Toon: City Bike Safety Essentials

Click to enlarge

Riding bikes in Manhattan (or Brooklyn) for that matter is too damn dangerous, because cars just don't respect bikes, whether in or out of lanes. In a city trying to go green, bikes should take priority. I pretty much stick to riding my bike to Prospect Park (so I can ride around within the park) because I'm just too damn scared. Sigh...

Toon: Again. And Again. And Again... (Sean Bell)

Click to enlarge

This is a followup to my post about the families of the victims of police brutality killings forming a sad fraternity. The New York Times reported that at Sean Bell's wake, the mother of Patrick Dorismond was heard crying out: “Again? Again? Again?”

There were some protests throughout the city today, but the detectives are still off the hook. And it's hard to believe the story will ever change.

My previous cartoon about the Sean Bell case (with a very similar theme) is here.

R.I.P., Mildred Loving

You've probably all heard about this already, but Mildred Loving (of the famous Loving vs. Virginia Supreme Court case that legalized interracial marriage) died last Friday. Here's a snippet from a much-quoted recent statement by Ms. Loving, "Loving for All", made on the 40th anniversary of her landmark case:

Surrounded as I am now by wonderful children and grandchildren, not a day goes by that I don’t think of Richard and our love, our right to marry, and how much it meant to me to have that freedom to marry the person precious to me, even if others thought he was the “wrong kind of person” for me to marry. I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry. Government has no business imposing some people’s religious beliefs over others. Especially if it denies people’s civil rights.

I am still not a political person, but I am proud that Richard’s and my name is on a court case that can help reinforce the love, the commitment, the fairness, and the family that so many people, black or white, young or old, gay or straight seek in life. I support the freedom to marry for all. That’s what Loving, and loving, are all about.

On Sympathizing With the Killers

The outrageous Sean Bell verdict is still weighing on my mind. And I am getting really, really sick of people in the media and in person falling all over themselves to have sympathy for the undercover detectives who shot an innocent black man 50 times.

They say it is SUCH a hard job to be a police officer. It is just so SCARY. They were just SCARED, and DISORGANIZED. The implication is: wouldn't ANYONE be SCARED of an (innocent unarmed) black man?

We always hear this after incidents of police brutality. dNa sums it up at Racialicious ("On Sean Bell: fear is cause for slaughter only when victim is black"):

The Bell verdict will only cement the NYPD’s indifference to wasting black life. They simply aren’t held accountable. All they have to do is say they’re “scared”, and the media sympathizes, because they’re scared of us too.

You know, if being a cop is such a hard job, why not take one of those nice easy jobs?

Like the EASY job of being the mother or father of a (murdered innocent unarmed) black man?

Like the EASY job of being the fiancée or daughter of a (murdered innocent unarmed) black man? (see above photo)

Or the EASY job of being a little black boy who will someday grow up to be an innocent unarmed black man?

Doing a search on some of the history of police brutality cases in NYC, I came upon a moving NYTimes piece ("Police Shooting Reunites Circle of Common Loss") about the way that the families of the victims have formed a friendship network based in shared pain, and the Sean Bell funeral was cause for a painful reunion:

“I don’t know what I would have done without them,” Mrs. Dorismond, a Haitian immigrant who came to New York at 18 to study nursing, said of the relatives of Amadou Diallo and others who died in encounters with the police. “Nobody can understand that pain but me, Mrs. Diallo and the others. When it was my turn, everybody came.”

They had come and been there for her, rushing to her side to introduce themselves — at her son’s wake, at his funeral, at the protests on the streets. Amadou Diallo’s mother, Malcolm Ferguson’s mother, Nicholas Heyward Jr.’s father, Abner Louima himself.

Save your sympathy for the real victims, please.

Toon: Primary Fever

Click to enlarge

More like Primary Fatigue. Really, all I do want to talk about is Battlestar Galactica. I don't want to hear any more of Hillary trying to prove what a bomb-hungry hawk she is, or Obama going out of his way to sing the praises of bipartisanship (otherwise known as "letting Republicans have their way"). Nor do I want to hear anything any more of those gazillion weird racist smears and internet rumors going around about him. And I especially do NOT care about flag pins.

50 Shots and an Outrageous Verdict

Morning outrage: the police officers who shot (and killed) an unarmed young man on his wedding day got away with murder. They shot Sean Bell 50 times but were declared not guilty on all counts. Business as goddamn usual--the police get away with killing another young black man, on the excuse that they were "scared" and "confused" and "disorganized."

Here's my original cartoon about the case, and a much older cartoon on police brutality.

Random Battlestar Galactica Love

Words cannot describe how much I love the brilliant, complex, thrilling and soon-to-be-over new Battlestar Galactica television series.

I don't even have cable TV (or any TV, beyond what the internet so generously provides) and I'm not a big TV fan in general. Lost is sort of OK but I won't cry if I miss an episode or ten or twenty. Arrested Development was hilarious and awesome but is long over.

So yeah, I don't care much about TV. But I DO love well-crafted science fiction, especially dark and gritty post-apocalyptic science fiction featuring complex characters, political intrigue, stolen elections, resistance movements and fundamentalist religious robots bent on total human genocide. Battlestar Galactica is without a doubt the best television show of all time (or is at least MY personal favorite show of all time). And it's much more politically gripping than the real-life primaries we're currently enduring.

I even considered braving the horrible heinous crowds at New York Comic-Con this weekend just to see some of the Galactica cast-members.

OK, I just had to share that.

Kevin Moore has "Snappy Answers to Stephanopoulos Questions"

Fellow Cartoonist With Attitude Kevin Moore sums up the worst of the latest debate in this awesome cartoon.

No, it's NOT Easy Being Green; or Their Fake "Green" Lives

If I see one more article about a gazillion pieces of fancy overpriced "organic" or "recycled" designer crap we can cram into our lives to pretend we're doing something significant to save the planet, I'm going to shoot some (organic!?) steam out my ears.

With every Earth Day there comes a flood of special newspaper and magazine "Green Issues," all generally pushing the same deluded feel-good idea that if only we replaced non-green products with slightly more green products, we'd really Make a Big Difference and Save the Planet. We don't really need to change our consumer culture or hold corporate polluters accountable or enact sweeping and drastic environmental legislation--we just need to change our lightbulbs and wear organic cotton T-shirts.

Case in point: Domino magazine's latest "Green" issue (cover headline: "150 Easy Ways to Go Green") and "Green" list, all about "easy" and "painless" ways to save the planet... by nothing more stressful than shopping. Which is kind of like saving money by... buying what you don't need because it's on sale.

Domino's special Green issue is just an extension of their "my green life" column, which features a different model or celebrity or "activist" each month talking about all the fancy products and organic jeans they CONSUME and BUY while flying around the country on... jet fuel. Sure, life is full of contradictions. I fly myself. I don't live a perfect green life. I can't manage to embody all of my politics in everything I do as an individual in my daily life. But I don't hold my lifestyle up as a magic model that will easily and painlessly save the world.

Anyway, here's the thing: buying more fancy stuff you don't need (no matter how organic or recycled it is) is fundamentally an anti-green act. If you replace your perfectly good couch with some fancy organic or more sustainably produced designer creation, that does not mean you are saving the planet. It means you are buying a nice couch that is slightly less destructive than another couch. You're still consuming, and you're still creating waste. You are not a hero, and you are not an activist, you're just a less destructive shopper.

And shopping is not a substitute for action. Buying a red sweatshirt or red iPod that donates 1% of its profits to a poorly-run AIDS charity that spends all its money advertising red sweatshirts or red iPods is not real action for change. A lot of this feel-good, do-nothing shopping as "activism" (ActivismTM) crap is just an excuse to give yourself an excuse to BUY MORE CRAP YOU DON'T need.

Don't get me wrong--I do think it's good that more manufacturers and craftspeople and companies are being conscious of what goes into their products, and trying to minimize their impact on our already overtaxed planet. I think it's messed up that it took Apple this long to design a greener Mac. I am all for architects designing more environmentally-friendly and energy-efficient buildings (though before you go through the trouble of constructing some perfect energy-saving home, it might be more green to buy one of the many vacant homes that already exist).

And yes, if you DO have to buy something new, it's much better to buy something sustainably produced, something made under fair labor practices, etc. Or to buy something used and discarded by another American shopaholic. I get a good percentage of my work attire from the Goodwill, and I'm not talking holey sweaters and ratty jeans--I'm talking tailored skirt suits and cashmere cardigans.

But back to buying new--if "environmental"--stuff. A lot of these fancy new products aren't green, they're "Green(TM)." They're green as a marketing tool, not as a reality. Like the green Hummer I cartooned about recently. If you buy a "green" Hummer or if you buy more than you would have normally have of something because that product is "greener" and somehow more virtuous--well, the marketing team that pulled one over on you is getting a big bonus for sure.

Many of the products featured in Green Issues are cosmetically green at best--their "green" or "organic" labels are just another sales pitch or a designer fashion trend, and we all know how fickle the fashion world is. One minute fur is out. The next all those models who appeared in anti-fur ads are strolling down the runway covered in peeled fox heads.

So no, watching an Al Gore documentary or buying recycled organic toilet paper is not going to save the world. We need drastic change and we need it yesterday and it is NOT going to be EASY.

Some further reading:

Cartoons by me on this topic:
• "The New Green Hummer"
• "Quick Fixes for Every Crisis!"
• "Confessions of a Closet Conservationist"
• "Quick and Easy Guide to Conservation"

Cartoon work by Stephanie McMillan on this topic (Stephanie is really the master of this subject):
• "I'm recycling my dead monitor..."
• "Lie to Me"
• As the World Burns: 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Stay in Denial (graphic novel)

Toon: Give Me Convenience (and Give Me Debt)!

Click to enlarge

This cartoon was inspired by a column my dad sent me about RFID emitters being developed for cellphones. Obviously there are security and privacy issues involved when your credit card or bank account number is being broadcast from your phone, but that's not the point of this piece.

The real thing that pissed me off is the idea that somehow BUYING USELESS OVERPRICED CRAP is so damn DIFFICULT that we need to make it even EASIER to part people from their hard-earned cash.

If anything, it's way too EASY to spend, spend, spend. The statistic I generally hear is that the average American has no savings at all and is $9,000 in credit card debt. We might as well have flying telepathic products that reach into our pockets and grab our credit cards, the way we're surrounded by advertising and flooded with deceptive and manipulative marketing and pitches and credit card offers.

Why do we want to make it so easy for retailers to take our money in exchange for useless crap that clogs up our lives? Features like "one-click shopping" and magical cell phones are not conveniences--they're tickets to a life as an overspent American.

Masheka and I keep our debit cards (and the one credit card that we haven't shredded) in a neat little "Wallet Buddy" sleeve that I downloaded as a PDF from the Center for a New American Dream. The sleeve has a list of things to stop and think about before you buy anything, and makes you pause before buying.

P.S. The cartoon title is a Dead Kennedys reference, for all you 80s political punk rock fans out there.

The Mommy Job, Children's Book Edition

Remember my cartoon about surgical so-called Mommy Makeovers? Enter My Beautiful Mommy, a children's book by a plastic surgeon... in which Mommy explains to her daughter why Mommy needs bigger boobs, a perkier nose and a tummy tuck to be prettier.

Found via the fabulous women of Feministing.

Why draw cartoons: A letter

My pal Warren Bernard had this very kind thing to say regarding my "Why Draw Alternative Political Cartoons?" post:

MR,

Hey, well, I was disappointed in your list of reasons to keep doing cartoons. You missed three reasons that should be at the top of the list:

1. Disappointing all your fans if you stop.
2. You would cause my moral compass to point to supporting McCain, listening to Limbaugh and joining the American Enterprise Institute.
3. If you stop, it would mean The Man has gotten to you. You cannot let the sexist barriers he has set up to prevent women from becoming political cartoonists stop you.

Oh, please spare me that dastardly Right Wing fate and continue cranking out those cartoons. I really do not wanna be a Republican...

Here is virtual hug of lefty support,

Me

Toon: A Few Reasons Why (We Need a Transgender Rights Bill)

Click to enlarge

We need it NOW. Or yesterday, preferably.

Toon: The Joys of Tax Time!

Click to enlarge

As you may recall, Masheka and I got married last year. So, as a married male/female couple, we had the experience of filing our taxes jointly this year, which made it much easier to account for our cartooning deductions and calculate everything and definitely saved us a heap of change.

But of course our bigoted laws don't allow same-sex couples (or domestic partners of any gender) to file joint returns or get all the benefits and protections that come with that legal status--even for couples married in Masschuestts who get those protections and benefits at the state level.

As a side note, I just felt like randomly drawing a really tiny kitten into this cartoon because kittens are fun to draw, much more fun to draw than politicians.

Toon: More Nasty Text Messages (from the mayor of Detroit)

Click to enlarge

This is a local Detroit cartoon about embattled mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. Kilpatrick refuses to step down even after he's been criminally charged conspiracy, obstruction of justice, perjury and misconduct. 14,000 text messages revealed that he didn't just have an affair with his chief of staff Christine Beatty--he paid his friends overtime as bodyguards to help him cover up said affair, and when whistleblowers tried to stop the madness, he had them demoted/fired and lied about it and they sued for $9 million...

Seriously, just go Google it or check out this excellent and very balanced editorial in the Metro Times or see this timeline. Trust me, it's messed up. And he WAS very fond of LOL LOL talk, as his messages reveal.

Busy Painting Billie, or Mikhaela and Masheka Mural Madness, Pt. 2

Click to enlarge

Here's another peak at our little collaboration piece (again, full details to be revealed later). I'm terrified of heights and working on a scaffold caused me to cry in terror a few times. But getting to paint Billie Holiday with a big flower in her hair made up for it, sort of.

You might wonder whose drawing/cartoon style that is--it's both. I did some of the caricature sketches and Masheka did some (well, most) but then we both played with inking them so it was one consistent Mashekaela style.

Masheka and Mikhaela Mural madness, pt. 1

Click to enlarge

I can't show you the whole mural or explain what it's for yet, but here's Masheka painting Will Rogers...

Why draw alternative political cartoons?

No, really: why draw alternative political cartoons?

Dear readers, forgive your cartoonist for having an existential crisis, but I've been asking myself this question a lot lately, and you may have noticed this blog and the email list have been relatively quiet as a result. I've been drawing the cartoons as usual, but have been slow to post or email them due to aforesaid existential cartooning funk.

Some arguments FOR drawing weekly political cartoons:

• To make a difference. I don't have any illusions that political cartoons will change the world or end the war or have a huge mind-blowing impact, but I really love the awesome fan mail, especially in regards to my cartoons on LGBT issues and transgender issues. Clearly my cartoons are making a lot of people happy. I'm just not sure how happy they're making me!
• To vent my personal anger and outrage and to have an outlet for my views/voice. This was the main reason I started drawing The Boiling Point, as the name implies. It's still a pretty good damn reason, as I'm a pretty damn angry cartoonist. I'm a passionate person and I need an outlet.
• Because drawing is cool/fun. Well, sometimes it is. Still, I could draw a lot of more fun things than George W. Bush. Like really adorable kittens.
• Because being a cartoonist and hanging out with other cartoonists is awesome. This is a really, really good reason. I love hanging out with my fellow Cartoonists With Attitude, and I've made some of my best friends in the world via cartooning.
• To make money. Just kidding! If I drew a sci-fi webcomic featuring snarky hipster video game romance in space*, maybe I could sell some T-shirts and figurines and live off that. But there's little to no money in alt-weekly cartoons unless you've got a slew of papers. Many papers pay as little as $5/week. NOT JOKING. (See this depressing comments thread on the Daily Cartoonist for more on this topic--the basic conclusion is that there's no money in online editorial cartooning).
• It builds an audience... that could later support me should I pursue other projects I care about, like a graphic novel or children's book or what-have-you.

Some arguments AGAINST drawing weekly political cartoons:

• It's a lot of work for very little pay/reward. This is my main beef. I'm a big believer in the "less work, less stuff, more of what matters" philosophy espoused by Juliet Schor and Your Money or Your Life. I believe Americans work too much and have too little quality leisure time. I believe Americans spend too much, save too little and own too much stuff. And I believe in fair wages.

  SO WHY DO I SPEND SO MANY HOURS SITTING ALONE BEHIND A DRAWING BOARD OR AT THE COMPUTER FOR WHAT AMOUNTS TO LESS THAN MINIMUM WAGE WHEN I COULD BE OUT RIDING MY BIKE OR SPENDING TIME WITH FRIENDS AND FAMILY OR DOING ACTIVIST WORK? (I work an awesome full-time job in addition to cartooning, in case you're wondering). Where's the light at the end of the tunnel? Sorry for E-shouting, but I ask myself that question a lot. I feel like such a hypocrite sometimes--my life philosophy is in direct opposition to my life reality.

• It's damned depressing. War, genocide, injustice, bigotry, hatred, bombings, racism, homophobia, xenophobia, power struggles, Dick Cheney, repeat, repeat, repeat. Following the news so closely and being engaged with it so deeply while feeling I'm having so little practical impact is incredibly demoralizing.
• It has no future and nothing to look forward to. Newspapers are in trouble and slashing budgets left and right, and editorial cartoons and editorial cartoonists get no respect. Graphic novels and animation seem to be where it's at right now.

OK, end whiny rant. And no, I'm not quitting, just venting. But I sure could use some supportive comments! I promise to have a bunch of cartoons and other cool stuff up for you all soon.

*This is not a slur on sci-fi webcomics. Science fiction is my favorite genre (I love you Octavia Butler and Battlestar Galactica). I'm only bummed because it seems like pretty much everything is more "monetizable" than political cartoons. Also, I hate the word "monetizable."

Off to WAM!

I'm off once again to one of my favorite annual conventions, Women, Action & the Media! in Cambridge, MA. I actually designed the tote bag for this year's event, so I'm excited to see how it turned out (I'll try to photograph one for the blog). I'll have books for sale, of course.

Also in attendance will be fellow Cartoonist With Attitude Jen Sorensen. If you're going, be sure to come say hi to us, we'll be wandering about.

Toon: When Good Dates Go Bad

Click to enlarge

This was my Valentine's Day offering.

Toon: The brighter side of the mortgage crisis!

Click to enlarge

Another from the recent archives. I have complex feelings on this one--on the one hand, it totally sucks that the government rushes to bail out Bear Stearns, but keeps dithering on whether to do anything real to help homeowners about to lose their homes.

And yes, I know many of those lenders were predatory and mispresented loan terms and targeted subprime loans with horrible rates to low-income neighborhoods and neighborhoods of color. And that waves of foreclosed homes cause problems for everyone, not just the foreclosees themselves.

BUT. To be fair, I think Ted has a good point in his cartoon on the subject, too. The mortgage crisis isn't just a result of predatory lending, it's also partly a result of "buy now, pay later" consumerism gone wild--people buying over-sized houses they can't afford on tiny downpayments or taking out second mortgages to buy crap they don't need.

Why does America fetishize home-ownership and home owners so much? Why are home owners seen as superior to renters? Why is it the American Dream to take on a crazy pile of debt on a house with a room for every possible activity? Etc.

Update: I'm a little nervous that this post could be misconstrued as some Libertarian-esque personal responsibility rant about how "responsible" taxpayers shouldn't have to pay to bail out "irresponsible" homeowners. It's not.

I believe everyone deserves access to affordable housing and that homeownership or apartment-ownership (at reasonable interest rates) can be a great thing. I certainly hope to own an apartment someday. So let me be clear that my argument is not with the idea of giving homeowners relief from ridiculously high interest rates or helping people stay in their homes.

My argument is with the distorted, unsustainable sick consumerist idea of the "American Dream" that so much media coverage of housing-related issues is tied up in. The idea that every family should have a giant energy-sucking free-standing house with a giant watered lawn and a pool and 3,000 square feet to rattle around in and fill up with unnecessary overpriced (or even discount-priced) crap they don't have time to use or maintain. It's environmentally unsustainable and personally unsustainable and a disgusting waste of resources considering how many in this world have so little.

So yes, many people are losing their homes because of predatory lenders and disgustingly high interest rates. And I am 100% for building a safety net and setting up regulations to protect those borrowers and penalize those lenders. But there are also some upper-middle-class folks who took out second mortgages to buy fancy boats or a new car or otherwise keep up with some imaginary Joneses, and in cases like that, I can't say I'm too sympathetic.

Toon: Shedding Tears for Spitzer

Click to enlarge

From a few weeks ago. This cartoon is really a critique of myself. My initial reaction to the Spitzer sex scandal was to poo-poo it and hope he'd survive it. I had a big political crush on the Sheriff of Wall Street, and loved seeing him take down slimy corporate criminals. I also loved that he was such a strong pusher of marriage equality that he even put forth his own bill on the subject. And I was sad to see him lose so much political capital for his courageous pushing of driver's licenses for undocumented immigrants.

It was the loss of political capital that did him in, of course, instead of letting him survive Bill Clinton style.

But really, all that good aside, dude was a bigtime hypocrite, prosecuting some sex worker rings at the same time he patronized others.

Sigh.

Toon: Our Sexy President

Click to enlarge

Obama's great on LGBT rights in general (and even speaks out specifically about gender identity and discrimination against transgender people), but he really sucks when it comes to marriage equality. Same with Hillary. Yes, I'm catching up and posting my cartoons from the last month or so.

Big Fat Whale Valentines

Brian McFadden continues his annual tradition in fine form on the newly redesigned Big Fat Whale website.

From the Onion: Kitchen-Floor Conflict Intensifies As Rival House Cats Claim Same Empty Bag

Kitchen-Floor Conflict Intensifies As Rival House Cats Claim Same Empty Bag

MAPLEWOOD, MO—"It is beginning to appear that any long-term solution may have to involve deployment of the disciplinary squirt bottle," said one U.N. investigator.

Masheka emailed this to me this morning and it made me laugh through my nose. Last night I brought home some books in a bag and our two cats went nuts (over the bag, not the books), temporarily abandoning a fight over their favorite chair. And we did indeed resort to deploying the squirt bottle. Seriously, read the whole thing.

Cartoonists of Color Sit-In

This Sunday a dozen or so cartoonists of color (and a few allies) got together to protest the glaring lack of diversity on the comics pages and in editorial cartooning with a comic strip "sit-in." Participants included Cartoonist With Attitude Keith Knight, as well as Corey Thomas, Darrin Bell and others. Here are the details, via editorial cartoonist Tim Jackson:

Cartoonists of Color Unite for February 10 comic strip demonstration

On February 10, 2008, about a dozen cartoonists of color (and a few who are not) united to help bring attention to the lack of diversity on newspaper comic pages. In order to show the world that our comics are not all interchangable, we all did our own version of a strip that was originally done by Cory Thomas. Unless you have ever been in our shoes, it may be very difficult to see the uniqueness and frustration of our predicament. And when you see the responses to our "protest" (and you will), I'm sure you'll hear things like "Black cartoonists are given the same shot as everyone else" and " we pick strips based on quality, not race."

To see all the cartoons in one place, please visit:
http://mamasboyz.com/news/protest.html

That link seems to be down right now, but I'm sure it'll recover once everyone stops trying to visit. There's also a video about the protest on the CBS website. CBS notes that only 25 percent of newspapers in this country have even one strip by a black creator.

And you can read a spirited pre-discussion of the protest by many well-known cartoonists in the comments here.

Affluenza Documentary on Youtube

While on the subject of consumption, the wonderful hard-to-find PBS documentary Affluenza is now available on Youtube in six parts:

Af-flu-en-za n. 1. The bloated, sluggish and unfulfilled feeling that results from efforts to keep up with the Joneses. 2. An epidemic of stress, overwork, waste and indebtedness caused by dogged pursuit of the American Dream. 3. An unsustainable addiction to economic growth. 4. A television program that could change your life.

Affluenza is a one-hour television special that explores the high social and environmental costs of materialism and overconsumption.

Through revealing personal stories, expert commentary, hilarious old film clips, dramatized vignettes, and "anti-commercial" breaks, Affluenza examines the high cost of achieving the most extravagant lifestyle the world has ever seen.

Last year, Americans, who make up only five percent of the world's population, used nearly a third of its resources and produced almost half of its hazardous waste. Add overwork, personal stress, the erosion of family and community, skyrocketing debt, and the growing gap between rich and poor, and it's easy to understand why some people say that the American Dream is no bargain. Many are opting out of the consumer chase, redefining the Dream, and making "voluntary simplicity" one of the top 10 trends of the '90s.

One of the things I found most interesting in this documentary was the strange mix of hard-core Religious Right folks and left-wing environmental and social justice types. For example, one of the featured speakers in this movie is good old anti-gay evangelical superstar and "family man" Ted Haggard--before he got busted for, uh, consuming crystal meth and man-on-man "massages." Haggard extolls the virtue of spending time with your wife and working on your marriage instead of shopping and wasting money. Focus on the Family (shudder) also figures.

But the movie also features speakers who are more my flavor, such as one of my favorite left-wing economists, Juliet Schor. Prof. Schor was my freshman women's studies adviser at Harvard, and taught a wonderful class called "Shop Til You Drop: Gender and Class in Consumer Culture." She's the author of three books I highly recommend: The Overworked American, The Overspent American and Born to Buy.

"They're not REALLY poor-they have color Teevees!"

Today's NYT has a ridiculously offensive pseudo-scientific op-ed piece, "You Are What You Spend" claiming that there really aren't any poor people in America, since poor people spend twice their whopping annual household salaries of $9,500. Which CLEARLY means they all own houses and have big savings accounts, right? Because there's no such thing as credit cards, right?

Tom Tomorrow did a great cartoon skewering this bogus argument 10 years ago. Apparently it's still around, now with all these fancy charts claiming that the prevalence of certain consumer goods--televisions and the internet, for example--prove that there is not really a gap between the rich and poor at all.

The idea that consumption is somehow some great wonderful equalizer is so twisted I don't even know where to start.

Bigot Responds to Personal Border Wall Cartoon

This was posted over on Flickr in response to my Personal Border Wall cartoon.

Do you have one for uninsured drunk illegals crashing and killing innocent Americans?

Or how about one of a drophouse packed full of endentured slaves?

Or of an illegal killing a police officer in a sanctuary city?

How about the fragile desert environment full of trash?

BTW: I love Mexican food. Just hope an illegal with a contagious disease that wasn't screened at the border doesn't work at my favorite restaurant. Kinda challenging to draw a cartoon of that.

Seen by searching 'illegal immigrant'.

(Bolding added by yours truly).

What we can learn from this little racist rant:
• This just makes me all the more convinced that we need to encourage manufacturers to actually produce personal anti-immigration walls for xenophobes like this guy. He'll be so encumbered behind his wall and sunglasses and headphones that we won't have to listen to his racist rants. Maybe we can even pipe in a little Lou Dobbs to keep them sated.
• Anyone who claims that the huge rise in anti-immigrant sentiment has nothing to do with racism or bigotry is crazy.

I have to admit my response comment wasn't so restrained:

Oh please. Sounds like you could really use one of these walls yourself, it would protect you from all that "scary" Mexican food and protect us from your racist rants. Lay off the Lou Dobbs and get a life.

Biofuels Even Crappier Than Fossil Fuels?

Sounds like they might be. Which makes that ridiculous "green" ethanol-guzzling Hummer I cartooned about a few weeks ago look even more preposterous.

Toon: Future Stimulus Packages

This is one of those kitchen sink cartoons where I took a bunch of stuff that always pisses me off and wrapped it into a critique of a new thing that pisses me off. That new thing is the mass delusion behind the stimulus package: that giving a few hundred dollars in rebates to every taxpayer at one time—and encouraging them to go out and shop with it—will somehow magically Fix the Economy.

A few hundred dollars doesn't mean squat when you're about to lose your house because you've been conned into a subprime mortgage. A few hundred dollars doesn't mean squat when you don't have a job. Maybe you can buy food and heat for a month or two, but what about the next month? Also, the last thing most Americans need to do with their money is spend it--most need to pay off debt with it.

As for those other things that piss me off, here are some notes about the four other stupid quick fix stimulus packages:

1. The Education Rebate. Remember Bush's horrible SOTU address last year, when he spent half his speech randomly singing the praises of those awful bogus "Baby Einstein" videos? If Bush is so misguided as to ignore the research that says no child under two should spend ANY time in front of any type of television or computer screen, I figured he might be deluded into thinking that one Baby Einstein DVD per student of any age could solve our educational crisis.

   By the way, I thought about somehow trying to explain or indicate why this girl was a high school dropout, but then I thought it was beside the point. Maybe she went to a crappy school and fell through the cracks. Maybe she got pregnant and didn't get the support she needed to stay in school. Maybe she had such horrible underfunded overcrowded schools since she was young that she never developed a love of learning. Who knows?

2. The Hunger Healer. This is real, actually. Back during the initial stages of the Afghan war, the U.S. tried to assuage/offset any small guilt about dropping all those bright yellow cluster bombs on civilians by dropping bright yellow packages of food along with the bombs. Food that looked like bombs, often burst or spoiled on landing, led children into minefields, and made many Afghans very sick. And yes, each packet contained PB&J. Which is fine if you know what that is and how to eat it and you don't have peanut allergies. Here are some quotes from a Boston Globe piece ("Afghan Food Drops Found to Do Little Good") about the backlash to this ill-conceived faux-humanitarian effort:

   The Bush administration's much publicized food ration airdrop in northern Afghanistan - hailed by the Pentagon as a way to feed starving residents while winning their loyalty - achieved neither goal in many targeted areas, military experts, aid workers, and a report by retired US special forces officers now conclude.

   ...The bright yellow plastic-wrapped meals ruptured upon impact because they were dropped from too high an altitude and spoiled, endangering the Afghans who ate them, the report by the retired officers said.

   Moreover, the meals often were collected by local warlords and sold for a profit at Afghan markets and seldom reached hungry families, according to aid workers. In other cases, Afghans were lured by the bright packages into minefields or confused them with cluster bombs of the same color.

3. The Nature Stimulator. CFL bulbs are great. They're all I have in my house, and they sure do save a little bit of energy. But promoting the false idea that every American making one TINY change is somehow going to be enough to stave off global disaster is ridiculous. Sure we should all do our part--but we need much more drastic and widespread change as a society to make a real difference. We need real regulations on corporate polluters and real tough emissions standards and smaller more efficient vehicles and better public transport and a whole lot more than just a CFL bulb in every house. Etc.
4. The Peace Patch. This is just in reference to all those Iraqis who were supposed to love their U.S. liberators. It's kind of hard to love the people who shot your innocent husband for driving slightly too fast past a checkpoint you just set up at random.

As always, I'm just full of cheer. Sigh...

Somehow I thought Romney's defeat would feel sweeter...

But as much as I hate former Governor Ken Doll (see my cartoon archive for gazillions of examples of Mitt crits), I think the McCain/Huckabee ticket is even scarier.

Here's a little mini-illo I did for Bay Windows about Romney's defeat:

From the mailbox...

Brian M. writes:

I'm an ex-pat Canadian who, every time I read the news here in America, feel like I've landed in some form of malicious - though loopy - alternative universe. Yes, I know that crazy, rich fundamentalist nutters own all the media etc etc blah blah but still, HOW HOW HOW can science and universal health care be so successfully dismissed as extremist plots??? I have donned my Jane Goodall hat and am investigating. If I find out I'll let you know.

But, to the point, I just saw your cartoons and loved them. In fact, they made my day after super Tuesday, which was a rough day - I actually had to resuscitate my girlfriend at the polling booth!

Keep up the good work.

I have to say, I'm not even an ex-pat Canadian, and I also always feel like I'm living in some freakish dystopian science fiction America. Especially when I hear health care for all Americans being derided as "socialized medicine" or waterboarding defined as "not torture." Sigh.

On another topic, Miriam and Bruce were alarmed by the Google Ads that popped up in response to my anti-McCain cartoons:

Did you know that a banner ad on your site, right under the new "straight talk express" cartoon is for McCain? I clicked on it and it took me right to McCain's website…

What's going on?

Sadly, Google Adsense (which I use to offset my web hosting costs for this site) doesn't give much control to bloggers such as myself--it's based on keywords, so it just read the keyword "McCain" and blindly assumed that my readers would somehow be into John McCain. Silly Google!

Really scary thought

OK, so I had this really scary thought today. What if wacky "let's stay in Iraq for 100 years" John McCain really is elected president? That's terrifying enough... but what if he also selects Mike "I