I was reading some right-wing blog the other day and they were spouting some kind of argument that “liberals want us to lose in Iraq” because it would make it easier for them to win elections. Except the war has absolutely failed and people still re-elected George W. Bush. I’m not cynical enough to just say it’s because people are all morons, but I also don’t buy the “devil you know versus devil you didn’t” junk either.
This was a recent cover for the OC Weekly. The story was about a gang member who shot some cops and went on the run. When he was later tracked down and killed in a shootout, the cops handcuffed his corpse.
The founding Editor of the OC Weekly, Will Swaim, resigned last week after 11 years with the paper. He cited disagreements with how the New Times chain, which gobbled them up last year, did business.
The OC was my first big circulation illustration client (by altweekly standards) a few years ago. Working with Will was one of my best experiences as an illustrator and what makes this job so cool; illustrating muckraking news stories that had lasting impact on an area, with creative freedom to boot. I had the pleasure of illustrating covers exposing their corrupt sheriff, a priestly pedophile, and a criminal AIDS Doctor.
As one comment on their blog said, “Will Swaim and his paper have been one giant pain in the ass to a county that was in desperate need of one.”
After doing basically nothing to my myspace page ever, today I’ve managed to make it look slightly less pathetic. I learned how to add a background color, added some info etc. But can anyone tell me in a really simple EASY way how to make the various sections (like comments, or interests) have a different background color, so they’ll stand out from the general background?
Thank you for any help!
Why Barack Obama is a Boomer
Bruce was among several correspondents who questioned a recent cartoon, in which I stated that Senator Barack Obama would be, if elected, America’s first Generation X president:
I believe that the baby boom was 1946-1964, so I don’t think Obama qualifies as a Gen-Xer.
G.M. said:
As much fun as it is, Obama is still the end of the Baby boom. I mean, he graduated high school in the 70s. No Duran-Duran or Pearl Jam for him. You know, Toto and Fleetwood Mac don’t really make for proper Gen-Xing.
Back in the 1990s, before the rest of the world hated us and people cared about generational politics and magazine editors hired me to write a lot of lengthy articles, I published a lengthy treatise on the various definitions of Generation X for Link Magazine. As I noted in the article, there’s a wide range of disagreement on which birth years constitute the Gen X cohort.
Over the years I have come to accept Neil Strauss and William Howe’s definition of Gen X as running between 1961 and 1981. Americans born between these years tend to have certain cultural and economic touchstones in common. The traditional (demographic) differential, which marks the start of Gen X at 1964, doesn’t account for the fact that those of us born in 1961-62-63 (includes me) have nothing in common with Baby Boomers–whether it’s music or the ability to afford college or our first homes.
No one has thought or written more about American generations than Mssrs. Strauss and Howe, most ably in their stunning and bizarrely overlooked tome “Generations,” which literally defines generations and types of generations all the way back to the Colonial era.
Those of us born in 1961, 1962 and 1963 grew up listening to punk, disco and New Wave–for us, the Doors and Beatles were the music of our much older brothers and sisters, if not the old stoner dudes up the street (and obviousy FM radio). We became adults during the 1980s, into a world of diminished expectations and falling incomes. Boomers were already in their 30s, and had the jobs and incomes we wanted. Conduct a poll of those birth years and I guarantee you that very few of them would self-identify with the Baby Boom.
In a way, it all comes down to how someone “feels” to you. Does Obama feel more Boomer or Gen X to you? To me, he’s obviously an Xer, though perhaps barely across the finish line of our simultaneously alienated and happy-go-lucky cohort. In the end, of course, one must look to Douglas Coupland’s book “Generation X.” When it came out, Gen X = twentysomething. By that measure, I—and Barack Obama—were Gen Xers.
Site re-uploaded a holding page from way back when. Sorry about that.
The Cartoonists With Attitude gang will be out in full force in San Francisco this April 21-22 for the Alternative Press Expo (APE). Confirmed CWAers so far (and possibly some more to come):
I’ve spent hardly any time (i.e. one day) in San Francisco, so any recommendations for great restaurants or thrift stores or budget hotels or other goodies are extremely welcome.
And in case you weren’t aware, you should really read our group blog (also available as an RSS feed or LiveJournal feed) if you want to get all our blogs and most of our cartoons in one convenient place. We also have a not-so-frequently updated Cartoonists With Attitude MySpace page if you want to be our friend.
New York Comic Con
Feb 23-25, 2007
Jacob Javitz Convention Center on 11th Avenue and 33rd Street, NYC
I’ll most likely be tabling all weekend with Prism comics to promote my cartoon series for Lambda Legal, Life Without Fair Courts, and the cartooning contest that goes along with it.
WOMEN, ACTION & THE MEDIA 2007
March 30 - April 1, 2007
Stata Center, MIT, Cambridge
Keynote Talks by Helen THOMAS & Thenmozhi SOUNDARARAJAN
Planning for WAM 2007 is still underway, but I’ll be hosting some sort of cartooning-related panel or skill-building workshop, angle and content TBD. Other awesome women cartoonists will likely be involved. WAM rocks!
For those of you who enjoy the zesty anti-Mexican aroma of congressional racist Tom Tancredo but were hoping for a slightly darker flavor, now enjoy the new Tom Tancredo Black:
Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) today said that “the existence of the Congressional Black Caucus and other race-based groups of lawmakers amount to segregation and should be abolished.” He recently received attention for calling Miami “as bad as any ghetto in any Third World country.”
And to answer in advance the oncoming Standard Unfunny Conservative Response™, yes, kids. There was, in fact, a Congressional White Caucus. It was in place until about 1870. They called it “Congress.”
Oh, by the way: post-Reconstruction, there have been exactly three black Republicans in the United States Congress. Four if you count a non-voting member from the Virgin Islands. As I’m sure countless conservatives will chime in to note, this clearly doesn’t mean anything at all.
