Ian O’Doherty’s column in the Independent of Ireland reviews the final decision on the lawsuit involving comedian Sunda Croonquist and her in-laws (the case was thrown out and Croonquist’s jokes are considered to be protected speech) then he segues into the case of Vancouver comedians Guy Earle:

(Croonquist’s) was a thoroughly ridiculous and frivolous suit that should never have been heard in the first place, but it shows just how tenuous the safety net for comedians really is these days.

For example, a comedian in Canada is being sued by a heckler for “sexual discrimination, gender discrimination” and, quite wonderfully, “post-traumatic stress disorder”.

And then he ties it in with the Irish comic Tommy Tiernan incident. Tiernan made some crude Holocaust jokes at a press conference a while back and some people tried to pressure the American Embassy to lift his work visa.

O’Doherty says it’s because we’re infantalised. And his most interesting points come at the end of his column, where he addresses the recent cowardice displayed by Comedy Central.

After threats by a US-based radical Islamist website, Comedy Central chose to censor the South Park episode that depicted Muhammed in a bear suit. Then, days later they announced that they were developing an animated show in which the lead character would be Jesus Christ.

Which isn’t out of character for the network, but the weasel quote from the cable outlet’s head of original programming Kent Alterman gave us pause:

“In general, comedy in purist form always makes some people uncomfortable.”

O’Doherty’s conclusion is that Comedy Central displayed a “most disgraceful piece of cowardice.”

So, kiddies, have we learned any lessons yet?

Yup, of course we have and it’s this — never mind the logic, just feel the outrage and look on haplessly as we merrily wander down the path to complete censorship of any idea that might, just might, piss someone off.

We’re not sure O’Doherty is 100 per cent right here. It seems as though complete (self)censorship might only be exercised those patrons of the arts who are threatened with violence by radical Muslims. So far no governments are involved, so it’s not that kind of censorship.

But there was a large religious institution involved. Note that the man who made the video that caused Comedy Central to cower so carefully worded his threat that it wasn’t technically a crime. But days later a gas bomb, capable of killing a few hundred people in every direction, was placed within a few yards of the building that houses the corporation that owns Comedy Central. Switch the religions around and change a couple names and you’d have a giant, two- or three-week scandal.

But no one seems to interested in doing anything about it. Folks who are normally up in arms about vague threats or intimidation seem strangely silent about what happened to Viacom and Comedy Central and Parker and Stone.

Here’s a photo… it’s the bomb’s eye view of the Viacom building.

The Fire Commissioner said the device had the explosive potential to “take down the front of a building.” This is from an article on May 2. Since then, we’ve heard precious little about the ties between the bomber and South Park. We’ve heard lots of snark about how crude the bomb was, how stupid the bomber was (an MBA from Bridgeport University) and the hapless jihadis who claimed responsibility for the bomb. It’s all pretty funny, isn’t it?!

In a previous post, we cited the Mohammed/bear suit as an example of bravery on the part of Parker and Stone. But we couldn’t have prepared for the cowardice of Comedy Central and the shallowness of the media.