Councilmembers Jon Camp and Ken Svoboda are upset!

Read more about it here.

Back then the Danish Mohammad cartoon controversy erupted, I remember no shortage of people saying “Well Americans make fun of Jesus all the time!” I’m not sure whether they were suggesting they should riot and murder as well, but at the very least, people seemed to really want some kind of validation in their perceptions of a double standard.

It’s still happening, with people apparently thinking their completely superficial reading of imagery translates to a deep intellectual point. Take this letter from today’s Lincoln Journal Star (in response to this cartoon):

Man, I almost fell out of my chair laughing when I saw Neal Obermeyer’s cartoon spoof of Jesus throwing bugs out of a sack, down on Nebraska (LJS, June 22).

Say, you know what would be great? Obermeyer could do a cartoon spoof of the prophet Mohammed doing something silly! Oh, come on. It would be fun.

Please, Mr. Obermeyer, do a cartoon spoof of the prophet Mohammed. Pretty please with a cherry on top! Think of the belly laughs that will get!

People will love you for it. Oh, don’t be shy. Do a cartoon spoof of the prophet Mohammed. Pleeease!

Mark Scheetz, Lincoln

Commenter “TS” got it:

To Mark Sheetz: Good Lord, how clueless can you get? Obermeyer wasn’t spoofing Jesus. He was spoofing the morons who can’t (or refuse to) understand the natural causes of global warming. The image of Jesus was in their imagination — you did notice the enclosing balloon, didn’t you? Since this country is about 95% Christian, it is natural to put an image of Jesus in their understanding of the effects of global warming as somehow supernatural if anything. If Obermeyer had put an image of Mohammed in the cartoon, what sense would that have made in this country?

Next time you criticize, first try to understand what you’re talking about.

Also check out the rest of those comments for some great, but unrelated, debate on why Bush is a true Christian and Obama isn’t.

from ImVotingRepublican.com

by friend-of-nealo.com Adam Danger:

I’m not a particularly religious person, but even I can’t really imagine what it’s like to feel forced to turn one’s back on the family church.

Hillary Clinton’s repeated claims that she would’ve left the Trinity church Barack Obama attended never seemed to be anything more than the typical hollow Clinton political statement — calculated for the moment and devoid of any sincerity. But it must have been far more painful for Obama to sever that 20-year relationship than the moment of political opportunism that Clinton’s continued goading would’ve made it seem.

I grew up Catholic as a member of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Auburn, Nebraska. I was lucky as a kid to have two great priests — men who took their roles as priests seriously, but also loved and supported their congregation. It wasn’t until the second one retired several years ago — and I encountered his replacement — that I really started actively disliking visiting that church.

The Lincoln Diocese is known for its political conservatism. And 1st District Congressional Representative Jeff Fortenberry is friends with several prominent Catholic families in Auburn. So there had been an increasing amount of politics involved in church activities, but it was largely just due to active church families taking an active role in helping with a campaign they believed in.

But I remember sitting in church with my parents and my then-fiancé after the November 2006 elections, which put Democrats in charge of Congress and saw an amendment allowing stem cell research narrowly pass in Missouri. The priest stood up there and gave a sermon not indirectly claiming it was a sin to vote for Democrats. Every implication followed — Democrats do the devil’s work; to vote Republican is to carry out God’s will; etc. He particularly condemned Missouri for their sinful votes, which especially offended my Missourian wife.

She comes from a diocese in Missouri where the priest openly welcomes Protestant visitors at mass, giving them instructions at the beginning to help them feel comfortable. I come from a diocese in which a priest read a note from Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz at a wedding, blaming all the Protestants in attendance for the divisions in Christianity.

I’ve been disgusted with a lot about my hometown church and diocese in recent years, but in no way would it be easy to just turn my back on it. That church is where my parents were married. It’s where my sisters and I were all baptized and confirmed. One sister was married there and the other soon will be. My grandpa’s funeral was there. We have our issues with the priest (like being told we do the devil’s work for voting our conscience, for example) but membership there is about so much more than placing some figurative stamp of approval onto the political views of the priest.

And so I can’t imagine what it’s like for Barack Obama to have to turn his back on a 20-year church membership. He’s someone to whom faith is clearly very important. Anyone who stands up and acts like that should be an easy act clearly hasn’t been part of that type of a community.

If I’ve ever cornered you in a conversation about cartooning, I’ve surely brought up the uncanny similarities between the work of San Diego Union-Tribune cartoonist Steve Breen and Omaha World-Herald cartoonist Jeff Koterba. I’ve even blogged about it. It’s not that I think they’re copying each other or in any way engaging in some kind of unethical professional behavior, just that both have very similar senses of humor and manners in which they present their commentary. I haven’t seen it in print in a while, but the Union-Tribune Sunday opinion section would include a weekly roundup of 5 national cartoons, and it was not uncommon for Koterba to have 2 of the 5 slots. So the U-T opinion staff apparently agrees with me.

So it wasn’t much of a shock to see Breen’s Wednesday cartoon and Koterba’s Thursday cartoon. Again, I’m not alleging copying or anything. Koterba has often said, including to me, that he doesn’t spend much time looking at other cartoonists’ work. I just think the crime here is that Breen keeps winning things like Pulitzers when his idea-buddy’s getting shafted.

EDIT: WOW!!! Check out Tom Toles’ Thursday cartoon too!

Omaha World-Herald cartoonist Jeff Koterba’s three-part series telling an autobiographic parallel narrative of his life in journalism and the rise and fall of the Omaha skyline concludes today.

There have been a ton of news reports out of West Virginia centering around Clinton supporters’ unshakable belief that Barack Obama is a Muslim, but this one is my favorite so far. Not so much because of the clip (which is just run-of-the-mill disturbing at this point — the ignorance has lost its shock value) but because of the hilarious reaction:

This recent Financial Times piece about West Virginia voters quotes a “lifelong Democrat”:

“I heard that Obama is a Muslim and his wife’s an atheist,” said Mr Simpson, drawing on a cigarette outside the fire station in Williamson, a coalmining town of 3,400 people surrounded by lush wooded hillsides.

Mr. Simpson, that does not even make sense. You think a secret radical Muslim would marry an atheist? Even if it was purely to piss off Christians? Sleeper agent jihadists are not known for their tolerance of Enlightenment principles!

from Gawker.com: Old white people know the truth about Barack Obama