Okay…newspapers are supposed to be deadly accurate and inordinately politically correct these days. Just check out any part of the paper. Whereas reporters once just wrote news accounts for the “news” pages, they now add their comments to the accounts, the better to inform the great unwashed as to the “true meaning” of the facts just presented. Editorial pages are filled with profoundness, especially with respect to government, multiculturalism, diversity, the unfitness of public servants, corruption (although depending a bit upon whose ox should be gored), morality (again, same), and such things as free speech (again, same), etc. Occasionally, there’s even a bit of humor – but only occasionally. Seriousness is the order of the day.
Enter an offering in the Comics section of the Lexington Herald-Leader of Aug. 31 entitled “Mother Goose and Grimm.” It features a being with a form of Strabismus, the term used to refer to “crossed eyes” or “outward turning eye,” in this case the latter. It’s certain the author of the comic strip meant no disrespect or harm when he called attention to the fact that the owner of the problem didn’t have to look both ways before crossing a street, since he could see both directions anyway, actually not a bad feature, though maybe a problem when reading. The object was not to hurt but to show the relationship between two beings, one of whom DID have to look both ways, and the humor of the whole situation. I had a high-school history teacher, a good one, who had a form of Strabismus (outward turning eye) in one of her eyes, meaning that nobody in the class could get away with anything, since she saw “all around.” I doubt that she would have been offended by the comic strip.
The piece de resistance, however, was achieved in a strip entitled “NON SEQUITUR.” This term is defined dictionary-wise as “a statement (as a response) that does not follow logically from or is not clearly related to anything previously said.” In the strip, two prehistoric beings in business suits, one a bespectacled bear-like Evangelical and the other an obvious dragon wearing a fez and therefore a Muslim, engage in a mighty argument as to whose faith in a merciful and loving god is the one, true religion. The argument finally ceases and calm seems to prevail, but in the last panel only the spectacles and the legs and feet of the Evangelical are shown, just before they, too, join the rest of their body in being cannibalized by the fez-wearing dragon…shades of a pre-reincarnation of evil as personified in Saddam, Osama bin Laden, a Saudi prince, or maybe Louis Farrakhan, or even (gasp) Mohammad Ali.
So…where does one look for a bit of profoundness these days? Look in the Comics. Admittedly, I haven’t read the Comics regularly for many years, but looked at NON SEQUITUR because my wife showed it to me. From now on, though, I will take a look. After all, Trudeau, in his “hate all republicans on general principles” perspective, has been making his venomous statements for years through “Doonesbury,” so why not have some stuff from the other side, especially when the Muslim religion is depicted truthfully on the basis of its absolutely binding and inordinately sanguinary requirement…kill the infidel? The most profound truth presented, contrary to what many well-meaning people believe: simply that God of the Holy Bible is not the same as Allah.
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
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