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A SENSE OF NORMALITY
Age readers—bless them, for they are few—react to Michael Leunig’s disgusting cartoon:
That old Palestinian man in the wheelchair that Leunig alludes to in his cartoon - the late spiritual leader of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin - believed that Israel had no right to exist and consequently made a career out of launching rocket attacks against Israeli villages and sending suicide bombers into cafes and restaurants in order to kill as many Israelis as they could.
Leunig’s cartoons are often tasteless - but this one is downright offensive.
Alan Freedman, East St KildaPerhaps Michael Leunig needs to be reminded that it was terrorists from the Palestine Liberation Front who hijacked the cruise ship Achille Lauro in 1985 and killed a partially paralysed 69-year-old American man, Leon Klinghoffer, because he was a Jew. The terrorists tossed Leon Klinghoffer’s body overboard along with his wheelchair. The contrast of the events on the Achille Lauro with Israel’s policies of targeting only combatants in retaliation for, or pre-emption of, attacks on civilians is dramatic, to say the least.
Leunig’s cartoons do nothing to promote thoughtful discussion on the issues nor do they offer the measured and educated opinions I expect from your paper. Instead they are shallow, ill-informed, deliberately hostile and shamelessly partisan.
Leon Kinal, MoorabbinFor pity’s sake, enough is enough!
I cannot cite another example of a journalist permitted to daily flaunt plainly extremist views in a wide-circulation mainstream newspaper. The drumbeat of Michael Leunig’s fanaticism has long become tiresome, but what is more disturbing is the unparalleled licence he is accorded by your editors.
No doubt ducks and teapots make for happy merchandising, but this does not excuse your endless coddling of a doctrinaire zealot.
Geoffrey Winn, East Brighton
Learn more about Leunig at his official tribute website: “With a passion for truth, he believes that his honesty of depressed, lonely, embarrassing and troublesome thoughts and situations helps individuals feel more of a sense of normality, in difficult times.”
Leunig’s website is the most priceless example of self-congratulatory fanatasy that I’ve seen in a long while. I find this comment interesting: “Micheal’s work can be often interrelated with his youth, i.e., his childhood duck”. Not “e.g.” but “i.e.”, which implies that he equates his youth with a childhood duck. Oooookaaaay . . .
And I have to confess: whenever I hear the word “passion” used these days in connection with somebody’s particular political hobby horse, I want to reach for my revolver. Less heat and more light, I say.
The “Love Is Born” section is a place where even Katie Holmes might have second thoughts.
Posted by chinesearithmetic on 2006 01 11 at 12:05 PM • permalinkIn difficult times, difficult TIMES? What difficult times!? What difficult times has this lazy, bleeding heart Melbournite soft-headed leftist wanker endured?
What’s the matter, the hallucinated conversations with talking snakes on his country property taking a sinister tone? Run out of ways to draw ducks and other feathered vermin staring quizzically at his curly-headed characters in such a fashion to communicate timeless truths?
In Christ’s name, someone fire this clown out of a cannon. Why won’t he shut up? WHY WON’T ANY OF THEM SHUT UP?
Paco, you should enter that word ‘fanatasy’ in the next contest that shows up every year. (Is it the NYT or WSJ or someone that runs it or publishes it or whatever?) That’s a good one.
As to Leunig, since his life is so dismal, why doesn’t he bring some joy to the rest of us by exiting it instead of imposing his crud on us?
Posted by JorgXMcKie on 2006 01 11 at 01:25 PM • permalinkPaco, you’ve made up one of those words they have a contest for every year at some newspaper, the Wash Post? Can’t remember. Anyway, Fanatasy is brilliant. It’s rather like Newton and the apple. You misspelled something and it turns out you have benefited mankind. I’m putting you in for a knighthood. If Bob Geldorf gets one, Paco gets one.
In #2, above, I see that I was guilty of a misspelling, but I kind of like it: “fanatasy” - the rigid holding to a set of beliefs that are grounded in one’s hallucinations.
I am so going to start using that.
Not since some peanutbutter-eating clown bumped into a chocolate-bar-eating dork has there been such a happy accident.
I predict big things for “fanatasy.”
I’ve said it before and I will say it again, Leunig is a loop.
Posted by Major Anya on 2006 01 11 at 03:36 PM • permalinkErrr, I read The Age, but it is only for that sexy photograph of Michelle Grattan.
Actually, they often give The Age out for free at Parliament Station.
Posted by Major Anya on 2006 01 11 at 03:38 PM • permalinkI’ve heard that papers with declining circulations, like The Age, often give out large numbers of copies for free in various ways.
They then count these as part of their “circulation” figures, regardless of whether or not they are actually read.
I suppose a railway station is a particularly good place for handing out The Age, since the lack of rubbish bins means that recipients can’t immediately dump the thing.
Posted by Evil Pundit on 2006 01 11 at 04:35 PM • permalinkLeunig the international politics expert today in The Age does a cartoon suggesting that the West’s alarm at the nuclear ambitions of Iran and President Mahmoud A. are ridiculous and the threat is trivial. He doesn’t quite say that the alarm is a Howard/Bush conspiracy but he implies it.
He needs to have a chat with some Hiroshima survivors.#5: Amos, you really ought to be more thoughtful - these are difficult times for some people. I mean, just look at what is going on in the world: Howard wins a fourth term, Bush wins a second, the Iraq war starts going in the right direction, the British Tories are coming together and in Tasmania the Liberal Opposition might be able to sink a Leftie Premier. Not to mention that the Fed Opposition would probably have a better shot at winning if they brought back Latham.
The world for a fanatic leftie offers very few reassurances, except ducks and beanbags.
PW #19—The official cover story is that terrorists might plant bombs in rubbish bins, but like you I’m inclined to suspect wronwright.
Posted by Evil Pundit on 2006 01 11 at 07:18 PM • permalinkThe key to Leunig is that he gave up old socialist Methodism to become a pacifist Buddhist.
The first gave him an impenetratable, self-righteous belief that he was always ‘on the side of the poor and weak’, and the second simply proves that to be a Buddhist like him means never having to be responsible for anything.I’ve heard that papers with declining circulations, like The Age, often give out large numbers of copies for free in various ways.
They then count these as part of their “circulation” figures, regardless of whether or not they are actually read.
Free copies of Fairfax papers are handed out at domestic airports. Bondi Junction Westfield hands out free copies of the Sun Herald to everyone entering (and again on leaving) the cinema.
I bet there will be letters in the Age tomorrow from Islamists (known for their sense of humour) supporting Leunig. With friends like those…
Amos - ferals like Leunig refuse to shut up because talk is all they have left. Their beliefs have been shown to be totally at odds with human feelings and instincts, their political policies have resulted in disaster and their continual support of our enemies have shown which side they’re really on.
All they have now is their big mouths.
This from his site,
“Unfortunately, his private life began to trouble and torment him greatly. Michael decided to become a single father which he considers as a positive step.”
Now I can understand that women are able to conceive through IVF and hence mother a “fatherless” child, though how does a man go about intentially achieving single parent status?Is the above a polite way of saying he told the mother to hit the road? Or did he adopt a destitute third world kid? (Angelina Jolie style)
What a freakin’ weirdo.
The Permanent Link to today’s Age letters page is:
http://www.theage.com.au/news/letters/were-missing-a-chance-to-make-a-real-difference/2006/01/11/1136956238104.htmlYou can find usually these by the ‘letters archive’ link on the right hand side of the letters page.
mr magoo,
We Yanks would be happy to trade Leunig and Leak for Ted Rall.
Well, maybe…
:^þ
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2006 01 12 at 02:45 AM • permalinkLeunig’s being patronising to the ex-Sheikh, bordering on discrimination.
Ysssin became wheelchair-bound at around age twelve, and still managed in later life to found and lead an A-grade terrorist organisation.
He didn’t let his physical impairment get in the way of inspiring the murder of hundreds of Jews.
Surely Leunig should realise that disabled-people can be evil too, and as such, deserving of going to Paradise sooner rather than later?
Is Islam the World’s Dumbest Religion or what!
Posted by Oafish and Infantile on 2006 01 12 at 04:54 PM • permalinkA little o/t: Israel’s tourism minister just bitch slapped Pat Robertson.
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Has the Nobel Committee learned of Leunig? We may have another Peace Prize laureate in our midst.