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"I've Never Blinked…"

Aug 13, 2009
By .
Politics & Current Events

"But when it came between that and blood on my hands, there was no question."

– Yale Univiersity Press Director John Donatich, explaining his decision to allow Brandeis University Professor Jytte Klausen to publish a book on the infamous Danish "Muhammad" cartoons, but only on condition that Professor Klausen agree to remove the cartoons themselves from the work.

As Popehat's resident cartoonist Derrick is firewalled from the site, it falls to me to draw up my own Muhammad cartoon:

Secret Nightmare of John Donatich

Last 5 posts by Patrick

13 Comments
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13 Comments

  1. Linus  •  Aug 13, 2009 @3:55 pm

    Speaking of cartoons, and things-that-are-ridiculous, this reminded me of one of my favorite Calvin and Hobbes panels (which I cannot find at the moment, but here's the gist):

    Calvin: Want to hear a joke?

    Hobbes: Sure!

    Calvin: OK, this guy goes into a bar. No, wait, he doesn’t do that
    yet. Or maybe it’s a newsagency. OK, it doesn’t matter; let’s
    say it’s a bar. He’s somewhere in the vicinity of a bar,
    right? So anyway, there’s this dog and he says something
    odd, I don’t remember, but this other guy says, um, well, I
    forget, but it was funny.

    Hobbes: I’ll try to imagine it.

    Calvin: Yeah, you’ll really laugh.

  2. Chris Berez  •  Aug 13, 2009 @6:16 pm

    I think he should be able to publish his book with the cartoons included and the terrorists shouldn't be able to get mad. We elected a secret Muslim atheist that was born in Kenya and raised by secret Muslim atheist lions as the president, so I think they owe us one.

  3. Ken  •  Aug 13, 2009 @6:26 pm

    Utterly pathetic.

  4. jb  •  Aug 14, 2009 @4:18 am

    Why is the blood on his hands again?

  5. Chris  •  Aug 14, 2009 @6:29 am

    No, no. They need to have those Mad-style folding images, where it looks like something else, and it's only an offensive cartoon after you fold the page. Lacking the cultural context and reading history, the jihadists will never notice.

  6. Al  •  Aug 14, 2009 @7:12 am

    It's about time you all blocked Derrick from Popehat.

  7. Grandy  •  Aug 14, 2009 @7:22 am

    Awesome cartoon, P.

  8. Charles  •  Aug 14, 2009 @8:48 am

    Why is the blood on his hands again?

    His argument is that if a Yale Press secretary has her face blown off by a letter bomb or a suicide bomber takes out the fans arriving to The Game, it would be his fault.

  9. Lux et veritas  •  Aug 14, 2009 @11:15 am

    Wouldn't this confrontation-avoidance principle apply to self-censor everything? Will he start striking out potentially inflammatory text next?

    I understand he's a merchant, so courage isn't his thing, but man this is a candy-assed move.

    Reminds me of this cartoon for some reason, http://www.cartoonbank.com/product_details.asp?mscssid=KUX3WGHUK1929NL367QT8EWNQ7S1DQJF&sitetype=1&did=4&sid=52657&pid=&keyword=diffee%2C+diffee&section=prints,%20prints&title=%2Chttp%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ecartoonbank%2Ecom%2Fdirectory%5Fcategory%2Easp%3Fsitetype%3D1%2C+&whichpage=17&sortBy=popular

  10. mojo  •  Aug 14, 2009 @3:01 pm

    Ahhh! The Irony, it BURNSSSSS….

  11. David  •  Aug 16, 2009 @4:55 pm

    The cartoons are controversial. Over two hundred people were killed when they were first published and Mr. Donatich is completely right for not wanting to repeat that horrible time. The book itself is about the cartoons and isn't the whole point of a book is to describe pictures in words? It isn't worth having a couple of pages of drawings that are available to anyone online than to have people's lives on his hands. If danger didn't occur, it would still at the least offend a religion, culture and a percentage of this country and the world. I think that the cartoons that were represented on this very website that "Derrick" drew are disgusting. If you were a publisher and were already exposing a controversial book about a very shaky subject – would you display images that could possibly take people's lives away? Didn't think so…
    So, before you go along and make unethical judgments, why don't you do some research and brush up on your cartooning skills. Maybe YOU could display them in the book that you publish some day.

  12. Patrick  •  Aug 17, 2009 @6:26 am

    David, and you're not the David who occasionally posts here:

    It's difficult for me to take anything you say seriously when you say that you find "Derrick's" cartoons at Popehat disgusting, when "Derrick" (his real name, no quotes needed) has never drawn a cartoon here. My reference to Derrick's cartoons was an inside joke, to which you are not privy.

    Since you've established yourself as a liar, why should I give a fuck what you say?

    As for your criticism of my cartooning skills, only an asshat, like for instance you, wouldn't see that this was drawn badly by design, with Paint. Derrick (again, here's the inside joke) is an amazing person because, among other talents, he can draw decent Paint cartoons. But you've never seen one.

    Asshat.

  13. Linus  •  Aug 17, 2009 @7:00 am

    Are you kidding me? I WISH I could draw as well as Patrick with Paint. That crap is hard.

    Also, love this formulation:

    would you display images that could possibly take people’s lives away

    Ah yes, the IMAGES are what take people's lives away, the images just magically, no one really knows how, scientists are looking into the mechanism of causation as we speak, take people's lives away. But one things scientists do know: a book ABOUT the images will not take people's lives away, as long as the IMAGES are not actually in the book.