The unforgiving minute

The aggregator algorithm at Memeorandum may need just a little bit of tweaking.

Case in point: The intersection of public spending and public health.

Reasonably enough, Memeorandum picked up this item from the morning's news:

But this, from the same page, just seems like name-calling to me:


Minute's up.

"Two hours that gave me a sense of just how confused and disjointed the Republicans are"

At Huffington Post, Earl Blumenauer describes the two hours he spent yesterday presiding over House proceedings.

Today, my two hour stint in the Chair was made up entirely of one-minute speeches. This is a House procedure where Members from both parties come to the floor, and the two sides take alternating one-minute shots talking about everything from critical issues to commemorating a championship high school softball team, to an announcement of legislation that a Member is introducing.

Sometimes, however, it isn't pretty. Today, I literally watched Republicans become unhinged as they attempted to outdo one another on the "evils" of programs being considered by President Obama and the Democrats in Congress. As the Republicans took advantage of the unlimited opportunities for one-minute speeches, dozens of them headed to the floor with competing tales of horror that are allegedly in the Democratic approach to health reform.

At one point, Blumenauer had to listen in parliamentary silence as a Republican colleague misrepresented a section of the bill that Blumenauer himself had written.

And there's this:

A colleague from Oregon claimed that 114 million Americans would lose their health insurance; that Democrats want to socialize 20% of the economy. In as much as healthcare currently is only 16% of the economy, this is quite a trick.

Tough to imagine who our math-challenged representative might be, isn't it? Let's see . . . five minus four equals . . . wait, don't tell me . . . .

(Cross-posted at Loaded Orygun.)

Lost (and found) limericks

As you may (or may not) have noticed, there was no "Spanning the State" on KPOJ today, but nature abhors a limerick vacuum. So, as a special treat, longtime p3 friend and aesthetics beat contributor Barbara--Deadline Poet, Princess of Puns, Ninja of Nonsense Verse, and Queen of Anapestic Meter--has generously contributed these gems, drawn from the week's news, to plug the p3 poesy gap this week:

Public option or status quo plan?
Let’s debase the debate, to a man,
So the voters won’t notice
We’re hedging, and vote us
Out on our proverbial can.


We trusted the late Walter Cronkite,
Because he made sure he got news right.
Seeking truth, not his glory,
He just told us the story--
Unlike some whom we now hear each weeknight.


To the moon? Well, we’ve already been there.
To go back? Some incline; some say, “Elsewhere!”
So--go back, or try Mars?
(Just think: Pubs called “Mars Bars.”)
Either’s easier than fixing our healthcare.

And wherever she is tonight, I know that Barbara is especially proud of "Mars Bars."

Sunday morning toons: Special "Tough week for the pantheon" edition

This was a tough week for our pantheon of gods: We were reminded that Neil Armstrong only had one line--and he flubbed it; Obama's poll numbers dipped; Kim Jong Il has pancreatic cancer; and--not to be outdone--Walter Cronkite actually died on us. On the other hand, there's the dubious comfort of knowing that Dick Cheney really was the evil, tyrannical SOB we all thought he was. Daryl Cagle's toon round-up has it all.

p3 Picks of the Week: Mike Luckavich, Pat Bagley,David Fitzsimmons, Monty Wolverton, Jimmy Margulies, Steve Sack, Jerry Holbert, Gary Brookins, Mike Keefe, and Nate Beeler.

p3 Best of Show Award: Dave Grandlund.

p3 Citation for Most Thorough Exploration of a Strange Metphor: R. J. Matson.

p3 "Epitaph in 140 Characters or Less" Award: Adam Zyglis.


And now Middle America has lost Walter Cronkite. Saluting the passage of a legend, and the end of an era: Nate Beeler, Joe Heller, John Darkow, Jimmy Margulies, Steve Greenberg, and Daryl Cagle,

p3 World Toon Review: Simanca (Brazil), Peter Nicholson (Australia), Victor Ndula (Kenya), Stephane Peray (Thailand), and
Cameron Cardow (Canada).


Ann Telnaes salutes health care reform, Republican-style.


The Comics Curmudgeon exposes the long-denied connection between "Dick Tracy" and Weimar-era German expressionism.


p3 Guest Toon: Once carefree college students, now respectable businessmen, Mike and his old college lab partner share insights about the fundamentals of business.


Portland homeboy Jack Ohman bids farewell to an American institution.


Ya gotta save yer yout' fer yer old age! Poopdeck Pappy wants to hit the clubs; Popeye thinks he should get his rest. You can do the math from there. From 1940, in glorious black-and-white, directed by Dave Fleischer--don't miss the great little time-step on the wharf.

p3 Bonus Toon: Jesse Springer knows a silly idea when he sees one (click to enlarge):




And finally, check out Slate's political cartoons of the day for today.

Nae pen . . . pen! Nae pen . . . pen!

I laughed myself silly over this. Magnificent.

It's a total fookin' mystery.

(Hat tip to Jason.)

Saturday tunes: "Hey man--looka here!"

From 1978, the stylings of master bluesmen "Joliet" Jake and Elwood Blues at the Universal Amphitheater:

Let the word go forth, the torch has been passed to a new generation (Subject to permission from the Commissioner of Major League Baseball)

[Updated below.]

This has been coming for years:

Out of 9409 self-selected participants, 44% selected Jon Stewart as the answer to the question "Now that Walter Cronkite has passed on, who is America's most trusted newscaster?" in a Time online poll.

Brian Williams got 29% of the vote, Charlie Gibson got 19%, and Katie Couric--apparently no longer riding on her post-Palin interview bounce from last fall--got 7%.

In Oregon, Stewart and Williams stole votes from Gibson and Couric; the numbers were: Stewart 50%, Williams 32%, Gibson 14%, and Couric 5%..

Stewart won 40 states, Williams won seven states (only managing to match Stewart's Oregon numbers once, in Vermont), and Gibson won two states (including a whopping 57% in Tennessee). Stewart and Williams split Kentucky, with 34% each. In her home state of Indiana (she got her start on the NBC affiliate there at the same time Letterman was across town doing the weather at the ABC affiliate), Couric polled a disappointing 2%.

Although even to be Jon Stewart is not to be omnipotent, it seems:

Remember last week, when President Barack Obama threw out the first pitch at baseball’s All-Star Game? And remember the ensuing fuss about his form? And remember how Jon Stewart sliced through all of the crap with his typically incisive wit?

Alas, you’ve got no choice but to remember that last part. It has disappeared from the Web, apparently at the behest of Major League Baseball.

Stewart dissected the media hubhub about Obama’s pitch–and in particular Fox News’s analysis of it–on his July 15 show. But if you watch the archived version of that show at Viacom’s (VIA) “Daily Show” Web site, you’ll find that the bit has been cut out of his opening monologue. It once ran for two minutes and 43 seconds, but now the archive stops short at the 55-second mark.

And if you try to watch that episode on Hulu, the Web site owned by News Corp. (NWS), GE’s (GE) NBC and Disney (DIS), you’ll find that it’s gone altogether, replaced by a message blaming “rights issues.”

"Birthers" will probably jump on this as the latest proof of Illuminati-style conspiracies protecting Obama, but the answer points to a more fundamental and ominous truth:

Stewart is bad, but Bud Selig, it appears, is badder.

[Update: Tristero makes a good point:

Until the so-called news media stops providing access to jokers like the birthers, then the best news reports in America will be produced by a professional comedian.

Portland Drinking Liberally Thursday night at Lucky Lab NW (plus a special guest)

Join the Portland DL chapter this week for socializing and discussion with the Finest Minds of Our Generation^[TM].

(Portland Drinking Liberally meets at 7pm the second and fourth Thursdays of the month at the Lucky Lab Brew Hall at 19th and NW Quimby (map)

Tomorrow night's guest will be Michelle Poyourow, Advocacy Manager for the Bicycle Transportation Alliance. A big chunk of BTA's mission is outreach not just to the cycling true believers, but to all those who aren't normally part of the dialog about cycling in Oregon--including non-cyclists. So Michelle's the person to talk to about the Columbia River Project, Portland's Bicycle Master Plan, commuting or safety issues in your neighborhood, or any other topics you'd like to discuss.

And thanks to all who came to the special DL session last week to meet 'n' greet Living Liberally Exec. Director Justin Krebs, in town on his way back to DL HQ in NYC. It was great to see some new [and old] faces, from the PDX chapter as well as St. Helens, Vancouver, and PDX Metro-West (which we used to call "Beaverton" or "Washington County"). Here's a set of photos, courtesy of Carla Axtman. Several other people brought cameras, too--if you have pictures, please share!

And speaking of which: If you appreciate Living Liberally promoting progressive action through social interaction--including keeping the whole Drinking Liberally network up and running--consider sending them a little love via Tipping Liberally.

See you tomorrow night. And remember: DL encourages everyone to drink, and vote, responsibly.

(Cross-posted at Loaded Orygun.)

"A good point guard, here's what she does."

As Vanity Fair notes, "If you watched Sarah Palin’s resignation speech, you know one thing: her high-priced speechwriters moved back to the Beltway long ago."

Harsh, but true. So, out of some mixture of professional courtesy, literary indignation, and morbid curiosity, VF's literary editor, with an assist from the copy and research departments, set out to make the thing presentable. (Click to enlarge.)

I should emphasize: No one ordered them to go on this mission; they all volunteered. Editors award their highest honors for that.

The finished product is obviously superior, although I think they occasionally got a little carried away. They fixed a few idiomatic or regional constructions that probably didn't need fixing and are, arguably, even part of the "down-home" authenticity that many originally found attractive, or at least intriguing, about Palin. I wouldn't go so far as to dignify her tin ear for modifiers and auxiliary verbs by equating it with Lincoln's signature Old Testament cadences, or Kennedy's love of parallelism and antithesis, but they do go a long way toward making Sarah the easily recognized brand she is. (Ask Tina Fey.)

Of course, that's a point about which editors can disagree in good faith. And in any case I sympathize with her ghost editors; when the main part of a job involves swinging a 7-pound sledge hammer, it can take a few moments for muscle memory to catch up once it's time to use a scalpel for the fine work.

But that small reservation is related to a larger, more consequential one: By tightening up the self-indulgent rambling, connecting the non sequiturs, healing the afflicted grammar and syntax, fixing the ambiguities, and correcting errors of fact, VF's team hasn't merely lost much of Palin's voice. They've produced a document in which little or no trace of the original animating consciousness behind the speech remains. I suppose one could argue that, in worst-case scenarios, that is the most important function of the speech writer/editor. The persona who might have given that speech, as edited, could have had a much better chance in national politics.

(Hat tip to Marianne.)

Hey, Mike--you stay here and keep the engine running.

This is dedicated to one of history's greatest wingmen: Apollo XI astronaut Michael Collins, who stayed in the Command Module Columbia, orbiting about 50 miles above the lunar surface, while Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong descended to the Sea of Tranquility in the Lunar Module Eagle.

We got nothin' but "lost limericks" today

The discussion during TJ's regular Monday appearance on KPOJ ran a little long on the fundamentals of cloture this morning, so they never got to the "Spanning the State" limericks.

But radio's (and art's) loss is the internet's gain. You can test your poetic prowess, and your knowledge of Oregon news, by providing the word or phrase that completes each rhyme below. (The answers are in the comments, or in yesterday's Spanning the State at Loaded Orygun.)

1. A nautical limerick:

They fell overboard--there were lots.
They're a hazard to whales, even yachts.
And a source of frustration
For local crustaceans
So we're gonna retrieve the __________.

2. A limerick brimming with irony:

State Fairs have their "don'ts" and their "do's,"
But this year there's an added taboo:
At the livestock's insistence
Wash your hands, keep your distance--
So you don't give some prize pig _________.

3. A show-biz limerick:

He vanished for quite a long spell,
And without even saying farewell!
But no need to be bitter:
Once the word leaked on Twitter,
Portland fans got to see ________.

4. A "weird science" limerick:

They've been known out in Newport to smoke.
In Eugene, the occasional toke.
But don't snort in Grants Pass,
'Cause they might bust your ass
If they test the town's sewage for _________.

And for those of you who just can't get enough of the form, here's a bonus:

Sunday morning toons: Is it racist if a racist calls you a racist?

There was probably some news about something other than the Sotomayor nomination hearings, but you'll have to look closely. Daryl Cagle's toon round-up this week covers what's out there.

p3 Picks of the Week: Mike Luckovich, Pat Bagley, R. J. Matson, Mike Keefe, Bob Englehart, Jeff Parker, John Trever, John Darkow, David Fitzsimmons, and Mike Keefe.

p3 "Harsh-But-True" Medal: Daryl Cagle.

I'm not sure I entirely get this, but I'm giving the p3 Certificate for Striking Creepiness to Nate Beeler.

p3 World Toon Review: Dario Castillejos (Mexico), Pavel Constantin (Romania), Alex Falco, (Cuba) and Shekhar Gurera (India).


Ann Telnaes notices the elephant in the room--and ponders the value of self-reflection.


Portland homeboy Jack Ohman reflects on Robert McNamara's ascent into heaven.


(Update: Sometime during the week, the Spanish-language dubbed version of "Showdown," below, was pulled over copyright issues. So I've replaced it with the original.)

Follow along in your phrase books, as we learn three new words: Falso . . . Super-Homen . . . Idiota. Here's a beautifully rotoscoped Superman cartoon from 1942, directed by Izzy Sparber. By the time of 1970s dreck like "Superfriends," animation had become cheap, cheesy, and inflexible, leaving dialogue to carry the whole weight--like listening to radio with a slide show. But in the golden age of animation, characters were so visually expressive that even knowing the language isn't crucial.

I don't know who did the Spanish language dubs, but the original voices included Bud Collyer, who voiced Superman/Clark Kent for three decades in radio and television animation (including "Superfriends," I'm sorry to say), plus Jack Mercer, who had a résumé of a length the rest of us can only dream about, as the copy boy and the fake Superman. You can hear them here.


p3 Bonus Toon: Jesse Springer worries about the virtues of camping out, Oregon-style. (Click to enlarge.)




And finally, check out Slate's political cartoon of the day.

Saturday tunes: "Tell me now, and I won't ask again"

A friend of mine is producing/hosting a radio show this summer called "Strictly the Sixties" (schedule and streaming link here). On Thursday he kicked off a weekly feature paying tribute to the songwriters (and performers) who worked in the legendary Brill Building in Manhattan.

As a tribute to his tribute, here's the most beautiful piece of music ever to come out of the Brill Building, and that's saying something.

Among the items on my List of As-Yet Unachieved Lifetime Musical Accomplishments: Play bass/sing harmony on "Pretty Woman" with Roy Orbison; play piano on "Desperado" with Linda Ronstadt; play piano on "Thunder Road" with Bruce Springsteen; and sing harmony with Carole King in "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?".

WWWCD?

I could be wrong, since some of these are the product of the times we live in as much as the access-addicted pretty girls and boys who cover politics today, and I don't want to romanticize the past, but here are some things I'm willing to bet Walter Cronkite wouldn't have done:

• Report Sen. Jeff Sessions' accusations of racism against Sonia Sotomayor without mentioning Sessions' own racist résumé .


• Give more coverage to the Michael Jackson funeral than to the ongoing health care reform debate (to say nothing of the JFK funeral).


• Email Mark Sanford's staff and tell them that if the Governor's up to something you'll be happy to give him some sympathetic coverage in exchange for the exclusive.


• Sit quietly while Pat Buchanan uses airtime to advance the white supremacy cause, or dignify Buchanan by "debating" his white supremacist views with him.


• Refuse to use the word "torture" to describe what was done to prisoners at GITMO, calling it "harsh interrogation tactics" or something similarly inoffensive.


• Publish Dick Cheney's disinformation about Iraq WMDs in exchange for access.


• Repeat the popular falsehoods that "Al Gore claims he invented the Internet," "Al Gore claims he discovered Love Canal," and "Al Gore says that 'Love Story' is about him"--or sit quietly while they're repeated.


• Sit on the Bob Packwood story until after his re-election.

"If I've lost Walter Cronkite, I've lost Middle America"

Forty years, almost to the day, after his coverage of the Apollo XI landing on the Sea of Tranquility, perhaps the last of his several iconic moments as a newscaster, we lost Walter Cronkite.

But he's best remembered, and rightly so, for this editorial (excerpt), responding to the Tet Offensive and the pointlessness of American escalation in its aftermath, on February 27, 1968.

It's impossible to imagine a pretty-haired TV news reporter today with the integrity, let alone the gravitas, to publicly call out an Administration for a failed war.

Media still pulling up the couch cushions to pay for web services

Probably not by coincidence, Media Bistro's morning news feed includes these stories (two from the web extensions of print media and two from web-only sources):

Google to Newspapers: Think We're Stealing From You? Fine, Don't Show Up in Searches!

Josh Cohen, senior business product manager for Google, has a message for newspapers: If you don't want your content to show up in search results and on Google News, it doesn't have to. In fact, newspaper developers can block Google's robots from crawling across their Web sites and gobbling up their content if they just insert a couple lines of code into their sites. […]

"Today, more than 25,000 news organizations across the globe make their content available in Google News and other web search engines," Mr. Cohen wrote. "They do so because they want their work to be found and read -- Google delivers more than a billion consumer visits to newspaper web sites each month."

Should YouTube Charge a Fee to Upload Video?

Gene Munster, the analyst with Piper Jaffray, put a report out Thursday looking at the finances of YouTube, and he makes a suggestion that I haven’t seen before: Google should charge a “nominal fee” to people to upload videos to YouTube if the video isn’t appropriate for advertising. [...]

Mr. Munster estimates that the cost of storage and streaming will be more than YouTube’s revenue, so it needs to find even more pennies in the couch. An important source, he argues, is all those people uploading videos of their babies’ first steps or clips of “South Park.” These are money-losers because no advertiser wants to put commercials on amateur videos, and Google can’t legally sell ads in pirated content.

How The Huffington Post Can Pay Its Bloggers

People are willing to write for The Huffington Post for free. I'm one of them. It's great exposure, the tone is unapologetically opinionated and if you've ever met Arianna Huffington you've noticed that she exudes a kind of warmth and authenticity that is rare for people at her level in the media world. But not only are people willing to write for Arianna for free, she is also willing to let us write for her for free, something an old guard institution like the New York Times won't even consider.

Yet as brilliant of a strategy as hiring legions of unpaid writers is, there is a catch. Eventually and, some would argue, already, the only writers that will write for free are writers that can afford to write for free.[…]

The Huffington Post's advertising revenue from January through April 2009 was $3.4 million. So let's round down and assume that ad revenue for the year is $10 million. I propose that The Huffington Post commit to spending 20% of its revenue rewarding bloggers. For 2009, this would be $2 million.

Not all bloggers will be rewarded. There are 4,000 bloggers that contribute to the site, and this structure only rewards those who contribute the most to the site's business and editorial goals.

Harvard UP to Sell 1,000 Books on Scribd

As the battered university press industry struggles with the recession, Harvard University Press has decided to sell 1,000 digital titles on Scribd.com--using the popular reading site as bookselling platform.

Titles range from the $68 digital version of "General Equilibrium, Overlapping Generations Models, and Optimal Growth Theory" to the 17.95 poetry collection, "Invectives." The press will post digital content alongside other university presses, including New York University Press and MIT Press.

Google, PayPal, and Amazon all figured out a way to engineer web-specific strategies to drive sales. (And of course, the cable and telcos, controlling access to the web, are able to extort considerable access fees.) But it's been quite a while since anyone had a major breakthrough in monetizing content (as they say about strategies to turn a buck for stuff on the web). Certainly the print news industry hasn't made much headway there. If they've made some daring leaps in the last year, it was born of necessity and even desperation.

Dispatches: Your brain on politics, opposing indefinite detention, supporting a single-payer plan, and more

Dispatches: Your brain on politics, opposing indefinite detention, supporting a single-payer plan, and more

Items from the p3 inbox:

• This Is Your Brain on Politics, forum on progressive politics featuring Mike Lux, Steve Novick, and Carla Axtman, is this Sunday at the Bipartisan Café. (Facebook)



• Let President Obama know you're opposed to indefinite detention without charge or trial. (ACLU)



• Contact your representative and show your support for real health care reform. (Working Families/AFL-CIO)



• Join Michael Moore in calling for inclusion of the single-payer option in media coverage of health care reform. (FAIR)

The unforgiving minute

Remember the good old days when it was the U.S. House of Representatives that was the loony bin and you always knew where you stood?

News like this still leaves me feeling a little disoriented:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and top Democrats opened an all-fronts charge Tuesday to pass a $1.5 trillion, 10-year health care overhaul by August, unveiling legislation that would tax the wealthy to pay for universal coverage, create a public insurance plan and require individuals to carry insurance and businesses to offer it.

The bill would also begin wide-ranging experiments to change the way doctors and hospitals are paid in an effort to slow decades of relentless cost increases.

Minute's up.

Another p3 political pop quiz

South Carolina newspaper The State got a look at (still-)Governor Mark Sanford's press secretary's email traffic during those awkward days last month when the Governor's whereabouts were still unknown.

Via TPM Muckraker come the following excerpts from those emails, each written by a media site using the prospect of an obviously impending scandal (exact details still unknown) to get on the good side of Governor's (and, at the time, presidential hopeful's) office.

But one isn't like the other three: Can you spot which one?

First:

Having known the Governor for years and even worked with him when he would host radio shows for me -- I find this story and the media frenzy surrounding it to be absolutely ridiculous! Please give him my best.

And:

If you all want to speak on this publicly, you're welcome to Washington Times Radio. You know that you will be on friendly ground here!

And finally:

If the governor is looking for a friendly place to make light of what I think is a small story that got blown out of scale I would be happy to have him on. In person here, on the phone, or in South Carolina.

Stay strong,

The first two quotes are from a Fox News correspondent and a Washington Times staffer, respectively.

The third is from Stephen Colbert.

You can't tell the right-wing whores without a score card.

Don't forget the special Drinking Liberally meeting tonight

Reminder:

Justin Krebs, founder and Executive Director of Living Liberally, will be the guest at a special Drinking Liberally get-together 7pm tonight at the Lucky Lab Beer Hall, NW19th and Quimby, in Portland. [map]

Much to talk about tonight: Today is the first day of the Sotomayor hearings by Senate Judiciary Committee (including the newly minted junior Senator from Minnesota). And the ongoing (and unfortunate) battle between Oregon's senior Senator and public opinion on health care reform continues.

And for those of you who haven't met Justin yet and want to know who to look for, he looks a lot like this guy, reflecting on the qualities Americans want in a president. Actually, he looks exactly like that guy.

See you tonight. And, as always, DL reminds you to drink (and vote) sensibly.

The LO/KPOJ "Lost Limerick Challenge"

This morning's Oregon news limericks, as written by me, read by quizmaster TJ of Loaded Orygun, and answered (usually) by Carl, Christine,and Paul on the KPOJ 620AM Morning Show, are posted at LO.

The trickiest limerick this week was the fourth and final one. Since it got rushed a little and hinged on an especially cunning bit of word play (well, it's cunning if you're in junior high, as Carl pointed out), we're going to cut the radio listeners some slack and re-play it here, so you can play along at home. Fill in the blank with the word or phrase from this week's Oregon news:

Want to wash your car, but it's too hot?
Just pull up to this watering spot.
But beware of the gunk
From that elephant's trunk--
You may think that it's soap, but it's __________ .

(Answer in the Comments below, or in this week's Spanning the State.)

Sunday morning toons: Special "Fish and Chips" edition

[Updated below.]

It's been quite a week: Despite, or maybe because of, the back-stage politics, the possibility of genuine health care reform continued to inch forward. The industrial powers met at the G8 summit to figure out what they're going to do about climate change. The legacy of Robert McNamara got a re-examination. The Senate Democrats now number sixty--sort of. Another Republican sex-scandal jumped to the next level. And Honduras continued to put the pieces together after a military coup--or it wasn't a coup, depending on who you ask.

Alas, those stories were like stars in the daytime: They're still there, but you can't see them for the twin suns of the Jackson memorial and Palin resignation spectacles. Still, Daryl Cagle's toon round-up covers it all this week. Put on your Ray-Bans and let's get started.

p3 Picks of the Week:

Mike Luckovich, Nate Beeler, R. J. Matson, John Trever, Matt Davies, and Jeff Koterba.

p3 "Aaaugh! My Eyes! My Eyes! I'm Blind!" Award: Scott Statis.

p3 Gold Medal (with black armband): David Fitzsimmons.

How can we miss you when you won't go away? That's the question asked by Larry Wright, Monte Wolverton, Jimmy Margulies, Adam Zyglis, Nate Beeler, Vic Harville, and Taylor Jones.

p3 Best of Show: J. D. Crowe.

p3 Award for Best Adaptation from Another Medium: J. D. Crowe (award shared with Jesse Springer, below).

[Update: In a fabulous last-minute entry, Barry Blitt splits the "Best Adaptation" award with Crowe and Springer.]

What with all the celebrity memorials, celebrity resignations, and celebrity sex scandals, American political toonists weren't exactly zeroed in on the G8 Summit this week, but it got noticed in the p3 World Toon Review: Vince O'Farrell (Australia), Paresh Nath (India), LAZ, (Cuba) and Cameron Cardow (Canada).


Has TV news coverage been good this week? Ann Telnaes thinks it's been . . . well, see for yourself.

What the heck--it's time for a Telnaes Two-fer


Walt Handlesman considers the plight of the Woodstock Generation.


p3 Guest Toon: Newt Gingrich has long believed in the political power of language; now Mark Slackmeyer and Rick Redfern get to the bottom of his latest ploy.


We have a wide and varied circle of correspondents here at p3, but even we don't often get emails that begin, "Wonder Woman needs your help . . . and so do I." But when it happens, we're ready to answer the call. A friend participating in the New Organizing Institute's Bootcamp training program in Washington, D.C. filled me in: A centerpiece of the program pitted the participants against each other in teams, in a simulated campaign for the Mayor of DC that will be won by getting the most online votes from real people for their fantasy candidate--in my friend's case, the "fantasy candidate" (his words, not mine) is in fact Wonder Woman. In the interest of the Fairness Doctrine (which doesn't exist, but neither, technically does Wonder Woman), I should mention that the entire slate of "candidates," all DC comic characters (get it?), is available here. The results: Wonder Woman by a nose, with Atom a close second and Green Lantern third. Congratulations, Josh!


Feline Inherits Fortune! Cat In Fish And Chips! Pointless tormenting and class consciousness come together in the 1944 Tom & Jerry short "Million Dollar Cat," directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera (a generation before they first gave the world the phrase "And I would have gotten away with it too, if it hadn't been for you meddling kids!").

The Stuff You Gotta Watch gives a nice accounting (scroll down; it's there) of "Million Dollar Cat" as an example of how ideas were borrowed back and forth and refined by the different studios, including Hanna-Barbera (MGM), Fritz Freling (Warner Bros.) and Tex Avery (both studios at one time or another).


p3 Bonus Toon: Jesse Springer shares the p3 Award for Best Adaptation from Another Medium this week. The good news: Recent studies show that Northwest forests have the potential to sequester vast amounts of carbon absorbed from the atmosphere. The bad news: Only if they aren't cut down . (Click to enlarge.)

Saturday tunes: "I bless the rains down in Africa"

My playlists don't include a genre category for "Slovenian a capella jazz" (or "80's studio rock," for that matter), but after getting pointed to this version--it's way, way beyond anything you could call a "cover"--of an early Toto hit by Perpetuum Jazzile, I may need to regroup.

The first two minutes of this must be fabulous to hear in live performance.

(Hat tip to James the Elder and Kim Komando.)

The unforgiving minute

Paraphrasing a classic one-liner about former Senator Al D'Amato and ethics, being called flagrant hypocrite by Arlen Specter is like being called ugly by a frog.

Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter called his fellow Democrat, Rep. Joe Sestak, a "flagrant hypocrite" and accused his rival of registering as a Democrat "just in time to run for Congress."

Sestak has said that he will challenge Specter, who has the backing of President Obama and party leaders, for the Democratic Senate nomination next year. Specter, a longtime Republican, switched his party registration to Democrat this year.

Minute's up.

The unforgiving minute

Hard to believe that this idea didn't work:

Starting a newspaper filled with material from blogs seemed audacious — as did the idea of starting any kind of newspaper in 2009. But Joshua Karp did just that in January. In the end, it didn’t work out. [...]

Mr. Karp started The Printed Blog to try out a new solution to the problem facing all publications: readers are going online, but advertisers still pay more to appear in print.

His idea was to take free articles and pictures from blogs, with their permission, and print them on 11-by-17-inch pieces of paper. Then he sold ads to local businesses and distributed the papers at train stations in Chicago and San Francisco.

The word inside the industry is that the audacious Karp, unshaken by this setback, is already seeking investors for his next project: Blockbuster Movies on Etch-a-Sketch.

Minute's up.

Another Drinking Liberally two-fer this week (plus a special guest)

The Portland and Portland Metro/West DL chapters both meet this week, featuring socializing and discussion with the Finest Minds of Our Generation^[TM].

Both chapters are meeting at a new location:

Portland Drinking Liberally meets at the Lucky Lab Brew Hall at 19th and NW Quimby (map), Thursday night at 7pm. (DL-PDX meets the 2nd and 4th Thursdays of every month.)

Portland Metro-West Drinking Liberally meets at Ringo's, 12300 SW Broadway St, (just east of Hall Blvd). map), Thursday night at 7pm. (DL-PDX M-W meets the 2nd Tuesday every month.)

Mark your calendars! Next Monday, July 13th, special guest Justin Krebs is coming to Portland. Justin is co-founder and Executive Director of Living Liberally, DL's umbrella organization (and one of the mad geniuses behind the political parody site haarm.org--Healthy Americans Against Reforming Medicine).

Justin will be passing through town on his way back to NYC, so we're going to treat him with a special Drinking Liberally get-together that evening at 7.00pm at the Lucky Lab Beer Hall at the Lucky Lab Beer Hall at 19th and Quimby in NW Portland.

And I know that's a bit of a drive on a weeknight for DL'ers in Vancouver, Salem, and St. Helen, but Justin's a great guy--and he has stories to tell. Don't pass up your chance to meet him!

And if you appreciate Living Liberally promoting progressive action through social interaction--including keeping the whole Drinking Liberally network up and running--consider sending them a little love via Tipping Liberally.

Join the Drinking Liberally gang this week (and Monday the 13th) for drinks and political conversation.

And remember: DL encourages everyone to drink, and vote, responsibly.

(Cross-posted at Loaded Orygun.)

Eight months later

(H/t to Anne.)

The unforgiving minute

If it weren't for the folks--including friends of mine--who live in California and have to live with the consequences of a booby-prize governor and a breathtakingly dysfunctional system of government, I'm not sure I'd know who to root for here:

A group of the biggest U.S. banks said they would stop accepting California's IOUs on Friday, adding pressure on the state to close its $26.3 billion annual budget gap. [...]

The group of banks included Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., Wells Fargo & Co. and J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., among others. The banks had previously committed to accepting state IOUs as payment. California plans to issue more than $3 billion of IOUs in July.

But Californians can thank their lucky stars that they don't have the unjust burden of those vehicle registration fees that former Governor Gray Davis wanted to restore.

Minute's up.

The Bush era: A pop quiz

Two of these items belong together; one doesn't. Which one doesn't belong?


Circa 1958:

1983:

2009:

[W]hen the library for George W. Bush opens in 2013 on the campus of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, visitors will most likely get to see one of his most treasured items: Saddam Hussein’s pistol.

The gun, a 9 millimeter Glock 18C, was found in the spider hole where the Iraqi leader was captured in December 2003 by Delta Force soldiers, four of whom later presented the pistol to Mr. Bush. Among the thousands of gifts Mr. Bush received as president, the gun became a favorite, a reminder of the pinnacle moment of the Iraq war, according to friends and long-time associates.[…]

Mark Langdale, the president of the George W. Bush Foundation, said the library would use items to highlight 25 of Mr. Bush’s presidential decisions. “The gun is an interesting artifact, and it tells you that the United States captured Saddam Hussein and disarmed him literally,” Mr. Langdale said.

Wait--my mistake. All three belong together.

The p3 guest limericks

This morning's Oregon news limericks, as written by me, read by quizmaster TJ of Loaded Orygun, and answered (usually) by Carl, Christine,and Paul on the KPOJ 620AM Morning Show, are posted at LO.

Unfortunately, so careful and precise was our planning that we didn't end up with any "lost limericks" left over this week to use here, so we're proud to present instead these fugacious tributes to the weekend demise of the governor of Alaska, written by guest limericist and long-time p3 correspondent Barbara (who's probably already updated her résumé--she's just that good):

The Palin announcement is curious,
The reasons suspiciously spurious,
Her ethics aren’t trusted,
Her budget is busted,
I think she just quit ‘cause she’s furious.


The Palin report sparked a chorus
Of pundits who asked “What’s before us?”
Will she mount a campaign,
Make talk shows her domain?
Or perhaps she’ll just watch Russia for us.

Robert McNamara: "An American tragedy, our tragedy."

In one of the very first posts on p3, I compared former Defense Secretary McNamara to the title character in Graham Green's urtext of Vietnam fiction The Quiet American, whom the narrator described as "a leper without a bell."

McNamara, perhaps because his sense of American rightness remained tone-deaf to the end, died over Independence Day weekend.

But, as Will Bunch observes:

The life of Robert McNamara was a personal tragedy, but it was also an American tragedy, our tragedy -- because even after McNamara spelled out everything that went so horribly wrong in Vietnam, he lived long enough to see a new generation of the self-appointed "best and brightest" in Washington pay absolutely no mind to the lessons of our recent past.

In Iraq, as in Vietnam, our policy-makers knew nothing or cared little about the long history and convoluted ethnic and religious politics of Mesopotamia's Fertile Crescent. In Iraq, as in Vietnam, there was no plan for the proper military follow-up to a period of "shock and awe" bombing. In Iraq, as in Vietnam, we totally misjudged the "nationalism" of the people who lived there and how they would react to a long American occupation. And perhaps most importantly, In Iraq, as in Vietnam, there was no real "public debate" as we marched headlong and foolishly into the 2003 -- with way too many "unexamined assumptions," "unasked questions," and "readily dismissed alternatives."

I didn't have much sympathy for McNamara's suffering; I grew up at the wrong time for that. But, as Bunch suggests, perhaps it was his penance to live so long, so aware of the consequences of the evil he'd helped set in motion even if he remained unable to grasp the fundamental cause of his error.

If that's the way it works, I suppose we have no choice but to wish a long, healthy, and lucid life to Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condi Rice, George W. Bush, et al.

But I'm not that optimistic.

Sunday morning toons: Special "Do you know what 'Land of the Free' means?" edition

Sarah Palin's abrupt, bizarre resignation Friday caught everyone--including the news media, the GOP leadership, her staff, and political cartoonists--flatfooted, so we'll have to wait until next week (at which point another shoe, or several, may have dropped) for proper coverage of that.

But fate has not been unkind to the cartoonists this week: The Schwarzenegger-led financial implosion of California, a string of celebrity deaths, the long-awaited Franken Senate victory, the sentencing of Bernie Madoff, the return of Governor Sanford, and--almost overlooked in all the hubbub--the actual, real, no-kidding beginning of redeployment of American troops out of Iraqi cities. (It's a start.) And it's all in Daryl Cagle's toon round-up this week.

And let's kick it off patriot-style, with a salute to Independence Day from Marshall Ramsey, Bob Englehart, John Cole, John Darkow, Jeff Stahler, and Bill Day.

p3 Picks of the Week: Mike Luckavich, John Darkow, David Fitzsimmons, Michael Ramirez, Steve Sack, Henry Payne, Dana Summers, Larry Wright, and Mike Lane.

p3 Award for Best Adaptation from Another Medium David Horsey.

The p3 Certificate of Harmonic Toon Convergence goes to Nate Beeler, Jeff Stahler, Scott Santis, Chip Bok, and Jeff Koterba,

p3 World Toon Review: Patrick Chapatte (Switzerland), Sergei Tunin (Russia), Frederick Deligne (France), and Guy Badeaux (Canada).


To help everyone have a safe and enjoyable 4th of July, Ann Telnaes reminds us of the three important rules: (1) Place on ground. (2) Light fuse. (3)--and this is the really important one--run away!


p3 Guest Toon: Tom Tomorrow asks: Does any of this seem familiar to you, too? A little déjà vu? Hm? Anything?


Protecting Our Endangered Toonists: Cartoonist Bob Eckstein describes the demise of his cartooning career, including his artistic breakthrough after attempting to draw with his opposite hand, how it feels to be the last cartoon published in a magazine before it goes under, having his work used without permission on a restaurant placemat in Hazleton PA and knowing the only justice he may ever get is a free dinner the next time he's in Hazleton PA, and how Mickey Mantle's death cost him his big chance.

(Thanks to John Sherffius for permission to use his "Signature Loss" image. Click to enlarge.)


Will the revolution be Twittered? Portland homeboy Jack Ohman thinks it might.


"The land of the free"--do you know what that means? I thought so." A young Porky Pig gets a tutorial in American history from a rather disturbing-looking Uncle Sam in this unusual Merrie Melodies short, animated by Chuck Jones, which premiered on July 1, 1939. Best not to get too fussy about the missing details--like "under God," or Alaska and Hawaii (all of which would come later), or who we were taking up arms against in 1776, or what happened to the people who were already on the land during the great "westward expansion," or the unpleasantness because of which Lincoln was called upon to deliver that famous speech.

p3 Bonus Toon: The legislature managed to finish its work in time for the holiday weekend, and now Jesse Springer just hopes the celebration doesn't get washed out.

Saturday tunes: "Don't know a soul who's not been battered, don't have a friend who feels at ease--but it's all right"

We come in the age's most uncertain hour--and we sing an American tune.

Happy Independence Day, everyone. Be well.

Day 1: Monaco

Today was Day 1 of the Tour de France.

In solidarity, I am wearing my t-shirt from the 2004 Tour and I will shortly air up my tires and hit the road, after which I will refuse to pee into any containers offered to me by French racing authorities.

Why would she leave office? Let us count the ways.

[Updated (2) below.]

I listed four theories for Sarah Palin's abrupt resignation yesterday afternoon.

The Daily Beast put the total at eleven by early evening.

And, shortly before that, Kausfiles had already tallied fourteen (not counting the Scientology thing).

Methodological issues abound. Kausfiles and The Beast achieve length in part by slicing the baloney pretty thin: Is "fame withdrawal" (#2 at Kausfiles) really separable from "cashing in" (#3)? If you subscribe to "it was a whim" (#6 at The Beast), don't you also have to assume that "she's unstable" (#8)?

I stick to the virtues of my shorter list, but it has its own technical problems, too; as I noted on Facebook, I only tallied the explanations that had been explicitly offered up to that point--any that were too obvious to mention got undersampled.

I call for a Blogger Panel on Bizarre Resignations Methodology.

[Update: The Kenosha Kid offers four possibilities, partly historical, partly inspirational.]

[Update: The Washington Monthly lists seven possible explanations, of which only one--#6--explores new territory.]

Treasonable document

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the
thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton

North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn

South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton

Massachusetts:
John Hancock

Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll

Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton

Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross

Delaware:
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean

New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris

New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Matthew Thornton

Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery

Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott

Current (as of 2pm Pacific) theories, ranked from least plausible to most plausible

4. She actually does believe she can do more for Alaska and America by leaving office in mid-term. (No one believes this; it's simply mentioned here for the sake of logical completeness, and then discarded.)

3. Pregnancy. (Several variations on this, most circling back around local rumors from a few years ago.)

2. Governing is complicated and boring; what she really likes is the money, the fame, and the platform for score-settling.

1. Indictment(s) in the works.

He always answers your prayers, but sometimes the answer is, like, "No"

Apparently the Supreme Being has even less confidence in Joe the Plumber than in Mark Sanford:

Last year at the height of his "fame," Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher — aka "Joe the Plumber" — said that he was considering a run for public office. "I’d be up for it," he said. Excited fans even set up a "Draft Joe the Plumber" site. But in a new interview with WorldNetDaily, Wurzelbacher said that he now isn’t planning to run because God doesn’t want him to:

Asked if he has plans to run for public office, he replied, "I hope not. You know, I talked to God about that and he was like, 'No.'"

So, to recap divine endorsements for this week: Sanford, yes; Wurzelbacher, no.

Strange and mysterious indeed.