Don't worry, I haven't quit blogging...

...I'm just on vacation. See you all in 2003.

New Cartoon! 2002: What a Year...

Yeah, so I realized when I was doing a year in review cartoon for the Phoenix that sometimes I'm completely incapable of not being sarcastic. Nevertheless, please enjoy my new cartoon, "2002: What a Year!".

Also, just so you all know, I'm going to be going away for about a week with no access to computers whatsoever. In other words, no blogging, no cartoons. But I'll return around New Years with plenty of cheer, I'm sure. And I'll take time then to answer any burning email questions I haven't got to yet and post your favorite euphemisms (nominations still accepted, and new ones are being invented every day).

And as a side note for anyone who cares: I don't actually drink champagne or much of anything, much to my friends and family's chagrin. It's just a cartoon.

It's not just Lott...

... and it's not just Republicans. So check out this new flash cartoon from Mark Fiore.

Bush decides to scrap that whole "peace on earth" business

On a slightly lighter note, don't miss today's Boondocks or this story from The Onion.

Trent "I'll pretend to like black people now" Lott resigns
Conservatives worried that sudden focus on civil rights might interfere with agenda of hurting minorities, poor people

Too bad he's staying on as Senator. You can get the resignation story from the AP. But honestly, I'm less interested in the fact that Lott resigned than why his fellow Republicans wanted him to resign. From this morning's Boston Globe ("Conservatives say Lott hurts agenda"):

WASHINGTON - Conservatives who expected President Bush and Republican majorities to push their social agenda on Capitol Hill say the firestorm engulfing Senate GOP leader Trent Lott is more than a distraction. They say the sudden focus on civil rights has jeopardized prospects for welfare reform, school vouchers, expanding federal grants to religious charities, and confirming conservative judges.

In other words, conservative Republicans aren't upset because their party is full of racist, sexist, homophobic freakoids, but because people are starting to notice that their party is full of racist, sexist, homophobic freakoids (John Ashcroft, anyone?). And because that might interfere with their plans to make poor people's lives even more difficult, remove funding from already-struggling public schools and gleefully squash the separation of church and state beneath their anti-environmentalist abstinence-education-funding boots. Not to mention interfering with their plans to get rid of affirmative action:

Paul Weyrich, head of the Free Congress Foundation, said the greatest risk is that Lott will sabotage the conservatives' agenda and compromise their principles through his endorsement of affirmative action and his apology for voting against making Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday a federal holiday... .

If every issue is viewed through the lens of race and civil rights, Weyrich said, it could change the focus of the welfare law reauthorization next year from work, marriage, and abstinence education to increased funding. It could impede enactment of Bush's faith-based initiative, which has been targeted by civil rights groups because it would allow religious charities to obtain federal grants and contracts and practice hiring discrimination... Expanding public school vouchers, another conservative agenda, could be undone by arguments that they would drain funds from urban public schools that primarily serve minorities and the poor.

You'll have to excuse me for a moment. But please continue to read while I find myself a box of REALLY SMALL TISSUES to sob into with an extreme and total lack of sorry and sympathy:

Advocates for ending affirmative action in college admissions say the White House may now be reluctant to join the plaintiff in challenging the constitutionality of the University of Michigan's affirmative action programs. The landmark case will be heard by the US Supreme Court next year, and the Justice Department has until Jan. 16 to decide if it will take sides or stay out of the case.

''If it writes a brief on behalf of the plaintiff, the White House risks headlines that say, `The administration is anti-civil rights,''' said Abigail Thernstrom of Lexington, an opponent of affirmative action. ''I will not blame the administration if it just feels right now that it cannot take that hit.''

Thernstrom, a Republican member of the US Civil Rights Commission, said she ''just felt sick'' when she heard Lott suggest on Dec. 5 that the nation would have been better off if Thurmond, who ran as a segregationist from South Carolina, had won the 1948 presidential election. The consequence, she said, is that Republicans who support civil rights will ''go wobbly'' on issues like affirmative action and school vouchers. ''Our job of getting the message across, that we are committed to racial equality, becomes much, much harder,'' she said.

What, you mean your job of getting yourself photographed with Ward "supporting segregation need not be racist" Connerly while you trample on the poor and minorities might get more difficult? My heart bleeds. (As does Jeanne D'Arc's over at Body and Soul).

But to step away from the sarcasm for a moment: please don't imagine that I'm sad that Lott stepped down. (Don't get your hopes up over his replacement, either). I believe his newfound support of affirmative action about as much as I believe Bush when he says that war with Iraq is a last resort.

What I would like is for political leaders to start asking tough questions about all the other powerful Republicans who are just as bad as (if not worse than) Lott--Attorney General John Ashcroft, for example. Not to mention Attorney General John Ashcroft.

A girl can dream, can't she?

I really wish...

... I could wave a magic wand and just be completely and totally done with Harvard. I never find myself short of cartoon ideas or odds and ends to blog about--if anything, there are so many things that annoy/upset and/or interest me that I only wish I had more time to write or draw (for example, I've been meaning to write a really long post on the homicidal idiocy that is abstinence-only education for some time now).

And it's not that I don't care about my schoolwork--if anything, I care too much. I've been lucky that a few of my professors have allowed me to do alternative final projects that didn't involve large amounts of writing--documentary videos, or photo-comics, or sets of illustrations. But when I sit down at the computer and try to write a 10-15 page social science paper in a size 12 font with 1-inch margins, I start quivering with terror that my favorite professor is going to think I sound like an idiot... and I can barely force myself to write my name at the top of the paper, never mind write the first sentence. For example, I'm currently trying to complete a paper about attempts to understand post-colonial neighbors-killing-neighbors horrors like the Rwandan genocide or the India-Pakistan Partition. But faced with words like this... (from Mahmood Mamdani's When Victims Become Killers)

I asked [a survivor] whether there were no intermarriages in the secteur. "Too many." About one-third of Tutsi daughters would be married to Hutu... . "Tutsi women married to Hutu were killed. I know only one who survived. The administration forced Hutu men to kill their Tutsi wives before they go to kill anyone else--to prove they were true Interahamwe. One man tried to refuse. He was told that he must choose between the wife and himself. He then chose to save his own life. Another Hutu man rebuked him for having killed his Tutsi wife. That man was also killed..."

...I feel much more like crying than doing an academic analysis. But as I doubt a pile of soggy tissues would garner a passing grade, I'm just going to have to do my best to say something intelligent.

As if there weren't already enough reasons to love the INS...

From the AP ("Thousands protest new immigration policy"):

Thousands of Iranian-Americans demonstrated against the arrest of Middle Eastern immigrants who had voluntarily registered with the federal government under a new anti-terrorism program... . Many demonstrators claimed their husbands, sons and brothers were victims of government entrapment, that they were forced to register with the Immigration and Naturalization Service and then were arrested for not having their papers in order, which in some cases were caused by government backlog.

Their signs bore such sentiments as “What Next? Concentration Camps?” and “Detain Terrorists Not Innocent Immigrants.”

Under the program all male visitors at least 16 years old from five countries, including Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan and Syria, were ordered to register in person with the INS by Monday. Temporary visitors from 15 other countries, including Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, are required to register by Jan. 10, 2003...

Um... doesn't that sound a little creepy...? and familiar? The ACLU has more, of course:

Monday, December 16 marks the deadline after which many citizens of five predominantly Arab or Muslim countries - Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan and Syria - must be fingerprinted at designated Immigration and Naturalization Service offices or face deportation. By January 10, 2003, citizens of 13 additional countries - Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Eritrea, Lebanon, Morocco, North Korea, Oman, Qatar, Somalia, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen - must also submit to registration. 

Failure to register could lead to arrest and deportation of otherwise lawful visitors, according to the INS. Adding to the anxiety, some Arab and Muslim visitors with pending immigration petitions were detained when they came in to be fingerprinted.

By all accounts, the INS’s problems are actually stemming from a surplus of information, not insufficient investigatory powers, the ACLU said. For instance, the INS failed to process more than 200,000 change of address forms, which are piling up in an abandoned limestone mine outside Kansas City, MO that doubles as the largest underground records facility in the world, putting hundreds of thousands at risk of wrongful arrest and deportation.

"This program appears to be a thinly veiled effort to trigger massive and discriminatory deportations of certain immigrants whose only mistake will be to fail to register because they are confused and afraid, not because they have violated any existing immigration law or pose any threat to the United States," said Lucas Guttentag, Director of the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project.

So what's the next step--making all immigrants or visitors from predominantly Muslim countries wear armbands with a crescent on them? Really, it brings tears of patriotic joy to my eyes...

Post Script: A More Sensible Spin

Sometimes I wonder why I bother reading Associated Press reports at all (and then I remember that I can hardly criticize mainstream media if I pay no attention to it...) As Tom Tomorrow points out, while the AP's use of the word "claimed" insinuates that the protestors are making things up, the Reuters version ("Hundreds of Muslim Immigrants Rounded Up in Calif.") gives them more credit:

Hundreds of Iranian and other Middle East citizens were in southern California jails on Wednesday after coming forward to comply with a new rule to register with immigration authorities only to wind up handcuffed and behind bars.

Shocked and frustrated Islamic and immigrant groups estimate that more than 500 people have been arrested in Los Angeles, neighboring Orange County and San Diego in the past three days under a new nationwide anti-terrorism program. Some unconfirmed reports put the figure as high as 1,000.

The arrests sparked a demonstration by hundreds of Iranians outside a Los Angeles immigration office. The protesters carried banners saying "What's next? Concentration camps?" and "What happened to liberty and justice?."

A spokesman for the Immigration and Naturalization Service said no numbers of people arrested would be made public. A Justice Department spokesman could not be reached for comment.

The head of the southern California chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union compared the arrests to the internment of Japanese Americans in camps during the Second World War.

and

Islamic community leaders said many of the detainees had been living, working and paying taxes in the United States for five or 10 years, and had families here. "Terrorists most likely wouldn't come to the INS to register. It is really a bad way to go about it. They are being treated as criminals and that really goes against American ideals of fairness, and justice and democracy," Khan said.

The Iranian protesters said many of those detained were victims of official delays in processing visa and green card requests. "My father, they just took him in," one young man told reporters. "They've been treating him like an animal. They put him in a room with, like, 50 other people and no bed or anything."

Khan said one of those in jail was a doctor, who was being sponsored for U.S. citizenship when his sponsor died.

One Syrian man said he went to register in Orange County with a dozen friends. He was the only one to come out of the INS office. "All my friends are inside right now," M.M. Trapici, 45, told reporters. "I have to visit the family for each one today. Most of them have small kids."

I would blog about this at length, but as I didn't actually finish all the papers due on what was supposed to be my last day of Harvard ever I would like to direct you to Atrios while I grind my teeth in frustration over the four papers I needed to write by yesterday.

No, I haven't forgotten about my blog...

...it's just that tomorrow is my LAST day of classes at Harvard EVER, and I'm trying to write three or four different papers tonight on African Diasporic archaeology, postcolonial violence, narrative strategies in the modern Sudanese novel, and the like. So I'm sitting here rereading The Wretched of the Earth with a splitting headache in severe withdrawal from my usual heavy dosage of news and political analysis (today is one of those rare days I didn't get up early and skim newspapers and blogs and the like for a few hours)... anyway, for now why don't you sit back, relax, and check out the transcript of Trent Lott's appearance on BET last night? Includes such gems as the following exchanges:

LOTT: I believe that I have changed and that I'm trying to do a better job. But yes, I'm a part of the region and the history that has not always done what it was supposed to have done.

But let me tell you...

GORDON: Let me do that before you go on, and I promise you I'll let you get to that. But clear up a couple of things for me, if you will.

First being, in the statement that you say was off the cuff--an off-the-cuff remark, you said "We wouldn't have had all the problems that we've had over these years," and as you know it's been reported that 22 years ago you essentially said the same thing about Strom Thurmond.

What problems specifically are you talking about when you say that?

LOTT: When I got to know Strom Thurmond--really know him, was in the--I guess, in the '80s--late '70s or '80s, I saw a senator that was committed in the fight against communism, that had fought Nazism, a senator that was for fiscal responsibility, you know, and one that also thought that law and order was very important, protecting people of all races against crime. That's what his focus was.

GORDON: But you also saw a senator that personified for years segregation.

LOTT: Yes, but let me tell you...

GORDON: Did you not, though?

LOTT: I did. I did.

GORDON: And you knew and understood what he stood for? LOTT: I--absolutely I did.

* * *

GORDON: Let's be honest: You would not be sitting here with me this evening had it not been for this.

LOTT: That's true, except that, you know, years ago, I've done interviews before with Black Entertainment Television reporters.

But, look, I don't want to get this into a position of making excuses. I accept the fact that I made a terrible mistake, used horrible words, caused hurt. I'm sorry about that. I've apologized for it. I've asked for forgiveness. And I'm going to continue to do that.

But in answer to your question a moment ago, it is about actions more than words. As majority leader, I can move an agenda that would have things that would be helpful to African-Americans and minorities of all kinds and all Americans, but specifically aimed at showing African-Americans that they have particular concerns and needs that we have to advance an agenda that will help rural and...

GORDON: Sure.

LOTT: ... urban areas, education, so that every child really does have an education.

GORDON: But, Senator, many of those African-Americans believe, quite frankly, that that was you speaking in code to constituents with a wink and a nod saying, "You know, the good old days."

So you tell us, so we won't have conjecture on what you meant, what did you mean when you said, "those problems"?

LOTT: I was talking about the problems of the defense and communism and budgets and governments sometimes that didn't do the job.

But again, I understand, Ed, that that was interpreted by many the way it was. And I should have been sensitive to that.

I, you know, obviously made a mistake. And I'm going to do everything I can to admit that and deal with it and correct it. And that's what I hope the people will give me a chance to do, to show that I--there's an opportunity here. This is a wake-up call.

GORDON: All right.

LOTT: And this is an opportunity for me to do something about years of misbehavior.

GORDON: Well, Senator, let's talk about those years of misbehavior, as you put it, and also go down your record, let you clarify some things.

* * *

GORDON: Let's talk about the King holiday.

LOTT: I want to talk about the King holiday. I want to go back to that.

I'm not sure we in America, certainly not white America and the people in the South, fully understood who this man was; the impact he was having on the fabric of this country.

GORDON: But you certainly understood it by the time that vote came up, Senator.

LOTT: Well, but...

GORDON: You knew who Dr. King was at that point.

LOTT: I did, but I've learned a lot more since then. I want to make this point very clearly.

I have a high appreciation for him being a man of peace, a man that was for nonviolence, a man that did change this country. I've made a mistake. And I would vote now for a Martin Luther King holiday.

And so on.

Bush responds to calls to free Haitian refugees... by tightening immigration laws
aka Bush treating Haitian refugees like dirt, part 6

(see parts 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 but realize a few of the links are probably expired)

So there goes any hope that Bush would stop discriminating against Haitian refugees. From today's NYTimes ("Hope for Speedy Release of Haitian Refugees Fades"):

Advocates for more than 200 Haitian refugees taken into custody in October had expected that immigration rules keeping them in indefinite detention would be eased after President Bush and his brother, Gov. Jeb Bush, said they should be treated no differently than any other asylum seekers, except Cubans. But since then, the Bush administration has instead tightened the immigration rules and broadened their scope, making it virtually impossible for the Haitians to be released soon.

Under a Bush administration policy adopted a year ago, Haitian refugees who reach the United States are held in indefinite detention until they are deported or, less frequently, granted asylum. Critics have called the policy discriminatory because, until now, it has applied exclusively to Haitians.

... . Last month, President Bush said, "Haitians and everybody else ought to be treated the same way, and we're in the process of making sure that happens." The advocates and lawmakers interpreted the remarks to mean the Haitians would soon be released and, as with all other migrants, allowed to remain in the community pending the outcome of their cases. Instead, the Justice Department has since announced that the Immigration and Naturalization Service will apply the detention policy to all non-Cubans who arrive in the United States illegally by sea and will expedite the deportation process for such refugees.

... ."[The new policy] treats all people seeking to come to America illegally by sea the same," said the spokesman, Scott McClellan, the deputy White House press secretary. "The president believes Haitians ought to be treated fairly and humanely."

In other words, Bush's idea of ending discrimination is treating all refugees except Cubans really, really badly by locking them up as if fleeing persecution were a crime. (But as "most people who flee by sea come from Haiti or Cuba," the policy still applies disproportionately to Haitians.) Which is apparently his definition of "fairly and humanely." Or as an unidentified Justice Department Official puts it:

"There is a lot of discussion I have seen about how Haitians are not treated as well as Cubans. I would like to reword that: We treat everybody not as well as Cubans. That is because Congress has created a statutory difference for Cubans."

This is apparently because Cuban refugees face political persecution, while Haitian refugees merely face political persecution and slow death by starvation.

"Pastoral scene of the gallant South..."

Body and Soul has an excellent post regarding Billie Holiday's famous anti-lynching protest song "Strange Fruit" and Pat Buchanan's claim that Trent Lott's critics are "lynching" him...

Oh yeah, and Trent Lott's going to try to apologize on BET (Black Entertainment Television) FOR THE SECOND TIME tonight... too bad I don't get cable, it should be priceless.

New Cartoon! Regarding Bush’s Belated Decision to Be Offended by Racist Remarks

(click on above detail to see full image...)

Yeah, so here it is. Enjoy!

Drowning in a sea of news...

So, since I last blogged, Henry K. has stepped down, the Lott thing has gotten even bigger... and the deadlines (cartoon and otherwise) in my planner are breeding like flies. This is my last week of classes at Harvard EVER, so I will try and keep the blog rolling... but it might be slow til Wednesday.

Democrats Loudly and Enthusiastically Deign to Acknowledge Racism Exists...
...but will they remember that come next election?

Call me cynical, but there is something fishy about Democratic leaders' current loud and enthusiastic condemnation of Trent Lott's racist remarks: namely, what took them so freaking long? In other words, it seems a bit odd that after four solid days of silence and/or excuses (from white Democrats, that is--the Black Democratic Caucus was angry from day one), Daschle and co. finally decided to make a big fuss. Especially considering their refusal to pay attention to black voters before last month?s election. As the Africana.com editors put it in this week's A-List:

Racist Republican Axis of Evil: There is something mildly annoying about the fact that after vigorously counseling the Democratic Party to abandon black voters (a.k.a. "special interests") the combined American liberal punditocracy--to a man, well, a white man--is frenzy-feeding on Trent Lott's praise for Old Jim Crow (a.k.a., that disgusting fossil Strom Thurmond, who would have to live a thousand years before he could begin to absolve himself of the literal black blood he has on his hands.). What would white folks do without us, really? After taking the blame for the Democrats poor showing (our turn-out was either too low to turn the tide or high enough to scare white folks off depending on who you asked) in November, we now provide them with the first legit opportunity to draw blood on the Bush Administration, something neither Enron, serious intelligence lapses leading up to 9/11, the bungling of the hunt for Osama, nor a collapsed economy has allowed them to do. The Congressional Black Caucus is rightly calling for Lott's head, but at the end of the day, the removal of a single individual, no matter how highly placed, will do little to change the fact that the Republican Party is now the home of neo-Confederate rabble whose "pride" is little more than an opportunity to re-animate the rituals and symbols associated with the chattel-slavery era South. Helms, Ashcroft, Thurmond, the entire "Dixiecrat" caucus turned Republican, the Northern Republican Party operatives who capitalized on white Southern hate in order to build the "new" Republican Party, race-moderates like Ronald Reagan who played to the neo-Confederate trash gallery in order to win elections -- over-excitable progressives often over-use certain epithets in attacking the right, but there really are no other words to describe these people except "racist" and "evil."

...and in the Africana.com editorial:

Is it any wonder, then, that as long as it has leaders like Lott, the Party of Lincoln will remain the Grand Old Party of American racism? For every well-scrubbed, earnest, fiscally/socially conservative Negro trotted out by the Republican Party -- Colin, Condeleezza, JC, whoever -- there are ten Strom Thurmonds, Jesse Helmses, John Ashcrofts and Trent Lotts standing behind them. Southern racism is the original sin of the modern conservative movement, and it's the reason why the Republicans attract bigots the way Paraguay attracts Nazis -- Lott and company act like a government in temporal exile, enacting and re-enacting the drama of their lost, beloved Confederacy. Lott's comments are odious, but his continued presence in the Senate is even worse. President Bush should immediately denounce Lott and his comments, and Trent Lott himself should resign, not just from the majority leadership, but from the Senate itself.

Yes, yes, and yes. You might also want to check out "Republican Party's 40 Years of Juggling on Race" in today's NYTimes. Some choice quotes:

Ever since the Republican Party in the South was reborn by hostility to the civil rights legislation of the 1960's, the national party has increasingly depended on Southern votes while insisting to Northern moderates that it is still the party of Lincoln.

One of the sharpest examples of how Republicans have successfully balanced those two interests occurred in 1980, when Ronald Reagan opened his campaign in Philadelphia, Miss., and set off an outcry when he used the code words "states' rights" to appeal to whites.

To repair the damage, Mr. Reagan traveled to Detroit in October and sought to reassure suburban whites that he was no racist, by obtaining the endorsement of two black civil rights leaders, the Rev. Ralph David Abernathy and the Rev. Hosea Williams. That was not to seek black votes, but as his pollster, Richard Wirthlin, said after the election, to soothe whites who generally support Republican policies but do not think of themselves as supporting racism... .

The political reality, Mr. Wirthlin said today, is that "Republicans cannot afford to alienate the South, but to alienate the suburbs on a racist charge would even be more damaging."

In other words, Bush didn't wag his finger at Lott yesterday to soothe black voters but to reassure moderate white suburban Republicans that their party wasn't racist. Honest. From Paul Krugman's new column:

Notice, by the way, who really gets served in this charade. The open-minded majority gets ringing affirmations of its principles; but once the dust has settled, the people who agree with Mr. Lott get to keep him as majority leader, and get the judgeships too.

Still, pulling off a two-faced political strategy is tricky. What prevents reporters from explaining to the majority the coded messages that are being sent to the minority?

Good question; I wish I knew the answer. But what's remarkable in the Lott affair is how much he has gotten away with over the years. How many readers ever heard about the flap, several years ago, over Mr. Lott's association with the racist Council of Conservative Citizens? The scandal was actually worse than his remarks last week ? but it just got buried. And without the indefatigable efforts of Mr. Marshall and a few other Internet writers, Mr. Lott's recent celebration of segregation would probably have been buried as well.

My guess is that the White House believes it has now done enough. Mr. Lott has received his slap on the wrist; now we can go back to business as usual.

Bear in mind that while Mr. Bush has finally denounced Mr. Lott's remarks, he and his party benefit from the strategy that allows the likes of Mr. Lott to hold so much power. Let's not forget, in particular, the blatant attempts to discourage minority voting in South Dakota, Louisiana, Maryland and elsewhere. It's about time for those of us in the press to pay attention, and let this great, tolerant nation know what's really going on.

Hear, hear. And in case there was any doubt left in your mind that Trent Lott is an evil racist fiend (and a nasty homophobic fiend, to boot!), keep reading Atrios, who has links to useful articles like this one (noting that Lott helped lead a successful battle to prevent his college fraternity from admitting blacks).

Oh, and if you're wondering why I don't use a consistent style for blockquotes in my posts, I'm experimenting to see what is easiest to read... I know italics aren't that easy to read.

Breaking News: Pope Lets Cardinal Law Resign

It's about time, but not all that surprising. My mom's theory on this one has always been that the Vatican was just waiting for more scandalous revelations came out before allowing Law to resign, thus distracting from the Vatican's own possibly complicity in covering up sex abuse. Looks like she may be right...

The Nation weighs in...
+ Faith-Based Fun with Bush

This Trent Lott story keeps getting bigger and bigger. When I first decided to do a cartoon about it on Saturday, all I could find was one tiny little Washington Post article. Now I can't even keep track of all the cartoons and coverage. As the editors of The Nation note:

Where is the outrage? The general silence is more alarming than Lott himself. The New York Times initially found his remarks un-newsworthy and acknowledged them only after Lott issued, first, a slippery denial, then a grudging apology. The Washington Post published a crisp, comprehensive account by Thomas Edsall, but it ran on page six, not on the front page where it belonged.

Further, this isn't about just one little incident:

Lott's offense cannot be dismissed as a casual slight, because it reflects the general erosion of decent sensibilities in American politics, a coarsening that prepares people to accede to more vicious assaults on justice by the government. In 1976 the Ford Administration's Agriculture Secretary, Earl Butz, was instantly compelled to resign after it was disclosed he had told an ugly racist joke (in a private conversation). This time, the notables avert their eyes and pretend they didn't hear what Lott said.

Their casual indifference reminds us that the convicted and unconvicted co-conspirators from Reagan's Iran/contra scandal are now back in the Bush Administration, once again fiddling with the Constitution and our civil liberties. It reminds us that conservatives are currently making yucks about affirmative action and "diversity" in public institutions of higher learning as though "we" all agree that the Supreme Court should abolish the formal pursuit of equality in education.

And speaking of reminders: Faith-Based Fun

I've been following the Trent Lott story so closely that I almost missed this news item. Apparently Bush found plenty of time when not making insincere speeches to weaken the separation of church and state. (From the AP):

President Bush circumvented Congress to advance key pieces of his divisive "faith-based initiative" Thursday, including one that lets federal contractors use hire only people of certain faiths. Hoping to involve churches and religious organizations more deeply in government efforts to address social ills, Bush signed executive orders aimed at giving those groups a leg up in the competition for federal money. He announced the changes in a speech to religious and charitable leaders meeting here.

and

The hiring issue was one of the central disputes as lawmakers considered Bush's proposals before, and it prompted criticism Thursday. Civil rights law bars discrimination on the basis of religion, but constitutional problems arise when government money is involved.

"It is simply wrong for federal contractors to discard the resumes of people with names that sound 'too Jewish' or 'too Muslim' when hiring substance abuse counselors and other professionals with government money," National Jewish Democratic Council Executive Director Ira N. Forman said.

"Bush is giving his official blessing to publicly funded religious discrimination," said The Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Yeah, pretty much. And with that, ladies and gentlemen, I bid you goodnight, as I haven't gotten nearly enough sleep lately and I have plenty of nightmares about nuclear war to catch up on. Oh, and a big thanks to Tom Tomorrow for mentioning me in his blog today, and to all the nice people who visited my humble site as a result.

Bush finally decides to be offended
Republicans worried people will notice their party is full of racists

Bush apparently expects everyone to immediately forget that his previous comments regarding the whole "Trent Lott dances on the graves of lynching victims" business were less than condemning. For example, earlier in the week:

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Lott "has apologized for his statement, and the president understands that that is the final word from Senator Lott."

But now that Bush realizes that this sort of thing is bad PR and takes valuable time away from planning to use nuclear weapons on Iraq... he decides to be deeply offended:

President Bush on Thursday sharply rebuked incoming Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott for comments that some have called racist, saying any suggestion that segregation was acceptable is "offensive and it is wrong."

I love the "some have called racist," bit. Anyway, more:

"Recent comments by Sen. Lott do not reflect the spirit of our country," Bush said to loud applause. "He has apologized and rightly so. Every day that our nation was segregated was a day our nation was unfaithful to our founding ideals."

Kind of like every day that Bush remains in office is an offense to democratic ideals?

The president did not call for Lott to step down, but other conservatives say Lott must offer a fuller explanation of his comments, despite his apology... .The president's strong statement suggests that Lott has failed to quell the controversy over his comments, which some conservatives complain have opened the GOP to charges of racial bigotry.

U.S. Threatens to Use Nuclear Weapons and Landmines in Iraq
+ Remember Those Detainees?

You heard me. Who's the rogue nation again? Anyway, I don't have time to blog in detail, but you can read more about the nuclear business at Robert's Virtual Soapbox. And the details on the land mine business are in USA TODAY, of all places (you can also get the goods at Body and Soul):

The Pentagon is preparing to use anti-personnel land mines in a war with Iraq, despite U.S. policy that calls for the military to stop using the mines everywhere in the world except Korea by 2003...

From 15,000 to 20,000 people are killed or maimed worldwide each year by land mines, according to the United Nations. Of those, 80% are civilians and one-third are children.

Military experts say land mines can save soldiers' lives. They play a "vital and essential role" in battle by restricting where the enemy can move and protecting U.S. troops, said a Pentagon spokesman.

Officially, the Pentagon will say only that it "retains the right to use" land mines wherever it chooses, and that commanders can get approval to use them under rules designed to minimize risk to non-combatants.

And on another cheery topic, remember all those folks who were detained after 9/11 and uh, well, the government couldn't reveal their names or anything even though NONE WERE CHARGED in connection with the 9/11 attacks? Well, the US finally released them, after a fashion--many have been deported.

Democrats Waited to See Which Way the Wind Was Blowing
...and other news from the "Trent Lott wants to keep black children out of public swimming pools" front

Cartoon (+ Column) Roundup

I have no idea if my cartoon was one of the first on the Trent Lott's racist comment topic, but I didn't see any others until today. Instead I just saw a lot of cartoons (like this one from Mike Keefe) poking fun at Thurmond's age, which is an easy way of distracting from actual issues. But as far as cartoonists who actually deal with the racism thing, we've got B. Deutsch on the real apology, Rex Babin on water fountains, J.D. Crowe on what's behind Lott's racist words, John Cole on a more appropriate candle for Strom's cake, Caricaturist extraordinaire Ann Telnaes on Lott's "apology", Stuart Carlson and Jack Ohman on nostalgia, Jeff Danziger on apologies, Joel Pett on holiday lights, Tom Toles on presidential runs, Tony Auth on a more appropriate kind of birthday hat. And last but not least, Derrick Jackson's column ("Lott's mind-set is the issue") is right-on, as always. A few choice quotes:

The issue is not whether Trent Lott should apologize. His words are now worthless. What counts is where Americans stand on Lott and whether he should continue to stand as majority leader of the Senate.

And (regarding Lott's statement that if other states had followed Mississippi's lead and voted for Thurmond "we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years.''):

All these problems. And if the rest of the country had followed their lead, one can imagine how many more bodies would have been strung up and how many more Americans because of color, sexual orientation, or being a woman would be on the outside looking in at equal opportunity in schools and in the workplace.

Daschle Realizes the Error of His Ways... (that's what I call leadership!)

So six days after Lott made his now infamous "all these problems" comment, Daschle realized that his sad excuse for Lott's racism wasn't going to cut it anymore. But after the revelation that this was the second such statement, he changed his tune:

"It is profoundly disturbing that Sen. Lott's statement last week was not an isolated event," said Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle, who said Monday he had accepted Lott's insistence that he hadn't meant to be interpreted as he was.

Bush still stubbornly refuses to criticize his evil henchman in the Senate, and spoke indirectly through his press secretary. From the AP:

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer on Wednesday, for the second day in a row, declined to directly criticize Lott or his statement. "America is a much richer and better nation as a result of the changes that have been made to our society involving integration and improvement of relations between races," Fleischer said. "The president is grateful for that effort." On Tuesday, Fleischer made similar comments, adding that "the president has confidence in him as Republican leader, unquestionably."

and from similar AP stories:

Fleischer said President Bush thinks Americans should take pride in the "tremendous strides and changes and improvements" that have been made in race relations since 1948. "We were a nation that needed to change," he said.

Of course, if people like Strom Thurmond and Trent Lott had had their way, we wouldn't have changed at all.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Lott "has apologized for his statement, and the president understands that that is the final word from Senator Lott."

It's probably unnecessary to note that Jesse Helms and Pat Buchanan have come to Lott's defense, but...

Helms, who along with Thurmond is retiring from the Senate this year, said Lott's critics leapt on the comments "like a puppy dog on a dog biscuit." ... "What did Trent Lott really say? He said that when Strom Thurmond ran, my state voted for him. He was at a function where Strom Thurmond, a hundred years old, was having his friends say the nicest things they could think of," Helms said. "Trent Lott in no sense was sending a message of any sort. He was just trying to be nice to Strom Thurmond at a time everybody was being nice to him, and I praise him for that."

The AP then appropriately notes that:

Before his election in 1972, Helms sometimes used his television and radio commentaries to defend the owners of segregated businesses and condemned civil rights marchers. He also fought a Martin Luther King holiday in 1983.

And last night on Hardball With Chris Matthews, Pat Buchanan had the following exchange with Maxine Waters (see full transcript):

BUCHANAN: Well wait a minute; let’s say-look-I don’t think it was a mistake. I don’t think there was anything wrong with it. It’s like saying, you know, if old Stonewall Jackson had ridden up to Washington after the battle of Bull Run we wouldn’t have this problem.
It is simply a gracious gesture to a man on his retirement, it seems to me, and-and-you know he-Strom ran against Harry Truman but, Maxine, Adlai Stevenson, the great liberal, picked two segregationists to run with him for president. 1964 — Al Gore’s dad voted against the Civil Rights Act, stood solid with Strom. I mean, aren’t you trying to judge Mr. Lott by a gracious statement for a man who comes out of another era?
WATERS: Absolutely not. This country has had a problem with racism and discrimination. This is a serious matter and the civil rights movement paid a great price to try and rid this country of racism and these-of segregation and so this is an issue that we must all be forever aware of and concerned about...
BUCHANAN: All right, Maxine...
WATERS: ... you don’t simply talk this way and not expect to have some negative feedback on it.
BUCHANAN: I don’t see anything wrong with the talk but let’s talk about action. You’re a member of the Black Caucus. They don’t allow any Hispanics in it, they don’t allow any Asians in it, they don’t allow any White folks in it. Why isn’t that a racist organization?

And so on...

Fun With Media Distortion, or Strom Didn't Say "Negro"...

I should have known better than to trust the AP or CNN or the New York Times on this one... Anyway, as Chloe Lopez brought to my attention, the Thurmond quote in my cartoon (taken from an Associated Press report) is incorrect. According to the AP, Thurmond said the following in a 1948 presidential campaign speech:

All the laws of Washington and all the bayonets of the Army cannot force the Negroes into our homes, our schools, our churches."

If you listen to audio recordings, however, the transcript is a bit different:

I want to tell you, ladies and gentleman, that there's not enough troops in the army to force the Southern people to break down segregation and admit the nigger race into our theatres, into our swimming pools, into our homes and into our churches. (wild applause)

Now there are other differences as well, since there don't seem to be any bayonets involved in the second quote. So it seems possible that the quotes are from two different points in the speech, or from different speeches. But that doesn't change the fact that the second quote is being ignored in the media, or that it is a more accurate characterization of the presidential platform Lott got so wistful for.

But, as they used to say on Reading Rainbow, you don't have to take my word for it. You can hear it for yourself in RealAudio from the National Public Radio archives (link also on this page). Also worth hearing:
• Brief Morning Edition report, includes audio of Lott and Daschle's remarks at Thurmond’s birthday (aired 12/10/02)
• Scholar/Activist (and much missed former Harvard Afro-Am professor) Cornel West speaks on Thurmond, Lott, Daschle, and the N word Thurmond really used. (aired 12/11/02)

New Cartoon! (well, sort of)

I was originally going to just use the same cartoon in the Phoenix as I did in the Crimson, but I thought best to update it for recent news... so it's a sort of new cartoon. I was going to call it "Profiles in Democratic Courage: Tom Daschle..." but then decided to save that title for another time.

Thoughts on Bush & the "Axis of Evil"
from an Oregonian in South Korea

Brenda Ann (who is, as the title suggests, an American living in South Korea) writes:

Don't know if you keep up on international news, but here's something you may be interested in. Bubya's inclusion of N. Korea as a part of his "Axis of Evil" has affected our relationship with S. Korea in a negative way. The majority of people here are longing for the reunification of Korea, since after the war, tens of thousands of families were torn asunder by the division of Korea into two countries. Bubya has been attempting to drive a huge wedge into those reunification plans.... but maybe not for long.

A long series of US actions, either on a personal, military, or administrative, have been causing consternation among Koreans in general. The final straw was the recent aquittal of two US Army sargeants in the death of two young Korean girls who were run over and crushed by a military vehicle in June of this year. This aquittal has brought angry protests demanding the ouster of the US military from Korea. The president here has ordered his cabinet and legislature to prepare to consider modification of the SOFA agreement, which governs how US military and civilian support are handled in legal matters.

Along with this, it's been my observation since being here that the average American GI is not exactly the best of goodwill ambassadors. Many of them treat their Korean hosts much the same way they would treat them if they were in the US (and I don't mean like fellow Americans.

Sorry to go on here, this is one of my pet peeves. I have not much use for people that a) believe they are above the law or b) think they are better than everyone else. (and/or are just totally RUDE).

And a quick note: I'll be posting people's answers to "what's your favorite euphemism?" soon.

More News from the "Trent Lott is a Big Nasty Racist" front (see my cartoon "100th birthday," my previous post, and Paul Krugman’s column in today's NYTimes)

So it looks like some journalists are finally paying attention to Trent Lott’s sentimental trip down Segregation Lane at Strom Thurmond’s birthday bash last week--even if congressional Democratic leaders aren’t. From Salon.com ("Caught Whistling Dixie"):

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott's big mistake came last Thursday, at a ceremony commemorating the 100th birthday of Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C. When it was his turn to speak, Lott boasted that his home state of Mississippi had supported Thurmond's run for president in 1948, and that "if the rest of the country had followed our lead we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years."

Thurmond ran in 1948 as an openly pro-segregationist Dixiecrat. Lott's comment, according to the Washington Post, was met by "an audible gasp and general silence."

But perhaps even more surprising is how that stunned silence extended all the way to the Democratic Party. By Monday, many black leaders and black organizations had denounced Lott's remarks. On Monday, Lott said only that his comments "were not an endorsement of [Thurmond's] positions of more than 50 years ago, but of a man and his life." And four days later, few leading Democrats -- including those considering a bid for the 2004 race -- were willing to openly criticize the senator.

Even Democrats who condemned Lott's statements Monday did not mention his former affiliation with the Council of Conservative Citizens. The CCC was the successor to the segregationist White Citizens' Councils of the 1960s. In a 1992 speech, Lott told a group of CCC members, "The people in this room stand for the right principles and the right philosophy." When Lott was criticized in 1998 for his involvement, he said he had "no firsthand knowledge" of CCC's racial views.

Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., who will hand the Majority Leader's position back to Lott at the beginning of the new Senate term in January, said Monday that he had spoken to Lott about the comments and was confident that Lott did not mean to endorse the Dixiecrat policies of Thurmond's presidential run. "There are a lot of times when he and I go to the mike and would like to say things we meant to say differently, and I'm sure this is one of those cases for him as well," Daschle said.

So I have to wonder--how much more blatantly racist would Lott have to be before Daschle + co. found the nerve to possibly maybe sort-of criticize him? Would he have to be live on CNN screaming "I really really really hate black people!"?

Naw, I'm sure they'd find an excuse for that too.

...now there's a boy after my own heart...

... one who has nightmares about Total Information Awareness and whose monster under the bed is Dick Cheney. In other words, after a week or so of reruns, the Boondocks is back.

And if American kids are having nightmares, just imagine what kind of dreams Iraqi kids are having (see cartoon by David Horsey).

Court decides Brandon Teena's life worth only $17,360, possibly $98,223

If you've seen Boys Don't Cry, you know the basic story. In 1993 John Lotter and Marvin Nissen brutally raped 21-yr-old Nebraska man Brandon Teena after discovering he was biologically female (sound familiar?). Following the rape Brandon escaped and took his story to the sheriff, only to be met with indifference and outright abuse. A week later, Lotter and Nissen brutally murdered Brandon, Lisa Lambert, and Philip DeVine. Nissen is currently serving a life sentence; Lotter is on death row.

Anyway, a helpful Nebraska reader brought my attention to two new twists in the case. First, the Nebraska Supreme Court has decided not to award the $350,000 in damages requested by Brandon's mother. From the Associated Press (aka the Land of Disrespectful Pronouns):

JoAnn Brandon initially asked for $350,000 in damages, claiming Richardson County Sheriff Charles Laux's indifference led to her daughter's murder. District Judge Orville Coady awarded JoAnn Brandon $17,360 in damages, ruling that Teena Brandon was partly responsible for her own death because of her lifestyle.

In an opinion issued last year, the Nebraska Supreme Court said Laux was more concerned with Teena Brandon's sexuality than with keeping her safe after she reported being raped. According to last year's ruling, Laux showed indifference by referring to Teena Brandon as "it" and not immediately arresting the two suspects, who had threatened to kill her if she reported the rape.

JoAnn Brandon was then awarded $98,223.

That may sound like a lot, but when we think about the $17,360 the judge originally wanted to award and compare it to...

$10 Million for Fatal Delay in Diagnosis. After only 30 minutes of deliberation, a Baltimore Circuit Court jury awarded $10 million to the family of a teenager who died after a hospital took four days to diagnose and begin treating his blood disorder. The jury awarded $4 million to his parents and $6 million to the boy’s estate. Maryland law limits the amount of damages a family can collect, in this case $840,000 for the parents and $560,000 for the teen. (ATLA L@w News Digest – November 7, 2002)

... we can only conclude that Nebraska courts doesn't seem to think transgender lives are worth much. Worse, that first judge awarded a low figure because he declared that because he was trans (that's presumably what is meant by "lifestyle"), Brandon was responsible for his own death. If a sheriff ignoring a rape victim's testimony doesn't go beyond negligence into malignance, I don't know the meaning of the word...

Anyway, the second item: John Lotter is asking for his death sentence to be commuted to life in prison. All I can say about this is: I'm completely and totally against the death penalty, and I think all death sentences should be commuted. But I'm not about to lose sleep over this particular murderous transphobic fiend.

New Cartoon! or a very unhappy birthday to Strom...

Check out my new cartoon regarding Trent Lott's revealing remarks at Strom Thurmond's birthday bash last Thursday. To recap, Lott stated that he was proud that his home state of Mississippi had voted Thurmond for president in 1948 (see official 1948 Mississippi ballot, found via Atrios and Amptoons)... and if the rest of the US had followed suit, we wouldn't have "all these problems" now. Those "problems" presumably being integrated schools, civil rights, and anti-lynching laws. (See my previous post on Strom)

New Cartoon! or a very unhappy birthday to Strom...

Check out my new cartoon regarding Trent Lott's revealing remarks at Strom Thurmond's birthday bash last Thursday. To recap, Lott stated that he was proud that his home state of Mississippi had voted Thurmond for president in 1948 (see official 1948 Mississippi ballot, found via Atrios and Amptoons)... and if the rest of the US had followed suit, we wouldn't have "all these problems" now. Those "problems" presumably being integrated schools, civil rights, and anti-lynching laws. (See my previous post on Strom)

Deadlines, Deadlines

On the downside, I have no time to blog right now. On the upside, that should mean I have two new cartoons for your reading pleasure in the next few days.

Waking Nightmare + Strom Thurmond is NOT CUTE

I've been having a lot of bad dreams lately. But they all pale in comparison to the fact that BUSH PUT HENRY KISSINGER IN CHARGE OF INVESTIGATING 9/11 AND NO ONE IS MAKING A FUSS ABOUT IT. The Bush admin seems to be making a specialty out of dusting off evil old men, calling them heroes--and then giving them really important jobs. (See Mark Fiore's animated cartoon "Cryogenic Staffing")

Luckily Michael Bronski has an excellent new column on the subject: "Henry Kissinger, John Poindexter, and Strom Thurmond: Old bad guys all polished up and presented as shiny new champions of peace and justice:"

WHAT’S WRONG WITH this country? The appointment of Henry Kissinger, a war criminal — well, an accused war criminal — to oversee a committee that will investigate national-security failures prior to September 11 is an international scandal, and only the Nation (as you would suspect) is paying attention. It’s true that the New York Times offered tentative criticism of the appointment, claiming that Kissinger may be a "less than staunchly independent" figure to lead a stalwart investigation into failures that may have led to the terrorist attacks that brought down the World Trade Center and ripped a hole in the Pentagon. But our opinion makers have by and large paid scant attention to what may be — depending on what the investigation finds — one of the most explosive and debatable appointments Bush ever makes.

But that’s not all. No one even noticed last February when John M. Poindexter — a convicted liar, thief, and traitor for his role in the 1986 Iran-contra affair during his tenure as national-security adviser under Ronald Reagan — was appointed to head the Pentagon’s newly formed Information Awareness Office. Only recently have reports come out about what that office is up to — spying on the American public — and Poindexter’s role in it all. But again, there’s been a disconcerting lack of outrage. In disturbing contrast to all this were the recent front-page stories previewing Strom Thurmond’s 100th birthday on December 5. What are we to make of the fact that the centennial celebration of a racist segregationist gets more attention than the appointment of a convicted secret conspirator to a Pentagon office designed to track our credit-card purchases?

Good question. I am continually amazed by people who seem to think Strom Thurmond is somehow cute just because he's really old.The man has a 70% approval rating! According to The State's fawning celebration of Thurmond's life and times, Thurmond "would like to be remembered by South Carolinians as the senator who cared." Cared about what? Keeping black people out of public schools and swimming pools? As Bronski writes:

GIVEN ALL THIS, what are we to make of the adoring coverage of Strom Thurmond’s 100th-birthday party? The front page of the November 29 New York Times featured a story about Senator Thurmond’s preparations for his December 5 birthday. As appalling as the news blackout on Poindexter’s appointment was, the celebration of Thurmond is — in a broader historical sense — even worse...

This is a man who spent decades fighting to deny basic human and civil rights to African-Americans. In 1957, he filibustered for 24 hours and 18 minutes in an attempt to stop passage of the one of the first congressional civil-rights bills. No surprise there, since he had broken away from the Democratic Party in 1948 to run against Harry S. Truman on a Dixiecrat platform that championed opposition to "the intermingling of races." It was during this time that "ol’ Strom," as he is known, publicly stated: "I want to tell you that there’s not enough troops in the Army to force the Southern people to break down segregation and admit the Negro race into our theaters, into our swimming pools, into our homes, and into our churches."... . Of course, in the 1950s, racists hotly resisted the idea of integration; and make no mistake, during this time Thurmond revealed himself as profoundly and indelibly racist. So much so that in the early 1950s, he was quoted saying: "Our niggers is better off than most anybody’s niggers, why, they got washing machines and some of ’em even got televisions. I can’t understand why they complaining."

So why is Thurmond celebrated in such sentimental fashion? In 48 years as a senator, he has proposed no striking legislation and chaired no important committees. Indeed, he’s made very few worthwhile contributions at all. What he has done is become a symbol — and a very potent one at that — of a deeply entrenched conservatism that many Americans are reluctant to give up... . Like a Norman Rockwell painting that has gone the way of the picture of Dorian Gray, Thurmond is a living relic of an American past that reminds people of a world that never existed...

I could keep quoting, but why don't you read it yourselves? ..but I'm still going to quote his conclusion because it's really right-on:

Optimists crow that the past is merely a nightmare from which we awaken. That doesn’t seem to be the case at this moment in US history. As the weeks have ground on, it’s become increasingly clear that George Bush’s vision of America’s future is deeply rooted in its past. Not simply some sentimental fantasy of small towns and Fourth of July parades and apple pies set out on country tables, but a nightmarish past that features not new bad guys, but the old bad guys all polished up and presented as shiny new champions of peace, justice, and 1984. There is little doubt that September 11, 2001, is a date that will be forever burned into history. It will not simply mark the first large-scale terrorist attack on the United States, but also the beginning of a new page in American history — one in which the US government, after decades of slow, but steady movement into a brighter future, abruptly changed direction and marched forthrightly and unblinkingly into the worst horrors of our past.

All I can say is "EXACTLY." And speaking of people getting nostalgic for evil old men, an Esquire survey just named Ronald Reagan the "greatest living American."

Waking Nightmare + Strom Thurmond is NOT CUTE

I've been having a lot of bad dreams lately. But they all pale in comparison to the fact that BUSH PUT HENRY KISSINGER IN CHARGE OF INVESTIGATING 9/11 AND NO ONE IS MAKING A FUSS ABOUT IT. The Bush admin seems to be making a specialty out of dusting off evil old men, calling them heroes--and then giving them really important jobs. (See Mark Fiore's animated cartoon "Cryogenic Staffing")

Luckily Michael Bronski has an excellent new column on the subject: "Henry Kissinger, John Poindexter, and Strom Thurmond: Old bad guys all polished up and presented as shiny new champions of peace and justice:"

WHAT’S WRONG WITH this country? The appointment of Henry Kissinger, a war criminal — well, an accused war criminal — to oversee a committee that will investigate national-security failures prior to September 11 is an international scandal, and only the Nation (as you would suspect) is paying attention. It’s true that the New York Times offered tentative criticism of the appointment, claiming that Kissinger may be a "less than staunchly independent" figure to lead a stalwart investigation into failures that may have led to the terrorist attacks that brought down the World Trade Center and ripped a hole in the Pentagon. But our opinion makers have by and large paid scant attention to what may be — depending on what the investigation finds — one of the most explosive and debatable appointments Bush ever makes.

But that’s not all. No one even noticed last February when John M. Poindexter — a convicted liar, thief, and traitor for his role in the 1986 Iran-contra affair during his tenure as national-security adviser under Ronald Reagan — was appointed to head the Pentagon’s newly formed Information Awareness Office. Only recently have reports come out about what that office is up to — spying on the American public — and Poindexter’s role in it all. But again, there’s been a disconcerting lack of outrage. In disturbing contrast to all this were the recent front-page stories previewing Strom Thurmond’s 100th birthday on December 5. What are we to make of the fact that the centennial celebration of a racist segregationist gets more attention than the appointment of a convicted secret conspirator to a Pentagon office designed to track our credit-card purchases?

Good question. I am continually amazed by people who seem to think Strom Thurmond is somehow cute just because he's really old.The man has a 70% approval rating! According to The State's fawning celebration of Thurmond's life and times, Thurmond "would like to be remembered by South Carolinians as the senator who cared." Cared about what? Keeping black people out of public schools and swimming pools? As Bronski writes:

GIVEN ALL THIS, what are we to make of the adoring coverage of Strom Thurmond’s 100th-birthday party? The front page of the November 29 New York Times featured a story about Senator Thurmond’s preparations for his December 5 birthday. As appalling as the news blackout on Poindexter’s appointment was, the celebration of Thurmond is — in a broader historical sense — even worse...

This is a man who spent decades fighting to deny basic human and civil rights to African-Americans. In 1957, he filibustered for 24 hours and 18 minutes in an attempt to stop passage of the one of the first congressional civil-rights bills. No surprise there, since he had broken away from the Democratic Party in 1948 to run against Harry S. Truman on a Dixiecrat platform that championed opposition to "the intermingling of races." It was during this time that "ol’ Strom," as he is known, publicly stated: "I want to tell you that there’s not enough troops in the Army to force the Southern people to break down segregation and admit the Negro race into our theaters, into our swimming pools, into our homes, and into our churches."... . Of course, in the 1950s, racists hotly resisted the idea of integration; and make no mistake, during this time Thurmond revealed himself as profoundly and indelibly racist. So much so that in the early 1950s, he was quoted saying: "Our niggers is better off than most anybody’s niggers, why, they got washing machines and some of ’em even got televisions. I can’t understand why they complaining."

So why is Thurmond celebrated in such sentimental fashion? In 48 years as a senator, he has proposed no striking legislation and chaired no important committees. Indeed, he’s made very few worthwhile contributions at all. What he has done is become a symbol — and a very potent one at that — of a deeply entrenched conservatism that many Americans are reluctant to give up... . Like a Norman Rockwell painting that has gone the way of the picture of Dorian Gray, Thurmond is a living relic of an American past that reminds people of a world that never existed...

I could keep quoting, but why don't you read it yourselves? ..but I'm still going to quote his conclusion because it's really right-on:

Optimists crow that the past is merely a nightmare from which we awaken. That doesn’t seem to be the case at this moment in US history. As the weeks have ground on, it’s become increasingly clear that George Bush’s vision of America’s future is deeply rooted in its past. Not simply some sentimental fantasy of small towns and Fourth of July parades and apple pies set out on country tables, but a nightmarish past that features not new bad guys, but the old bad guys all polished up and presented as shiny new champions of peace, justice, and 1984. There is little doubt that September 11, 2001, is a date that will be forever burned into history. It will not simply mark the first large-scale terrorist attack on the United States, but also the beginning of a new page in American history — one in which the US government, after decades of slow, but steady movement into a brighter future, abruptly changed direction and marched forthrightly and unblinkingly into the worst horrors of our past.

All I can say is "EXACTLY." And speaking of people getting nostalgic for evil old men, an Esquire survey just named Ronald Reagan the "greatest living American."

Ted Rall made my day + La Cucaracha now available daily

So I was sitting here at my computer feeling pretty put out because I was writing a science paper instead of reading Ego Trip's Big Book of Racism or yelling at the television set. I was also feeling disheartened because of the last four weekly newspapers I sent my cartoons to, only zero of them chose to respond. But lo and behold, my email made a beep! noise and I had a really nice letter from Ted Rall (who I had written a fan letter to a while back) telling me he liked my cartoons. So maybe those newspapers just don't know what they're missing!

But forget me: there are hundreds of daily papers in this country that aren't running Lalo Alcaraz's new daily comic strip, La Cucaracha! Please, write them a letter to stop the madness! Garfield hasn't been worth reading in years--would anyone really notice if it disappeared? Of course my least favorite comic strip is Mallard Fillmore, which gets run next to Doonesbury in countless newspapers as some kind of bizarre attempt at a liberal/conservative "balance." I can't tell if I hate it because it's so conservative or because it just isn't funny, I suspect it's both. But if it went missing they'd blame the liberal media. From the King Features Syndicate site:

Mallard Fillmore first hatched from the pen of Bruce Tinsley at The Daily Progress in Charlottesville, Va. Today, the celebrated comic strip about Tinsley's conservative reporter-duck fills the bill at some 400 newspapers nationwide...

Tinsley created Mallard for what he saw as the conservative underdog. The strip is for "the average person out there: the forgotten American taxpayer who's sick of the liberal media and cultural establishments that act like he or she doesn't exist," he says. Mallard's targets include President Clinton, the National Endowment for the Arts and champions of political correctness...

Today, readers of papers across the country enjoy the duck's right-wing viewpoint.

Well, I bet Sparky could take Mallard in a fist-fight any day, so there.

Ted Rall made my day + La Cucaracha now available daily

So I was sitting here at my computer feeling pretty put out because I was writing a science paper instead of reading Ego Trip's Big Book of Racism or yelling at the television set. I was also feeling disheartened because of the last four weekly newspapers I sent my cartoons to, only zero of them chose to respond. But lo and behold, my email made a beep! noise and I had a really nice letter from Ted Rall (who I had written a fan letter to a while back) telling me he liked my cartoons. So maybe those newspapers just don't know what they're missing!

But forget me: there are hundreds of daily papers in this country that aren't running Lalo Alcaraz's new daily comic strip, La Cucaracha! Please, write them a letter to stop the madness! Garfield hasn't been worth reading in years--would anyone really notice if it disappeared? Of course my least favorite comic strip is Mallard Fillmore, which gets run next to Doonesbury in countless newspapers as some kind of bizarre attempt at a liberal/conservative "balance." I can't tell if I hate it because it's so conservative or because it just isn't funny, I suspect it's both. But if it went missing they'd blame the liberal media. From the King Features Syndicate site:

Mallard Fillmore first hatched from the pen of Bruce Tinsley at The Daily Progress in Charlottesville, Va. Today, the celebrated comic strip about Tinsley's conservative reporter-duck fills the bill at some 400 newspapers nationwide...

Tinsley created Mallard for what he saw as the conservative underdog. The strip is for "the average person out there: the forgotten American taxpayer who's sick of the liberal media and cultural establishments that act like he or she doesn't exist," he says. Mallard's targets include President Clinton, the National Endowment for the Arts and champions of political correctness...

Today, readers of papers across the country enjoy the duck's right-wing viewpoint.

Well, I bet Sparky could take Mallard in a fist-fight any day, so there.

Deck the halls with bombs and big guns: some cartoons you might enjoy

Clay Bennett's holiday spin on government spending is right-on, as usual. Keith Knight does the math on bombing Iraq. And in case you missed it, Tom Tomorrow talks Total Information Awareness.

Deck the halls with bombs and big guns: some cartoons you might enjoy

Clay Bennett's holiday spin on government spending is right-on, as usual. Keith Knight does the math on bombing Iraq. And in case you missed it, Tom Tomorrow talks Total Information Awareness.

A quick note on the whole "truth maintenance" business:

In yesterday's post I looked at the festering sewer of doublespeak that is the IAO vision statement. As you might recall I was particularly disturbed by the phrase "story telling, change detection, and truth maintenance." Well, apparently I was displaying my computer-science knowledge deficiency (there goes my backup career as a science fiction writer!). Reader Pat Moeller clarifies:

"Truth maintenance, storytelling, and change detection" are considerably less sinister than they sound- they're AI terms for being able to discriminate between real and false information, deciding which conclusions to throw out due to conflicting information, being able to create a coherent narrative from incomplete information, etc. It was kinda dumb of them to use them in a forum where non-AI or computer science types would be looking at them.

I appreciate the explanation and I agree--it was dumb. But if the IAO wanted people to understand their web site, they (a) wouldn't use such specific jargon and (b) would reread The Elements of Style.

A quick note on the whole "truth maintenance" business:

In yesterday's post I looked at the festering sewer of doublespeak that is the IAO vision statement. As you might recall I was particularly disturbed by the phrase "story telling, change detection, and truth maintenance." Well, apparently I was displaying my computer-science knowledge deficiency (there goes my backup career as a science fiction writer!). Reader Pat Moeller clarifies:

"Truth maintenance, storytelling, and change detection" are considerably less sinister than they sound- they're AI terms for being able to discriminate between real and false information, deciding which conclusions to throw out due to conflicting information, being able to create a coherent narrative from incomplete information, etc. It was kinda dumb of them to use them in a forum where non-AI or computer science types would be looking at them.

I appreciate the explanation and I agree--it was dumb. But if the IAO wanted people to understand their web site, they (a) wouldn't use such specific jargon and (b) would reread The Elements of Style.

A quick reader survey: what are your favorite government euphemisms?

"Doublespeak: language deliberately constructed to disguise its actual meaning, usually from governmental, military, or corporate institutions." (definition courtesy of Wikipedia)

I got a bit of cartoonist's block when trying to list government euphemisms for last week's cartoon, so I was wondering: What are your favorite post-9/11 examples of doublespeak?

They don't have to be new phrases; sometimes the old ones (like "Department of Defense") are the worst because we're so used to them or because they've taken on new meaning in light of current events... A few examples, both old

• "intelligence" (spying) & "intelligence community" (The FBI and CIA)
• "collateral damage" (slaughtered civilians)
• "downsizing" (firing large numbers of employees)
  ... and new:
• "Total Information Awareness" (spying on people with or without probable cause)
• "patriotism" (agreeing with Bush)
• "homeland" (the United States)

I particularly love that last one--whenever I hear people talking about Homeland Security it sounds so much like "Fatherland" or some other fascist propaganda...
Anyway, you can send your examples (and your translations into plain language) to me at survey@mikhaela.net. Answers will appear in the blog shortly.

One quick tip:I'm talking about government, military and corporate euphemisms, not so-called "politically correct" language (see old cartoon). I've seen a lot of conservative websites which list things like "gay" and "feminist" as euphemisms for "homosexual trying to gain special rights" and "castrating man-hater." Calling a group by a preferred and/or up-to-date name (i.e. "African-American" and "Asian-American" and not "Negro" or "Oriental") is a matter of respect, and is NOT the same thing as the military saying "collateral damage" to cover up mass killings. The first shows concern for fellow human beings; the second shows contempt.

By the way, George Orwell didn't actually coin the word "doublespeak" (see Wikipedia) but it is inspired by his classic dystopia 1984. So before sending me your doublespeak, you might take a look at Orwell's famous essay "Politics and the English Language." I don't agree with everything he says (I'm opposed to the agenda "total information awareness" was created to serve, not the idea of creating new words)--but it's well worth reading. To quote:

Characteristic phrases are render inoperative, militate against, make contact with, be subjected to, give rise to, give grounds for, have the effect of, play a leading part (role) in, make itself felt, take effect, exhibit a tendency to, serve the purpose of, etc.,etc . The keynote is the elimination of simple verbs. Instead of being a single word, such as break, stop, spoil, mend, kill , a verb becomes a phrase, made up of a noun or adjective tacked on to some general-purpose verb such as prove, serve, form, play, render . In addition, the passive voice is wherever possible used in preference to the active, and noun constructions are used instead of gerunds (by examination of instead of by examining).

So send in those euphemisms, folks... (and don't forget to give me your translations, too)...

P.S.: Inspiration from the Total Information Awareness Program.

So while I was researching the whole euphemism thing, I decided to take a look at the new Information Awareness Office website, and struck gold, doublespeakwise. Below are some excerpts and my comments/attempts at translation...

IAO Mission:  The DARPA Information Awareness Office (IAO) will imagine, develop, apply, integrate, demonstrate and transition information technologies, components and prototype, closed-loop, information systems that will counter asymmetric threats by achieving total information awareness useful for preemption; national security warning; and national security decision making.

I'm not sure what it means to "imagine, develop, apply, integrate, demonstrate and transition" something (if it means anything at all), but I do know "preemptive" means "guilty until proven innocent." So, to translate: "We will waste tons and tons of money on building fancy new computers to spy on everyone with or without reason. This will give us an excuse to interrogate, detain, arrest and/or bomb people who haven't actually committed any crimes yet. Yee-hah."

To effectively and efficiently carry this out, we must promote sharing, collaborating and reasoning to convert nebulous data to knowledge and actionable options. 

That one's so elegant, I think I'll embroider it on a pillow. My guess is that one example of "sharing, collaborating and reasoning" would be "forcing magazines to turn over their subscriber lists." And an example of "converting data to knowledge and actionable options" would be"Bill of Rights? What Bill of Rights?"

They then list "example technologies", such as "Large, distributed repositories with dynamic schemas that can be changed interactively by users" (i.e. "databases"), "Biometric signatures of humans" (I'm clueless on this one), "Entity extraction from natural language text" (i.e. "using search engines"), "Biologically inspired algorithms for agent control."

Some of their "technologies", like "Structured argumentation and evidential reasoning" are hardly recent inventions. But the real kicker is: "Story telling, change detection, and truth maintenance."

You heard me (or read me or whatever). I said "truth maintenance." And with that pleasant thought, I leave you for the night.

A quick reader survey: what are your favorite government euphemisms?

"Doublespeak: language deliberately constructed to disguise its actual meaning, usually from governmental, military, or corporate institutions." (definition courtesy of Wikipedia)

I got a bit of cartoonist's block when trying to list government euphemisms for last week's cartoon, so I was wondering: What are your favorite post-9/11 examples of doublespeak?

They don't have to be new phrases; sometimes the old ones (like "Department of Defense") are the worst because we're so used to them or because they've taken on new meaning in light of current events... A few examples, both old

• "intelligence" (spying) & "intelligence community" (The FBI and CIA)
• "collateral damage" (slaughtered civilians)
• "downsizing" (firing large numbers of employees)
  ... and new:
• "Total Information Awareness" (spying on people with or without probable cause)
• "patriotism" (agreeing with Bush)
• "homeland" (the United States)

I particularly love that last one--whenever I hear people talking about Homeland Security it sounds so much like "Fatherland" or some other fascist propaganda...
Anyway, you can send your examples (and your translations into plain language) to me at survey@mikhaela.net. Answers will appear in the blog shortly.

One quick tip:I'm talking about government, military and corporate euphemisms, not so-called "politically correct" language (see old cartoon). I've seen a lot of conservative websites which list things like "gay" and "feminist" as euphemisms for "homosexual trying to gain special rights" and "castrating man-hater." Calling a group by a preferred and/or up-to-date name (i.e. "African-American" and "Asian-American" and not "Negro" or "Oriental") is a matter of respect, and is NOT the same thing as the military saying "collateral damage" to cover up mass killings. The first shows concern for fellow human beings; the second shows contempt.

By the way, George Orwell didn't actually coin the word "doublespeak" (see Wikipedia) but it is inspired by his classic dystopia 1984. So before sending me your doublespeak, you might take a look at Orwell's famous essay "Politics and the English Language." I don't agree with everything he says (I'm opposed to the agenda "total information awareness" was created to serve, not the idea of creating new words)--but it's well worth reading. To quote:

Characteristic phrases are render inoperative, militate against, make contact with, be subjected to, give rise to, give grounds for, have the effect of, play a leading part (role) in, make itself felt, take effect, exhibit a tendency to, serve the purpose of, etc.,etc . The keynote is the elimination of simple verbs. Instead of being a single word, such as break, stop, spoil, mend, kill , a verb becomes a phrase, made up of a noun or adjective tacked on to some general-purpose verb such as prove, serve, form, play, render . In addition, the passive voice is wherever possible used in preference to the active, and noun constructions are used instead of gerunds (by examination of instead of by examining).

So send in those euphemisms, folks... (and don't forget to give me your translations, too)...

P.S.: Inspiration from the Total Information Awareness Program.

So while I was researching the whole euphemism thing, I decided to take a look at the new Information Awareness Office website, and struck gold, doublespeakwise. Below are some excerpts and my comments/attempts at translation...

IAO Mission:  The DARPA Information Awareness Office (IAO) will imagine, develop, apply, integrate, demonstrate and transition information technologies, components and prototype, closed-loop, information systems that will counter asymmetric threats by achieving total information awareness useful for preemption; national security warning; and national security decision making.

I'm not sure what it means to "imagine, develop, apply, integrate, demonstrate and transition" something (if it means anything at all), but I do know "preemptive" means "guilty until proven innocent." So, to translate: "We will waste tons and tons of money on building fancy new computers to spy on everyone with or without reason. This will give us an excuse to interrogate, detain, arrest and/or bomb people who haven't actually committed any crimes yet. Yee-hah."

To effectively and efficiently carry this out, we must promote sharing, collaborating and reasoning to convert nebulous data to knowledge and actionable options. 

That one's so elegant, I think I'll embroider it on a pillow. My guess is that one example of "sharing, collaborating and reasoning" would be "forcing magazines to turn over their subscriber lists." And an example of "converting data to knowledge and actionable options" would be"Bill of Rights? What Bill of Rights?"

They then list "example technologies", such as "Large, distributed repositories with dynamic schemas that can be changed interactively by users" (i.e. "databases"), "Biometric signatures of humans" (I'm clueless on this one), "Entity extraction from natural language text" (i.e. "using search engines"), "Biologically inspired algorithms for agent control."

Some of their "technologies", like "Structured argumentation and evidential reasoning" are hardly recent inventions. But the real kicker is: "Story telling, change detection, and truth maintenance."

You heard me (or read me or whatever). I said "truth maintenance." And with that pleasant thought, I leave you for the night.

New Cartoon + Fund for Haitian Refugees

So I finally did a cartoon ("Sink or Swim") about the double standard regarding Haitian and Cuban refugees who manage to land in Florida (see parts 1, 2, 3, & 4, but realize a few of the links are probably expired). But I'm really dissatisfied and I plan to redraw it. I struggled with it for a whole day, trying to come up with a simple image to represent the issue, but none of the metaphors I came up with (Chutes and Ladders? Monopoly? No no no no) really fit the situation. In retrospect I realize this is because the situation is way too complicated to be adequately explained in one panel, which is why I ended up with that silly little explanatory box in the corner and why I plan to redraw it in my more typical multi-panel style. Stay tuned...

Until then, if you can afford it, please make a donation to help the hundreds of Haitian refugees currently being detained by the INS for the crime of... not being Cuban. (Cuban refugees are allowed to live in Little Havana while preparing their asylum appeals, but after 9/11 Bush decided that Haitians need to be locked up). The National Coalition for Haitian Rights (NCHR) is one of the only organizations paying attention to the refugees now that they're not "current news", and they've just set up the Haitian Legal Aid Fund (HALAF). From their press release:

Televised scenes of Haitians scrambling overboard in a desperate attempt to reach Miami's shores last month won't be easily forgotten.  But the plight of these Haitians currently in INS detention will be unless we do something immediately.

Thanks to a group of concerned leaders from the Haitian, legal, business, and religious communities, we are proud to announce the creation of the Haitian Legal Aid Fund (HALAF). The Fund has a two-fold agenda.  One is a coordinated effort to ensure that all Haitian detainees obtain free legal representation.  A list of pro bono lawyers from various law firms, bars and nonprofit legal advocacy agencies is already in formation.

The second objective is to attend to the financial needs of the detainees.  Because we are working to provide all the detainees with pro bono services, HALAF funds will not be used to hire lawyers but rather to respond to other immediate needs of the detainees, such as bonds, filing fees or other related expenses... All money donated to the fund will be used directly to support the detainees.

Concerned individuals, foundations, law firms and other interested parties can show their support by offering pro bono legal services and/or making donations to the Haitian Legal Aid Fund.  To volunteer your services or for more information, call 212-337-0005 ext. 20.  Tax deductible donations can be made online at www.nchr.org or by check, made out to NCHR, and mailed to: 

HALAF
c/o NCHR
275 7th Ave., 17th Floor
New York, NY 10001

There is no question that now is the time to act. For far too long Haitians have been victims of an unjust and illegal immigration policy.  We can do something to change that.  With support from immigrant advocates and ordinary citizens around the country, we will make our voices heard.

Hear, hear. Every little bit helps...