Marlette’s offense: ‘What Would Mohammed drive?’

“….And offend [Doug Marlette] did. In 2002, when he drew a cartoon showing a man in Arab headdress driving a Ryder rental truck hauling a nuclear missile — under the caption ‘What Would Mohammed Drive? — he set off a campaign orchestrated by the Council on American-Islamic Relations; he and the newspaper received more than 20,000 e-mail messages from people who accused him of bigotry and blasphemy and some who included death threats.

“Writing about the incident in The Tallahassee Democrat, where Mr. Marlette was then on staff, he said: ‘In my 30-year career I have regularly drawn cartoons that offend religious fundamentalists and true believers of every stripe, a fact that I tend to list in the “accomplishments” column of my résumé. I have outraged fundamentalist Christians by skewering Jerry Falwell, Roman Catholics by needling the pope, and Jews by criticizing Israel. I have vast experience upsetting people with my art.”

— From “Doug Marlette, Cartoonist Who Won the Pulitzer Prize, Dies at 57” by Motoko Rich in the New York Times (July 11, 2007)

Marlette, a Greensboro native, last lived in Hillsborough. His 1988 Pulitzer recognized cartoons he had drawn about PTL at the Charlotte Observer.

 

Zimbalist: PTL directors didn’t do much directing

“Actor Efrem Zimbalist Jr. testified Monday [in Charlotte] that the PTL board of directors, on which he once served, was little more than a rubber stamp for television evangelist Jim Bakker.

” ‘It was called a board of directors, but at no time did it operate like one,’ said Zimbalist, star of ‘The FBI’ television series, who served on the board from 1981 to 1986.

” ‘It was a board of approval or affirmation only.’ ”

Asked if he recalled approving a $390,000 bonus for Bakker, Zimbalist said: ‘Oh no, oh no.’ ”

— From the Associated Press (Sept. 19, 1989)

Like Mickey Rooney and Pat Boone, Zimbalist was a familiar face to viewers of Bakker’s “PTL Club.” He died Friday at age 95.

 

The rise and long, hard fall of muscadine wine

More phrase-frequency charts from Google Books Ngram Reader:

— Chapel Hill vs. Raleigh and Durham

Variety Vacationland. Tourism promotion not a priority during World War II?

— Billy Graham vs. Jim Bakker. No contest, even during the glory run of PTL.

— North Carolina vs. South Carolina. South Carolina’s spike in the early 1700s roughly coincides with its becoming a royal colony.

muscadine wine. After 150 years out of favor — longer even than big band music! — still waiting for a comeback.