquirer have among big-name American newspapers. But the editors stood out there and did something that took actual journalistic courage.

Remember kiddies, "because I can" is never a sufficient reason to do something that one knows will offend and hurt people.

Speaking of certain DI editors, the Daily Illini's Editor-in-Chief, Acton Gorton, sent me an email this weekend. Apparently, he thinks people actually read this blog. Other than praising me for speculating (gee, thanks) and making a distinction I was already well aware of (Kiyoshi only reported what happened, I'm the one who ascribed motives to said actions, thankyouverymuch), he did little to convince me that he was acting in good faith.

Moving along, Kathrin is a Scottish student studying abroad here at our lovely University of Illinois for a semester, and is blogging her experiences at the imaginitively-named Kathrin's Semester Abroad. Besides puzzling over American perceptions of Europe, she's done the local blogosphere the service of linking to an essay by Behrooz Ghamari, a professor of history and sociology here at UIUC, that links the cartoons to the Chief (although not directly by name). Comeon, no one should be surprised - the root issue for both is cultural insensitivity, it was only a matter of time before someone drew the connection. Frankly, I'm disappointed I didn't see it before.

Not to be left out is Junaid M. Afeef, a lawyer who runs a blog named An American Muslim Journal. Junaid takes Acton Gorton at his word and thus finds no problem with the Daily Illini printing the cartoons. While I, obviously, think less of Acton than Junaid does, his post is very instructive as to why printing the cartoons in the context of news and educating the public is a good thing.

Last, but not least, I've heard a bit of fun information about tomorrow's/today's issue of the Daily Illini. Editor in Chief Acton Gorton and Opinions Editor Chuck Prochaska caught a lot of heat from the rest of the newspaper's staff, and are a distinct minority on the Editorial Board. The opinions page is purported to be a rather interesting read, especially in light of my previous speculative post. I'll post my thoughts as soon as I read the paper.

UPDATE - Oops, missed one: If you think my post analyzing the situation was long, you should read Glock21's post on the subject. Actually, you should read it anyway, since his post is better than mine, though it doesn't do any finger pointing.

UPDATE, the second: The links to Katrin's Semester Abroad are down. Maybe it's a transient blogger thing, maybe she took the blog down. I don't know. I'll leave them there, in any case.

:: The Squire 12:32 AM :: email this post :: ::
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