Posted on 10/02/2011 5:30:37 PM PDT by stolinsky
You might be interested in the e-mail I sent to the readers' representative (ombudsman) of the Los Angeles Times. The chances of my getting a reply are slim; the chances of the letter being printed are nil:
Some time ago you discontinued Mallard Fillmore, you only conservative cartoon. You no longer even occasionally print a Ramirez cartoon on the Op-Ed page. Fine, that is the Times’ decision. But you do carry “La Cucaracha,” a Latino-oriented cartoon. That’s OK, too. Its Mexican vibe is amusing. But it’s one thing to have a Mexican point of view. It’s quite another to have an anti-American point of view.
The Sept. 29 strip shows the protagonists texting the president, addressed as “1STBLKPREZ,” that he should be more aggressive because he is black—a derogatory racial stereotype. He replies that he is president of all the people. But the protagonists reply, “Even the jackass-Americans.”
The Oct. 1 strip shows a movie theater with Michele Bachmann in “Contagion” and Rick Perry in “Shark Night.”
So my questions are these:
1. Do the editors think it appropriate to move political cartoons from the Op-Ed page to the cartoon page, where they may be read by children—who can’t distinguish humor from indoctrination?
2. Do the editors think it appropriate for an American newspaper to refer to Americans as jackasses?
3. Donkeys are stubborn beasts of burden, fit to carry whatever their more intelligent owners decide they should carry. Is this the editors’ concept of the “common” people? Is that an appropriate attitude for editors—or anyone—in a republic?
4. Do the editors think it appropriate to refer to a candidate for president as a “contagion,” that is, something inhuman and dangerous, which must be wiped out; or as a mindless predator, which can be killed if it comes close?
5. Where does permissible humor end and Nazi-like hate speech begin? Recall that cartoons in Nazi papers depicted Jews as disease-bearing rats. And what do we do with rats? We call the exterminator. How are “contagion” and “shark” any different?
On a different note, their Black oriented strip (tossed the paper, can't remember the name) is pretty good.
I took a look at this ‘strip’. I’ll use ‘banal’ instead of a pejorative to describe it. I found it selective in viewpoint, juvenile in mindset and submental in artistry. In terms of wit and artistry, Mallard Fillmore blows it away.
Thank God we’ve got FR to vent on these landmarks to the demise of the MSM. I can see that the LA Times is now circling the drain.
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