Cartoons
for release 02-20-06
Washington D.C.
Part of my job is to scan the news in search of stories about life's little absurdities. These are usually the more obscure stories that are buried on the back pages. But this week I didn't have to look any further than the front page above the fold to find life's absurdity. Even with the Winter Olympics in full swing with Bode Miller crashing down the slopes in Italy, there were two major news stories this week. The first was the story of the riots and burnings and killings worldwide concerning the earthshaking subject of satirical cartoons about Mohammed, and the second was the vice-president's quail hunt in Texas.
What I'm saying here is that several grams of bird-shot and some cartoons that weigh nothing were, in the judgement of our press and world opinion, more weighty subjects than the AIDS epidemic and global warming and peak oil and the fact that Iraq is in shambles because of our occupation and the wholesale decay of our healthcare systems and our immigration policies. These real problems don't matter, it's the cartoons and the buckshot, stupid.
These two stories are emblematic of larger and deeper issues.
The cartoon thing is really not about the cartoons themselves. It's about the confrontation between fundamentalist Islam and Western (Christian) culture which has a fetish for a free press. And the quail hunt story is really not about the accident, it's about the culture of secrecy and deception that pervades our government.
These two stories tell us that small events can make big news and that small news can cause big events.
Certainly it is major news when there are embassy burnings and people are getting killed in riots from Libya to Pakistan to Afghanistan to Indonesia to Palestine. What stretches my credulity is the idea that all these demonstrations are centered on such a minor subject as the publication of some not very funny political cartoons four months ago. How many times have we seen news footage of young muslim men filling the streets in some middle eastern city doing the rage dance and firing their weapons into the air and burning American flags and posters of George Bush? This picture has become a cartoon in itself. It's the western caricature of the muslim world.
When we in the West take to the streets for a political cause, it's usually a more sedate affair. There may be folk singers and speakers and marches and singing of hymns, perhaps a solemn vigil where the participants are only armed with candles. This is why the picture of wild-eyed, bearded or masked men discharging their firearms into the air and chanting 'Death to America' is so distressing to us. In America the only time we get that spirited in our rioting is when the Bulls win the NBA championship. And when we have a good riot here, it's not about burning a foreign embassy, it's about getting a new TV or a whole rack of leather coats or a handful of jewelry.
But, speaking of discharging firearms in the air, we have the Cheney quail hunt gone bad in Texas. Al Franken could not have written a more perfect scenario for satire. The incident was a cartoon even before every late-night comic and talk radio wisecracker and blogger had their way with it. The reason it was the perfect cartoon is that it was emblematic of the things that many people believe about Dick Cheney and this administration, namely that they are prone to manipulate the intelligence or the news in order to suit their own ends and that they are secretive and arbitrary in their actions and that Cheney is the evil genius, the man behind the curtain, who is really pulling the strings. It's a caricature, a cartoon.
Who cares if Dick Cheney had one or two beers before he had a hunting accident? Who cares if it was 12 or 14 or 18 hours before the non-story came out? Maybe it's just because I'm from Texas. Drinking beer and hunting accidents are common. This one was minor, a few pellets of bird shot. Most people would never have gone to the emergency room over it. It was a non-incident, a cartoon.
The Poet's Eye sees that our culture runs on symbols. When you want to get your finger on the true pulse of things in any culture, you look to the jokes and the satires and to the cartoons.
"Animation can explain whatever the mind of man can conceive. This facility makes it the most versatile and explicit means of communication yet devised for quick mass appreciation."
The cartoon king--Walt Disney
