Cartoonists With Attitude

This cartoon isn’t by me; it’s by my pal Kevin Moore. Click on the panel to read the whole thing.

Click image to see the whole cartoon.

I would have more to say on this cartoon, but it is late, I am coming down with a cold, I have hives that I most likely got from a “deep cleaning pore cleanser” and my son was very difficult in getting to bed tonight.

Oh, and: I turn 38 today.

Click image to see the whole cartoon.

I would have more to say on this cartoon, but it is late, I am coming down with a cold, I have hives that I most likely got from a “deep cleaning pore cleanser” and my son was very difficult in getting to bed tonight.

Oh, and: I turn 38 today.

Just saw Chuck Norris sitting in the audience.

That’s it; I’m done.

Update: Okay, I was kind of being sarcastic before, but I actually did just turn off the debate after guitar guy passed the 45-second mark. Pains me to say it, but Mitt Romney was 100% right. This is embarrassing and uncomfortable to watch. I really hope both parties are smart enough to never let YouTube do this again.

Oh, and these guys really, really hate Mexicans, don’t they.

DailyKos on Joe Klein’s erroneous TIME column criticizing Democrats on national security issues (for just how bad, consult Glenn Greenwald’s tracking of this issue - Klein and TIME get pretty ridiculous):

Republicans don’t live in fear of what the other side will say. They focus on what they think is right or in their self-interest. The reaction of the opposition never enters their calculations.

If only Democrats and its Joe Kleins weren’t so fearful. They’re terrified! For a gang that likes to talk about “looking tough”, they sure piddle in their pants on a regular basis.

Another area where I disagree with Klein is his take on Barak Obama’s answer to Wolf Blitzer’s asinine question about national security and human rights. As I observed the day after the debate in which the question appeared, Obama was right to note that the two concepts are “complimentary” - or, as I put it, you can’t have one without the other. Klein seems to think that the more politically expedient answer is Chris Dodd’s, that national security comes before everything else. Yet it’s that kind of thinking that had led us to secret detentions, torture, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, warrantless wiretapping, black sites and extradition. We compromise our stated values and our future security by encouraging more anti-Americanism, by living up to the negative images that the rest of the world already has of us. Obama deserves credit for not giving into the baby boomer fears of the “liberal” label, for not “triangulating” and for recognizing the complexity of these issues in a global society.

DailyKos on Joe Klein’s erroneous TIME column criticizing Democrats on national security issues (for just how bad, consult Glenn Greenwald’s tracking of this issue - Klein and TIME get pretty ridiculous):

Republicans don’t live in fear of what the other side will say. They focus on what they think is right or in their self-interest. The reaction of the opposition never enters their calculations.

If only Democrats and its Joe Kleins weren’t so fearful. They’re terrified! For a gang that likes to talk about “looking tough”, they sure piddle in their pants on a regular basis.

Another area where I disagree with Klein is his take on Barak Obama’s answer to Wolf Blitzer’s asinine question about national security and human rights. As I observed the day after the debate in which the question appeared, Obama was right to note that the two concepts are “complimentary” - or, as I put it, you can’t have one without the other. Klein seems to think that the more politically expedient answer is Chris Dodd’s, that national security comes before everything else. Yet it’s that kind of thinking that had led us to secret detentions, torture, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, warrantless wiretapping, black sites and extradition. We compromise our stated values and our future security by encouraging more anti-Americanism, by living up to the negative images that the rest of the world already has of us. Obama deserves credit for not giving into the baby boomer fears of the “liberal” label, for not “triangulating” and for recognizing the complexity of these issues in a global society.

click to buy

I haven’t seen any commercials for this, but then again, thanks to the strike, I haven’t been watching much TV. Just thought some of you would like to know the first of four feature length Futurama DVDs is out now.

I’ve already watched it and they haven’t missed a beat. There are two or three musical bits that fall flat, but over 80 minutes awesomeness and The Chanukah Zombie more than make up for it.

Since most of your favorite shows are on indefinite hiatus, this could be the perfect solution for the strike comedy doldrums. Buy it from this link, and I get a couple bucks. Or don’t. You don’t owe me. It’s not like I give you free cartoons or anything.

Greenpeace is having an online vote to name a whale to raise awareness about their species. The list of over thirty names includes 29 poetic and eloquent monikers, for example “Anahi - means ‘immortal’ in Persian,” “Jacques - named for Jacques Cousteau,” “Shanti - means ‘peace’ in Hindi,” and “Madiba - the honourary traditional title bestowed upon Nelson Mandela.”

The 30th name you can vote for is Mister Splashy Pants.

(Inhales)

(Exhales)

I gather the majority of this site’s readers are smart enough to know that clicking the link is totally unneccesary, but if simply for the sake of principle, you can see which name is currently winning with 72% of a 30-way vote here.

A 54-year-old British school teacher could receive 40 lashes and 6 months in jail for allowing her Sudanese pupils to name a class Teddy bear “Mohammed,” reports CNN. Perhaps not as egregious as the punishment sentenced to a Saudi gang rape victim for “embarrassing” the Saudi judges who had let her rapists off the hook, it is still a ridiculously disproportionate punishment to the crime, if there really is one at all. To me it is one more instance of religious stupidity compounded by warped concepts of “honor.”

The irony is that Sudanese officials have charged the school teacher with “insulting” Islam, even though the Koran does not prohibit engraved images, people name their children after the prophet all the time, and, um, hello - it’s a teddy bear! The name was chosen by school children, many of whom are probably named after the prophet, too, and have several family members who share the name. It wasn’t meant as an insult, it was supposed to be an honor.

I acknowledge that there is a lot about the role of “honor” in other cultures that I do not understand. It could be my own limitations as a Westerner, as a neurotic self-denigrating humorist, as a post-modern ironist, or as a simple crank. Yet I find it horrific and sick that the concept of “honor” is used to justify a lot of brutality and killing, often in so-called “honor killings” against women who have somehow transgressed social expectations regarding their “proper place” as wives and daughters or have caused men to feel insulted. While much of the reporting on this phenomenon is concentrated on the Middle East and Central Asia, it would be unfair to disregard similar instances in Western culture - notably, “gay panic” or the more murderous instances of transphobia.

I don’t get it, and honestly, I don’t want to “get” it, because it seems more a disease than a point of cultural competency, a plague of the male psyche borne on carriers of religion, myth, historic oppression and warped definitions of sexual and gender identity.