The latest issue of Charlie Hebdo is available in an app for smartphones and tablets: IOS (Apple) here, Android here, and Windows Phone here. If the other versions work the same as the Android version, you open the app and then you’re offered the option of an in-app purchase, which allows you to buy an English version for $3.47 (or French or German, IIRC). In the English Android version, when you touch a cartoon or article, an overlay shows you the English translation.
Since I’m writing at a website that requires a glossary to be understood, I doubt it will surprise you that a lot of the humor appears to depend on references that are opaque to the uninitiated. Here’s an open thread.
Southern Beale
I posted this last night but there’s a delicious update from the Associated Press. File this one under “looting vs finding”:
White Privilege In One Tweet
Baud
So Charlie Hebdo has an Android app but msnbc can’t bother to create one? Figures.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
No thanks.
Amir Khalid
Aren’t people already trying to sell their copies of the new Charlie Hebdo on eBay as historic collector’s items? I seem to recall having read that somewhere.
Derelict
In the wake of the massacre, I poked through a bunch of past CH material. I came away much less than unimpressed. You can call CH a “satire magazine” only if you have no idea what the word satire means. The humor barely rises to third-grade schoolyard, and seems to consist mostly of trying to find the most offensive thing to say about whatever the subject is. That’s not satire, it’s not commentary, it’s not skewering, it’s not even socially enlightening or taking our conventions and preconceptions to task. It’s just being offensive.
But, then, the French worship Jerry Lewis. So I think what passes for humor in France is beyond the ken of the rest of humanity.
rk
@Derelict:
I had the same reaction. It’s like a bunch of kindergartners thinking that saying the word “poopy heads” a hundred times is hilarious. These guys seem to think that they’re making some point by drawing dick faces. In fact there doesn’t seem to be any point other than causing offence. It goes without saying that they should be free to do what they want, but it doesn’t change the fact that they’re a bunch of talentless hacks
dedc79
Fred Wilpon, the NY Mets owner who, depending on whom you believe, either knowingly profited from Bernie Madoff’s scam or was royally duped by Madoff, has nonetheless been appointed to chair Major League Baseball’s finance committee. Seriously
dr. luba
Not interested. I supported Larry Flynt’s right to Jerry Falwell in Hustler, but that doesn’t mean I ran out to buy a copy. Same here.
Gin & Tonic
@Amir Khalid: There are thousands on offer. Literally.
Prevailing price seems to be in the USD 40-50 neighborhood.
Amir Khalid
@Derelict:
I myself think Jerry Lewis has a worse rep in his own country than he really deserves. For one thing, he’s a pretty decent dramatic actor. and he did that charity telethon thing for decades, so he’s surely a good guy.
Like you, I haven’t been impressed with the cartoons published by Charlie Hebdo. The artwork is on a level with Ted Rall for badness, the humour often no more than schoolyard taunts. There’s been much, much better published in Malaysia, within the admittedly onerous official constraints imposed here. But I tend to agree that social and/or artistic merit shouldn’t enter into a discussion of Charlie Hebdo’s right to publish what it does; that implicitly limits the right of expression to the talented, which means that some Simon Cowell figure then gets to decide who may express themselves.
lamh36
@Southern Beale: just saw a tweet about the while “love-struck” wording of this.
The romantisation of the 18 year old dude on the run with his 13 year old girlfriend is some bullshit, especially when compared to the same situations where these other youngsters weren’t deemed “love struck”
Picture shows 3 big news cases where the teens in case of a Black teenager dating a white girl, with basic same age difference but in which the stories were reported less romantically (like calling them a modern day Romeo & Juliet) and those teens didn’t even take the girls in “Bonnie and Clyde” style car trip
Amir Khalid
@Gin & Tonic:
I doubt these speculators will get that much. Too many people have had the idea.
Roger Moore
@dedc79:
Knowledge of ficitional accounting techniques is vital for the success of any major sports league.
lamh36
Had a small gathering yesterday to celebrate Maddie’s 4th birthday. Nothing fancy, just cake, ice cream, nachos and hot dogs, just enough to keep the kiddos happy.
Maddie of course ham-ed it up, but she was happy! Kids are so simple to make happy aren’t they!
https://twitter.com/psddluva4evah/status/556846141443018752
Gin & Tonic
In other news, the battle for control of Donetsk (eastern Ukraine) has been very active the last two days. In a common tactic, the separatists have been making targeting difficult for the Ukrainian army by placing their tanks/artillery in/near residential complexes, schoolyards, etc. In response, at least some of the residents are telling the army “fire away anyway.” Here’s the text of a chilling FB posting from a Donetsk resident, an older woman, addressing the Ukrainian soldiers: “Boys, my sweet boys! Hit this city with shells and rockets. Don’t be afraid to harm us, civilians. We cannot live here anyway. Avenge all of us, folks who were killed, tortured to death in dungeons, thrown out of our homes. DO NOT SPARE ANYONE. Show no mercy. They would not have mercy on you, and on us.” [translated from the original Russian]
Violet
@lamh36: Aww….so cute! Look at her dance! She’s getting so big! What did she get for her birthday? The last four year old I bought for got so excited about her present she ran around the room screaming with excitement. Really fun!
mai naem mobile
Who cares about Charlie Hebdo when we’re waiting for puppehs!!!
PurpleGirl
@mai naem mobile: True, very true.
Amir Khalid
@lamh36:
That’s a really happy four-year-old!
Roger Moore
@Amir Khalid:
As I see it, Charlie Hebdo is a good example of the difference between tolerance and acceptance. Free speech says we have to let offensive, talentless hacks like them publish because the alternative is having some government censor deciding who should and shouldn’t be allowed to publish. That is what is meant by tolerance: we put up with things and people we would rather not deal with because the alternative is worse. I still don’t accept them in the sense of willingly allowing them into my life, much less celebrate them as something others should aspire to.
Amir Khalid
@Gin & Tonic:
I wonder if our man in Portland will notice this at all.
dedc79
@Roger Moore: very true. Amazing how the owners insist they are bleeding money even as the values of their franchises grow exponentially.
One issue that always kills me. If cities or states have to kick in money to build stadiums, shouldn’t they get an ownership stake on said stadiums?
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid:
They’re trolling.
And they’ve found audiences that respond to trolling. The hyperpious are always good for these sorts of reactions. Jerry Falwell responded far beyond the hopes that Larry Flynt had for that cartoon.
Villago Delenda Est
@Roger Moore: It’s also a way to get ahead in Hollywood.
Come to think of it, on Wall Street as well.
lamh36
@Violet: we didn’t really get her anything this year. Her birthday is close enough to Christmas that we just go crazy for her Christmas presents. But my family tradition is to give money to the birthday person, and she cleaned up yesterday. She was already talking about what she was going to buy from the store…lol
Roger Moore
@dedc79:
The cities generally are technically the owners, but that can do as much harm as good because they are generally tied into really lopsided lease agreements. First of all, the stadium is generally built to the specifications of the team, so it isn’t necessarily very useful as a venue for anything except that team’s games. Then, the lease usually spells out what the city can and can’t do with the stadium when the team isn’t using it, which further minimizes its value as anything except a sports stadium. Finally, the leases will often grant the team some or all of the revenue from other uses. In effect, the city owns the stadium only in the ways that are expensive and detrimental but not in any way that might benefit it. Even when the lease is over, the stadium is a complete white elephant without a team to occupy it, so the city has relatively little leverage to negotiate for better terms.
JPL
@lamh36: She is adorable! Your twitter feed mentioned several breaking news stories, including a drive by shooting at Biden’s house in Delaware.
gogol's wife
@Gin & Tonic:
I asked you yesterday but you’d already gone — did you see the disgusting interview with Gergiev in the NYTimes Sunday magazine? “Russians have spilled so much blood in Crimea over the past 200 years, Americans just don’t understand. You didn’t experience 1917 or World War II.” We didn’t experience World War II? Anyway, no mention there of deporting the Tatars.
Gin & Tonic
@gogol’s wife: No, I haven’t. I very seldom read the Times any more.
Maybe they should ask Mustafa Dzhemilev for a counterpoint.
Amir Khalid
@Roger Moore:
I’m surprised that in America pro sports teams get to fuck over their home city like that. I couldn’t imagine United nor City even thinking of demanding that the city of Manchester build a new stadium just for them.
Mike J
@gogol’s wife:
Not compared to Russia. The US had fewer than half a million killed, and didn’t have nazi overrunning its cities. The USSR had ~25million killed and entire cities reduced to rubble.
wasabi gasp
Religion threatens the masses with hellfire wrath of god, but Charlie Hebdo is trolling.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mike J: The US, protected by two oceans, did not experience WWII as Europe or Asia did.
The US hasn’t really experienced warfare on its soil since the Civil War.
Mike J
@Villago Delenda Est: The USSR had the equivalent of four 9/11s every day for five years.
Bystander
The people who gave the world Moliere, Voltaire and Feydeau shouldn’t be blamed for appreciating the dimwittedness of one of America’s leading idiots. That said, I have laughed out loud at all four at some point in my life. But never at anything in Charlie Hebdo.
Bystander
At just what level of deaths does a country experience war? I missed out on the metric. Anyway, sounds like the princes’s duet in Into the Woods, “Agony.”
Villago Delenda Est
@Bystander: “Deaths” isn’t the best metric. It’s the devastation of all the artifices of humanity in the process that really measures what war is all about. The body count of Sherman’s march to the sea wasn’t that great, but the plundering and pillaging of the countryside made the real impression upon the locals.
gogol's wife
@Mike J:
I know Russian history. But to say that this country did not experience World War Two (he says that flatly) is a lie.
Kathleen
@lamh36: What a cutie!
Kathleen
@Amir Khalid: Don’t even get me started. I refuse to wholeheartedly support the Bengals because of the egregious terms of the lease imposed on Hamilton County tax payers. While the vote on tax payer funding of the stadium passed, many of the terms were not publicized or revealed until after the vote. People were so angry they voted a Democrat to the County Commission, which hadn’t had a Democrat in 40 years.
Roger Moore
@Amir Khalid:
A huge part of it is the difference in league structures. American leagues have fixed membership, so the only way for a city that doesn’t have a team in the top league to get one is to steal one from another city, or to convince the league to expand its number of teams. That gives teams enormous leverage to extract concessions from their cities, especially when there’s an open city they could plausibly move to. Promotion and relegation largely removes that leverage.
Another Holocene Human
Wait, you mean it’s not just a stroke sheet of super racist bathetic scribbles that need no introduction?
I am disappoint.
Another Holocene Human
Wait until the American right wing figures out you have to READ to get the humor … not so excited about FREEZE PEACH now … wonder if they’ll read long enough to chime in that Donohue* was right
*or however the fuck he spells it, you know, the red faced clown
Another Holocene Human
@Southern Beale: You realize that when a 13 year old Black girl disappears there is no story, and a Black teen jacking cars is just another Saturday night for the local PD.
But, yeah, that story does tell you a lot about the unconscious desires of white people. E phe bo phi li a. And a certain loooooove of criminality.
Another Holocene Human
@dr. luba:
Yup. Exactly who I’ve been thinking about all week. Not gonna lie, though, I did look up the infamous cartoon online. It was vile. I mean, I got the point that Falwell is a hypocrite, we all know that, it was just done in a really vile, racist kind of way. Falwell took the bait, though. That must have been one of the high points of Flynt’s life, to get under that old conniving asshole’s skin like that. (If you delve into the history of Falwell and Trinity Broadcasting you actually start to feel pity for Jimmy Bakker, which, you know, wow.)
Another Holocene Human
@Amir Khalid:
I think your comment is spot on, especially considering who the censor might be. Cowell was successful as far as that goes in business, but lacks self awareness and, well, any sort of artistic talent (that extends to writing, as I read his memoir, easily on a 4th grade reading level). I also think of the bad old days of official censorship in the US, both draconian and inept.
What really kills me, though, is that historically the US had kept pornography bans in place but it’s not allowed to censor racist hate speech. I mean, what an odd (not really knowing our history, but out of context) choice. So, Hustler, for example, could be printed but not distributed easily, due to the pornographic content. While the KKK can leaflet your ‘hood with impunity. There is no “community standard” for vile racist content or attempts to instigate a race war. It doesn’t even come under “fighting words”, “conspiracy”, or “terroristic threats”, you know, stuff that is illegal but rarely prosecuted. Cops just say they can’t do shit until shit-talker grabs a gun and kills you and your kid. Then, oh, what a frickin’ tragedy. He musta just snapped.
Another Holocene Human
@lamh36: Whoa, now that is a happy kid!
Another Holocene Human
@Gin & Tonic: Oh my god … I’d been avoiding this news and I can’t imagine how much it is killing you inside reading day after day. It’s so horrifying, and all this shit just to satisfy a few egos and keep Putin high in the approval ratings. What a total crock of shit.
That post reminds me of the Civil War incident where an old woman got in the face of some Confederate soldiers waving a Union flag that she refused to take down. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Fritchie
“The flag, a symbol of the need for myth in times of war, may be seen in the Barbara Fritchie House and Museum.”
Wikipedia asserts it’s a mixture of fact and fiction.