What's wrong with people?

When I saw this article on Fark that described the outrage over a college newspaper, my interest was piqued. I love free speech issues, and surely if people were calling for editor to be fired it must have been something quite terrible. Here's the badness, according to the article:

The comic strip, dubbed "Polydongs," depicts explicit images surrounding the humiliation and degradation of a 14-year-old Latina girl. The paper printed a disclaimer saying it "does not support the kidnapping of (and subsequent urinating on) children of any age or ethnicity."

Well, now my interest was definitely piqued. A newspaper showing explicit images of urinating on a 14 year old girl? That's something else. So I downloaded the PDF of the newspaper available on their website, and here's the offending comic, for your enjoyment (click to embiggen):



Personally, I don't see why that's so bad. For starters, there's nothing explicit at all in there, the girl isn't even pictured. Then there's the fact that the comic characters are shapes, further removing it from reality (and making it more absurd). Finally, there's the fact that it's a comic strip, and even explicitly states that it's a joke, and the staff don't condone that kind of thing in reality.

This reminds me of the Muslim furor over those Danish cartoons, which is apparently still going on. It's just more people overreacting and showing that they have no sense of humor or value of free speech.

Which isn't to say that those who don't like it should do nothing. I think it's perfectly reasonable to try to remove the newspaper's funding, either through alumni contributions or student support (at Stanford certain student groups get special funds that need to be approved every year, I imagine other schools are similar). But asking for the editor to be fired is just silly, and I even think trying to remove funding is an overreaction.

Maybe one of these days people will stop being so damn sensitive about every little thing, but I doubt it. Until then those who offend will have to deal with this kind of reaction, and people who find it funny (like myself) will continue to laugh.