Tom Toles, venerable Editorial Cartoonist for the Washington Post may have gone a bit far with Sunday’s cartoon featuring a soldier in Iraq. The cartoon features a soldier who has suffered numerous wounds and lost parts of all four limbs. The Post received a very sternly worded letter from the Joint Chiefs of Staff who are a bit ticked off with Toles’ portrayal of wounded soldiers. The Post has come out in support of Cartoonist Toles’ depiction based on the fact that the Army is stretched fairly thin at the moment with two large deployments overseas.
The parallels here to the situation in Denmark are quite interesting. Over the last few days, Islamic nations have shown a proclivity to burn the flag of Denmark as well as pictures and effigies of its prime minister over something that was printed in a right-leaning (think Washington Times) daily newspaper’s editorial cartoons section. The cartoon featured 12 depictions of Muhammed, one of which had a lit fuse coming from his turban. Islamic culture forbids the creation of images of Muhammed, and this inflamed the population of various muslim countries. The protests have become quite severe over the past few days, causing some panic for Westerners in the area when the EU office in Gaza was overrun by armed fanatics.
So, how does this play out in fair DC? A bunch of people writing letters. How does this play out in the Middle East? Flag burning, effigy burning and violence. Big difference.
Technorati Tags: DC, first amendment, press
This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs
I live and work in the District of Columbia. I write at We Love DC, a blog I helped start, I work at Technolutionary, a company I helped start, and I’m happy doing both. I enjoy watching baseball, cooking, and gardening. I grow a mean pepper, keep a clean scorebook, and wash the dishes when I’m done. Read Why I Love DC.
