After thinking about it some, I still don’t think the New Yorker cartoon was that big of a deal. In fact, I am thinking about subscribing to them to make up for the addle-minded folks who will drop their subscription in outrage. The New Yorker is a good magazine. They did something edgy and something I think is pretty clever, and it isn’t their job to worry about the Obama campaign or what jackasses might do with their content. Their job is to put out provocative and interesting material, and having just read the Ryan Lizza piece, I am glad they put the cover out there.
It got my attention, and gave me a chuckle at the knuckleheads who spread these absurd memes about the Obamas. After some hesitance earlier, I think I like the over now. Let’s deal with this bullshit head on, and quit attacking the media. I am not backing down from the wingnuts and the World Net Daily crowd.
*** Update ***
I should probably also add that I am having a salad with mixed summer greens, a little romaine, and ARUGULA. SO SUCK ON THAT, RED STATE AMERICA. I will eat fancy sounding lettuce, vote for a black guy, and read east-coast liberals in the New Yorker. WTF are you gonna do about it?
In all seriousness, since I started buying varying types of lettuce in bulk, washing them and running them through the salad spinner and storing it in tupperware for use over a several day period, I am really enjoying my salads a great deal more. No more bags of salad for this boy.
Cassidy
This seems to me like a normal cover for them. Oh well.
montysano
Yeah, this is what the New Yorker does. Who cares? Oh, I forgot…………. the Outrage Junkies need a fix.
Scott H
Good for you. I wonder how many people remembered National Lampoon’s “If you don’t buy this magazine we’ll shoot this dog” cover [January 1973] when Ted Koppel was on Jon Stewart’s with the puppy last week? (There was also their immortal floating Beetle “if Ted Kennedy had driven a Volkswagen he’d be president today” spoof VW ad.)
SpotWeld
I suppose, after all this it must be admitted that the New Yorker succeeded most assuredly in creating a magazine cover that captured the attention of the viewer.
Whether this is a case of “good attention” or “bad attention”, I have no idea.
BombIranForChrist
I find myself in the awkward position of agreeing with John Cole. I may need to check and see if my medication hasn’t been replaced with Taster’s Choice.
I am a pretty reliable, steam coming out of the ears liberal, but this just didn’t bother me. FISA bothers me. War crimes bother me. Taco Bell food bothers me. But not this.
I have been reading blogs for a long time, and I will for a long time to come, but sometimes it’s just too much.
Genine
I will not let stupid people have power over me.
Michael D.
I subscribe to the New Yorker anyway. Way ahead of you!
MobiusKlein
Get angry at things like this, selling access to Cheney to dictators. (and praise, good words.)
Osama Von McIntyre
Like you, I don’t comprehend the furor, but well…
I don’t really understand the idea that the cover is “edgy.” I’ve subscribed to the New Yorker since my college days (too many years ago), and I have to say that the effect they usually aim for with their “humorous” covers is “droll.” And I think they pretty much hit the target here.
By claiming the mantel of “satire” for the cover, people are led to expect something sharper and more literal than is the magazine’s usual style. I enjoyed the cover, had my chuckle, and then read dozens of blog posts about how the New Yorker was causing the collapse of democracy and the Obama campaign.
The reaction to the cover has made me sadder than I can express. The New Yorker–while liberal–is not particularly partisan. Because it is not the house organ of the webroots left, it has no particular responsibility to censor any cover art that does not sufficiently promote the Obama candidacy. The avalanche of responses dictating what constitutes “responsible” satire reminds me of nothing so much as the Little Green Footballs right.
I am a strong Obama supporter, but I have faith that we’ll get through this moment without handing the election to the Republicans. Please, everybody, take a deep breath.
Teak111
Can’t wait to get home to get my TNYer. Think I’m gonna frame that cover.
BTW, cover title is usually bottom on the TOC inside the mag.
Has there been a more brilliant smack down of right wing stupidity than that cover in recent years? They are so full of themselves, they don’t even know its a smack down, “just more crazy liberal sheet.”
My new theory is that smart people are Dem and stupid people are GOP. That is why I fear McCain will win, because smart people are outnumbered in this country.
calipygian
Anybody remember this
cover of Giuliani as Mussolinni on the cover of Pat Buchanon’s American Conservative?
I liked it precisely because it reflected the way I feel about Duh Fuerer of New York.
I think the New Yorker cover will serve the same function who think about Obama the way I think of Giuliani, no matter what Remnick’s intentions were.
When you have to get on CNN to explain your “satire”, it has failed. Majorly.
montysano
Anyone who is worrying about the New Yorker cover might want to take a break and look around. Banks are teetering on the edge, people are lining up to pull their money out. There is blood in the streets. The Ponzi scheme of the last few years is crashing down, and the PTB are setting about to socialize the losses.
I mean.. a year ago, very few would have believed that Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae would be where they are today, i.e. seriously on the rocks.
Sorry, I know this is OT, but it’s been quite a day.
Itchy Brother
Definitely warrants a big yawn. But I still think the satire would have been much better if they had changed the cover to read:
The New Yorker Republic
nightjar
Smerconish was just saying pretty much the same on David Gregory. Better to get it out in the open and discuss it rationally. The problem with that is the only people watching political coverage are likely pol junkies who already get it.
I, like others are not attacking the NYer and saying they should have never published the cover, only that is misleading (not clearly satire)without a caption to go along with the image. I think it’s a market ploy and they’re allowed that, but for them to claim to be fighting the smear meme of the right, it (the image) needed clarity, because most who will see won’t be reading the story. If this was on the cover of a National Review, it wouldn’t be a problem, but because it came from a lib mag, it does have some significance.
For the record, I’m not outraged by this and suspect it will have little effect in affecting the smears one way or the other. But I bet it won’t be long till we see the image on wingnut t-shirts and pol buttons.
Martin
It is a good magazine, but I think by some of their reaction they realize that they blew it here. When they express shock that 10%-20% of the public really do believe that Obama is a Muslim, then it’s clear that they misread their audience.
But every publication screws up now and then. It’s not something to cancel a subscription over. Anyone who is pissed should just send $39.95 (their subscription rate) to Obama instead.
John Cole
They have a yearly subscription rate of about a million, and they did not misread their audience. I would argue there is EXCEPTIONALLY little overlap between their subscribers and the portion of brain-damaged bubbas who think Obama is Muslim.
Itchy Brother
Boy am I red faced. I was thinking National Review and I typed New… Republic. DOH!
Dennis - SGMM
Which might work out well because TNY will sue their asses clean off for copyright infringement. It would be nice to see the party that has done so much to destroy fair use get hoist on their own petard.
DougJ
Did you see this more remarkable media fact from TPM about the AP:
Itchy Brother
And by the way, the OXO salad spinner is da bomb!
DougJ
You’re wrong about that. Their readership is disproportionately Jewish and Jews are more likely than non-Jews to believe this fact. There’s an email going around from a group called “Israel first” that claims this. A friend forwarded me a copy.
Tsulagi
That’s the right attitude.
Amen!
Don’t forget the Belgian endive!
KRK
Just say no to OXO. Zyliss is the superior salad spinner.
Barbara
To me, the biggest faux pas is the “we smart people all know better and are in on the joke” mentality that underlies the cover. When the New Yorker did the cover with New York stretching out over most of America it was self-mocking — this is mocking the rubes out there that, CAN YOU BELIEVE IT!!!!, are stupid enough to think the Obamas might be Muslim.
All I can say is, we live in a country where Proctor & Gamble was believed by many people to be advancing the cult of Lucifer because of a trademark it adopted in the early part of the 20th century. It’s a little scary but I think the cover is the kind of thing that, at worst, stokes some seriously deluded thinking, and at best, when it is understood for what it was intended to be, furthers the divide.
I love arugula and I am going to pop the next person who makes fun of it. It doesn’t take much space to grow your own.
Delia
I’ve subscribed to TNY for about twenty years. I’m hardly going to cancel my subscription, but I don’t think it’s their brightest idea ever. I do think they ought to follow up with a satire on McCain’s integrity, or maybe even the question of the viability of his rational thought processes, and see how that plays.
Z
Its one small step from arugula to forced gay marriages.
srv
So what are a vegitarians options in the Army and Marines?
HyperIon
what’s with your condi-like “no one could have predicted”? bullshit. the whole franklin raines dustup in 2004 was an early warning that things were amiss. but things are so complex and boring that it is difficult to explain and nobody pays attention until the stock market starts to react. so the red flags were ignored. just like they have been ignored for the PBGC which may crater as well.
Dennis - SGMM
There are no vegetarians in foxholes.
Martin
The cover doesn’t exist for subscribers. They’ve already given their money. The cover exists for newstands which means that it’s designed for everybody *other* than that one million. It exists for the guy on the street to pick it out from the other magazines. Now, they may well have succeeded fantastically in that respect, but not if it pisses off a chunk of the subscribers.
For example, a lot of subscribers were annoyed with the April 2008 cover of The Atlantic because it looked like the cover of the Enquirer with Britney. It was accurate of the contents of the magazine, but a lot of the Atlantic’s readership read that magazine to hide from all the pop fetish shit and don’t want to see it on their coffee table for 4 weeks. Probably got a lot of random newsstand purchases, however.
99 Percent Pure
As a black woman who is highly offended by the cover, I take exception to being dismissed as an “Outrage Junkie.” It is easy for whites who have never had the experience of racist taunts and caricatures to dismiss such a blatantly racist cover printed under the guise of satire.
There’s a post on Racialicious that describes the hipster racism of so-called progressives who see nothing wrong with using “ideas, speech, and action to denigrate another person’s race or ethnicity under the guise of being urbane, witty (meaning “ironic” nowadays), educated, liberal, and/or trendy.”
First, the cover, and now the dismissive posts here and elsewhere online insist that black folks ought not to be so sensitive; it’s typical New Yorker covers, and it’s just a little humorous satire meant to poke fun at fallacious archetypes propagated by the repugs. Don’t be offended now, it’s all good; trust it, we know better what’s best for you and what is and isn’t offensive to the Obamas.
I’m no sniveling black woman, and I am quite able to appreciate and recognize satire, even black humor. But this cover and these comments aren’t at all humorous and, in fact, are troubling. They are demeaning and degrading, and fairly shout right wing talking points.
Obviously, white progressives are much more urbane and intelligent than black progressives so tell me, exactly how does the New Yorker cover dispel the very thing it exposits – depicting Obama as the gun-wielding Islamic terrorist ‘towel-head’ Osama bin Laden, and Mrs. Obama as his AK-47 slinging militant Angela Davis-type wife. Do you think their children, as smart as they are, will get the satire? How do you think the Obamas feel about it?
The New Yorker cover as well as the comments here are perfect examples of hipster bigotry – and racial insensitivity.
Rather that you had ignored it, as certain other white bloggers did, than to dismiss it out of hand as typical of the ‘liberal’ New Yorker’s satirical humor that is so inspirational that you will now become a subscriber.
RAM
My problem with the cover: Not funny.
Jay C
Not particularly funny. Not particularly droll. Overly precious and aren’t-we-too-hip-for-words? Meh.
And the anxiety expended on it highly and hugely overblown (IMHO). Given the quite real problems we’re facing, and will be facing into the upcoming election (with one party desperate); my guess is that the New Yorker-cover flap will be forgotten by mid-August: replaced by some new Outrage-Du-Jour by one side or another.
So: back to important things, John: does spinning your own salad knock the price down by any appreciable amount? Here in the Big Apple, there are plenty of upscale stores who’ll sell you pre-mixed mesclun from a bin (MUCH better than the bagged crap): but they usually hook you for $5.99/lb, or more. Although a whole pound of mixed lettuce is a lot…
srv
First, there really aren’t many white progressives here. More angry Reagan democrat, Meathead, Dorktown, Hymietown set.
Davebo
Salad spinner? Fucking Elitists!
I just stuff it all into a clear bag, slice some small holes in the bag, and then attach it to the ceiling fan in the living room of my double wide and let er spin!
Not only does the lettuce get clean, but my living room has a fresh clean scent!
Also works well for hand drying my ties I bought at Walmart. (OK, I confess, I really did hand wash ties and dry them that way once right after I got out of the Navy.
wvng
I think John was right in an earlier post when he agreed with this quote from Larison:
John, the cover will be used just as Larison says. It doesn’t matter with the Red State dead-enders. But it could matter with many low information independents.
nightjar
Your point is taken 99%. Opinions are split here about whether the cover drawing was cool as shown without explanation. However, you are wrong about we being hipster’s, except maybe TZ. As far as bigotry goes, I take it you haven’t been reading BJ for long. We have been some of the fiercest defenders of Obama on the tubes and don’t tolerate racist trolls when they show up. I haven’t read the article but didn’t like the cover. Those who have read it say it is a solid effort to rebutt the unpatriotic and racial smears on the Obama’s bouncing around the net from mostly wingnuts.
Incertus
The problem is that The New Yorker doesn’t do edgy. It’s urbane, it’s witty, it’s droll, but it’s not edgy, so the cover was out of character for them. If they had a history of doing this sort of thing, maybe they get away with it without the uproar.
Tsulagi
Umm, the black part of my red, white, and black racial composition has no doubt Barack Obama also wields a formidable gun, but if you were talking weapons, I didn’t see him holding one of those on TNY cover.
Sorry, that was a little humor. Like the NY cover not everyone would get it. Based on some instructive sensitive poetry that goes “This is my weapon, this is my gun…”
Yeah, no doubt offensive too. Yes, let’s all spare no efforts toward a zero-offended world for all. Bleh.
Genine
I am a black woman NOT offended by the cover. I see it as satire gone wrong.
Also, I have not read anyone saying blacks shouldn’t be offended. They are mainly talking about white progressives who are upset by it. People mainly seem to be upset by it because of what right-wingers will say.
That’s total bs. At least I can say that on this blog. This blog and many of the regular commenters here have been very vocal about the racism displayed during this campaign.
tballou
The New Yorker is well worth the subscription price. In addition to the cartoons, each issue almost always has at least one very interesting article. They cover a whole range of topics and it’s always fun to guess the title of the cover before opening each issue!
tballou
And another thing- it is definitely not The New Yorker’s job to worry about whether Obama gets elected or not. He is a big boy and after his rather reckless position on FISA he gets to sleep in the bed he makes!
Delia
This summer I’m growing my salad. I bought one of those little packs of six different kinds of lettuce plants at the nursery at the beginning of the summer for about $2.00, planted them with organic fertilizer and just keep adding water. Now whenever I want a salad or a leaf of lettuce for a sandwich, I just go out to the garden and pick what I want. Of course, it’ll eventually run out, but in the meantime, I don’t have to worry about it turning into mush in the plastic bag.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
I wasn’t particularly pleased with the cover, but the Ryan Lizza article is very good.
C Turner Joy
nightjar Says:
“However, you are wrong about we being hipster’s, except maybe TZ.”
Really? TZ is a hipster?
John Cole
Buying heads of lettuce and mixed greens out of a bin is MUCH cheaper than the salad bags.
Cassidy
The DFAC, these days, caters to a wide variety of diets. Typically, if the DFAC can’t accommodate you, something like being a committed Vegan, then you can get authorized money to buy groceries more suited to your lifestyle.
John Cole
They had vegetarian MRE’s when I was in years ago, and our mess hall had a great vegetable selection and salad bar.
Quick funny story- my unit was the 11th ACR, A Trp, and we were known as the Blackhorse. I loved going to eat at the mess hall where a sign proudly displayed the words “Blackhorse Mess.” At the end of my tour the required us to call it a dining facility.
99 Percent Pure
I appreciate your point, nightjar, and I do not doubt that this is a site that vehemently supports Obama. Because I believe this to be so, I felt no compunction about posting my comment, maybe even because I knew it would be taken seriously.
I read the article even before paying attention to the storm brewing in re the cover, and it’s rather good, although it is generally rehashing some of the same points made in the Los Angeles and the New York Times. In fact, I am composing an Obama post on my own blog in which I will be linking to and using quotes from the New Yorker piece.
That still doesn’t change the fact that the cover, which is the first thing that people will see, is racist, incendiary and inappropriate at this time, in this campaign, with this candidate.
Generally, I’m exceptionally perceptive in picking my spots and my shots when it comes to entering racially explosive melees; in fact, I didn’t pay any attention to the cover until this morning. But when I did so, it really chapped my boomer buns.
In your opinion. Far as I’m concerned, some of the comments were at least more than a little cavalier, if not outright insensitive. This is in no way a personal indictment against any poster or the blog’s author; it is merely my observation of more than a few of the comments I read.
As for the other, I still love this site and will continue to mostly lurk here, except when I’m compelled to post, as I will also do on Daily Kos and other progressive blogs. I don’t live in a capsule and I don’t take my bat and ball and go home when confronted with upsetting and/or dissenting views on a particular issue, even in matters of race.
John Cole
Here is about the smartest take on the whole affair.
Barbara
I honestly don’t think the cover was intended to be racist, though I do take 99%’s point. It reminds me of something I read about Chris Rock, who said that he once had a routine that began something like, “You know all those things white people don’t like about black people? Well most black people don’t like those things either.” He said he stopped doing it because he thought white people were laughing a little too hard — and they weren’t getting that the joke was on them as well. In other words, whites frequently don’t have a lot of insight into how blacks think about them.
nightjar
It was a raz on Tz. To tell you the truth, I don’t know what a hipster is. Guess I don’t get out enough.
Kevin
I dunno, John, just how smart a take is it when it contains something like this?
Specializes in what now?
John Cole
For one, you don’t judge an entire piece by one small tidbit o f it. For another, the Obama team is very adept at working the refs- some might view that as whining.
Kevin
Sorry, but using the word “whining” after the whole Phil Gramm “nation of whiners” thing is lazy writing.
Also, of all the people who he said should be assigned any “blame” for all of this, the writer put the most on Obama and his campagin. WTF did he want Obama to do about this? I mean, Obama has directly addressed this whole “moslem” thing directly more than once.
dan robinson
The goal of media is not to tell the truth, but to sell advertising. If they happen to also tell the truth while selling advertising, mores the better. But there is no direct correlation between telling the truth and selling advertising. Quite often, there is a inverse relationship between telling the truth and selling advertising.
Conflict, real or manufactured, is a better way to attract attention and thereby sell advertising. Conflict is the heart of narrative, and narrative is the thread that draws us back to the story. What happened last time? What is happening this time? How do they relate? What will happen next time? These are simple voyeuristic questions (See Jon Boorstin’s “The Hollywood Eye”).
Mike Barnicle goes on Hardball and tries to revive the “elitist” label, not because he really things Obama is an elitist, but because it gives them something to talk about, a narrative angle that will keep people tuned in during commercials.
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/07/14/hardball-panel-tries-to-paint-obama-as-elitist-to-stifle-mccain-criticism-arugula-is-the-equivalent-of-a-750000-shopping-spree/
If Mike B. goes on the air and cuts to the chase, i.e., Obama may have benefited from affirmative action programs (did he?), but McCain has certainly gets a lot of benefits from being married to Cindy, what else can he do to keep people from changing to Fox? Reach over and start jerking off Pat Buchanan?
It’s about the money.
John Cole
It was a blog post. That is the hallmark of blogging- lazy writing. And I am the last person to throw a stone in that glass house.
Tsulagi
Pretty much on topic: A simple tourism poster that is causing an “uproar” in SC. Some people greatly offended. Geez, you just can’t please everybody.
DougJ
Best comment on this so far (from AttackerMan):
Ricky
I thought the Nation piece was fine as far as it goes.
It is exactly correct that the blame for most of this belongs to the media. In my opinion ABC is chiefly to blame. They have been doing a Black hit on Obama for the last week, particulary Jake Tapper. If you believe their own story (which gives themselves credit) they kept hectoring Obama people about the cover until they did respond. Those of you who follow me here know I call it flushing the weasels. Unfortunately the Obama campaign took the bait. That was a big mistake.
The fact this story got the lead coverage on cable rather than the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is why this art, regardless of your opinion of it, is damaging.
However, on most blogs I have read, I have noticed that most of the concern seems to be the depiction of Obama as a Muslim. That’s because most blogs I read are written by and read by, ahem…white folk. Check out http://www.ta-nehisi.com
by Ta-nehisi Coates. I posted a comment over there which I will repeat in a minute. I want to give John Cole time to see if he wants to run it all. Crooks and Liars thought that it was too long, printed an edited version, then interrupted their thread to announce they lost what they edited out and asked me to repost, again. BTW, I’m Nicky at C&L for reasons you can only speculate about.
Ricky
Here is my take on why “IT AIN’T THE ART, STUPID, ITS THE MEDIA.
The danger from this type of work comes not in the art itself, or satire. I love satire. A flame is beautiful in and of itself. Children with matches are not. Our media are not either. They have used this “art” this “satire” to inflame plenty of dry tender out there in the mindset of America.
The New Yorker mentality thinks it shows the inferior mentality of anti-Obama forces in this country, and seeks to poke fun and shame them. Those folks not only do not get the joke, they seize on it as proof they are right or as punch lines of jokes of their own (“even the liberal rag The New Yorker says…”) Earth to New Yorker…they are beyond shame.
The danger is that this piece of satirical “art” has become the distraction for the media to use to avoid anything of remote importance to people of any color. It has been the lead story on cable news all day.
The press fanning this act like they are not feeding the worst instincts. Jake Tapper at ABC, ran two different articles today on this cover. He is like the child who laughs every time when he sees the movie “Blazing Saddles” when the people say “but the sheriff is a nigg…” To cover his behind, Jake has linked to this site, run by an Africn American, referring to it as “always interesting.” But the basis of the article mentioning this blog is that the New Yorker story is all over the conservative web. Follow the links he provided and you will be treated to a fiesta of racist dribble.
Only you don’t have to follow any link away from ABC.
The racism is all over their own comments section. Some gets deleted, some stays for hours. Any pro-Obama material which does not fan the flames of “The sheriff is a nigg…” joke gets deleted. Am I playing the race card on ABC too quickly?
Hardly. Yesterday Tapper and ABC ran two articles on the joke Bernie Mac told at an Obama fundraiser. ABC played it as a threat to Obama’s support from disaffected Hillary supporters, complete with using “Ho” several times in headings. In response to this theme, I tried several times to post the joke John McCain himself told at a fundraiser in 1998. It is short. “Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly. Because her father is Janet Reno.” ABC deleted it.
It’s OK at ABC to run a joke from a black comedian and claim it will cost votes of women who like Hillary, but not the very words of an opposing candidate about Hillary.
You see, the Bernie Mac thing is a Black thing. (Forget that it is a stolen joke. It was once told by Winston Churchill and was a lot funnier in his telling.) And the Obama art is a Black thing. And the anti-Obama forces seized upon the connection.
The racism that underlies much of the anti-Obama mentality is often bubbling on the surface, but they try to repress it. So the theme of commenters over at ABC on the Bernie Mac story kept to a single talking point which repeats itself over and over. It wasn’t so much the joke that bothered them, they said, it was that Obama’s response criticizing Mac included the disclaimer “I’m just funnin with you, man.” And before ABC could blow up the New Yorker cover into a story, they had to repeatedly prod the Obama campaign. The candidate himself tried to brush it off. Finally after repeated inquiries from ABC, a campaign spokesman labeled the art “tasteless.” Boom.
“Obama Denounces” said the headline. That allowed the anti-Obama forces to repeat over and over again that he was treating a Black comedian better than a White magazine.
Most white Americans do not fear Obama just because he is Black. They fear him because they fear a Black man will treat White people like White people treated Black people. And that is what the New Yorker art helped enflame. And just like the New Yorker crowd doesn’t understand that “crackers” don’t even get their joke, they don’t get that what they have done is not just a joke.
If I have not proved my point, add this.
Last week the chief economic adviser to John McCain, Phil Gramm dismissed our economic woes as a “mental recession” and Americans as a nation of whiners. Incendiary stuff. But not when the preferred punch line is “the Sheriff is a nigg…” McCain called a press conference in Michigan to say “Phil Gramm does not speak for me.” While he was saying that, Gramm was in New York at the Wall Street Journal meeting with their editorial board SPEAKING FOR JOHN McCAIN. Tapper at ABC covered McCain disclaimer about Gramm for a day, but without pointing out that, when he said Gramm did not speak for him, McCain lied. Comments to ABC noting this were deleted. Mc Cain ain’t no nigg… They dropped further reference to Gramm and went back to promoting the third day of Jesse Jackson threatening to cut Obama’s nuts off. A Black thing.
nightjar
Same here. But they claim the front cover drawing was titled “The Politics of Fear” and all the web copies I’ve seen don’t have a caption of title.
Ricky
nightjar, I’m sure Leonardo had a title in mind too, but they didn’t print it on the Sistene Chapel. Inconsiderate artists. As I said somehere else, if the New Yorker wanted to do a satire on why American’s are misinformed it would be art depicting this:
A group of MSM news princes and princesses are on the set of World News Tonite. They are leering at a cover of the New Yorker. Phil Gramm comes in wearing a lapel pin saying “I don’t speak for John McCain.” Phil says,
“You’ve heard of masturbation? Why not get a copy of Hustler. Why settle for the “mental” thing?
If they wanted to satirize lower intellect members of the nation of whiners, they should simply link to the PBS piece John Cole provided about the clog dancing dude, in, what county was it John, my link was on my old dead computer they had to pry my lives hands away from.
ThymeZone
I am the very essence of hipster. If you only knew.
But anyway, Hipster is mostly BS. But Hip, now that is the real thing. I always thought Angela Davis was true Hip.
The bottom line on the TNY cover is that the magazine’s defense is “Hey, it’s a joke.”
My assertion is, hey, it wasn’t funny.
Which is, you know, small potatoes in some ways, as suggested here. But whatever it was, it wasn’t funny, or clever, or insightful, or helpful to anyone for anything.
It was just an attention getter.
Just Some Fuckhead
I’ve been eating a salad a day going on two months. Same salad every day, sometimes I mix up the dressing, either Italian or Greek. Anyway, so far it doesn’t seem to be doing jack. I don’t feel healthier. I’m still 180lbs. (6’2″) Still tired all the time. But I like salad so it’s all cool.
Yeah, knuckleheads like Teh New Yawker who absent any context are just helping spread those absurd memes along with your obliging attitude. Thanks asshats. Seriously, until the day after the second Tuesday in November you are either part of the problem or part of the solution. You fuckers who can’t put your own sick egos aside for the sake of the better good disgust me. That’s as nice as I can put it. Yer on notice, fool.
Darkness
Anyone who would drop their subscription to the new yorker over this is not a subscriber anyway. The handwringing is all over potential harm, which is just silly. This is totally self selective: if you don’t get the cartoon, you weren’t going to vote for obama anyhow.
And to the salad: try laying atop your mixed greens some crumbled blue cheese, a sliced pear, a handful of walnuts, and a dash of balsamic vinegar. Best salad in the world. If you really feel energetic or would like to impress guests, you can candy the walnuts first.
Just Some Fuckhead
If I felt energetic, I’d be eating a goddamned steak, not salad.
Brachiator
It’s funny. I was at a news stand buying the issue largely because of the inside story about Obama’s Chicago political beginnings and (most of all) for the film reviews of “The Dark Knight” and “Wall-E.” I didn’t notice the cover because of the contents flap partially covering the magazine. But I was listening to the radio, which had a story about the “controversy” that the cover was causing. Another customer came by and I learned that I had purchased the last available copy of the magazine.
But it’s just not a big deal. I don’t think it is as witty or as satirical as the New Yorker editor or other apologists I heard on the radio. But here I have to fall back on the 1st Amendment argument that the only remedy for the cover is more cartoons, not stupid and pointless expressions of outrage or dismay.
The cover is not a racist caricature. It’s at best a political caricature, and since the center of it all is the fist bump, it is clearly a play on the attitudes of the ignorant yahoos that insist on seeing Obama as a radical.
And it’s working. The last time The New Yorker was talked about was when it ran the now notorious Miley Cyrus photo.
MNPundit
So where will the McCain with Bombs falling on the Earth cover show up?
MNPundit
The New Yorker
New York Magazine
Vanity Fair (The Actual Magazine of the Photoshoo)t
Don’t you just long for an edit button somtimes?
Rosali
Miley Cyrus was in Vanity Fair, also a Conde Nast magazine. The New Yorker got a lot of coverage over Sy Hersh’s stories on the plans for the War in Iran.
C Turner Joy
ThymeZone Says:
“I am the very essence of hipster. If you only knew.”
TZ, I served with hipsters. I knew hipsters. Hipsters were a friend of mine. TZ, you’re no hipster.
Okay, that penultimate part is bullshit. Hipsters were never my friend.
I do know. You’re many things, including a passionate man with a well-reasoned voice. Hip? Sure. Hipster? Makes me think of poser. I know better.
Carry on.
Hipless.
Darkness
Yeah, and without this particular low-hanging fruit, they’d have jumped on something meaningful instead. Right. Shorter version: the press is lazy and aims for the lizard brain so art should be disallowed.
I didn’t see race in this either. Maybe because all the Muslims I know are some shade of Aryan.
As a twenty-year New Yorker subscriber I see their covers not as satire or humor so much as an attempt to capture the sense/mood/hubris of memes or social phenomena.
The Grand Panjandrum
Jesus! What next? French Dressing on your sissy food?
Brachiator
Damn skippy. I will overlook your spelling error [somtimes] if you overlook my brain fart.
Just Some Fuckhead
The first major party African-American nominee for President is caricatured along with his wife as terrorists on the cover of a nationally prominent magazine without context and you can’t see race? Because this happens all the fucking time to the white candidates, right?
Jesus, if you can let all the rest of it go, if you can say, aw shucks that was sposed to be funny, making fun of them there rednecks who think them silly things, doesn’t matter if it was personally offensive to the Obamas or difficult to explain to their young children, they’re public figures so they should expect – no they deserve this sort of crap.. If you can let every other fucking thing go, what yer left with is race. We got the fucking cover because society doesn’t require deference to black folks like it does to white folks. We can’t cough up a fucking ounce of respect for our black nominee because it might send the signal to other black folks that they, too, are worthy of respect, equals.
Ricky
Lighten up, Just Some. John needs some hits and a boy writing like he’s got too much red meat in his system might scare them back to those sites where they would question even the notion that his salad would be eaten at an improper hour or with dressing at all.
Darkness might be one of those. The reason he is cluless
is because not only HAS he READ the New Yorker, he admits to subscribing to it for twenty years. Here in Texas, where we hunt weasels, even those of us who read it hide it under plain brown paper covers.
Over at another liberal website, a Canadian lady salutes the New Yorker for “shining light” on the cockraoches that spread these Obama “rumours.” Another writes that people expressing outrage on websites would have not been so offended if they, like she, heard that the title of the artwork on the cover was something which she heard on BBC! She said that vital information was left out of the first report she heard about the cover on NPR. She said she was also a subscriber, and that the Title of the Cover Art was always in the Table of Contents which she thoroughly read.
Clueless says people who do not get the joke would not vote for Obama, and that the media would have picked some other low hanging fruit to cover. I’d rather they report Jon Benet’s grandma was found innocent than this shit. But today, Clueless, this story took precedence over the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And yesterday they covered Bernie Mac, who is not related to Freddie, but told jokes at an Obama fundraiser. And like Jesse Jackson, who they coverd all last week, Bernie is an Obama supporter who is black.
Ninety five percent of the people who see the cover won’t know it is a joke, clueless. And they won’t the cover while car pooling in their PRIUS. They’ll see it on CNN while they are waiting to get their tires rotated, or hear about it at the snack bar from someone whose sister got an e-mail with it attached.
And if Clueless and Brachiator cannot figure out why black people find it offensive, then well…I guess I’ll just go rustle me up some steak.
Ricky
“tballou Says:
The New Yorker is well worth the subscription price. In addition to the cartoons, each issue almost always has at least one very interesting article. They cover a whole range of topics and it’s always fun to guess the title of the cover before opening each issue!”
Wow, I wonder what they will guess the title of this one is at some doctor’s office in Indiana that gets recycled magazines for its waiting room table. The rest of the description is exactly what I used to say about Playboy when Mom caught me with it at night in bed.
Brachiator
Hmmm. I didn’t say that I didn’t “see race” (whatever that means). I said that the cartoon was not a racist caricature. And I have no idea what kind of “context” was supposed to be provided. It’s a magazine cover, not a freakin’ essay.
And since the cartoon image is centered on the famous Obama fist pump, it seems pretty clear to me that the cartoon mocks the right wing fools who have tried to paint Obama as a stealth Muslim, particularly that Fox commentator who ignorantly, foolishly, cynically mused that the fist pump (even used a few times by Dubya) might be a terrorist gesture.
I don’t see the cover as being disrespectful. It is no more disrespectful than the “Abraham Obama” murals that some people are pissing their pants over (Street artist inspires too much enthusiasm).
Some people have a reflexive need to clutch the pearls over perceived outrages.
I understand why some black people found the cover offensive, just as I understand why some people found the Bernie Mac joke offensive. Hell, I even understand why that bureaucrat found the term “black hole” offensive.
I just don’t care.
That a person finds something to be offensive does not automatically confer legitimacy to his or her opinions. This is America. You have a right to be offended.
Big deal. You could show the Obamas as angels at the right hand of the baby Jesus, and some people would still find a way to see Obama as a stealth Muslim.
cain
Have you considered taking up running? I sometimes come home from work and doing a run or workout seems to help out for me. You’re mileage may differ of course. The other thing is that you get a good night’s rest and having small meals.
Just some ideas.
cain
Josh E.
This isn’t reason for outrage but nor is the satire all that good or clever simply because it’s so easy and obvious.
crack
I guess I should get a salad spinner. Crap. Just what I need another kitchen gizmo. I’m so white.
99 Percent Pure
Right on, Barbara, Ricky, Just Some and nightjar.
Hmm. I almost bought a salad spinner last week; however, my born in Alabama mind still doesn’t get the why of owning one.
But I do great salads anyway.
shortstop
Bagged salad is teh suck. The wash-several-days’-worth-spin-and-store-in-Tupperware method works great. No excuses to selves about how we don’t feel like making a salad every night. It’s there, it’s done, it’s ready to enjoy.
I’m weird about kitchen equipment and won’t own anything that does only one thing. Only exception: salad spinner, greatest food invention evah.