Dick Cheney just refuses to get off my TV. Apparently during the years 2001-2008, his secret undisclosed location was the year 2009.
Dick Cheney just refuses to get off my TV. Apparently during the years 2001-2008, his secret undisclosed location was the year 2009.
More BS from the credit card companies. From the NY Times:
Congress is moving to limit the penalties on riskier borrowers, who have become a prime source of billions of dollars in fee revenue for the industry. And to make up for lost income, the card companies are going after those people with sterling credit.
Banks are expected to look at reviving annual fees, curtailing cash-back and other rewards programs and charging interest immediately on a purchase instead of allowing a grace period of weeks, according to bank officials and trade groups.
“It will be a different business,” said Edward L. Yingling, the chief executive of the American Bankers Association, which has been lobbying Congress for more lenient legislation on behalf of the nation’s biggest banks. “Those that manage their credit well will in some degree subsidize those that have credit problems.”
Two things:
(a) I thought blackmail was illegal, and (b) those that manage their credit well will NOT be in any degree subsidizing those that have credit problems. The banks are trying to divide the middle class from the poor. Right now there’s a united front, a coalition of poor and middle class Americans who’re fed up with the credit card companies’ piracy. For the banks, it’s divide-and-conquer time or their ride on the gravy train is over. No, those that manage their credit well will not be subsidizing those who have credit problems. Those who have credit problems would ALSO be paying these new annual fees and the immediate interest, and they’d also lose their bonuses. What we would ALL be subsidizing are the banks’ profit margins.
In that article, they describe the responsible credit borrowers as “freeloaders” because they generate few fees while enjoying the benefits. But after years of sky-high interest rates giving the banks astronomical returns on the loans they make to the millions of Americans who can only afford to pay the minimum each month, I think most Americans know who the freeloaders are.
Dear Mr. Guest,
Thank you for taking the time to write about “Candorville.” First of all, I’m impressed. You felt so passionate about this that you’ve written this same exact note to every newspaper you avidly read in each city in which you and your parents all happen to live. A sampling: Here’s what you wrote today…
“Dear Folks,
I am an avid reader of your newspaper, as are both of my parents. We find the topics in Candorville disgusting and inappropriate. They not only blatanlty partisan,
but the main reason we would like them removed is that the strip lacks any humor value whatsoever. I have read it every day and I dont even snicker, and I laugh at just about anything.
For instance, there was one strip whose subject was regarding torture. The punch line was “Well sir, you know the way to keep these crimes from being commited again is to not prosecute them and let them go”. Now what is funny about THAT? I really, truly hate to use this word, but it IS stupid!
I am of the opinion you should remove the strip until the writer can get a sense of what kind of humor will at the very leat make a person smile, or snicker, let alone get a big laugh. Thank you.Matthew Guest
Seattle, Wa./Washington, D.C. ”
…and here’s what you wrote yesterday:
“I am an avid reader of your newspaper, as are both of my parents. We find the topics in Candorville disgusting and inappropriate. It’s not only blatanlty partisan,
but it lacks any humor. I have read it every day for a week now and I dont even snicker, and I laugh at at all the other comic strips. I would ask the powers that be to read a few and ask yourself if you think it is humorous.
For instance, there was one strip whose subject was regarding torture. Not only is the subject of torture not funny, but the punch line was “Well sir, you know the way to prevent crime is to not prosecute them and let them go”. Now if I wrote to you and said “The best way to keep a roof from leaking is to not fix the hole where the rain come in”, would you laugh? Unless you were on something, then I doubt it.
I am of the opinion you should remove the strip until the writer can get a sense of what kind of humor will at the very least make a person smile. Thank you.M. Guest
Marin County, Ca.”
Mr. Guest, funny is in the eye of the beholder. What you find painfully unfunny makes others double over in laughter, and you can be sure there are plenty of people who despise whatever comics you happen to enjoy. “Appropriate” is also in the eye of the beholder. My grandfather believes “Matlock” is vulgar and strange, but my niece believes “Married With Children” is old-fashioned and tame. All of this is why the newspapers in every city in which you and your parents reside each carry many different comics — they all have diverse readerships with divergent interests and tastes. You’re free to read what you like and skip what you don’t like.
As for the “torture” comic strip you referenced, no, of course torture is not funny. Neither is breast cancer, war, death, or any of the other serious topics that have always been explored on the comics page ever since the dawn of comics. Comics like Candorville are modern-day court jesters, cutting through the niceties and evasions that otherwise hinder honest discussion of sensitive issues. And this particular issue has been tip-toed around for far too long. It’s time to speak in stark, unequivocal terms about an issue that, if left unchecked, can subvert everything this country stands for. If you don’t want to notice the discussion, you can always skip it and read Family Circle or Beetle Bailey.
Candorville’s subject matter is by no means new to the comics page. Before Candorville there were The Boondocks, Bloom County and Doonesbury. Before them was Pogo. Before that, Little Orphan Annie. All the way back to the very first comic strip, “The Yellow Kid,” the comics page has been a mix of light-hearted family humor, gags, and heavy politics & social commentary. Aside from the diverse readership I’ve already mentioned, one reason for that is that the comics page is supposed to be a gateway drug for the rest of the paper. Smart editors and publishers came up with that idea over 100 years ago, and smart editors and publishers continue to use the comics page for that today. The young and the apolitical can read Garfield, Peanuts and Dilbert, but some of them will eventually venture into the political/social satire comics. Many of them will want to know what the comic is talking about, and those people will start reading the front section to figure it out.
In any case, I do believe I may have found the problem with that particular “torture” strip you referenced. What you’re describing as the “punch-line” wasn’t a punch-line at all. As the editors you’re writing to at all those papers could tell you, it was what in cartooning parlance is called “the setup.” I’m a traditionalist in that I tend to put the punch-lines at the END of the comics, not the middle. If you keep reading ’til the end instead of stopping in the third panel, you might find it to be at least a little wiser, if not funnier.
Thanks again for taking the time to write. And to write, and to write…
Best regards,
Darrin Bell
Cartoonist, “Candorville”
In honor of Star Trek week, here’s by far the funniest Star Trek vs. Star Wars clip from Youtube:
This week, Candorville looks at torture, at a president who’d rather ignore it, and wonders what would’ve happened if that president had been at the helm the last time the whole world was focused on the issue of torture. It’s a sensitive issue, and as with all sensitive issues, it’s open to misinterpretation. For the benefit of those who wrongly think the point of this week’s series is that we’re just as bad as Japan, here’s an e-mail I received yesterday. Read it, then read my response which is included below it.
Hello Mr. Bell,
I am an occasional reader of your strip, Candorville. I felt it was necessary for me to voice my opinions about your cartoon published in the Washington Post on May 5th, 2009.
Sir, I happen to agree with your apparent sentiment that waterboarding is a cruel and unnecessary measure in interrogation of terror suspects. I believe that there is no place for inhumane or uncivilized tactics in this or any government or military service. However, I took offense to the way you expressed your beliefs on the matter in your cartoon.
I want to make abundantly clear that comparing the war crimes of the Japanese Empire to the modern practice of waterboarding is foolish and highly insensitive to those who were prisoners of the Japanese in the far east. Just because our veterans of the second world war are dying at an accelerating pace and disappearing does not give you the right to revision history and diminish what allied and civilian prisoners suffered through. Comparing having water dripped over your face to the horrific inhumane brutality that allied POWs experienced is a minor injustice. Waterboarding is not nearly as violent and horrible as being forced to watch your officers executed by beheading, being forced to consume your own excrement, being beaten constantly, often times to death. Not to mention the fact that the Japanese even crudely crucified some prisoners who vocally shared their Christian or Jewish beliefs. The Japanese forced millions of southeast Asian peoples into slave labor in order to build railroads to carry their oppression into India. roughly 11 million southeast Asians and a much smaller number of allied POWs died at the hands of the Japanese as they built these railroads.
There are many other atrocities committed by the Japanese Empire, but you probably get my point.
While I agree with your sentiment, your delivery was downright inappropriate. My Grandfather served during World War II in the pacific theater. I’m sure that if he were alive today, he would share my sentiments.
You do not need to do so, but I look forward to your response.
(P.S. I do enjoy your strip Sir!)
Very Respectfully,
[Name withheld by Candorville.com]
Cadet, Virginia Military Institute class of 2012
Naval Midshipman
And, my response:
Dear Mr. [Name withheld by Candorville.com],
Thanks for taking the time to write, and for occasionally reading Candorville. I’m glad you’ve given me the opportunity to clear up a few things. I’ll try to answer you point by point to make sure I don’t miss anything.
“Sir, I happen to agree with your apparent sentiment that waterboarding is a cruel and unnecessary measure in interrogation of terror suspects. I believe that there is no place for inhumane or uncivilized tactics in this or any government or military service. However, I took offense to the way you expressed your beliefs on the matter in your cartoon.
I want to make abundantly clear that comparing the war crimes of the Japanese Empire to the modern practice of waterboarding is foolish and highly insensitive to those who were prisoners of the Japanese in the far east.”
You’re reading too much into it. The cartoon is not comparing the act of waterboarding to the whole host of Japanese war crimes, it’s comparing it to Japanese waterboarding, and it does so for a reason. As I said on the Candorville website today: Waterboarding was one of the atrocities for which we prosecuted the Japanese after WW2. It’s a fact that we and the rest of the “civilized” world considered waterboarding to be torture. We considered it to be inhumane and sadistic. We did not attempt to dismiss it as “having water dripped over your face.” We considered it so far beyond the realm of acceptable wartime behavior that it deserved to be listed among all the other acts of barbarism the Japanese committed. It was wedged right in there, along with systematic rape, beheadings, and the other sadistic acts you mentioned. Of course, that was when it was done to OUR people. When it’s our people doing it, that’s when we start to rationalize it by saying it’s not as bad as the worst offenses other people commit.
Our government adopted one of the criminal tactics of the Imperial Japanese. THAT, not the person who points that out, is what’s insensitive to those who were prisoners of the Japanese in the far east.
“Just because our veterans of the second world war are dying at an accelerating pace and disappearing does not give you the right to revision history and diminish what allied and civilian prisoners suffered through.”
At the risk of repeating myself, pointing out that Japanese waterboarding was considered a war crime on par with all their others doesn’t diminish anyone’s suffering. Adopting any of the Imperial Japanese’ inhumane tactics (and accepting the Bush administration’s characterization of it as a relatively minor infraction) — that’s what diminishes what Allied prisoners suffered through. Portraying it as something that’s so relatively “minor” that it doesn’t even warrant use as an analogy, that’s what rewrites history.
“Waterboarding is not nearly as violent and horrible as being forced to watch your officers executed by beheading, being forced to consume your own excrement, being beaten constantly, often times to death. Not to mention the fact that the Japanese even crudely crucified some prisoners who vocally shared their Christian or Jewish beliefs. The Japanese forced millions of southeast Asian peoples into slave labor in order to build railroads to carry their oppression into India. roughly 11 million southeast Asians and a much smaller number of allied POWs died at the hands of the Japanese as they built these railroads.
There are many other atrocities committed by the Japanese Empire, but you probably get my point.”
I do, and I hope you’ll realize that in making your point, you’re also making my point for me. We adopted a criminal tactic from people like that. People who also found it perfectly acceptable to behead officers, force prisoners to eat excrement, beat them to death, crucify them, march them til they died, enslave them, etc. THESE are the people we took our lead from. And that is so disgraceful, so important, that we haveto acknowledge it. America has been hiding from this conversation for years. It’s time to stop pussyfooting around it and speak in stark, unequivocal terms.
“While I agree with your sentiment, your delivery was downright inappropriate. My Grandfather served during World War II in the pacific theater. I’m sure that if he were alive today, he would share my sentiments.”
Inappropriate is in the eye of the beholder. Candorville states what I consider to be harsh truths. It is undeniably true that we adopted a torture measure that we had previously condemned when it was committed against our own people. That is a fact. Us doing that was inappropriate. My pointing it out is not. My Grandfather also served during World War II in the Pacific theater (nearly died at Guadal Canal). I’ve been lucky in that he is still alive today. I’m at his house as I type this, making sure he understands the instructions for his new pills before I head home. I showed him your e-mail, and he wants me to tell you that while he appreciates your sentiments, he most definitely does not share them.
If I haven’t changed your mind about the wisdom of my commentary, I hope I’ve clarified my point and that you at least understand where I’m coming from a little better. I have nothing but respect for the veterans of World War 2, and it’s turned my stomach to see our country dishonor them by engaging in the same tactic as the people my grandfather fought against so long ago.
“(P.S. I do enjoy your strip Sir!)
Very Respectfully,
[Name witheld by Candorville.com]
Cadet, Virginia Military Institute class of 2012
Naval Midshipman”
Thanks! And thanks again for taking the time to write.
Respectfully,
Darrin Bell
https://www.candorville.com
I’m trying out a new commenting system. You may see a “login to post” button, but you DO NOT have to log in or register in order to post. Logging in just gives you more options: the option to respond directly to other comments, the option to be notified by e-mail when someone replies to your comment, the option to subscribe to an RSS feed for comments, the option to automaticallycopy your comments to your own Twitter stream, for instance (and if you’re one of the 98% of people who doesn’t know what that means, don’t worry about it), among other things.
Let me know whether you like it, and remember, even if you see a “login to post” button, feel free to ignore it if you don’t care about the extras.
I subscribe to about a dozen left-wing RSS feeds, but I also subscribe to at least as many right wing newsletters. I want to know what everyone’s saying. And every week, I browse the right wing newsletters to get a snapshot of their state of mind. Or at least, a snapshot of the tactics someone’s trying to use to manipulate them. I want to see if the Republican chatter has turned away from nonsense and begun talking about issues that average Americans care about. I want to see whether they’ve come up with some way to appeal to voters who grew disgusted with Rove’s petty and destructive divide and conquer politics. I want to see if they’ve noticed the demographic shift in America and realized racist code-speak and xenophobia are bad long term strategies in a nation where whites will be a minority in just a few decades. I fired up my Mailplane app this morning and clicked on one of the right wing “Human Events” e-mails at random because I wanted to see if they’ve woken up.
“Dear Friend of the Constitution,
The biggest political cover up in American history
is taking place right before our eyes.Worse than Watergate, Whitewatergate, or any of the other cover ups of previous administrations, is the question of whether Barack Hussein Obama is eligible to serve as President of the United States of America… OR, is he a FRAUD, a USURPER, a man with no legal authority to sit in the position that he now claims to hold?
Barack Obama could simply put the issue to rest right now by releasing his ACTUAL BIRTH CERTIFICATE! But he WON’T! Instead, he has had teams of attorneys all over the country, fighting “tooth and nail” to thwart the efforts of the United States Justice Foundation (USJF), and our allies in a number of states to compel him to produce an ACTUAL BIRTH CERTIFICATE and to prove that he is Constitutionally eligible to be President of the United States!”
…Guess not.
Right now I’m thinking about one of my client papers. The last time I visited this paper, just a few months ago, was the most depressing visit to a newspaper I’ve ever experienced. The editor asked me to come down to the newsroom to meet a high school kid who might want to be a cartoonist when he grew up. The editor was great. I loved meeting her. The ombudsman I met was great, and we all had a nice conversation.
But the newsroom at this major metropolitan paper – this icon – was a ghost town. Row after row of empty cubicles, with maybe four or five people drifting through the empty room while I was there. I tried to imagine everyone was off covering some huge breaking story. Maybe the mayor had just been caught with an underage undocumented immigrant planting bombs in the reservoir, and the paper needed to cover it from dozens of different angles. It made the echoes and the silence of the cavernous and dimly-lit newsroom a little easier to take.
While I was talking to the high school kid, I couldn’t help but think back to almost a decade earlier, when I’d been invited to that same newspaper to meet its editorial cartoonist. I was just a couple years older than this kid I was talking to. Back then I was worried about getting in everyone’s way because the newsroom was overflowing with intensely focused people rushing back and forth, people in ties and suspenders or in pearls and earrings holding animated conversations with each other or with their cell phones, phones ringing, doors opening and closing, and faxes coming through…
In the few short months since I met the high school kid, my friend at the paper (who’d also been my editor back when I freelanced editorial cartoons) was let go.
Something tells me the bar at the National Cartoonists Society convention is going to be packed this year. I’ll have to bring money, though, because I’m told this year they can’t afford an open bar.
I’m glad you guys e-mail me whenever the site’s down (and it’s been down four times since March ’08). My host sometimes isn’t what you’d call responsive (last time it was down it took three days for them to fix it), but this time they fixed it just five minutes after I submitted the trouble ticket. Of course, before they let me submit the ticket in the first place, I had to ping my site, run a traceroute and reroute the warp drive through the flux capacitors using my Mac’s “terminal” application (a command-line app that always reminds me why I haven’t touched a Windows PC since high school), and paste the results into the ticket. And THAT took about 45 minutes to complete while my readers were greeted with a blank white screen with tiny black letters that wrote “The e-mail could not be sent. Possible reason: your host may have disabled the mail() function…”.
During which time, Fox News published a study showing the following:
• 5% of you didn’t think “disabled the mail() function…” was as funny as yesterday’s strip.
•27% of male visitors between the ages of 12 and 109 hit “back” on their browsers to repeat their Google search for “Bush.”
•10% of Candorville readers lost interest and switched allegiance to “Beetle Bailey.”
As Saxon Kenchu would say, “the irony is ironic.” My comics appear in newspapers. My livelihood is largely dependent on newspapers. But I haven’t subscribed to a newspaper in almost ten years, and I only buy a copy of my local paper when I want to see how a new brush or a new shading technique I’m using looks in print. I’m part of the reason why newspapers are on their deathbed. For the last decade, almost, I’ve been getting my news online.
It’s just so much easier. I can tell Google what I’m interested in, and every time I visit I’ll see a list of new articles that satisfy my interests. I can subscribe to RSS feeds, or to Twitter streams from CNN, Buzzflash, Fox, or whatever, and every time I tap the “Twittelator Pro” icon on my iPhone, they update me with breaking news and opinion.
All these conveniences have one thing in common: They all generally rely on newspaper articles for their content.
Some have suggested that newspapers should start charging bloggers who quote their articles, and force sites like Google and Huffington Post to pay a price for their practices: Google because they make money selling ads on pages comprised of headlines grabbed from newspapers, and Huffington because its writers often grab large chunks of copyrighted articles, and the site earns ad revenue from that.
But that’s a half-assed measure. The online versions of papers have to do more than charge aggregators a fee or run Google ads if they’re going to become lucrative enough to support 200-person investigative newsrooms once print finally dies. They’ve got to charge their readers.
Why would readers pay? I’ve asked myself, what would get ME to pay for news again, if I’ve been basically freeloading for the last decade? The knowledge that I’m doing my part to preserve the Fourth Estate and thereby save our democracy might not be enough; not when I have to choose between that and being able to afford to upgrade my iPhone every year. The papers have to offer me something I can’t get from the aggregators: even more convenience, and even more personalization.
I would pay $10/month to latimes.com if they could give me the following:
1. Custom news and opinion, Google-style.
When I sign up, give me a page of topics that I can check off. “International news.” “Local news.” “News about (fill in the blank)”. Etc… My choices would be supplemented by a rotating list of random stories outside my chosen interests, so I won’t be just a provincial reader. Each article should be accompanied by a bio of the author and buttons for buying books by those authors. The paper would get a percentage of any sale made through those buttons, Amazon Associates-style.
2. Custom coupons.
Give me another page at sign-up where I can check off products I buy, and neighborhoods & stores in which I shop. Show me a running total as I check off the boxes of how much I’m likely to save on average each month by subscribing. If I’m likely to save $20/month, buying a $10/month subscription would be a no-brainer right there.
3. Custom comics.
Let me choose from lists of comics: “Adult comics,” “family comics,” “political satire,” etc., and then let me delete comics I don’t like from those lists. Let readers rate the strips each day, and then offer readers a “Today’s top ten” list which would compile based on the rating regardless of whether the comic was rated by ten or ten thousand people. That way readers would find new, high-rated comics they’ve never heard of before. The comic would have a “block this comic” link so it wouldn’t be included in future top tens if you don’t want it to be. Each comic offered should have buttons for buying books & related merchandise, and papers would get a percentage of the sale for anything the reader buys through those buttons.
4. Local Craigslist-like services.
The difference would be you’d get another check-box page at sign-up where you can specify what you’re looking for: apartments, jobs, relationships, whatever, and you’re presented with a daily list of listings that meet your requirements, without you having to re-enter the information all the time.
5. Features, features, features
Crosswords, horoscopes, advice columns, etc. that, again, you can customize, and again, allowing you to buy books with a percentage going to the paper.
6. Local communities.
If you live in Glendale, you’re signed up to the Glendale latimes.com reader community, and you see a summary of activity (the last five or ten actions) in the community updating in real-time. Includes a community calendar, so if there’s a local art gallery showing, or high school baseball game, or a local independent filmmaker’s work debuts, you’re invited, with a map and a link to buy tickets if applicable (and, you guessed it, a portion of that sale would go to the newspaper).
7. Localized YouTube-like channels
…where local readers can share videos they create. Live in Oakland and want to see clips by fellow Oaklanders? The latest and most popular are listed right there.
And you get all of this sent to you in an HTML e-mail every morning that’s styled to look like the front page of the newspaper. You can read it on your computer, your iPhone, your Blackberry, or whatever, and it’s customized on the fly for each device.
The difference between this and sites like My Google or Yahoo are minimal. But they’d be much more noticeable once an online paper like latimes.com refused to allow Google or Yahoo access to their local news, simply by putting the site behind a pay gate and by refusing to provide anything other than headlines to the wire services. You wouldn’t need some conspiracy or some cartel of papers deciding to do this en masse, each paper could decide for itself whether to do this. If, for instance, the LA Times chose to restrict its content this way, Los Angeles readers wanting local news would have to pay for it because the aggregators would no longer have a source for local Los Angeles news.
The convenience this service would offer, combining wire reports with exclusive local reporting, local communities and local coupons tailored to each reader, would be worth the money. In fact, the ability to personalize local services might lead to more than one subscription per household. Adults who enjoy their local news might want to set up local news, comics & services customized for their eight year-olds.
I would subscribe if I could find all that in my inbox AND on my iPhone every morning, and couldn’t get the same information for free elsewhere.
Join the community to converse with other Candorville, Rudy Park, THE TALK, and Darrin Bell Political Cartoons readers in a positive environment, to get access to thousands of archived editorial cartoons and comic strips, and to read behind-the-scenes reports and mini essays on important and not-so-important topics.