People are very quick to start chucking round words like 'racist' and 'offensive'. thats what stirs up bother, probably more a case of a fairly thick cartoonist rather than the start of some hate-war.

that and the fact that is referring to an actual event with an actual chimp...its not like they went out of their way to put a chimp in for no good reason. people read what they want into things like this.

i found it more offensive that a 70 year old widow was allowed to keep a 15 stone chimp in her house...think thats slightly more worth getting bothered about than a cartoon.

Being rude, tasteless, or worse yet (for a cartoonist) - not funny, does not automatically make it racist. The word "racist" implies a hateful, almost criminal intent. I think this was an insensitive, poorly thought out lampoon. America values it's free speech, and Barack Obama's presidency will give us numerous opportunities to address the race issue. Let's not look for offense until we can show that it was intentional.