The incompatibility between cartoonists and Islam is inevitable. Cartoonist are very frequently irreverent about everything and resistant to censorship. Some muslims are very touchy and, I’m afraid to say, authoritarian. There’s also the fact that many strands of Islam don’t allow representative art so the whole issue of cartoons is never going to be popular in the first place.
This weekend the Washington Post and numerous other American newspapers have refused to publish their regular cartoon strip Opus. Berkeley Breathed, the writer of the strip, announced on his site that the strips had been witheld from publication but he didn’t say why. The subject of the no doubt soon-to-be controversial strip is a young American woman on a spiritual odyssey who keeps trying out crazy religions. Last week she was trying to teach nude yoga to the Amish, this week she’s a “Radical Islamist”, complete with veil. It’s August, there’s not much news about, let’s see what happens.
You can see the possibly offending strip at the excellent Salon magazine.
Monthly Archive for August, 2007
Dave Gutteridge just wrote a rather nerdy, rambling but interesting article called Windows Is Free in which he explains that the choice between Linux and Windows is effectively a choice between two free products because of the ubiquity and wide acceptance of software piracy. Since this effect works to preserve Microsoft’s domination of the Operating System market he suggests that they might have an interest in allowing a certain amount of piracy.
I have noticed the same thing with other software companies, in particular Adobe. One very popular Mac BitTorrent site has a very clear policy about what files they will allow to be shared via their server. They have no Apple software on there and they remove products from any software company if they are asked to do so. However, they have the most recent versions of Photoshop, Illustrator, in fact everything that Adobe make. Why doesn’t Adobe ask them to take it down?
When software manufacturer’s organisations are talking to journalists about software piracy they claim that every pirated copy of a program represents lost revenue. The journalists tend to take this claim at face value but it’s obviously not true. Most people who have pirated copies of Photoshop wouldn’t have bought it if the illegal version wasn’t available; they would have made do with the free version of Photoshop Elements that came with their scanner or their digital camera.
Just think how hard it would be to launch an image editing program to compete with Photoshop. Adobe have every type of customer covered: Rich corporate types buy the full version, home users use the free version and impoverished creative people use a pirated copy. If Adobe could successfully close down the software piracy market tomorrow then a decent cheap shareware program would soon spring up and become the editor of choice for creative people and then Photoshop would be doomed.
There is a phase in the life of any piece of software where piracy threatens its existence. It’s not during the earlier stages when a program needs, above all, to be taken up by as many people as possible. After all, most people don’t want to waste time learning how to use something if it’s useless but they might take the risk if it’s free. This is why there are so many free demo versions out there. Then, once a program is dominating the market, piracy helps again; this time it works to suppress any competition. It’s in the middle stages, when a company needs extra revenue to grow and develop its product and support new users, that piracy can do the most damage.
So, I’m not defending software piracy, I’m just saying that the consequences are more complicated than they are presented as being. When you pirate very popular programs it’s competition that suffers, not the manufacturers. And maybe, if you pay for just one piece of software this month it should be something that is just gaining ground because in reality they are the only people that really need your money.
Why nobody should use the phrase “War on Terror” - Terror is a general state, and it’s internal to a person. Terror is not the person we’re fighting, the “terrorist.” The word terror activates your fear, and fear activates the strict father model, which is what conservatives want. The “war on terror” is not about stopping you from being afraid, it’s about making you afraid. (quote from George Lakoff)
People buy SUVs for the same reasons that some teenagers carry a knife: They feel insecure, their environment seems dangerous and they long for the admiration of their peers. Both behaviours are clearly anti-social but driving an SUV is more blatantly so because rather than being hidden in the owner’s pocket it is aggressively shoved in everyone’s face, a full-on “F**k you” to the rest of society.
When someone buys an SUV they are trying to buy an advantage on the road. They hope that if their vehicle collides with somebody else’s the added height will cause their bumper to smash through the windows of the smaller car, crushing the occupants and absorbing the impact. In fact, while it is true that you are more likely to be killed if you are hit by an SUV rather that a normal car, some SUVs have much higher that average driver death rates, according to a study by the IIHS in the US, so like knives they endanger the owner as well as everyone else.
Given all this it’s really not surprising to read research, conducted by car manufacturers and published in Keith Bradsher’s book Bumper Mentality, showing that:
SUV buyers tend to be “insecure and vain. They are frequently nervous about their marriages and uncomfortable about parenthood. They often lack confidence in their driving skills. Above all, they are apt to be self-centered and self-absorbed, with little interest in their neighbors and communities. They are more restless, more sybaritic, and less social than most Americans are.”
So what’s wrong with keying SUVs? It makes them less attractive to own, possibly makes people think twice before buying one and may be the only way to make the owner realise that the stares they get all day aren’t admiring glances. Even so, criminal damage is just as anti-social as buying an SUV, and if the owner bought the thing because they are afraid of their environment then keying their car may just make them behave even more badly. I personally think that a sticker campaign would be a good idea. Something like “I love you but I hate your ugly car”. Maybe I’ll design some. In the meantime, I’m really glad that Ken is intending to increase the London congestion charge for vehicles that produce loads of CO2. Social pressure doesn’t often work with anti-social people, financial pressure just might.
Having just completed a lengthy ‘omnibus’ survey by phone I can now reveal exclusively that Gordon Ramsay is being considered for a celebrity endorsement of Kit Kat, or possibly some other Nestlé product. They seem to be concerned that his ‘fiery temperament’ may put people off.
Latest Comments
RSS