Yes, I’ll be attending the famed Comic-Con in San Diego later in July. Details to be worked out — I don’t even know where I’m staying (hey, if anyone has a lead, let me know), or where and when I’ll be publicly appearing. But for those of you planning to be there, know that I’ll be there, and that I generally shower once a day.
I have a new cartoon up:
Lots and lots of things going on. My little book is starting to hit the stores and the reviews are trickling in. People love the packaging.
The San Diego Comic Convention is about 3 weeks away. There’s a ton of prep work left to do. I still need to do new shirts, new mugs, etc etc. I’m hoping to bring a lot of original art to sell.
I feel like I’ve neglected my little Livejournal these last few weeks. I’m hoping to get on it more. Lots to say, just been too busy. Sheesh.
Ben, a reader with a good memory, writes in with this question:
You mentioned on an earlier blog about John Kerry’s run for president that Kerry had “no Elvis”. Turns out you were right. I don’t think Bush had much Elvis, but he had more than Kerry, I suppose.So tell me, who has more Elvis now, Obama or McCain??
It may seem obvious, but I would like to hear your opinion on it…
He’s referring to my very first (and rather prescient, I might add) blog post back in 2004, when I quoted Molly Ivins about the Elvis Factor. My response? Obama definitely has some Elvis, while McCain is the anti-Elvis. So on those grounds, at least, things are looking good for Obama.
[UPDATE: I'm impressed. Not one, but two SlowpokeBlog readers wrote within an hour to point out that Mojo Nixon's song "Elvis is Everywhere" predated the Molly Ivins quote. It specifically refers to Michael J. Fox as the Anti-Elvis who "got no Elvis" (back then he played young Republican Alex Keaton on "Family Ties," you may recall). So maybe Molly took her cue from Mr. Nixon. I'm pretty sure I've heard the song before, but wasn't that aware of the lyrics. Tip of Mr. Perkins's hat to Justin and Elmore.]
For a country that trumpets its “family values,” the U.S. comes up laughably short on parental leave. We’ve been the worst industrialized country in that department for a while, as this piece in USA Today detailed in 2005:
Out of 168 nations in a Harvard University study last year, 163 had some form of paid maternity leave, leaving the United States in the company of Lesotho, Papua New Guinea and Swaziland.
The pitiful Family and Medical Leave Act only guarantees 12 UNPAID weeks of leave (for workers at larger companies.)
Companies have discretion to offer more leave (and pay for leave) if they choose to—but fewer and fewer make that choice. A recent study by the Families and Work Institute found that “far fewer employers provide full pay during the period of maternity-related disability, today at 16%, down from 27% in 1998.”
It’s part of a national trend towards cost-cutting and crappier workplace benefits (of course, these things should be provided by the GOVERNMENT, but gosh, that might be too SOCIALIST). More details here and here:
“I had my son on Thursday and, on Monday, I had to go back to work,” said Selena Allen, a 30-year-old mother who was working at a non-profit agency near Seattle when she had a baby five years ago.
No paid maternity leave for Allen meant leaving her premature son, Conor, in the hospital for weeks without being able to care for him.
“I was an emotional wreck, I was devastated, but in order to feed my family, I had no other option,” Allen said.
P.S. On a feminist note, I of course support a good long period of paid parental leave for parents of any gender and sexual orientation (including adoptive parents!), not just maternity leave or leave for heterosexual couples. I certainly don’t want to encourage any policy that implies childrearing should be women’s work, or that only women should stay home with kids, etc. Just to be clear and all…
P.P.S. A reader on Flickr notes that my cartoon reminds him of a creepy-sounding Czech movie called Otesánek (Little Otik). Eeek! I’ll have to check it out.
The main inspiration for this was KMart’s ridiculous “True Love Waits” pants, which I discovered via Feministing. Also, I really am concerned about the sinister evolution of the high-waisted pant.
Oh my goodness, Deval Patrick is just too awesome—and apparently the awesomeness doesn’t fall far from the tree. The newish governor of Massachusetts has been fighting for LGBT rights since long before his brave teenage daughter came out to him as a lesbian, too, which makes this story even cooler. Also, the Bay Windows interview with Patrick and his daughter (“With love and pride, Governor Deval Patrick’s daughter comes out publicly”) in which Gov. Patrick tears up made me tear up like the sentimental woman I’m usually not.
And yes, this was a Father’s Day- + Pride Month-themed cartoon, I’m just posting it late.
THIS WEEK’S SYNDICATED COLUMN: CONSTITUTION À LA CARTE
One Amendment from Column A, Another from Column B
A week ago, Justice Anthony Kennedy was a liberal hero. Joining the court’s four liberal jurists, he declared that while 9/11 may have changed everything, it didn’t change the constitution. Despite statements by the Bush Administration to the contrary, Guantánamo is not a legal no-man’s land. POWs being held at America’s Devil’s Island now have the right to challenge their detention in federal courts.
“Thank God,” an editorial cartoonist friend told me after Kennedy cast the deciding vote in a 5-4 decision restoring habeas corpus. “We were one vote away from fascism.”
Antonin Scalia’s dissent–”[granting Guantánamo detainees the right to a fair trial] will almost certainly cause more Americans to get killed”–was widely ridiculed as baseless and hysterical.
What a difference a week–and your politics–make.
Then Kennedy cast the swing vote in another major decision. Declaring Washington D.C.’s handgun ban unconstitutional, he accepted the NRA’s argument that the Second Amendment’s reference to “a well-regulated militia” is not a conditional clause. Wherever they live, Americans are indeed entitled to purchase and keep a handgun.
“What an idiot!” my friend e-mailed me. “Doesn’t he get it? Kids are going to die!” Shades of Scalia; irony included free.
“À la carte” airline pricing–$2 for a Coke, $15 to check a bag, $30 for a coach seat that sucks 95% as much as the regular ones–pisses people off. When it comes to constitutional questions, however, we Americans like to pick and choose our favorite parts of the Bill of Rights like items from a Chinese menu: one from column A, another in column B.
Liberals revere the right to free speech enshrined in the First Amendment. The right to bear arms, not so much. With conservatives, it’s the other way around. Sometimes they clash over the meaning of the original ten amendments. It’s freedom of, not from, religion, say right-wingers. Freedom from, argue advocates of the separation of church and state.
The recently concluded Supreme Court session highlights Americans’ unique refusal to accept the Bill of Rights in toto. Republicans decried Kennedy v. Louisiana, which struck down the death penalty for someone convicted of raping a child. They applauded the court’s approval of an Indiana law requiring voters to show ID at the polls.
Reactions to Supreme Court rulings are rarely related to whether or not the nine justices correctly interpreted the constitution. They’re political. Law-and-order conservatives like their justice Taliban style, tough and vengeful. Thus their dismay that capital punishment for rapists could be deemed cruel and/or unusual. States with GOP-dominated legislatures like voter ID laws, not because they think they don’t violate the equal protection clause, but because they tend to reduce turnout among Democrats.
Partisanship is healthy. Creating your own Constitution around your personal stand on the issues is un-American.
As a holistic advocate of the Bill of Rights, I agree with the D.C. gun ban ruling. When the Constitution was signed in 1787, all land-owning white men–the class of citizens whose voting rights it guaranteed–owned (or were allowed to buy) guns. A “well-regulated militia” was usually an ad hoc affair, a group of guys called up for up to a year (often less) to respond to the threat of, for example, an Indian attack.
Today the Bill of Rights applies to everyone, even illegal immigrants. Moreover, while militias have gone the way of the musket, it’s a fair bet that the government would ask ordinary citizens to use personal firearms to defend U.S. territory in the event of an invasion–i.e., form militias. Why, then, shouldn’t the 18th century right to own a gun, which applied to everyone covered by the Constitution at the time, apply to everyone now?
There’s also a practical argument. As history proves, every government falls. Every nation gets invaded. No one knows when it will happen in any given case, but thus far it’s proved inevitable. When the U.S. government turns against its people, gun nuts will be in a far better position to resist than the double decaf latte types on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. We’ll all be praising Charlton Heston’s memory when foreign troops are marching down Broadway.
But practical arguments aren’t legal, much less constitutional, arguments. Either you agree with the Bill of Rights–all of it–or you don’t.
If liberals think the right to own a gun is antiquated, if they think the ability to resist future government tyranny is less important than reducing the number of young men getting gunned down in cities like Washington, they have a perfectly defensible argument. And they ought to do something about it. They should convince two-thirds of the states to ratify a constitutional amendment abolishing or amending the Second Amendment. Crafting an argument over principle around 18th century grammar and punctuation is tacky and embarrassing.
COPYRIGHT 2008 TED RALL
Cross-posted at the ACLU Blog of Rights.
It’s way better than the old plan our founding fathers set us up with. (You know, the one where warrantless spying wasn’t permitted.)
The FISA Retroactive Immunity Package gives you a sleek new phone, all the free minutes you need and the flexibility the government needs to get around your Fourth Amendment rights. Best of all—NO ROAMING CHARGES, even if you are sent to Gitmo!
FORT WORTH, Texas - The Texas Supreme Court on Friday threw out a jury award over injuries a 17-year-old girl suffered in an exorcism conducted by members of her old church, ruling that the case unconstitutionally entangled the court in religious matters. […]
Laura Schubert testified in 2002 that she was cut and bruised and later experienced hallucinations after the church members’ actions in 1996, when she was 17. Schubert said she was pinned to the floor for hours and received carpet burns during the exorcism, the Austin American-Statesman reported. […]
The 2002 trial of the case never touched on the religious aspects, and a Tarrant County jury found the Colleyville church and its members liable for abusing and falsely imprisoning the girl. The jury awarded her $300,000, though the 2nd Court of Appeals in Fort Worth later reduced the verdict to $188,000.
Justice David Medina wrote that finding the church liable “would have an unconstitutional ‘chilling effect’ by compelling the church to abandon core principles of its religious beliefs.”
A Dallas attorney, defending the Texas Court’s decision, said that “no one should think Friday’s ruling would give protection to a church leader accused of abusing a child.” But as PZ Meyers points out, that’s precisely what this decision did.
There is one thing I’d disagree with PZ about. PZ frames this case as being about religion:
No religious beliefs are to be examined critically, no matter how disturbing they may be. That’s the way things work down in Texas, I guess.
But only Christian churches would ever be accommodated this way; if a similar situation ever comes up involving a non-Christian religion in Texas, the Court will distinguish that case from this one, so the abusers may be punished. As David of The Debate Link argued in a paper last year (pdf file — see pages 58-64), US Courts tend to find that the first amendment requires bending the law to accommodate Christian customs and practice — even as it forbids bending the law to accommodate the customs and practices of minority religions.
If I’m right about that, then a peculiar and ironic result of the favoritism Courts give to Christianity is that Christian kids (especially girls) may (in this one, narrow area of the law) effectively have less legal protection than kids from minority religions.
This sort of logic chills me. I quickly can see the implications for women’s rights outside of just the basic right not to be assaulted during a bout of make-believe over demons that people have convinced themselves is real. Most of these churches are anti-choice—what if they argue that their religious freedom gives them the right to kidnap and contain women that they suspect of being sexual active or of seeking abortion or contraception? Is there a time limit on how long a church can restrain a woman because they believe their god gives them ownership over her body?
Or — seeking to be slightly less blatant about it — couldn’t a Texas church simply say that they’ve perceived a demon in any girl or woman whose plans they disapprove of, and hold and torture her on that basis?
