Thursday, September 14, 2006
The Cavalier Comics
This morning I read an interesting article in the Richmond Times-Dispatch. It said that groups such as the Catholic League were protesting the printing of certain comics in the Cavalier Daily, the student newspaper of the University of Virginia. This brings back memories. When I attended the University of Rochester and Northwestern University in the 1960s and early 1970s, both universities had college newspapers. These newspapers printed items of student interest. The Rochester paper printed articles protesting the limitations on what students can do during "coed hours". The Northwestern paper gave full coverage of the ruckus that happened everywhere in the nation after the Kent State attacks. But both of these papers lacked something that most people take for granted in newspapers: comics!.
I don't follow the comics very much; I guess they never interested me. But the ones at the University of Virginia in recent times are really interesting indeed. According to the Times-Dispatch, one comic, by Grant Woolard aka Quirksmith, featured Jesus Christ on the x-y plane where the parabola y = 3/2x2 - 2 was plotted - his arms were impaled on the x-intercepts. In another, Joseph tried to explain Mary's rash by referring to the immaculate. TCB had a cartoon where a woman cries for Jesus after a crash; he shows up and drives the car, and then she winds up in heaven where Jesus complained, "I never did drive."
A host of organizations and people opposed the cartoons, sending a hail of email to the editors of the paper and even to University of Virginia officials. They, including the Catholic League, say the cartoons are blasphemous. To me that says they indeed need to be printed. To me, blasphemous indicates something that someone objects to strongly because they identify with some religious belief. The word reminds me of medieval days, when witches were burned at the stake and Inquisitions ruled. Are we still in the Middle Ages, or are we regressing back to them? Some say that peak oil will send us back to the Middle Ages. Maybe it won't; we are there already.
They say they are tasteless and inappropriate. Let's look at that one. The first cartoon to me is far-sidey, reminding me of the Far Side. It takes two incongruous concepts, that of plotting linear equations and of Christ dying on the cross, and superimposes them. It's a little strange, because of the mix of two different ideas, but I don't see anything that religionists should object to. The thing that is the most wrong with this comic is that it is mathematically wrong. The comic indicates that the x-intercepts of the parabola are (3,0) and (-3,0); the 3s should be the square root of 3 instead. The other one may be a little off-color because of its reference to sexually transmitted disease. But it does one good thing: it spoofs the ridiculous notion of immaculate conception, which violates scientific principles. To me, a religious belief must not contradict established science: religious beliefs address the unknown, not the known.
What really concerns me about the League and the email writers is that they are doing the same thing that radical Muslims did when Danish cartoonists drew caricatures of Mohammad. These people were trying to impose their religion on those that did not believe in it. What they did was an affront to freedom of speech in Europe and elsewhere, and the League and email writers are doing the same thing, except that they are not making death threats.
The University of Virginia is a secular institution, and hence separate from any religious body such as Catholicism, so it does not need to conform to rules that these bodies make. The campus paper refused to apologize, and I feel they did the right thing.
As far as the comics are concerned and what I think of them? I went through them and to me many are just not funny. The points are lost on me. Quirksmith is one of the better ones. His and other comics reflect a student lifestyle. Notice the obsession with linear equations, rate problems, algebraic equations, balls with parabolic trajectories, history, Keats, Shakespeare and so forth; these students are studying hard to get good grades and succeed later on. This is typical student stuff, and so is the obsession with the opposite sex; one Quirksmith comic showed a Venn diagram showing the positive properties of women.
These students are full of creative ideas, and these comics are a good way of allowing them to be expressed. This is what freedom of speech and the First Amendment are all about. We need these ideas to find the way by which civilization can keep developing and avoid pitfalls such as racial hatred and peak oil. And these email senders want to quash all that. So keep on, students. Let's see more good stuff from TCB, Quirksmith, Pie and other cartoonists at the University of Virginia.
I don't follow the comics very much; I guess they never interested me. But the ones at the University of Virginia in recent times are really interesting indeed. According to the Times-Dispatch, one comic, by Grant Woolard aka Quirksmith, featured Jesus Christ on the x-y plane where the parabola y = 3/2x2 - 2 was plotted - his arms were impaled on the x-intercepts. In another, Joseph tried to explain Mary's rash by referring to the immaculate. TCB had a cartoon where a woman cries for Jesus after a crash; he shows up and drives the car, and then she winds up in heaven where Jesus complained, "I never did drive."
A host of organizations and people opposed the cartoons, sending a hail of email to the editors of the paper and even to University of Virginia officials. They, including the Catholic League, say the cartoons are blasphemous. To me that says they indeed need to be printed. To me, blasphemous indicates something that someone objects to strongly because they identify with some religious belief. The word reminds me of medieval days, when witches were burned at the stake and Inquisitions ruled. Are we still in the Middle Ages, or are we regressing back to them? Some say that peak oil will send us back to the Middle Ages. Maybe it won't; we are there already.
They say they are tasteless and inappropriate. Let's look at that one. The first cartoon to me is far-sidey, reminding me of the Far Side. It takes two incongruous concepts, that of plotting linear equations and of Christ dying on the cross, and superimposes them. It's a little strange, because of the mix of two different ideas, but I don't see anything that religionists should object to. The thing that is the most wrong with this comic is that it is mathematically wrong. The comic indicates that the x-intercepts of the parabola are (3,0) and (-3,0); the 3s should be the square root of 3 instead. The other one may be a little off-color because of its reference to sexually transmitted disease. But it does one good thing: it spoofs the ridiculous notion of immaculate conception, which violates scientific principles. To me, a religious belief must not contradict established science: religious beliefs address the unknown, not the known.
What really concerns me about the League and the email writers is that they are doing the same thing that radical Muslims did when Danish cartoonists drew caricatures of Mohammad. These people were trying to impose their religion on those that did not believe in it. What they did was an affront to freedom of speech in Europe and elsewhere, and the League and email writers are doing the same thing, except that they are not making death threats.
The University of Virginia is a secular institution, and hence separate from any religious body such as Catholicism, so it does not need to conform to rules that these bodies make. The campus paper refused to apologize, and I feel they did the right thing.
As far as the comics are concerned and what I think of them? I went through them and to me many are just not funny. The points are lost on me. Quirksmith is one of the better ones. His and other comics reflect a student lifestyle. Notice the obsession with linear equations, rate problems, algebraic equations, balls with parabolic trajectories, history, Keats, Shakespeare and so forth; these students are studying hard to get good grades and succeed later on. This is typical student stuff, and so is the obsession with the opposite sex; one Quirksmith comic showed a Venn diagram showing the positive properties of women.
These students are full of creative ideas, and these comics are a good way of allowing them to be expressed. This is what freedom of speech and the First Amendment are all about. We need these ideas to find the way by which civilization can keep developing and avoid pitfalls such as racial hatred and peak oil. And these email senders want to quash all that. So keep on, students. Let's see more good stuff from TCB, Quirksmith, Pie and other cartoonists at the University of Virginia.
