One might find the monkey cartoon offensive but, I found the violence to be the most disturbing part

[jsamuel]

If the monkey is the "author" of the stimulus bill, alluding to Obama as the main proponent and where the bill started, then isn't there a suggestion of violence against Obama? The picture of the monkey with bullet holes and blood was very vivid and was very disturbing to me in the way it suggested Obama was the monkey lying dead and bloodied in the street.

[Liberal_in_LA]

1. It was a stupid stupid cartoon, offensive on multiple levels

[Bucky]

2. I saw the chimp cartoon. Is there a monkey cartoon too?

It's hard to rank the offenses there.

1) the racism (blacks = chimpanzees)
2) the fascism (cops need to "put down" unsavory elements in society a/o Washington DC)
3) the illogic (in what way does a violent, rampaging beast represent the process of writing legislation?)
4) the anti-liberalism (so, Democratic lawmakers are the runaway animals)
5) more fascism (gunning down "lawmakers" is the response to laws you can't muster the votes to defeat)

[jsamuel]

3. Chimps are, in fact, Old World Monkeys

Look it up. So are we.

[Muttocracy]

7. chimps and humans are apes, not monkeys (monkeys and apes are both primates)

[jsamuel]

10. that is true, but apes are Old World Monkeys

My point is that it just depends how far up the taxonomy you want to go.

[Muttocracy]

12. nope, apes are not a subset of Old World Monkeys - here's Wiki's tree

"Monkey" is not a monophyletic term

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primate#Classification

# Suborder Haplorrhini: tarsiers, monkeys and apes

* Infraorder Tarsiiformes
...o Family Tarsiidae: tarsiers (8 species)
* Infraorder Simiiformes
...o Parvorder Platyrrhini: New World monkeys
.........+ Family Cebidae: marmosets, tamarins, capuchins and squirrel monkeys (56 species)
.........+ Family Aotidae: night or owl monkeys (douroucoulis) (7 species)
.........+ Family Pitheciidae: titis, sakis and uakaris (43 species)
.........+ Family Atelidae: howler, spider and woolly monkeys (24 species)
...o Parvorder Catarrhini
......+ Superfamily Cercopithecoidea
.........# Family Cercopithecidae: Old World monkeys (135 species)
......+ Superfamily Hominoidea
.........# Family Hylobatidae: gibbons or "lesser apes" (13 species)
.........# Family Hominidae: humans and other great apes (7 species)

[jsamuel]

15. Yep. Sorry.

What is funny is that the first time I heard this story it was an orangutan.

[Bucky]

11. Okay, I took your suggestion. I "looked it up". Chimps aren't monkeys.

1) http://anthro.palomar.edu/primate/prim_6.htm "Review of Monkey Taxonomy: Let us take a moment to review the framework of monkey classification. To begin, they are members of the Anthropoidea suborder along with all of the apes and humans. However, the New World monkeys are sufficiently different from the others to warrant their placement in a separate infraorder (Platyrrhini)."

and

infraorder: Platyrrhini         species: New World monkeys

infraorder: Catarrhini         species: Old World monkeys, apes, humans

2) http://www.animalcorner.co.uk/wildlife/monkeys/monkey_oldworld.html "Old World Monkeys are a group of primates which belong to the super family Cercopithecoidea. Old World monkeys are unlike apes in that most have tails (the family name means 'tailed ape'), and unlike the New World monkeys their tails are never prehensile. Some species of Old World monkeys inhabit tropical rainforests, while others live on arid grasslands and even mountainous areas with heavy winter snows."

3) http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/103269/Old-World-monkey "Monkeys are arranged into two main groups: Old World and New World. Old World monkeys all belong to one family, Cercopithecidae, which is related to apes and humans, and together they are classified as catarrhines (meaning “downward-nosed” in Latin)."

[jsamuel]

14. Yep, I remembered my bio-anth class wrong. Too many years gone by I guess.

I remembered apes being classified under Old World Monkeys.

[Muttocracy]

16. classifications do change over time too. nt

[Bucky]

17. I hate that cartoon, but racist comments aside, frankly, those cops did the right thing

At some point, it's gonna come down to us versus the damn dirty apes. Either we kill them, or they'll start talking, master firearms technology, and start killing us.

Goddamn them all to hell!!

[spanone]

4. racist and inflammatory

[Quantess]

5. But there is a built-in excuse.

There really was a pet chimp who was shot by police.

But, everyone at NY Post knows exactly what they are doing, they know exactly how it could be taken (and is being taken) and they are laughing their asses off over it. They will say "Cops shot a chimp who attacked a woman! You're being oversensitive! Can't you take a joke?"

The built-in excuse absolves them of anything.

[Oregone]

6. Im like Colbert: color blind...

So you know, I totally missed that. I thought it was just saying a bunch of idiots as smart as a monkey wrote the stimulus bill. I see now how people can see that it was racist, but you know, everyone perceives things differently. What we will never know is what the author meant. It could of just been a joke that popped to his mind real quick when he heard about the chimp that the police had to kill.

[Quantess]

13. The editors at NY Post have already thought of it,

and they want you to continue to give them the benefit of the doubt. This is what they do for a living. You think they hadn't thought of it first?

It is possible that the author made just another of his current-events cartoons (the author made several cartoons commenting on the stimulus bill, drawn on current events of the past month) without realizing the implications. But, there is no way that the editors saw it, and thought it was innocent.

[catzies]

8. My exact impression too! More the violence than the presence of the chimp

I thought, "Good God, why'd they have to SHOOT him?" :scared:

[Laura PourMeADrink]

9. Violence? What is worse is that it is supposed to be about the ape who

mauled a woman in CT. So, what in the world would be appropriate/funny about indirectly mocking a poor woman
who who had the skin ripped off her face?