From her first appearance at the RNC Convention to today, Sarah Palin has been bashing people who live in cities and lauding small town Americans as harder working, more authentic and more American.
Monday: The Spectre of Communism
I’ve been having dreams about the electoral map for the past month. If Virginia goes the good guy’s way, I think it will be safe enough for me to kick back, crack open a beer, and savor the delicious flavor of Republican failure.
One more thing: Happy Halloween and for Christ’s sake, VOTE YOU FUCKERS!
Next Week: 23 Cent Book Bin
A couple of weeks ago, I was walking around these streets of New York, and, for the first time in my life, I was shocked by a movie poster. It was for the movie "Saw V." There, at eye level for any toddler in a stroller, was the huge image of a man, with his face covered by the skin of another man's face.
Now, while I'm no fan of this brand of gruesome, sadistic horror genre, I have no problem with what anyone wants to watch in a dark theater once they've paid their twelve bucks. But I was literally stopped in my tracks when I saw this image foisted on every passerby regardless of age or sensibility. I tried to imagine the filmmakers, the marketers, the advertising company, and the ad space owners all agreeing that this is a perfectly fine image to shove in front of the faces of children. And the elderly. And librarians.
I just learned about the controversy surrounding the poster for Kevin Smith's new movie, "Zack and Miri Make a Porno." Apparently the original
poster was rejected
by the MPAA in the U.S. (I didn't even know that the MPAA had
jurisdiction over movie posters). It had featured photos of Rogen and
Banks, while fully clothed, positioned suggestively.
So the movie company instead devised a poster picturing two stick figures, one male and one female, in
front of a movie camera, with the text: "Seth Rogen and Elizabeth
Banks made a movie so titillating that we can only show you this
drawing." But even this
stick-figure version was banned at bus stops in Philadelphia because it
contains the word "porno."
If there are entities that regulate what images are allowed to appear on movie posters (and I'm surprised to learn that there are), shouldn't their chief concern be protecting children from a nightmare-inducing image of horrific murder, torture and psychotically sadistic mutilation? And what does it say about our society that we're more concerned about our children seeing something that's mildly suggestive of sexual pornography, than an actual example of torture-pornography?
The speaker is Brad Dacus, the president of the anti-gay-marriage Pacific Justice Institute.
There was another time in history when people, when the bell tolled. And the question was whether or not they were going to hear it. The time was during Nazi Germany with Adolf Hitler. You see he brought crowds of clergy together to assure them that he was going to look after the church. And one of the members, bold and courageous, Reverend Niemand (sp?) made his way to the front and (inaudible) said “Hitler, we are not concerned about the church. Jesus Christ will take care of the church. We are concerned about the soul of Germany.” Embarrassed and chagrined, his peers quickly shuffled him to the back. And as they did Adolf Hitler said, “The soul of Germany, you can leave that to me.” And they did, and because they did bombs did not only fall upon the nation of Germany, but also upon the church and their testimony to this very day. Let us not make that mistake folks. Let us hear the bell! Vote on Proposition 8!
The best revenge is a donation to No on 8.
109 year-old woman, daughter of a slave, casts her vote for Obama.
via Buzzflash
What’s APE? It’s the Alternative Press Expo, a indy-leaning comic book convention.
If you’re in San Francisco, please stop by and say “Hi!” I’m alllll the way in back, and if all goes well there will be a big “Hereville” sign behind my table.
I like the one below, because it’s simple and personal and gets right to the issue of equal treatment under the law.
Ten Reasons Gay Marriage Is Wrong
Gay Marriage… NO!
I like this one especially for the tagline at the end.
A “no on 8″ commercial modeled after the “I’m a mac, I’m a PC” commercials. Plus, it’s got Molly Ringwald. I’m 40, so I’m legally required to love anything with Molly Ringwald in it.
…heard in passing on Air America just now:
On Larry King last night, McCain admitted that Barack Obama is not a Socialist! Whew, I can put down my pitchfork and torch.
Of course this won't stop McCain's campaign from saying that Obama IS a Socialist.
For example on the William Ayers "issue," McCain has repeatedly said that he "doesn't care" about a "washed-up" terrorist like Ayers, and he's said that Obama is "a decent person and a person you do not have to be scared of as president of the United States." He's consistently said that he only raises Ayers because he feels that Obama has not been honest about that relationship: "It's a factor about Sen. Obama's candor and truthfulness with the American people."
So when his campaign issues robocalls — interrupts people in their homes in order to convey one urgent thing to unsure voters — are they about McCain's plan to improve the desperate financial situation? Do they clarify McCain's health care plan? Do they even say that Americans shouldn't trust Obama because he has misled them about his relatioinship with a guy named Bill Ayers? No, they say that Obama "has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, whose
organization bombed the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, a judge's home and
killed Americans."
My last comic before the election: From the files of the "Investigation Into Anti-American Elements in U.S. Government."
You know, I wrote this comic over a week ago, and I was really worried that by the time it was published, this ridiculous Obama as Socialist thing would have totally disappeared. I thought that the notion that his tinkering with the tax rates — basically back to the levels they were at only eight years ago — amounts to Socialism, was so transparently goofy that it would surely be a campaign argument that would pop up and then peter out after a day or two.
But here we are, a week later, and it's not only still around, it's one of McCain's central themes.
