Pearls Before Swine, Sunday Dec. 28
DD DEGG CO
Rex F. May
ddde...@aol.comnixspam wrote on 12/28/03 4:47 AM:
> Whoa,
> Pastis gets serious, very serious.
> http://www.comics.com/comics/pearls/index.html
>
And -extremely- one-sided.
Chris Clarke
<rex...@comcast.net> wrote:
Rex will now delineate the arguments in favor of blowing up schoolbuses.
Biffy the Elephant Shrew
>> Whoa,
>> Pastis gets serious, very serious.
>>
>And -extremely- one-sided.
And exactly which side is that?
Your pal,
Biffy the Elephant Shrew
http://members.aol.com/biffyshrew/biffy.html
"If substituting bugs for raisins in oatmeal cookies is wrong,
I don't want to be right."--Bucky Katt
Alexander D. Mitchell IV
> > > http://www.comics.com/comics/pearls/index.html
> > >
> > And -extremely- one-sided.
>
> Rex will now delineate the arguments in favor of blowing up schoolbuses.
No argument *for* blowing up buses (terrorists and suicide bombers generally
seem to favor regular transit buses, as a fair number of schoolbuses over
there come with armed chaperones)........
............... but a less "one-sided" response might include, for example,
"Israel responded to today's attack with a tank and rocket assault on a
suspected Hamas hideout, killing four Palestinians, leaving six families
homeless, and also by refortifying their walls to protect Jewish settlements
in Palestinian territory."
Hey, I'm just being fair here. Both sides do things to aggravate the other.
Chris Clarke
<LNER447...@bcpl.net> wrote:
To be sure, as long as "one-sided" stays in quotes. I'm no fan of the
Israeli government, and tend toward strong support for
self-determination for Palestinians, and everyone else for that matter.
The point is that there are real lives taken in the tit-for-tat
strategizing performed by both sides, and that Israeli and Palestinian
kids - who should be settling their internecine conflicts with
beyblades and marbles and imaginary light sabers - are paying the price
for the decisions of cynical old men playing an imaginary game of
chess.
I'd suggest that a good first step toward peace in the region would be
to put Sharon and Arafat onto a bus and blow IT up, but that would be
cynical as well, and I'm feeling pretty damned old this morning.
J.D. Baldwin
In the previous article, Alexander D. Mitchell IV
<LNER447...@bcpl.net> wrote:
> ............... but a less "one-sided" response might include, for
> example, "Israel responded to today's attack with a tank and rocket
> assault on a suspected Hamas hideout, killing four Palestinians,
> leaving six families homeless, and also by refortifying their walls
> to protect Jewish settlements in Palestinian territory."
>
> Hey, I'm just being fair here. Both sides do things to aggravate
> the other.
And you really don't see a strong moral distinction to be drawn
between a "side" that deliberately targets schoolbuses and a "side"
that conducts armed reprisals that carry the possibility (and
*extremely* rarely, the actuality) of killing children along with
them?
Other than that one particularly ugly episode in the current prime
minister's past (and, yeah, it's a really, really bad one), I am not
aware of any case in which the Israeli "side" has, even by proxy,
deliberately tried to blow up little kids.
As for the comics angle, I wonder how often Pastis thinks he can get
away with this kind of thing?
--
_+_ From the catapult of |If anyone disagrees with any statement I make, I
_|70|___:)=}- J.D. Baldwin |am quite prepared not only to retract it, but also
\ / bal...@panix.com|to deny under oath that I ever made it. -T. Lehrer
***~~~~-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Alexander D. Mitchell IV
> between a "side" that deliberately targets schoolbuses and a "side"
> that conducts armed reprisals that carry the possibility (and
> *extremely* rarely, the actuality) of killing children along with
> them?
>
> Other than that one particularly ugly episode in the current prime
> minister's past (and, yeah, it's a really, really bad one), I am not
> aware of any case in which the Israeli "side" has, even by proxy,
> deliberately tried to blow up little kids.
*Who the hell said anything about "moral"? I'm just playing "devil's
advocate" and trying to present more than one side here. If I *really*
wanted to be even-handed around this topic, I'd have to dredge up some
reporting from al-Jazeera saying something like "Armed Israeli settlers,
backed by the Israeli military, stole 75 more acres of farmland from
Palestinians today, forcing more Arab farmers off their family farms and
oppressing Arabs further under the guise of 'security', and erecting more
concrete barriers to secure their colonies, furthering the Zionist campaign
to take more of Palestine away from its people........"
You will have to concede that the made-up screed above is exactly as
"even-handed" as what appeared in "Pearls Before Swine" today.
>
> As for the comics angle, I wonder how often Pastis thinks he can get
> away with this kind of thing?
If I want this rubbish (either side), I'll go read Ha'aretz or the Jewish
Forward or the editorial pages of the WSJ or other American papers, thanks.
My respect for this otherwise-funny strip just went in the gutter.
GI Trekker
the comics page, and without in any way minimizing the real-life tragedies that
are reflected by this strip, I can't help but have the reaction, "And your
point IS....?"
I mean, was anything really accomplished here? Does Pastis intend to go over to
the Middle East and try to arrange a peace treaty? Does he expect one of us to?
Was his intention just to depress us? Or does he have some miraculous solution
to this multi-thousand-year-old problem that he intends to divulge in the days
ahead?
Pastis does nothing more than restate a problem that we all know exists,
regardless of which side, if either, one might be inclined to take. Doing that
accomplishes ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
I'm not saying I have the answer, either. I don't. Neither do I have as public
a forum as a nationally syndicated comic strip. But if I did, and intended to
devote an entire Sunday strip to a lengthy diatribe about a major problem of
this magnitude, you can believe that I'd have something more to offer than
this.
Bali
> You know, I read a strip like this, and apart from feeling it doesn't belong on
> the comics page, and without in any way minimizing the real-life tragedies that
> are reflected by this strip, I can't help but have the reaction, "And your
> point IS....?"
The point is to humanize the people who are being killed. It's
on thing to think about numbers and statistics, and and another
to think about the actual lives being lost. I am an Israel
supporter, but I would have felt the same way had this been about
Palestinian children.
Bali
--
"When people like us are so depressed we
can't fake it - that's a problem. You
need to get back to where you can fake it."
- my concerned friend, C.A.
Rex F. May
gitr...@aol.com wrote on 12/28/03 4:14 PM:
> You know, I read a strip like this, and apart from feeling it doesn't belong
> on
> the comics page, and without in any way minimizing the real-life tragedies
> that
> are reflected by this strip, I can't help but have the reaction, "And your
> point IS....?"
>
> I mean, was anything really accomplished here? Does Pastis intend to go over
> to
> the Middle East and try to arrange a peace treaty? Does he expect one of us
> to?
> Was his intention just to depress us? Or does he have some miraculous solution
> to this multi-thousand-year-old problem that he intends to divulge in the days
> ahead?
Hardly. He's probably trying to make us all think of the Israelis as
innocent victims so we'll advocate sending them a few billion more to blow
Palestinians up with.
Rex F. May
Shrew at biffy...@aol.commie.rats wrote on 12/28/03 8:47 AM:
> Rex F. May wrote:
>
>>> Whoa,
>>> Pastis gets serious, very serious.
>>>
>> And -extremely- one-sided.
>
> And exactly which side is that?
>
The Israeli side.
Rex F. May
LNER447...@bcpl.net wrote on 12/28/03 9:03 AM:
Ah, but just being fair isn't allowed in some circles:)
Rex F. May
LNER447...@bcpl.net wrote on 12/28/03 9:03 AM:
>>>> Pastis gets serious, very serious.
You know, that's exactly what the strip should have included... with a
segue like "...And in other news..."
OTOH, if it had included something like that, the strip would have been
replaced by a 'Family Circus Retrospective' and we would never have seen the
strip again.
GI Trekker
on thing to think about numbers and statistics, and and another
to think about the actual lives being lost.>>
Obviously these are human beings. Human beings are being killed on both sides
of this. Human beings were killed when the World Trade Center was destroyed by
terrorists (whom I have a very difficult time seeing as human, I might add).
These children did nothing to warrant such an attack. Neither did the people in
the World Trade Center. Neither do any other victims of random acts of mass
violence. Hell, for that matter, neither did the victims who perished in the
earthquakes in Iran a couple of days ago.
Admitting that still does nothing to SOLVE THE PROBLEM! Granted, you can't do
much about an earthquake. But one pleading comic strip isn't going to do much
to end thousands of years of hatred, either.
Rex F. May
12/28/03 8:51 PM:
> In article <BC14D192.8259%rex...@comcast.net>,
> Rex F. May <rex...@comcast.net> wrote:
> : in article 20031228104748...@mb-m15.aol.com, Biffy the Elephant
> Seems more like the human side to me.
>
> You should try being human sometime. Just, for once in your life,
> think of other people as people, instead of statistical figures or
> maybe sources of income or whatever.
>
> You don't have to agree with someone in order to find the
> slaughter of their children disgusting.
>
You're missing the point. He shows the Israelis as human, but omits
referring to the Palestinian suffering in any way whatsoever.
Kevin J. Maroney
Baldwin) wrote:
>And you really don't see a strong moral distinction to be drawn
>between a "side" that deliberately targets schoolbuses and a "side"
>that conducts armed reprisals that carry the possibility (and
>*extremely* rarely, the actuality) of killing children along with
>them?
This *so* doesn't belong on rec.arts.comics.strips:
The International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism is an Israeli
group which has gone through a lot of records to try to carefully
count the casualties in the second Intifada. Their numbers do not fit
a propaganda narrative for either side, so I tend to view them as
somewhat reliable. A summary of their casualty data is here:
<http://www.ict.org.il/casualties_project/stats_page.cfm>
In this summary of casualties between 27 September 2000 and 16
December 2003, we find a breakout for non-combatants below the age of
12.
Israeli forces killed 74 such Palestinians, 2.9% of the total
Israeli casualties
Palestinian terrorists killed 36 such Israelis, 4.1% of the total
Palestinian casualties
While there is a difference in frequency, it's not a complete
difference of kind. If the Palestinians are "deliberately target[ing]
schoolbuses", they're doing a really bad job of hitting them, killing
only slightly more children than the IDF does. In fact, I'm not aware
of the Palestinians hitting any *school* buses; what they frequently
hit are *buses*, which are a very popular method of civilian and
military transportation in Israel.
I don't want to draw a moral equivalence between the actions of the
warring parties here. If I believed in Hell, I'd believe that
Palestinian suicide bombers were there without exception while
believing the same is true only of a small percentage of the Israel
Defense Force. The IDF generally speaking does not *deliberately*
target non-combatants, but only kills them negligently; the
Palestinian terrorists generally *do* target non-combatants. But it's
not true that the Palestinians are the only side condemnable for the
killing of children.
ObComicStrips: That said, I thought that Patsis's cartoon was quite
good.
--
Kevin J. Maroney | k...@panix.com
Games are my entire waking life.
jack
covers news, as opposed to the specific news item this strip uses in
its commentary.
Chris Clarke
<rex...@comcast.net> wrote:
> in article 1k4osb.v6f.ln@phb, Dave Brown at dagb...@LART.ca wrote on
> 12/28/03 8:51 PM:
>
> > Seems more like the human side to me.
> >
> > You should try being human sometime. Just, for once in your life,
> > think of other people as people, instead of statistical figures or
> > maybe sources of income or whatever.
> >
> > You don't have to agree with someone in order to find the
> > slaughter of their children disgusting.
> >
> You're missing the point. He shows the Israelis as human, but omits
> referring to the Palestinian suffering in any way whatsoever.
No, Rex, it's you - quelle surprise! - who is missing the point.
"Oh, it's one-sided to mourn innocent children because the issue is
more complex than can be portrayed in a comic strip with a talking pig
and rat!"
People like you categorize war crimes based on the ethnicity of the
perpetrator, which legitimizes the continuance of said war crimes,
which ensures that more kids will die - it doesn't matter whether it's
by way of backpack bomb or tank.
Both sides have legitimate grievances. Both sides have committed
heinous crimes. Both sides are largely made up of people who would
rather there not be two sides, but who are rather powerless to stop the
actions of a few men on both sides who stand to gain from perpetuation
of the conflict.
Once again, as Dave said so appropriately: try being human. To assume
those kids are Israelis is probably unjustified - do they keep
Palestinian kids off the buses now? But to think of them as Israeli
children rather than children is to accede to the hatred, even to
contribute in a small way to the next round of murders.
Of course, they're not your kids, and as such someone else's property,
and so as a good Libernightmarian it's beyond your ability to get that
far. Forget I said anything.
Mike Marshall
>> >
>> > Rex will now delineate the arguments in favor of blowing up schoolbuses.
Y'all are missing what seems to me to be the whole point of the strip.
No pro/anti israel politics. The "real" news would just say
"six children died" and then move on to the next story. Pastis
imagines a world where, when children die, everyone realizes
the enormity of how much of a disaster such a thing is.
-Mike
Mike Peterson
"Mike Marshall" <hub...@hubcap.clemson.edu> wrote in message
news:bspo7t$5f5$1...@hubcap.clemson.edu...
I think that's a pretty reasonable parsing of the strip.
And, if it's correct, then I wish he had chosen bombers from Elbonia or West
Slobbovia instead of singling out a particular existing group -- because,
while it may seem more "real" to use actual places, it gets you exactly into
this kind of discussion -- why single out this particular group? Which leads
to charges that (I hope) are not germane to what he wanted to say, but are
inevitable when one group is singled out.
Mike Peterson
Glens Falls NY
J.D. Baldwin
> > between a "side" that deliberately targets schoolbuses and a "side"
> > that conducts armed reprisals that carry the possibility (and
> > *extremely* rarely, the actuality) of killing children along with
> > them?
> >
> > Other than that one particularly ugly episode in the current prime
> > minister's past (and, yeah, it's a really, really bad one), I am not
> > aware of any case in which the Israeli "side" has, even by proxy,
> > deliberately tried to blow up little kids.
>
> *Who the hell said anything about "moral"?
I think the only meaningful way to look at this is as a moral issue.
> I'm just playing "devil's advocate"
Literally, I think.
> and trying to present more than one side here.
So, the pro-murder-of-children "side" deserves equal time with the
anti?
> If I *really* wanted to be even-handed around this topic, I'd have
> to dredge up some reporting from al-Jazeera saying something like
> "Armed Israeli settlers, backed by the Israeli military, stole 75
> more acres of farmland from Palestinians today, forcing more Arab
> farmers off their family farms and oppressing Arabs further under
> the guise of 'security', and erecting more concrete barriers to
> secure their colonies, furthering the Zionist campaign to take more
> of Palestine away from its people........"
>
> You will have to concede that the made-up screed above is exactly as
> "even-handed" as what appeared in "Pearls Before Swine" today.
Not even close. The PBS strip focused on the human cost of the murder
of children; it didn't take a position of any kind on -- or even
mention in any way -- the political spin of the motivation for murder.
I'm not saying it was apolitical, just that the above is hardly a fair
"flip-side" to the strip. A fair flip-side would have been something
along the lines of "Today, Israelis blew up a busload of Arab children
..." and then continued in pretty much the same way. Oh, but wait:
Israelis don't target Arab children. Just the other way around.
I agree that "both sides" do lots of horrible things, and I have some
big problems with the way the Israeli state handles its problems, but
if you're going to focus *solely* on the issue of the targeting of
innocents, then yes, one side has a lot more blood on its hands than
the other.
J.D. Baldwin
In the previous article, Kevin J. Maroney <k...@panix.com> wrote:
> In this summary of casualties between 27 September 2000 and 16
> December 2003, we find a breakout for non-combatants below the age of
> 12.
>
> Israeli forces killed 74 such Palestinians, 2.9% of the total
> Israeli casualties
>
> Palestinian terrorists killed 36 such Israelis, 4.1% of the total
> Palestinian casualties
>
> While there is a difference in frequency, it's not a complete
> difference of kind.
It's a complete difference of kind because of the intent. If you
shoot someone coming at you with a knife, and the bullet goes through
him and into a baby on the other side of the street, that's a terribly
sad event, but you didn't murder that child. If you set off a bomb in
front of a school and blow up a bunch of little kids, that's kind of
in a different category of moral responsibility.
How many children did the IDF *deliberately* kill during that period?
[I am aware that you noted the distinction later in your post; I just
wanted to underscore it.]
As for the notion that these are a few crazy, rogue elements and that
the whole "Palestinian" movement, or the leadership of the Arab world
in general, shouldn't be held to account as condoning these murders, I
have just one question: is the "bounty" paid to the families of
suicide bombers cancelled if there are children among the casualties?
> If the Palestinians are "deliberately target[ing] schoolbuses",
> they're doing a really bad job of hitting them, killing only
> slightly more children than the IDF does. In fact, I'm not aware of
> the Palestinians hitting any *school* buses; what they frequently
> hit are *buses*, which are a very popular method of civilian and
> military transportation in Israel.
A search of the database on the ict.org.il site should come up with a
couple of school bus attacks that you have forgotten, though I could
only find ones that maimed little kids, none that killed any.
(Israeli law requires that school children travel in armored buses,
which might have something to do with that.)
GI Trekker
No pro/anti israel politics. The "real" news would just say
"six children died" and then move on to the next story. Pastis
imagines a world where, when children die, everyone realizes
the enormity of how much of a disaster such a thing is.>>
I tend to agree with the subsequent posting that if Pastis had picked a
fictional location for something like this, it would've conveyed THIS message
more effectively. as it stands, though, he's inevitably making a commentary
that seems to be choosing sides and certainly has political overtones.
As for children dying -- happens every day. Is it a tragedy? Of course it is.
But it's hardly exclusive to bombings. How many children die from starvation in
Africa every day? How many innocent babies are murdered in this country through
abortion (and I know what sort of potential debate THAT remark could start, but
I won't be silent on the subject any more than Pastis was on his)?
I return to my original point, that pointing ANY of this out, fictional locales
or not, however he meant it to be interpreted or not, in as public a forum as a
nationally syndicated comic strip accomplishes NOTHING unless a solution is
offered. And I see none.
Davrash Sani
>those kids are Israelis is probably unjustified
Except that the first panel says "Six Israeli children..."
As an impartial observer, this response to Rex May's post is uncalled
for. And you guys can scoff at any attempts at moral equivalency as
much as you like, but you're scoffing at a straw-man argument. The
Muslim world doesn't give a damn about moral equivalency because they
don't care about the intentions of those doing the killing. They don't
care whether Israelis or Americans are bombing in the name of freedom
security and Democracy. They only care that the RESULTS (dead
children) are the same.
The Israelis and the US Army (which has adopted their tactics,
surrounding towns in barbed wire, destroying whole buildings with
people inside) are getting the same results as suicide bombers: Dead
children and an enemy with strengthened resolve. The US Marines have a
better tactic for dealing with urban pacification: gain the trust of
the natives. Don't blow up their houses or their neighbor's houses.
Don't walk around shooting them or even screaming at them unless they
actually fire first.
This kind of commentary has a place on the funny pages, but not in
this strip. There are already plenty of political strips today. I like
Pearls but this stuff just isn't his forte. Even Magruder does a
better job at political satire (because he does't usually forget the
"satire" part). Pearls should stick to what it does best - being
funny.
As a matter of fact this was a little hypocritical since just last
week he had a cartoon lamenting the fact that there aren't enough
cartoons in the paper that are just plain funny.
Alexander D. Mitchell IV
>
> No pro/anti israel politics. The "real" news would just say
> "six children died" and then move on to the next story. Pastis
> imagines a world where, when children die, everyone realizes
> the enormity of how much of a disaster such a thing is.
And he's off in la-la land. As if we care that much about genocide in
Africa or Uzbekistan. We don't, admit it. To be brutally honest, if Arab
children were to die in an attack, it would get miniscule coverage, if any.
If we're going to be "human" about it, let's cover all Middle Eastern deaths
equally. Children, soldiers, terrorists, bus drivers, shopkeepers, heads of
state, terrorist leaders. After all, doesn't even Yasser Arafat also have a
family and a point of view? And while we're at it, go global--how about the
deaths of AIDS victims in Africa, or abuse victims in America, or starvation
victims in North Korea? All equally innocent.
In today's newspaper, a story on an Israeli army veteran shot by Israeli
troops breaking up a protest:
http://www.sunspot.net/news/nationworld/bal-te.israel29dec29,0,3206921.story?coll=bal-home-headlines
"An editorial in Yediot Ahronot said: 'If a Palestinian had been shot, it
probably would not have got even one line in the newspaper.'"
Rick Stromoski
ccl...@faultline.org wrote on 12/29/03 9:28 AM:
> But to think of them as Israeli
> children rather than children is to accede to the hatred, even to
> contribute in a small way to the next round of murders.
Why not think of them as Isreali children? Pastis did so in his strip...
Americans do not think twice about the hundreds if not thousands of Iraqi
children we've killed and maimed this past year. We think of them as
collateral damage in the fight for Democracy and freedom.
Chris Clarke
<gitr...@aol.com> wrote:
> I return to my original point, that pointing ANY of this out,
> fictional locales or not, however he meant it to be interpreted or
> not, in as public a forum as a nationally syndicated comic strip
> accomplishes NOTHING unless a solution is offered.
So you're going to stop posting to Usenet?
Chris Clarke
Sani <davr...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >Once again, as Dave said so appropriately: try being human. To assume
> >those kids are Israelis is probably unjustified
>
> Except that the first panel says "Six Israeli children..."
Forgot about that.
> As an impartial observer, this response to Rex May's post is uncalled
> for. And you guys can scoff at any attempts at moral equivalency as
> much as you like,
You might work on your ability to read for content sometime.
Chris Clarke
<soup...@cox.net> wrote:
Exactly the point I was trying to make. They're CHILDREN. They're not
Iraqis or Israelis or Hutus or Pashtuns or infidels. Once you apply
that ethnic adjective, you allow people who mistrust Iraqis or Israelis
or Hutus to begin to tune out.
GI Trekker
> fictional locales or not, however he meant it to be interpreted or
> not, in as public a forum as a nationally syndicated comic strip
> accomplishes NOTHING unless a solution is offered.
So you're going to stop posting to Usenet?>>
I knew that was going to come up at some point. If you'll read back, you'll
notice that I said earlier that I didn't have the answers to the problems
Pastis seems to be citing. And I think Usenet compared to a nationally
syndicated comic strip, especially with regard to this newsgroup that seems to
have maybe a dozen regular participants, is hardly a fair comparison. I suppose
what I'd like to see, ultimately, is for Pastis to explain what point HE was
trying to make, rather than all of the speculation that's been tossed around in
here, and furthermore, what he expects his readers or, for that matter,
himself, to DO about it.
projo
> Hmm. I interpreted the strip as a commentary on MEDIA, and the way it
> covers news, as opposed to the specific news item this strip uses in
> its commentary.
you moral relativists...
sane human beings are capable of distinguishing good from evil, just
like every other sane human being. criminal law states, you are
criminally insane if you can't distinguish between good and evil.
unless you are crazy, you should be able to tell the difference.
this story DOES have two sides - good and evil--even a child could
figure that out.
projo
well said, chris.
Rick Stromoski
pr...@highstream.net wrote on 12/29/03 3:52 PM:
> this story DOES have two sides - good and evil--even a child could
> figure that out.
Practiced by both sides...
steve miller
media were to report this - a bus full of Israeli schoolchildren blown up by
terrorists - in this way, we wouldn't know how to handle it. We would go off
our rockers to have our world views so confronted.
Joel Rosenberg
> In article <BC1445AE.81A8%rex...@comcast.net>, Rex F. May
> <rex...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> > in article 20031228064716...@mb-m20.aol.com, DD DEGG CO at
> > ddde...@aol.comnixspam wrote on 12/28/03 4:47 AM:
> >
> > > Whoa,
> > > Pastis gets serious, very serious.
> > >
> > And -extremely- one-sided.
>
> Rex will now delineate the arguments in favor of blowing up schoolbuses.
Nah. He'll try to draw some sort of moral equivalence between
civilians being killed while a legitimate military is trying to kill
terrorists hiding among them, and the deliberate targetting of
schoolchildren and civilians.
Maybe he could do a cartoon on that; I'm sure it'd be published in The
Arab News, or on David Irving's website, or by IndyMedia.
Van Halen - Black And Blue.mp3
Most especially, take note how the precise use of media language is copied.
The bus wasn't bombed by anyone, it just exploded on its own.
Bus bombs are holy blameless creatures.
Davrash Sani
Apparently my inability to read for content is showing up again, as I
have no idea what you mean by that.
Joel Rosenberg
> > example, "Israel responded to today's attack with a tank and rocket
> > assault on a suspected Hamas hideout, killing four Palestinians,
> > leaving six families homeless, and also by refortifying their walls
> > to protect Jewish settlements in Palestinian territory."
> >
> > Hey, I'm just being fair here. Both sides do things to aggravate
> > the other.
>
> between a "side" that deliberately targets schoolbuses and a "side"
> that conducts armed reprisals that carry the possibility (and
> *extremely* rarely, the actuality) of killing children along with
> them?
>
> Other than that one particularly ugly episode in the current prime
> minister's past (and, yeah, it's a really, really bad one),
Yup. It's pretty bad. When Sharon was Defense Minister, he didn't
stop a relatively large Lebanese arab-on-arab massacre quickly enough.
It wasn't the worst Lebanese arab-on-arab massacre that year, but it
was the one that the IDF was in a position to stop, and did stop, just
not quickly enough.
GI Trekker
And what world views would that be? That there's a lot of nuts in this world
that think nothing of blowing up a busload of kids? You find something like
that SURPRISING? I don't. Sickening, yes, but not surprising.
GI Trekker
criminally insane if you can't distinguish between good and evil.>>
You know, it's a shame this isn't enforced better. It'd shut up a lot of
freaks.
Van Halen - Black And Blue.mp3
> in article 1k4osb.v6f.ln@phb, Dave Brown at dagb...@LART.ca wrote on
> > : > And exactly which side is that?
> > : >
> > : The Israeli side.
> > Seems more like the human side to me.
> >
> > You should try being human sometime. Just, for once in your life,
> > think of other people as people, instead of statistical figures or
> > maybe sources of income or whatever.
> >
> > You don't have to agree with someone in order to find the
> > slaughter of their children disgusting.
> >
> You're missing the point. He shows the Israelis as human, but omits
> referring to the Palestinian suffering in any way whatsoever.
I don't think the palestinian suffered much before (or after) he triggered
his bomb.
Van Halen - Black And Blue.mp3
> I am an Israel supporter, but I would have felt the same way had this
been about
> Palestinian children.
I wouldn't. If you know anything about palestinians you know feeling
sympathy for them in any way is impossible.
Joel Rosenberg
Kevin's ability to do a google search seems to have an idiosyncratic
and opportunistic set of red lights.
Mike Peterson
"Van Halen - Black And Blue.mp3" <hu...@comcorst.klax> wrote in message
news:oZudndGogpZ...@comcast.com...
And if you knew anything about history or people or life, you'd know that
what you just said is the kind of attitude that allows people to blow up
schoolbuses without feeling remorse.
Mike Peterson
"Van Halen - Black And Blue.mp3" <hu...@comcorst.klax> wrote in message
> Bus bombs are holy blameless creatures.
Squeaking under the wire as a nominee for typo of the year ...
Mike Peterson
"Chris Clarke" <ccl...@faultline.org> wrote in message
news:291220031156224184%ccl...@faultline.org...
Um ... maybe he forgot, too.
I find myself siding with the Trekster and the Rexter on this one. It comes
across as one-sided, and the number of posts in which people are saying, "So
what? He picked the right side!" is not exactly a refutation of Rex's point.
I would disagree with GIT only in that I think raising consciousness is very
much a positive action -- and if Pastis meant to persuade more people that
the Palestinians are subhuman and deserve to have their entire country
cordoned off, their economy destroyed and their houses blown up, well ...
okay, I don't think that was his intention at all. So I agree with GIT that
the cartoon was non-productive.
As I said in an earlier post, Pastis should not have singled out one
specific group for the cartoon. Why not the Tamil Tigers? Why not the ELA?
UDR? INLA? Shining Path? Let's play alphabet soup until we've pissed
everybody off.
The vehemence of this debate is sufficient to show the problem -- Unless
Pastis truly intended his strip as, specifically, an attack on the
Palestinians -- that is, on Hamas or whoever -- he has totally derailed his
discussion into an unproductive arena. If he was riffing on news coverage,
or terrorism in general, he missed by getting too specific.
I think he's got the power and the platform to say some valuable things. But
... this was a misfire. He'll do better in the future.
Meanwhile, I want it on the record that I agreed with Rex and GIT on this
one -- because I'm less upset with Pastis missing the mark than I am with
the feeling that sometimes, in agreeing and disagreeing, we tend to read the
"from" line instead of the post itself.
GI Trekker
If I may say, nice alliteration.
<<I would disagree with GIT only in that I think raising consciousness is very
much a positive action>>
Assuming it RESULTS in positive action. But so far all it seems to have done
that I'm aware of is started one of the lengthier debates this newsgroup has
seen in a while. I doubt that's going to change the world. I'm not saying
that's how it ought to be, but that's how it seems to be. A comic strip isn't
going to change the world anymore than a newsgroup debate is.
Mike Peterson
"Alexander D. Mitchell IV" <LNER447...@bcpl.net> wrote in message
news:Ge%Hb.12$p_3....@news.abs.net...
Wow. I had flashbacks to the moment when Margaret Thatcher's thugs used
rubber bullets against rioters in Brixton, and the response of the British
was, "Hey! Those are for use on the Irish, not on our lot!"
You'll notice Maggie isn't living at 10 Downing Street anymore, and, while
Ireland is hardly at peace, it's a lot better than when she was running
things. Here's the difference, though: Jobs.
Jobs.
Jobs.
Give people something to do and they'll go do it, instead of standing around
tossing bricks at each other.
This ain't such a goddam impossible problem.
If you take unemployment, poverty, humiliation and degradation out of the
mix, it really is amazing how quickly regular folks quit identifying with
what in Ireland was called the "hard men."
Meanwhile, here's a little story: When they were searching for the Yorkshire
Ripper, a man stepped forward to say that he'd served in Northern Ireland
with a psychotic murderer from that part of England, who had killed a farmer
and his son in Fermanagh, for nothing. He suspected maybe this homicidal
lunatic could have mustered out and become the Yorkshire Ripper.
But it wasn't the case. And the British Army declined to investigate those
deaths in Fermanagh "for the good of the service."
I'm not saying Israel should listen up.
I'm just saying the article gave me some flashbacks.
Mike Peterson
Glens Falls, NY
steve miller
attention about blowing up schoolchildren on busses? Pastis' view SEEMS to
be that - as pearls before swine - we cannot appreciate the story behind
this story - that kids going to school in their innocence are blown up by
terrorists who target them not only for their innocence, but also for the
shock and grief their parents and the civilized world will feel.
Pastis is pointing out that the obvious story here is often overlooked in
the meticulous desire to "fairly present both sides of the discussion."
Rick Stromoski
davr...@yahoo.com wrote on 12/29/03 5:13 PM:
Where have you gone Davrash sani? A nation turns it's lonely eyes to you...
Scott P
wrote:
>in article 1k4osb.v6f.ln@phb, Dave Brown at dagb...@LART.ca wrote on
>12/28/03 8:51 PM:
>
>> In article <BC14D192.8259%rex...@comcast.net>,
>> Rex F. May <rex...@comcast.net> wrote:
>> : in article 20031228104748...@mb-m15.aol.com, Biffy the Elephant
>> : Shrew at biffy...@aol.commie.rats wrote on 12/28/03 8:47 AM:
>> : > Rex F. May wrote:
>> : >
>> : >>> Whoa,
>> : >>> Pastis gets serious, very serious.
>> : >>>
>> : >> And -extremely- one-sided.
>> : >
>> : > And exactly which side is that?
>> : >
>> : The Israeli side.
>>
>> Seems more like the human side to me.
>>
>> You should try being human sometime. Just, for once in your life,
>> think of other people as people, instead of statistical figures or
>> maybe sources of income or whatever.
>>
>> You don't have to agree with someone in order to find the
>> slaughter of their children disgusting.
>>
>You're missing the point. He shows the Israelis as human, but omits
>referring to the Palestinian suffering in any way whatsoever.
He wasn't presenting a debate on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he
was making a point about TV news and used that as a tool. I found it
affecting myself.
Scott
Eva Whitley
<snipped>
>
> As for children dying -- happens every day. Is it a tragedy? Of course it is.
> But it's hardly exclusive to bombings. How many children die from starvation in
> Africa every day? How many innocent babies are murdered in this country through
> abortion (and I know what sort of potential debate THAT remark could start, but
> I won't be silent on the subject any more than Pastis was on his)?
>
<snipped>
Well, you're entitled to your opinion, but they're not babies to some
of us. In this case, a difference in degree is a difference in kind.
But neither of our opinions matter here, because neither one of us has
a uterus. --Eva Whitley
Rex F. May
12/28/03 9:51 PM:
> In article <BC14D168.8258%rex...@comcast.net>,
> Rex F. May <rex...@comcast.net> wrote:
> : Hardly. He's probably trying to make us all think of the
> : Israelis as innocent victims so we'll advocate sending them a
> : few billion more to blow Palestinians up with.
>
> No, he's trying to make us all think of the innocent victims as innocent
> victims.
>
> Or do you honestly believe it's alright to kill children if
> they're the children of someone you perceive to be an enemy?
No. Do you?
Sydney Assbasket
>of this. Human beings were killed when the World Trade Center was destroyed
>by
>terrorists (whom I have a very difficult time seeing as human, I might add).
>These children did nothing to warrant such an attack. Neither did the people
>in
>the World Trade Center. Neither do any other victims of random acts of mass
>violence. Hell, for that matter, neither did the victims who perished in the
>earthquakes in Iran a couple of days ago.
>
>Admitting that still does nothing to SOLVE THE PROBLEM! Granted, you can't do
>much about an earthquake. But one pleading comic strip isn't going to do much
>to end thousands of years of hatred, either.
I highly doubt Pastis was under the impression that his strip would end
thousands of years of hatred. IMO he was trying to merely bring some awareness
of the fact that children killed in such hatred are innocent people.
Remove "moc" to reply.
When toy shopping, look for the Joe Mantegna Seal Of Safety. It's your only
guarantee that the toy has been deemed safe by Joe Mantegna.
Rex F. May
at jo...@ellegon.com wrote on 12/29/03 3:11 PM:
The namecalling starts right on schedule.
Rex F. May
Everybody catch that? Sharon is a saint, and Arabs are subhuman. Just
repeat it over and over and over.....
Biffy the Elephant Shrew
>And, if it's correct, then I wish he had chosen bombers from Elbonia or West
>Slobbovia instead of singling out a particular existing group -- because,
>while it may seem more "real" to use actual places, it gets you exactly into
>this kind of discussion -- why single out this particular group? Which leads
>to charges that (I hope) are not germane to what he wanted to say, but are
>inevitable when one group is singled out.
There's a very good reason why Pastis specifically referred to events
in Jerusalem. You may have noticed that there was a bit of a
celebration last week having to do with a former resident of that
city. Pastis's strip on the Sunday closest to December 25 was
a comment on how tragically the ideals of peace on earth and good will
towards men espoused in that celebration have gone awry.
Saying that people died in Lower Slobovia at Christmas wouldn't
have had quite the same meaning.
Your pal,
Biffy the Elephant Shrew
http://members.aol.com/biffyshrew/biffy.html
"If substituting bugs for raisins in oatmeal cookies is wrong,
I don't want to be right."--Bucky Katt
Chris Clarke
the "To," "Cc," and "Newsgroups" headers for details. ]]
In article <d7432f49.03122...@posting.google.com>, Davrash
Sani <davr...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Apparently my inability to read for content is showing up again, as I
> have no idea what you mean by that.
I'm sorry, Davrash: that was way harsher than you deserved, and less
content-filled than it should have been.
I'm just irritated and saddened at this thread, and I took some of that
out on you.
Pastis - whether this was his intent or not - provided a concise
reminder of the reality of warfare, whether that warfare is
conventional or terroristic or whatever. That reality is masked by
politics. The politics - the ethnic labels, the armchair strategizing,
the "you started it! No, you started it!" - allows us to accept the
horror, to incorporate it into our worldview as collateral damage.
What saddens me is the speed with which that political gloss infected
this thread. OK fine, let's assume for the sake of argument that Pastis
is a rabid Zionist, and that the state of Israel is inherently evil,
and that deaths on the Palestinian side outweigh those on the Israeli
side by a factor of twelve. How would any of that make Pastis' comment
less true?
And I disagree with the idea that Pastis should have picked a less
controversial setting to make his point. Sure, he could have picked a
conflict that Americans don't care about, like just about any war in
Africa. But I think the dvision among his audience on this issue made
it very important that he use this very issue.
Anyway, Davrash, I'm sorry for my snarkiness.
GI Trekker
thousands of years of hatred. IMO he was trying to merely bring some awareness
of the fact that children killed in such hatred are innocent people.>>
Which is pretty much stating the obvious. Which makes me believe there had to
be more to it than that.
Antonio E. Gonzalez
>Date: 12/29/2003 9:27 PM Pacific Standard Time
>Message-id: <20031230002731...@mb-m22.aol.com>
There are some people for whom "the obvious" isn't so clear . . .
- Vaughner
- "Well, thanks to the internet, I'm bored with sex."
- Philip J. Fry, "Futurama"
Joel Rosenberg
Everybody catch that? No denial that the massacre in question was not
even the worst arab-on-arab massacre in Lebanon *that year*, nor that
the IDF stopped it -- just the usual banging on the table and an
attempt to change the subject.
GI Trekker
>thousands of years of hatred. IMO he was trying to merely bring some
>awareness
>of the fact that children killed in such hatred are innocent people.>>
>
>Which is pretty much stating the obvious. Which makes me believe there had to
>be more to it than that.
>
There are some people for whom "the obvious" isn't so clear . . .>>
And their minds are not likely to be changed by a comic strip.
Anthony Myers
well, at least aroun....
screw it. too easy
..........
Jesus died for my sins. So should you.
J.D. Baldwin
In the previous article, Rex F. May <rex...@comcast.net> wrote:
> Everybody catch that? Sharon is a saint, and Arabs are subhuman.
> Just repeat it over and over and over.....
Yeah, I caught it. But it's now *four* times removed from comics
content, and I'm shutting up on this subject.
--
_+_ From the catapult of |If anyone disagrees with any statement I make, I
_|70|___:)=}- J.D. Baldwin |am quite prepared not only to retract it, but also
\ / bal...@panix.com|to deny under oath that I ever made it. -T. Lehrer
***~~~~-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Rex F. May
INVALID...@example.com.invalid wrote on 12/30/03 8:19 AM:
>
> In the previous article, Rex F. May <rex...@comcast.net> wrote:
>> Everybody catch that? Sharon is a saint, and Arabs are subhuman.
>> Just repeat it over and over and over.....
>
> Yeah, I caught it. But it's now *four* times removed from comics
> content, and I'm shutting up on this subject.
Sounds like a good place to stop.
Kevin J. Maroney
Baldwin) wrote:
>How many children did the IDF *deliberately* kill during that period?
>
>[I am aware that you noted the distinction later in your post; I just
>wanted to underscore it.]
At some point, negligent indifference to civilian casualties becomes
criminal. That point is passed long before one reaches the level of
"dropping thousand-pound bombs into the middle of dense urban
residential neighborhoods at night".
Thanks for the pointer about the school bus bombings, though.
--
Kevin J. Maroney | k...@panix.com
Games are my entire waking life.
GI Trekker
criminal. That point is passed long before one reaches the level of
"dropping thousand-pound bombs into the middle of dense urban
residential neighborhoods at night". >>
Well, I'd be interested in your views on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Are you one of
those that think we owe the Japanese an apology, despite atrocities they
committed such as the Bataan Death March and enslaving thousands of Chinese as
well as Americans, ignoring the fact that the bombs probably SAVED lives in the
long run since a prolonged island-hopping ground war would've been far more
costly? I'm not saying there's any excuse for killing a busload of children,
but there's a big difference between an indiscriminate terrorist act and a
decisive military action, so let's watch our blanket statements, shall we?
Chris Clarke
<gitr...@aol.com> wrote:
> <<At some point, negligent indifference to civilian casualties becomes
> criminal. That point is passed long before one reaches the level of
> "dropping thousand-pound bombs into the middle of dense urban
> residential neighborhoods at night". >>
>
> Well, I'd be interested in your views on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Are you one
> of
> those that think we owe the Japanese an apology, despite atrocities they
> committed such as the Bataan Death March and enslaving thousands of Chinese as
> well as Americans, ignoring the fact that the bombs probably SAVED lives in
> the
> long run since a prolonged island-hopping ground war would've been far more
> costly? I'm not saying there's any excuse for killing a busload of children,
But in fact you are. The bombing of Hiroshima killed many thousands of
schoolchildren, and you just defended it. Ergo...
Rex F. May
gitr...@aol.com wrote on 12/31/03 3:34 PM:
Sometimes one has to murder civilians, but let's not pretend we're doing
them a favor.
avane...@hotmail.com
Another, less inflammatory issue regarding this strip:
Was Garry Trudeau the first to use the now-classic "television viewed
from the side, often with no person in front of it, with no movement
from panel to panel, giving a satirical/exaggerated news report"
motif? Should Aaron McGruder and Stephen Pastis be paying some
quantity of money to Doonesbury Inc.?
(Don't laugh, but I once sent this question into "GBT's FAQ's" on
doonesbury.com and never got an answer.)
A. van Engelen
Davrash Sani
What? I don't get this either. People should never post while drunk.
Davrash Sani
Apology accepted. Sorry if I provoked it in any way.