THE NEXT CARTOON FREAKOUT

A white South African political cartoonist, Jonathan Shapiro, famously controversial in his country, got really upset the other day when the editor, Tim Du Plessis, of a popular South African magazine, Rapport, fired one of his writers, Deon Maas, for writing a column calling for tolerance towards believers in satanism.

Shapiro draws his cartoons under the pen name Zapiro – and the one he drew in anger towards Du Plessis has ticked off a major fraction of the entire population of South Africa.  This just happened, with Zapiro's cartoon appearing in the November 21 edition of the Mail & Guardian newspaper day before yesterday.

It's unlikely, however, that there will be Christian riots in Joburg, or elsewhere in the world, protesting Zapiro's comparing the Holy Trinity to the Easter Bunny – or Hindu riots in Delhi over comparing Shiva to the Tooth Fairy – or Jewish riots in Jerusalem over comparing Yaweh (Jehovah) to Zeus.

That's because these folks are mostly grown-up adults who just wearily shake their heads at juvenile attempts to ridicule their religion.

But you can bet on folks who have never grown out of the Dark Ages to engage in yet another violent world-wide temper tantrum over comparing Allah to Casper the Friendly Ghost, and worse, actually depicting Allah in a scribbled drawing.

So sit back and get set to enjoy the next great Mooselimb Cartoon Freakout.  Here's Zapiro's cartoon: