Saturday, September 3, 2005

Too Much News

So now Justice Rehnquist has died. Not a huge surprise, of course, but the political climate in this country didn't need one more divisive battle at this time.

The politics of Hurricane Katrina were already getting out of hand, what with so many people working backwards from their support or dislike of George W. Bush and figuring out how to assign the blame accordingly. My own feeling is that there's enough blame for the shoddy preparation and rescue operations that no one in a position of power should escape.

But now, Congress is going to have to deal with two Supreme Court appointments from a president whose popularity will probably rival that of the B.T.K. Killer's in another month or so. And at the same time, they're going to have to deal with the rebuilding of a couple of states, the complete restructuring of our Disaster Response policies, and what I'm sure will be a highly-partisan inquiry into whose fault it was that more wasn't done for the Gulf Coast, before and after Katrina hit.

Oh, yeah...and there's still that war. And gas prices. And an ever-growing number of Americans living below the poverty level.

Maybe we could have another Michael Jackson molestation trial. Just to take our minds off everything else.

• Posted at 8:29 PM · LINK

One More Blondie Crossover Today

You want to do something really nasty to the Bumsteads? Take Dennis the Menace over to their house. Thanks to Jon B. Cooke and Mike Kuypers who e-mailed to let me know.

Speaking of Dennis: The folks over at Fantagraphics Books have issued the first in a series of volumes reprinting the strip from its inception. I'm going to have to pick up a copy because Hank Ketcham's little brat has long annoyed me. The feature was always well-drawn but there was something very condescending to me about its attitude towards children. Ketcham seemed to treat them like pets who hadn't been properly house-trained but you have to love them even when they soil the carpet. I liked the comic books (which Ketcham neither wrote nor drew) but I'm going to have to get this new book and see what there is to like about the newspaper panel. I'm hoping I'll "get" something I've been missing. Click here if you want to buy one, too.

Getting back to the Blondie crossovers for a sec: David Goehner noticed something that got right by me. Below are some panels from strips that appeared on August 23. The one on the left is from Mutts and the two on the right are from that day's Blondie...

As you can see, the search for the little pink sock begins in one strip and concludes in the other. I seem to recall that Johnny Hart did something like this once, setting up a gag in that day's B.C. and sorta paying it off in Wizard of Id (or vice-versa) but I can't recall any other day-specific crossovers on the funny pages. Naturally, since there are no two strips that only appear in the same papers, a connection couldn't be too obvious.

• Posted at 3:40 PM · LINK

Two More Blondie Crossovers

Missed the ones in Hagar the Horrible and The Born Loser. Thanks to Karl Wilcox for covering my back.

• Posted at 12:34 PM · LINK

It's a Blondie World

Here it is: The most important news on the Internet today. Blondie references can be found in B.C., Marvin, The Lockhorns, Curtis, Buckles and a hard-to-notice one in Luann. And of course, there's a crossover in today's Blondie. Thanks to Jeff Brown and Buzz Dixon for finding some of these before I had to go hunting.

• Posted at 11:26 AM · LINK

Saturday Morning

I have a mess o' messages in my e-mailbox about the Gulf Coast tragedy. I also have a deadline this weekend so I've decided not to dwell on the sad (but getting better) situation down there...

...though before I refocus my attentions, I should mention this: Most of the mail seems to be arguing that there is racism aplenty involved in the rescuing or lack thereof. Many have forwarded me the example of two news photos, one of blacks carrying food and one of white people doing so. The latter was described as "finding" supplies and the former as "looting." If the same person had written both captions, I might agree it showed racism...though only of that caption-writer, not of the entire relief operation. But the photos seem to have come from different sources and anyway, it's a big leap from one insensitive reporter to the notion that someone heading up the rescue operation is saying, "Let's help the white people first."

Okay, I'm going to post today's Blondie update and then you may not hear from me for a while...

• Posted at 11:16 AM · LINK

Down South

I try not to watch. It's not that I don't care...just the opposite. I care and I look at the news and I get angry and frustrated. There's nothing I can do and the people who can do something, who are supposed to do something, are just kinda getting around to it. Soon, we will hear two different death totals from Hurricane Katrina — the number of people killed by it and the number killed by slow response time.

I do not believe, or at least I choose not to believe, that there is anything racist in the choices being made of who receives assistance first. I am less sure that being poor does not enter into it, because poor people get the short end of just about everything. Why should being rescued from starvation and disease be any different? I think what we're seeing is simple ineptness coupled with the fact that someone thought that disaster preparation, like that war we're fighting overseas, could be done on the cheap. Especially disturbing are the reports that FEMA not only had its budget slashed but that unqualified cronies were appointed to high-level jobs there. If ever there was a job where you shouldn't install your old drinking buddy, just to do him a favor, that's it.

Newspeople who reported on the Iraq War with prim emotional detachment are breaking down and getting angry. Some have gone so far as to ask non-softball questions of the folks in charge, and Geraldo Rivera was even crying on Fox News, holding up babies and begging someone — anyone — to do something for them. This link will take you to a remarkable video clip over at crooksandliars.com. It has Shepard Smith along with Geraldo reporting from on the scene about how bad things are for Hannity and Colmes, and refusing to allow the hosts to minimize the crisis. I never thought much of either Smith or Rivera but they're stoking public anger, and that anger seems to be the main thing getting officials to do official things. So for once, those guys are actually useful.

As I said earlier, I quickly got sick (physically and emotionally) of seeing people crying and dying...then I got sick of politicians praising one another for doing something, especially when they weren't doing anything. Mostly though, I'm just sick of seeing how bad we are at something this important. If you want to know who the real incompetents are, there's an easy way to tell. They're the ones Bush will be giving medals to over the next few months.

• Posted at 1:13 AM · LINK

September 4, 2005 • Current • September 2, 2005