Journalism seems to be the theme today...

If you haven't read the Anthony Lane piece on PG Wodehouse in The New Yorker, you ought to. It's one of the most perceptive comedy-related pieces I've read in a long time.



Here's a mildly interesting interview with a very interesting man, Gay Talese.



The Medium, a humor newspaper at Rutgers, has gotten in trouble for a cartoon dealing with the Holocaust. I haven't seen it, the cartoon isn't on the web, but an article described it as "showing a carnival contestant trying to knock a terrified Jewish man into a burning oven" with the caption "Knock a Jew in the oven! Three throws for one dollar!?The paper's editor (who is Jewish and had relatives killed in the Holocaust) told the New York Times, 'Humor is a way of honoring [Holocaust victims] and trying to get over it and to laugh."



Well, I personally don't think genocide is something to 'get over,' but nobody can blame the kid for spinning as fast as he can. Now, idiotically, former NYC mayor Ed Koch has weighed in, blasting the paper and the decision of Rutgers' President, who said that the cartoon, as deplorable as it was, is protected by the First Amendment. I hope the President stands firm; I don't want Ed Koch or anybody else monitoring what I can and can't read. There is a difference between juvenile bad taste and authentic hate-speech, and the only way a person can decide which is which is by seeing it for themselves.



I've blogged recently about the stickiness of being a student humorist (and worse, a student humor editor). The currency of comedy today is outrageousness, so student humorists have learned to, in Del Close's words, "follow the fear." But campuses are probably more claustrophobic than adult life is, as regards speech. They are forces destined to clash.



There is plenty of authentic anti-Semitism out there, and every moment that Koch spent on this kerfuffle is time he's not confronting the authentically hateful people in the world. The paper's editor is a Jew, for God's sake--and if the Medium is like every other college humor magazine I know, I'd expect that there are a few other Jewish people on the paper, too. I seriously doubt their intent was anti-Semitic. And intent should count for something; I'd say a lot, wouldn't you?



As the paper's editor has said, places like The Medium are a training ground, and as with any training ground, there will be mistakes. Crying "anti-Semitism" when what's probably at issue is a stupidly conceived and poorly executed gag, helps nobody. By devaluing the term, it simply encourages the oscillation between extreme opinions. It's no coincidence that political correctness and the rabid right emerged at the same time. And that's an improvement?



Meanwhile, at NYU, a kid is living in the library.