Posted on 04/16/2005 4:11:58 PM PDT by neverdem
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- The Star Tribune warned its readers Saturday that some might be offended by a comic strip about the Red Lake Indian Reservation shootings.
In the syndicated ''La Cucaracha'' strip that also ran Saturday, a teacher asks what President Bush might have said to console those affected by the shootings last month which left 10 people dead, including the teenage gunman.
One student answers, ''I'm really so sorry you're not an Anglo suburban reservation.'' Another says, ''You shoulda stuck to arrows.'' A third says, ''Pow? Wow!''
Editor Anders Gyllenhaal, in a note to readers, said the paper was not aware of the topic of the comic strip until after the section had been preprinted. He said the paper gives broad latitude to comics and rarely pulls a strip, but it wanted to recognize that some readers could find the cartoon inappropriate.
''While topics in the news are a logical subject of commentary, an attempt at humor about the Red Lake shooting cannot help but fall short while the tragedy still resonates across the state,'' Gyllenhaal wrote.
Kathie Kerr, a spokeswoman for Universal Press Syndicate which publishes the comic, said the strip deals with social and political issues for young Latinos, and she described it as edgy. The strip is drawn by Lalo Alcaraz.
''This is not out of character for the strip,'' she said.
Bush offered his condolences a few days after the March 21 shootings, but critics said he should have spoken out sooner. Jeffrey Weise, 16, killed five students, a teacher and a security guard at Red Lake High school on the reservation in northern Minnesota before killing himself. He also killed his grandfather and his grandfather's companion.
At least one newspaper cartoon about the shootings has already drawn criticism.
Duluth News Tribune publisher Marti Buscaglia apologized after readers said a March 30 editorial cartoon by Signe Wilkinson of the Philadelphia Daily News was racially offensive.
That cartoon depicted a man with a headband and ponytail holding an ''Indian Tracking Guide'' as he walked along a path littered with guns, skulls, swastikas and a picture of Adolf Hitler. The man said: ''I'm not recognizing these signs.''
In Web site postings that came to light after the shootings, Weise said he admired Hitler and talked of depression, suicide and violence.
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On the Net:
The Star Tribune: http://www.startribune.com
United Press Syndicate: http://www.uexpress.com
Am I missing something?
What does the President have to do with the killer kid in Minnesota?
I might be offended, if I understood the point the creator of this obviously very witless and unispired cartoon was trying to make.
The fact that the NYtimes ran a story about an obscure comic strip from an obscure paper tells me something, I'm just not real sure what.
What does the President have to do with the killer kid in Minnesota?
What are you, dense? Everyone knows it's Bush's fault! /sarcasm
It is all Bush's fault. Everything is his fault.
Haven't you figured that out by now?
Here they know they have a "cartoon" that is tasteless, senseless, and hurtful to those who lost loved ones in the shootings. So instead of re-printing an old one, they not only will print it, but they release it ahead of time to generate more readership. Effin editors are as bad as the author.
It's unbelievable that in a situation in which a kid latches on to a Libertarian-Green-Nazi hybrid group he is inspired to take out seven human beings, the only one who is painted as a bad guy is Bush because he didn't rush over to the survivors' side and say, "There, there..."
If it weren't for an opportunity to bash Bush, would Alcaraz have addressed the killings in his strip at all?
BTW -- I am vaguely familiar with the Libertarian National Socialist Green Party. I mentioned them in this thread about one of the weirdo leaders of the left's protest of the Florida recount in 2000.
LOL! Thanks for the link.
his boss is the president, hence the village people question about his dress.
It is a slap at the WH alleged to be paying for "forum posters".
I wish to tender my application for such a post.
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