Friday, February 3, 2006

From the E-Mailbag...

The following message is from Bob Rivard. I'll meet you on the other side of it and reply.

I'm curious why the lack of commentary in support of the Danish cartoonists now hiding in fear for their lives from Islamofascist butchers? I know that threats of beheading and torture aren't quite as "chilling" as when conservatives merely criticize Doonesbury, The Boondocks, or Tedd Rall, but maybe the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund could divert some resources from protecting America's fearless cartoonists from Chimpy W. Hitler and offer support? I seem to recall your speaking up on behalf of cartoonists every once in a while, or is that some other website I'm thinking of?

Did I miss school the day the Danes invaded Iraq, supported Israel or suppressed Palestinians? Surely those notorious Danish imperialists brought this on themselves? Or maybe...just maybe...there really is, embedded in almost every country now, a death-welcoming fanatical murdering cult out there. One whose fundamental precepts, as they themselves express them, are really...get ready for a four letter word...evil. A cult which cannot be appeased, ignored, or convinced to accept diverse co-existence. One whose fundamental belief asks us to convert, supplicate, or die.

Does this make it any more clear what we might be fighting about in the middle east? Or 5 years ago in Manhattan?

In response to your first paragraph, there are two reasons I haven't posted anything yet about the Danish cartoonists. One is that I've been awfully busy with non-blogging concerns, including a script that's due and some personal and more pressing matters. I've had time to post fluff but not to really read up on the threats against these cartoonists and then — and here comes the second reason — to figure out what, beyond the obvious, I could add to the dialogue. I mean, we're all smart enough to operate computers. Don't we know that beheadings and torture, and threats thereof, are always wrong? They're wrong when used against cartoonists. They're wrong when used against non-cartoonists. Do you really need a guy who writes a weblog about possums in his backyard and Groo the Wanderer to come out against beheadings and torture? That's really going to make a difference.

And if you think I've discussed anyone's criticisms of Boondocks or Tedd Rall (isn't it Ted?) then yes, I think you're thinking of some other weblog. I have suggested that people who believe Doonesbury skews exclusively liberal are overlooking its savaging of Bill Clinton, Ted Kennedy and others but that's not at all an issue of government censorship. (I also didn't get around to writing anything about the Joint Chiefs of Staff of this country protesting a recent political cartoon by Tom Toles. If I had, it would have been that I think they have every right to protest such things but that all they're doing is looking thin-skinned and making a hero out of Toles.)

Frankly, I've never found your four-letter word very practical for discussing real-world problems and their possible solutions. Something motivates people who commit terror and atrocities and it isn't that Satan gives them marching orders and sends them out to destroy lives for no reason. I think my attitude is more like, "Okay, they're evil. Now let's move past that and figure out what to do about them."

No, I'm afraid it doesn't make it any clearer what we might be fighting about in the middle east. In fact, I'm finding that with each passing week and every Bush and/or Cheney speech, I'm less clear on what we're hoping to accomplish in Iraq and I see even less connection to 9/11. It isn't that I don't think there aren't folks out there — more than ever, I'm afraid — who pray for more American deaths. It's that I'm losing the thread of why what we're doing over there is making things better. Judging from the polls, I'm not alone.

I'll write more about this when I get more time. Which may not be for a while.

• Posted at 11:20 PM · LINK

Six of One, Half a Dozen of the Other...

I was intrigued by Paul Davidson's identification of Danny Teeson as the dancer who played Mr. Six, the elderly gent in the Six Flags commercial, and I decided to do a bit of Internet sleuthing on my own. The top picture above is a cut from the website of Professional Vision Care Associates, which is a firm here in California that specializes in unusual contact lens sets and other eye-related special effects for movies. On their site, they have a Client List and as you can see, it says that they did some work for Mr. Six in a Six Flags commercial. Okay.

The second picture above is from the Google cache of that page, meaning that it's what Google saw on the site a few days ago. As you can see, in the exact same place, the client is identified as Danny Teeson. (The colors on the various words indicate that those were the search words I used to find the page.) Here's a link to the cache page, though it will probably be gone very shortly.

There are a couple of possibilities here, one being that some expertly-crafted hoax is at work here...though I can't imagine why. But it sure looks like Mr. Six was played by Mr. Teeson and also that someone had the Professional Vision Care people change their website in the last few days to remove his name. And that's all the detective work I have time for now. Good night.

• Posted at 2:46 AM · LINK

Friday Possum Blogging

This fine specimen of possumhood was caught nibbling cat food on my back steps not ten minutes ago. Nice of the neighborhood cats to leave him some of their dinner, don't you think?

For more pics of the creatures that inhabit my backyard, go visit the section of this website called My Backyard. And see if you can pick out this possum's grandpa who is probably over there somewhere.

• Posted at 1:29 AM · LINK