Doonesbury Shocker

[thisisatest]

Steve D
Anyone else following Doonesbury this week? Read it at www.doonesbury.com to see what should be hitting the media anytime soon. I was almost in tears. I've followed Doonesbury for many years and this is the first time Mr. Trudeau has done anything like this. I also heard that the comic strip "Get Fuzzy" is doing something along similar lines, but without the emotional impact that longtime Doonesbury fans are experiencing. Anyhow, read up and let me know what you think.

[Ken Valentine]

Steve D
Anyone else following Doonesbury this week? Read it at www.doonesbury.com to see what should be hitting the media anytime soon. I was almost in tears. I've followed Doonesbury for many years and this is the first time Mr. Trudeau has done anything like this. I also heard that the comic strip "Get Fuzzy" is doing something along similar lines, but without the emotional impact that longtime Doonesbury fans are experiencing. Anyhow, read up and let me know what you think.

Are you refering to the strip where the guy comes to visit his friend who has just had a limb amputated?

It's a difficult thing to experience . . . not as difficult as losing your eyes, however. Boy, do I know what that is like.

Ken V.

[Scott Hajek]

Steve D
Anyone else following Doonesbury this week? Read it at www.doonesbury.com (http://www.doonesbury.com/) to see what should be hitting the media anytime soon. I was almost in tears. I've followed Doonesbury for many years and this is the first time Mr. Trudeau has done anything like this. I also heard that the comic strip "Get Fuzzy" is doing something along similar lines, but without the emotional impact that longtime Doonesbury fans are experiencing. Anyhow, read up and let me know what you think.
After reading this post and then checking out the link... I didn't understand the strip... I've never been a Doonsebury follower. However, on my way home last night, there was a story on NPR regarding this story line... the reporter explained who the amputee was, the background of the strip and the history of the character. Gary Trudeau should be commended for the story arc and revealing some unknown characteristics of this longtime character (been around since 1968).

I probably won't follow Doonesbury anyway, but it all is very interesting.

[Bluesman Mike Lindner]

Steve D
Anyone else following Doonesbury this week? Read it at www.doonesbury.com to see what should be hitting the media anytime soon. I was almost in tears. I've followed Doonesbury for many years and this is the first time Mr. Trudeau has done anything like this. I also heard that the comic strip "Get Fuzzy" is doing something along similar lines, but without the emotional impact that longtime Doonesbury fans are experiencing. Anyhow, read up and let me know what you think.

I've been boycotting Doonesbury ever since the '96 presidential campaign, which featured strips mocking Bob Dole's war injuries. Loathsome, contemptible even by Gary Trudeau's demanding standards. I'm waiting for the compassionate cartoonist to pen some strips showing the victims of Hussein's poison-gas attacks, rape rooms and torture chambers. I suspect I'll be waiting awhile. Tell me, thisisatest, why do you think that is?

[thisisatest]

I've been boycotting Doonesbury ever since the '96 presidential campaign, which featured strips mocking Bob Dole's war injuries. Loathsome, contemptible even by Gary Trudeau's demanding standards. I'm waiting for the compassionate cartoonist to pen some strips showing the victims of Hussein's poison-gas attacks, rape rooms and torture chambers. I suspect I'll be waiting awhile. Tell me, thisisatest, why do you think that is?

Steve D
Boy, they don't call you "blues" for nothing. The satirist M. Ramirez of the Los Angeles Times, a staunch Republican, depicted Bush being shot in the head in a take-off of the Viet Nam era photo of that infamous execution. Bush had the political cartoonist arrested. He was released to continue his satiric assault on the Democratic Party--and received no apology. If he doesn't merit an apology, how can we expect Trudeau to give one? Being a satirist means never having to say you're sorry; however, being the target of a satirist also means not expecting to receive an "I'm sorry."

[Bluesman Mike Lindner]

Steve D
Boy, they don't call you "blues" for nothing. The satirist M. Ramirez of the Los Angeles Times, a staunch Republican, depicted Bush being shot in the head in a take-off of the Viet Nam era photo of that infamous execution. Bush had the political cartoonist arrested. He was released to continue his satiric assault on the Democratic Party--and received no apology. If he doesn't merit an apology, how can we expect Trudeau to give one? Being a satirist means never having to say you're sorry; however, being the target of a satirist also means not expecting to receive an "I'm sorry."

I didn't see the Ramirez cartoon, so I can't comment on it. But I doubt Bush "had him arrested," or even saw the cartoon. The Secret Service has been very sensitive to perceived threats against a president's life since Kennedy's assassination--understandably so. So it might have been their doing. As far as the "infamous execution" goes, the Viet Cong who was shot by the South Vietnamese officer was not in uniform while taking military action against a legally constituted government. Such "partisans" can be executed on the spot, under the laws of war. Ugly, but there you have it. War is an ugly enterprise. And I don't consider mocking a disabled veteran's injuries "satire." I think it's ugly (there's that word again), as ugly as the war in which the veteran sacrificed his health helping defeat the Nazis and the Japanese militarists. Gary Trudeau and his fans will no doubt disagree. And oh, yeah--the victims of poison gas, rape rooms, and torture chambers? You didn't say when Mr. Trudeau will feature them, thisisatest. But I understand...they're not very important, are they? They've never read Gary Trudeau. They don't get it. (By the way, thisisatest--this is a courteous board, I mean no personal offense--Bluesman Mike)

[thisisatest]

(By the way, thisisatest--this is a courteous board, I mean no personal offense--Bluesman Mike)[/QUOTE]

Name's Steve D. One day I'll re-register as Steve D and stop posting as thisisatest. "Whatta revoltin' development!"

Anyway, I've been away and returned to find my post on Doonesbury (the loss of B.D.'s leg) has changed to a defense of Trudeau, something I would never have the "bullocks" to do. That would be like my defending Repairman Jack against the Rakoshi.

Thus, the anecdote:

My religious uncle came to visit my family back when I was a kid to do some work around the house with my Pop. During a beer break, he took me and my older brother aside and asked us why we don't go to church (we didn't tell him that it was because we go to the movies on Sundays). But my older brother told him quite bluntly, "Because I don't believe in God." My uncle picked a hammer from his tool belt and handed it to my brother who accepted it. Then he said, "Hit me on the head with that hammer." My brother, of course, refused. My uncle then said, "See, that proves there's a God. He didn't let you hit me on the head." My brother then said, "If I would have hit you, you would have said the devil made me do it. Either way, you say that's proof there's a God." He put the hammer down and walked away. My uncle then looked at me and asked me to pick up the hammer. I just walked away, leaving him with a smug look, as if he had actually proven something.

Moral: It does not take an anvil to the head to prove yourself right. Sometime's a hammer will do just fine.

[Biggles]

As far as the "infamous execution" goes, the Viet Cong who was shot by the South Vietnamese officer was not in uniform while taking military action against a legally constituted government. Such "partisans" can be executed on the spot, under the laws of war. Ugly, but there you have it. War is an ugly enterprise.

Right you are, and I would have executed that VC in the same way under those circumstances, except I would have interrogated him first, and I would not have done it in front of a camera.

BTW, if you have ever seen "Off Limits", with Willem DaFoe and Greg Hines, Scott Glenn plays an Air Cav officer who has an interesting and effective means of interrogating VC prisoners. The VC were terrorists, who were notoriously cruel to their prisoners. The old expression "Ask no quarter and give none" applies to dealing with terrorists. When dealing with military prisoners, on the other hand, I don't believe that two wrongs make a right.