Laughing matters

A new book crossed my desk this week: "The Rejection Collection: Cartoons You Never Saw, and Never Will See, in the New Yorker," edited by New Yorker cartoonist Matthew Diffee and published by Simon & Schuster. In his foreword, Robert Mankoff writes, "The collection is yet more proof that bad taste and humor are not strange bedfellows but intimate partners whose down and dirty doings often delight us against our better judgment, our scruples, and our politically respectable attitudes."

Many of the cartoons made me laugh, but one could see why the New Yorker would have filed them. Most concern sex, bodily functions, race, ethnicity, or religion. However, I couldn't help but notice that while a few (including one showing Jesus on the Cross) would outrage sensitive Christians, and one that mentions Auschwitz would offend some Jews, there are no cartoons about Islam.

It made me wonder: With the furor over the Mohammed newspaper cartoons in Europe and all the controversy about radical Islam and world affairs, is it possible, among the thousands of rejects, that there were no cartoons about Islam? Or was it felt that they were too hot to handle, even in a book that celebrates defiance of better judgment and scruples?