what's the point?

Everyone else is doing it

So, the paper I worked on in college is in the news again. For the whole skinny on the situation here's an article from the Times, I'd recommend reading Matt's post on too.

This whole thing is almost like a college reunion, except most of the people from the inside that are commenting are people I've never heard of. Where do I fall on the issue? I'm not sure. Is the cartoon offensive? Maybe, when viewed out of context, but coming out of a public university in the Northeast, I don't think there can be any doubt that this was satire. When I was a waiter, my boss who was German used to jokingly threaten to throw me into the pizza oven. I wasn't really offended by it, any more than he was offended by my constant jokes that he *would* throw me into a pizza oven. Really, that's just as offensive, to categorize all Germans as Nazis.

I don't want to defend or criticize the act of publishing the cartoon, because what it boils down to is it's their right to do so, regardless of what anyone else thinks. If people don't like it, they're free to raise holy hell in response. College is a place to experiment, to try things you'd never think of trying at home, or at work, or in any polite company for that matter. This paper is a place to learn for the current staff, just as it was when I was on the staff, and I can guarantee you that they did learn from this, even if the only lesson was that getting into the national news spotlight is way too easy these days.

In closing, it's good to remember the genesis of the name "the Medium:" because it's not rare, and never well done.