Sunshine Recorder

Considering what happened to them last year for a similar cover called “Charia Hebdo” this is pretty courageous of them and I fully support them. We are slowly getting bullied into accepting that we don’t have the right to free speech or at least to...

Considering what happened to them last year for a similar cover called “Charia Hebdo” this is pretty courageous of them and I fully support them. We are slowly getting bullied into accepting that we don’t have the right to free speech or at least to bear its consequences by some extremists. Why should they make special allowance for one group simply because that group is particularly violent and irrational? To self-censure would be terrible and a failure of all that we in the West hold dear. Freedom of thought and freedom of expression are the foundation of our society.

Note: Charlie Hebdo is not particularly anti-muslim, they are famous for making fun of pretty much everyone in France. Also, the cartoon on the front page is a reference to the French movie Intouchables which is about a rich paraplegic hiring a street-gangsta type of caretaker for a trial run. This is a play on the same context with a rabbi and Mohammed, the prophet. The text inside the bubble roughly means you shall not mock.

Do you believe,” said Candide, “that men have always massacred each other as they do to-day, that they have always been liars, cheats, traitors, ingrates, brigands, idiots, thieves, scoundrels, gluttons, drunkards, misers, envious, ambitious, bloody-minded, calumniators, debauchees, fanatics, hypocrites, and fools?”
“Do you believe,” said Martin, “that hawks have always eaten pigeons when they have found them?”
“Yes, without doubt,” said Candide.
“Well, then,” said Martin, “if hawks have always had the same character why should you imagine that men may have changed theirs?
— Voltaire, Candide (1759)
Currently Reading: Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
“ After Slaughterhouse Five came out in 1969, Kurt Vonnegut entered a long period of depression and swore he would never write another novel. Fortunately he was lying, and in 1973, out came...

Currently Reading: Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut

After Slaughterhouse Five came out in 1969, Kurt Vonnegut entered a long period of depression and swore he would never write another novel. Fortunately he was lying, and in 1973, out came Breakfast of Champions. Four years of pent-up Vonnegut humor spilled out onto the page. What follows is murderously funny satire, as Vonnegut looks at war, sex, racism, success, politics, and pollution in America and reminds us how to see the truth.