Cartoonists With Attitude

Cartoon for November 1

True tales from the frontlines of the Global War on Thoughtism:

Click on the cartoon to make it bigger.

From Kate Harding at Shakesville:

So, the “Guess The Rotund’s Height and Weight” game gave me an idea. (Oh, and hey, if you want to see a scatter graph of the results, there’s one here now.) I talk a lot about how BMI is bullshit, but we all know talk is cheap. Photos of people who actually fall into each category, however? Say a lot.

Thus, I have created the Illustrated BMI Categories Project, to demonstrate just what “normal” and “overweight” and “morbidly obese” really look like. I’ll continue to add photos until people stop sending them — if you’d like to participate, please send a (worksafe) photo along with your true height and weight to katesblog at gmail dot com. I may not use all the ones I get, but I appreciate the courage of anyone willing to send one. (Oh, and I’m also creating a general Shapely Prose Readers photostream, so let me know if you want to be in that.)

It’s really awesome.

TRIGGER WARNING: However, please keep in mind that it features photos of people of different body types along with their weights. As Mandolin writes in comments, “I really appreciate this project, but you might want to put a trigger warning in the post. Weights are listed with the photographs and that can be problematic for people who are still dealing with vestiges of a disordered mindset.”

(Thanks to Sailorman for the tip.)

*HAPPY HALLOWEEN
I will celebrate my first Halloween in Los Angeles with the Wifey in West Hollywood, which I hear it’s like San Francisco’s Castro (’cept without all the violence and shootings and stuff).

Anyhoo. Below is my top three scary movie list for all y’all to peruse. Starting with number three: (By the way, see the UNCUT versions of these movies. Not the watered down crap)

3.Suspiria- I never saw this one for years simply because of the trailer. It had a woman with her back to the camera, combing her hair. Saying “la-la-la-la-la-laaa” She turns and it’s a skull face with hair on it and “Suspiria” appears across the screen. That was enough for me.
Anyway, Rene Murray in my 6th grade class would always mention “the maggots on the ceiling” but the knife blade sticking in the beating heart was what gets me. There ain’t no story here. Just weird colors, 70s film stock, dwarves in cloaks and women dying. Rough-ass movie.

2.The Exorcist- I don’t care that you can see the strings when she’s floating above the bed. This was another film I was afraid to see for years because of the people I’ve met whose parents took them to see it in the movies when they were 10. Junkies, reprobates, pedophiles. Don’t see the cut T.V. version. In fact, don’t see this movie at home. It should be seen in the theatre in the dark where you cannot pause it to answer the phone, or go to the fridge. Part of what is scary about it is you wonder why Linda Blair’s parents let her do dirty things with a cross screaming “Eff me Jesus”. But that’s the 70’s for you. See the latest cut where the kid “crabwalks” down the stairs, but wear a diaper, cuz you will soil it.

1.The Wizard of Oz- Straight up the scariest movie I’ve ever seen. Probably because they advertise it as a kids film so you end up seeing it when you were small. And they don’t take out any scenes even when they play it on network T.V. Everything is scary about this movie.
Judy Garland. The tornado. The feet stickin’ out of the bottom of the house. The munchkins. The sets. The effects. The songs. The trees. The Flying Monkeys. The dudes shes meets along the way. Both witches. It’s lasting effect is obvious when you see Garland doing her pill-poppin’ freak-out singing routine decades later. And her daughter Liza Minneli? Why do you think she married that weird dude? The most traumatizing movie of all time.

*LETTERS OF THE WEEK:

RE: Jena K Chronicles

Ok, so I wrote you ages and ages ago to tell you about a push poll call against then US Senate Candidate Ron Kirk, who would have been the first African American US Senator from Texas, when he was running against John Cornyn back in 2000, and how “someone” called elderly white FDR Democrats in Central and West Texas and said “this is the Gay and Lesbian Alliance calling to remind you to vote for Ron Kirk for US Senate - Ron will help us get gay marriage - so remember, vote for Ron Kirk.” Needless to say, nobody from the Kirk campaign, nor any known GLTB group commissioned those calls. I don’t know if that alone cost Ron Kirk the election, but I do know it had to freak out that category of Democrats, who were already a little wiggy about voting for a person of color, but completely would flip about gay marriage. I was working for a Democratic Congressional campaign at the time, and the only reason we knew about it was one of the calls went out to the San Saba County
Democratic Party Chair’s mother’s answering machine.

I guess I go into that because anybody with eyes from Texas or any other Southern state knows that racism is alive and well in our part of the world. But sometimes I wonder why it ferments so in small towns, which in other ways are good places to live - people notice if you don’t come into town or miss church (are you sick? is everything ok?) people literally plow each others fields in times of sickness or hardship - and often you see people who otherwise would be completely intolerant of so-called social misbehaviors accepting of the social misfits because they are local - part of our tribe, so to speak, so while we may not approve, we still accept them. For example, when I was in college I had several friends from one small town in South Texas who were very intolerant of any illegal drugs, though you could drink yourself into having your stomach pumped once a week, except for their one screw-up friend, who they felt if he was only doing pot it was a big improvement from
when he was snorting tons of coke and whatever else he could find back in the day.

So I have about decided it is because those that could and would make changes, that would negate the racism and narrow-mindedness all leave - both black and white - they go on to college and big cities and take their brains and commonsense with them and sit around with their city friends and try to explain their backward hometown and go home at Christmas and shake their heads but get in their car afterward and head back to Shreveport, or Dallas or Atlanta and leave those behind to continue to simmer in their pot of poor economic development and ignorance. Which leads us to your cartoon, which has so much truth in it that it sickens - all those protesters boosting Jena’s economy more than anything that has happened since the sawmills closed. Economic development based on hate and teenage idiots.

So I guess this rant has no real point to it, except keep up the good work.

Thanks,

A.

RE: Life’s Little Victories:

Hello Keith! Just a quick note to say how much I enjoy “Life’s Little Victories” and your other presentations over the years in Funny Times. Your work in particular helps pull me up out of the doldrums when things get tough! Keep on keepin’ on — PLEASE! Thanks, C.

(Look for another full color Little Vics in the Dec. ish of the Funny Times.-kk)

RE: Throwin Tomatoes K Chronicles:

Hey Keith–

Now, that’s a great story (and cartoon, as usual). Good idea too, about car
horns. (Now, if we can just think of an incentive for car-makers to do that…).

I once planned to stand at the intersection near my house — where I’d nearly
been taken off umpteen times, by jackasses sailing merrily through *red lights*
– with several water balloons, the water dyed red. Waiting.

I was stopped only by the fear of getting punched out. Maybe a justified fear,
too, as I’d found a few years before. I was peacably riding my bike through
another intersection — green light in my favour, mark you — and was nearly
greased by some oncoming dolt pulling a screeching left-hand turn, all of a
foot-and-a-half behind my rear wheel, and without benefit of signals. Almost
automatically I flipped him off, whereupon he pulled a screeching U-turn, came
after me, and… well, I’ll just say that the ensuing exchange of views was
ugly. From my point of view, leastways.

Ah, well. Glory days. Speaking of which: Go Sox!

best,

B.
Vancouver

RE: Tax the Rich K Chronicles

Keef, I haven’t written in a while, but first of all,

HI! Hope you and the missuz are doing great.

Second of all, your comic this week is such a big DUH…it is pretty slick how this very simple concept is lost on so many. Oh wait - maybe it’s not, but the fact that it’s rich people that have most of the power means that it doesn’t matter how obvious this is.

By the way, as a straight white upper-middle class male, the Bush Era has been really good to me…so why am I so pissed, ashamed and sad?

Peace, and continuing to care about poor women of color (even though it’s against my best interests),

E.
San Jose

*CAN YOU DIG IT?
Ahhhh…Another Sox celebration had. Congrats to the team and those of us who have followed them through think and thin. The new empire? Ha! Boston spends money on decent players who fit in (barring Gag-ne with a Spoon and a few others), and have plenty of great prospects that were grown through the org (Pap, Pedroia, Ellsbury). The Sox are gonna be set for years to come.
Pats got next. Celts got after next.

*IF YOU WERE TO RENAME THE K CHRONICLES (NOT THAT I’M GONNA), WHICH NAME WOULD YOU PICK:

1. “The Knight Life”

2. “For Keef’s Sake”

3.”K by Me”

Send me an email with your vote at keef@kchronicles.com

THIS WEEK’S COLUMN: Who Will Be Our Next Torturer-in-Chief?

George W. Bush has shoved American politics into the dark realm of the lunatic right, zipping past Joe McCarthy into territory previously covered by historical accounts of Germany in the 1940s. We’ve lost our right to see an attorney, to confront our accusers, even to get a fair trial. Government agents have kidnapped thousands of people, many of whom have never been heard from again. Bush even signed an edict claiming the right to assassinate anyone, including you and me, based solely on his whims. Torture, the ultimate sign that civilized society has been replaced by a police state, was repeatedly authorized by government officials who smirked the few times reporters had the temerity to ask them about it.

The 2000, 2004 and 2008 presidential elections have been and will prove to be decisive moments in American history. In each case the American people were offered a stark choice between a future of freedom and one under tyranny.
In 2000 the American people chose dictatorship, watching passively as a rogue Supreme Court violated the Constitution and handed Bush the keys to the White House. We had a chance to restore the vision of the original Framers in 2004. Instead, we sat on our asses while Bush stole yet another election. The 2008 race could mark our last chance to get back the system of government we enjoyed before the December 20, 2000 coup.

We must elect–by an overwhelming, theft-proof majority–a candidate who promises to renounce Bush and all his works. A reform-minded president’s first act should be to sign a law that reads as follows: “The federal government of the United States having been illegitimate and illegal since January 20, 2001, all laws, regulations, executive orders, and acts of commission or omission enacted between that infamous day and 12 noon Eastern Standard Time on January 20, 2009 are hereby declared invalid and without effect.” Guantánamo, secret prisons, extraordinary rendition, spying on Americans’ phone calls and emails, and “legal” torture would be erased. Our troops should immediately pull out of Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Somalia; we should apologize to our victims and offer to compensate them and their survivors. Bush should never appear on any list of American presidents. When he dies, his carcass shouldn’t receive a state funeral. It ought to be thrown in the trash.

Unfortunately, no one like that is running for president. To the contrary, most of the major presidential candidates want to accelerate America’s slide into outright moral bankruptcy.

Inspired by what good people find appalling, America’s Mayor has turned into America’s Maniac. Torture, says Rudy Giuliani, is smart. He endorses the medieval practice of waterboarding, revived in CIA torture chambers after 9/11, in which a person is strapped to a board, tipped back and forced to inhale water to induce the sensation of drowning.

“It depends on how it’s done,” Giuliani said when asked about waterboarding and whether it is torture. “It depends on the circumstances. It depends on who does it.” Giuliani used to be a federal prosecutor. Would he have used similar logic in the prosecution of an accused torturer?

The mayor-turned-monster even used a campaign stop in Iowa to mock the victims of sleep deprivation, long acknowledged by international law as one of the severest forms of torture. “They talk about sleep deprivation,” he said. “I mean, on that theory, I’m getting tortured running for president of the United States. That’s plain silly. That’s silly.”

Waterboarding causes pain, brain damage and broken bones (from the restraints used on struggling victims), and death. Survivors are psychologically scarred. “Some victims were still traumatized years later,” Dr. Allen Keller, director of the Bellevue/New York University Program for Survivors of Torture, told The New Yorker. “One patient couldn’t take showers, and panicked when it rained.”

Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin described the sleep deprivation he suffered as a captive of the Soviet KGB: “In the head of the interrogated prisoner, a haze begins to form. His spirit is wearied to death, his legs are unsteady, and he has one sole desire: to sleep…Anyone who has experienced this desire knows that not even hunger and thirst are comparable with it.”
Giuliani isn’t the only wanna be Torturer-in-Chief. Congressman Tom Tancredo, a Colorado Republican, offered this Lincolnesque rhetorical gem at one of the debates: “What do we do in the response to a nuclear–or the fact that a nuclear device or some bombs have gone off in the United States? We know that there are–we have captured people who have information that could lead us to the next one that’s going to go off and it’s the big one…I would do–certainly, waterboard–I don’t believe that that is, quote, ‘torture.’”

In an appearance on Fox News’ “Hannity & Colmes,” Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee said the U.S. does and should torture: “We have received good solid information from [torture], and have saved American lives because of it.”

Duncan Hunter made fun of the concentration camp at Guantánamo: “You got guys like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed [a detainee victim of U.S. waterboarding], “who said that he planned the attack on 9/11. You got Osama bin Laden’s bodyguards. Those guys get taxpayer-paid-for prayer rugs. They have prayer five times a day. They’ve all gained weight. The last time I looked at the menu, they had honey-glazed chicken and rice pilaf on Friday. That’s how we treat the terrorists. They’ve got health care that’s better than most HMOs…They live in a place called Guantánamo, where not one person has ever been murdered.”

Three inmates have been found dead at Gitmo. (The military claimed they were suicides.) As of August 2003, at least 29 POWs had attempted suicide. Scores of hunger strikers are being force-fed.

Fred Thompson says he won’t authorize waterboarding “as a matter of course” but likes to keep his options open. Mitt Romney punts questions about waterboarding: “I don’t think as a presidential candidate it is appropriate for me to weigh in on specific forms of interrogation that our CIA would employ. In circumstances of extreme threat to the nation, where we employ what is known as enhanced interrogation techniques, we don’t describe those techniques.”

At a Democratic debate in New Hampshire, Barack Obama refused to rule out torture. “Now, I will do whatever it takes to keep America safe. And there are going to be all sorts of hypotheticals [presumably, Tancredo’s hoary “ticking time bomb” fantasy] and emergency situations, and I will make that judgement at that time.” Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden said they agree with Obama. Democrats Bill Richardson, John Edwards and Chris Dodd have offered unequivocal stances against torture. On the Republican side, only John McCain and Ron Paul have done so. Even McCain, himself a victim of torture in Vietnam, refuses to rule out voting to confirm Bush’s attorney general nominee, Michael Mukasey. “If it amounts to torture,” Mukasey said of waterboarding, “then it is not constitutional.”

“If”?

COPYRIGHT 2007 TED RALL

The next Slowpoke book is now up on Amazon! I'm still tweaking the cover art, but this is pretty close to how it will look in the end.

I've never pre-ordered anything -- the concept always seemed a little strange to me -- but in fact, pre-orders are very important in determining how many copies Amazon orders. Early sales give me good mojo going forward. So, if you want to do a good deed, place your order today, and be assured of receiving the book as soon as it comes out in the spring. Consider it a present to your future self... and to me!

(There's also a small financial incentive -- you'll get 5% off whatever already-discounted price Amazon will be selling it at when it's released.)

In Wednesday’s cartoon, Javier calls Nikko’s bluff. Click on the fragment below for the full cartoon at comics.com:

The more you click on my cartoons at comics.com during 2007, the better the chances they’ll appear in daily city papers in 2008. If you like Minimum Security, please see a new cartoon each weekday!

In Wednesday’s cartoon, Javier calls Nikko’s bluff. Click on the fragment below for the full cartoon at comics.com:

The more you click on my cartoons at comics.com during 2007, the better the chances they’ll appear in daily city papers in 2008. If you like Minimum Security, please see a new cartoon each weekday!

I’ve added an “Immigrant Rights” section to the “Alas” blogroll. Here are the blogs currently listed:

• ¡Para Justicia y Libertad!
• Brownfemipower
• Citizen Orange
• Immigrants and Politics Blog
• Immigrants In USA Blog
• Immigration Equality Blog
• Immigration News Blog
• Immigration Prof Blog
• Latina Lista
• Latino Politico
• Migra Matters
• Migration Debate
• Standing FIRM
• The Mex Files
• The State of Opportunity
• The Unapologetic Mexican
• Working Immigrants

Check ‘em out.