You’re fired !!

Requesting to have your co-workers suspended is, I guess, just another day at the office during the “New Normal” times. So now we’re not only training kids to suppress the news like the mainstream media, we’re rewarding them for turning on their cohorts as well.

The University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign’s independent student newspaper suspended its editor in chief and opinions editor Tuesday after publishing controversial cartoons last week.

The cartoons, caricaturizing the Prophet Muhammad, have sparked riots in the Middle East after the cartoons’ original publication in a Danish newspaper.

“Acton and Chuck published these on their own, even though they didn’t ask anyone,” said Managing Editor and now-Interim Editor in Chief Shira Weissman. “There is definitely a way to do this … this was not the way.”

Weissman said the cartoon has hurt the paper’s relationship with the Muslim community, adding, “It’s not something we want to do as a paper, we have to go to school and hear about this all day.”

Omygod, like, gee whiz, like, I mean, like, having to hear about what you publish, like, omygod!

The piece consisted of an editorial written by Gorton and the original Danish cartoons.

“All across the nation, editors are gripped in fear of printing,” Acton said in the editorial. “For fear of reaction.”

Which is probably why he didn’t ask the weenies about it first.

The notion that these two were suspended for any other reason than that they published the controversial cartoons is transparent hogwash. If they had published an editorial telling about what a wonderful school they attend without asking first, nobody would have given a damn.

And I found this line from The Daily Illini‘s own Q&A page to be highly revealing:

It is a time-honored tradition that the editor in chief has the final say on content.

How did I know that the next word out of their pen was going to be “However.”

Related Link: Read this too.



  1. Zuke says:

    Spineless wusses!

    But I guess it’s OK (read: safe) to print cartoons poking fun at Christianity/Catholithism, eh? I see those all the time in our local rag, but they’ve also been mute on the whole Dane cartoon controversy… hmmmm…

  2. joshua says:

    it’s gotten to the point where I don’t want to comment on these things any more. This kind of stuff has become so common place it’s not even a surprise.
    The mainstream media sits and scratchs it’s collective head wondering why blogs have become so pervasive…..well, send them this article….maybe, but I doubt it, they will get a clue.

  3. Max says:

    What ever happend to courage and convictions?

    This whole Danish caartoon thing is so stupid it makes me wretch. Hell, I think we should be publishing them every day. Let those arses riot in our streets – they need a good smackdown!

  4. woktiny says:

    I feel another religions flame war coming on…
    anyone actually seen these toons?

  5. J. Cottrell says:

    Woktiny, here are the cartoons. Gee, I hope I don’t get fired for showing them too you. I feel like I’m trying to speak Kurdish in Istanbul…

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/bzkit/sets/72057594057992683/

  6. Mr Mustard says:

    Hoo boy. I have to agree with Max. They DO need a good smackdown. Get a life, losers.

    And Interim Editor in Chief Shira Weissman needs a good spanking. What’s “the way to do this”? Get a committee together, then publish the cartoons? The Muslim community would have been just as pissed off then. Or censor something that is of national and international importance (now, anyway) because some dickwads with no sense of humor will get their panties in a bunch?

  7. The biggest shocker for me is what utter crap the artwork is on these things. Looks like something a fifth grader would draw up.

  8. Mr. Fusion says:

    I seriously doubt if the cabal that ousted the Editor in Chief and Opinions Editor have any future in journalism. From the short explanation for the editorial, it sounded like the two were saying “Hey there is some heat in the kitchen”. Well, if you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.

  9. James says:

    Brings to mind The Prisoner episode where everybody called him “Unmutual.” Newspaper editors are supposed to have some courage. Had the Muslim community not had a conniption, it would have been decent for the papers not to run them out of respect. Having made the editorials news by burning and killing (for an editorial cartoon?), it is now almost a moral obligation to print them, showing the cause of the behavior.

  10. John says:

    The violent action by the muslim community only re-affirms the nature of the cartoon. Today a muslim cleric offered 1 million dollars for the death of the creater of the cartoon. That is the nail in the coffin.

  11. sbdot says:

    I figured I would check one last time to see if you had the nerve to post my comment calling you, Dvorak, out as the closet racist you are in allowing people to post suggestions that those belonging to a certain race or religion be smacked around. As I expected, that was not the case. You can take pride in knowing that you are no different than the ‘crazy’ muslims that you continuously mock. Good day.

  12. Mr Mustard says:

    >> As I expected, that was not the case.

    Nobody wants to “smack around” those of a certain race or religion. The criterion for getting “smacked around” is rioting in the streets, burning down embassies, or putting million-dollar bounties on the heads of guys who draw innocuous cartoons.

  13. Pat says:

    sbdot

    Your post about “closet racists” is completely out of line. Yes, there are comments that occasionally show up here. But the vast majority of responses are people speaking their beliefs. And guess what. This is called “Freedom of Speech”. The theme of this particular blog. Are you advocating suppression of speech?

    Before you start calling people names, maybe you should look in the mirror.

    An outlet for my delusions of grandeur.” The opening from sbot’s website.

    Some more subject titles found at your web site, apparently posted by you.

    ”Hey, who knew that I would be right about ass-wiping with the Koran”
    “Why you should NOT talk openly with your kids about sex”
    “A rant about stupid young women”
    “Oooh… Someone just gave me an idea: A ‘Gay Pride’ rant”
    “Jack Layton in Gay Pride, the Liberals with their Civil Marriage Act and why I’ll vote for any stiff that the Conservatives put on display come next election”
    “Real freedom will come when [U.S.] soldiers in Iraq turn their guns on their superiors.”

  14. Frank Baird says:

    I have to wonder, if it were Christians or Jews that were offended, would there be any uproar at all? As noted in the link posted by John in #6, how much should society accomodate those that are assimilated? I hope Western society is finally recognizing the folly of kowtowing to militaristic zealots. We can stand up to them or be crushed by them. It would be nice if there were a peaceful option, but the Islamists seem hell-bent on denying it to us.


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