The NYTimes....Liberal "rag" of record

[dude1394]

You go boys, knock that circulation down.....

http://sistertoldjah.com/archives/20...mmed-cartoons/

The NYT has published a photo of the virgin Mary “art” (you know, the “art” that depicts Mary with blotches of elephant dung all over it) in it’s arts section today, effectively signalling that their willingness to not offend Muslims does not extend to not offending Christians.

The headline on the piece?

A Startling New Lesson in the Power of Imagery

I think a revision of that headline to read A Startling New Lesson in the Power of Hypocrisy would be far more appropriate.

Here’s a refresher on the NYT’s policy regarding the ‘offensive’ Mohammed cartoons:

“On the one hand, we have abundant evidence that a significant number of people — some of them our readers — consider these cartoons deeply offensive and inflammatory,” Mr. Keller wrote. “Indeed, to publish them after seeing the outrage and violence across the Islamic world could be perceived as a particularly deliberate insult,” he said.

“On the other hand,” he continued, “we feel we can quite adequately convey the nature of the cartoons by describing them.” I quite agree. I doubt that the descriptions of the cartoons in Times articles over the past four days have left many readers with any major questions about why the drawings could offend Muslims or why some people might find humor in them.

In other words, descriptions of the cartoons are good enough to convey the image of what they look like. Strangely, this newfound policy not to offend did not extend to the virgin Mary in elephant dung “artwork” photo.

[MavKikiNYC]

Agree to an extent.

One of the most outrageous things I ever read in the NYT was their questioning the President's decision not to return to Washington D.C. immediately on September 11, 2001. They questioned his courage, his leadership, his decisiveness in the face of a very real threat.

My guess is that the NYT feels that if it published the cartoons its own offices would become a target for extremist yahoos. The NYT's reticence to champion freedom of the press in these circumstances is interesting; hypocritical on the one hand, but understandable on the other since they could realistically be putting innocent citizens at risk. Why poke a drunken, enraged, psychotic bear?

As for publication of a photograph of the painting of the Virgin Mary-- is publishing a picture of a work the same as exhibiting the work? Were people offended by the work itself because of the presence of elephant dung on a canvas depicting the Virgin Mary? Or by the idea itself of depicting a religious icon negatively? Would they be as offended by a written description of the painting, which verbally depicts the same idea?

I think the painting in question is poorly conceived "art", in poor taste, poorly expressing an unoriginal idea--not anything to take offense over though. Why give its creator and the work itself the platform of notoriety in the first place?

Actually, what the NYT is doing (intentionally or not) is highlighting the way people in our society react to the negative depiction of religious imagery with that of the way Islamo-facists react. People may be offended by the depcition, but their response does not reduce them to violence and destruction.

[chumdawg]

Not yet, anyway.

[Jeremiah]

...

[chumdawg]

Trust me, if American Christians had as big as stick as Mulsims do, they'd have weilded it mercilessly. If not more so.

In fact, they may already have.

[kg_veteran]

Originally Posted by chumdawg

Trust me, if American Christians had as big as stick as Mulsims do, they'd have weilded it mercilessly. If not more so.

In fact, they may already have.

What, exactly, do you mean by this?

[dude1394]

So Reuters decides to get clever and crop the photo of Dick Cheney to give a subliminal message.



Cheney decides to publish his own photo.

[Thespiralgoeson]

Originally Posted by chumdawg

Trust me, if American Christians had as big as stick as Mulsims do, they'd have weilded it mercilessly. If not more so.

In fact, they may already have.

Please... As Bill Maher said, "Their extremists strap bombs to their chests. Our extremists identify the gay teletubbie."