Within a week, we've gone from the ridiculous to the tragic. Journalists everywhere had a grand old time with Kirby Delauter's threat to sue a newspaper for unauthorized use of his name. It was so much fun to mock a man who doesn't understand what being a public official entails.
It was not so much fun to contemplate what happened at Charlie Hebdo, where men who don't understand satire and don't respect freedom of speech killed 12 people.
I once thought that being a writer was a relatively safe occupation. And for me, it has been. The worst I've had to deal with was angry letters and phone calls about my restaurant reviews. But in the world outside my inky cocoon, writing, drawing and broadcasting were becoming unsafe: Salman Rushdie, journalists as hostages, beheadings and now a lethal attack on a magazine.
The pen is mightier than the sword? Hmm.
I feel much like I did in May 1970 when, poised to graduate from high school and go on to college, my classmates and I learned about Kent State. How chilling to think that getting an education might also get you killed.
I don't have much to add to the discussions currently going on about Charlie Hebdo, but I do want to note that in this age of digital virality, when derivative entrepreneurs like Emerson Spartz (of Dose.com) worship traffic, hits and shares over original and meaningful content, it appears that real creators aren't so passé after all. Maybe we still are relevant. Relevant enough to kill.
Je suis Charlie.
It was not so much fun to contemplate what happened at Charlie Hebdo, where men who don't understand satire and don't respect freedom of speech killed 12 people.
I once thought that being a writer was a relatively safe occupation. And for me, it has been. The worst I've had to deal with was angry letters and phone calls about my restaurant reviews. But in the world outside my inky cocoon, writing, drawing and broadcasting were becoming unsafe: Salman Rushdie, journalists as hostages, beheadings and now a lethal attack on a magazine.
The pen is mightier than the sword? Hmm.
I feel much like I did in May 1970 when, poised to graduate from high school and go on to college, my classmates and I learned about Kent State. How chilling to think that getting an education might also get you killed.
I don't have much to add to the discussions currently going on about Charlie Hebdo, but I do want to note that in this age of digital virality, when derivative entrepreneurs like Emerson Spartz (of Dose.com) worship traffic, hits and shares over original and meaningful content, it appears that real creators aren't so passé after all. Maybe we still are relevant. Relevant enough to kill.
Je suis Charlie.