And, once again, does anyone seriously wonder why American news consumers are so woefully uninformed?

In 2005, PIPA survey research indicated that people who “get their news” from The Daily Show (The Colbert Report didn't exist yet) were better informed than Fox News viewers. This was at the time when, as Jon Stewart memorably pointed out, TDS was scheduled after a show about puppets making prank phone calls.

And recently, of course, has come survey evidence that Fox News viewers were less informed than people who watched no news at all.

(Fox News Channel, as of this week, is the top-rated cable news channel.)

But it's not just Fox News that's the problem. It's also the dumbing down pretty much across the board of the top middle-brow news sources for their American audiences. (Why? Possibly ideology, but certainly in large part because these for-profit institutions have determined that that's where the money is.) For example:

Compare the European English-language edition of CNN to what we get here in the states. And of course the way that Time and Newsweek dumb down their domestic-edition cover stories so that American readers won't fwy their widdle bwains.

Sunday morning toons: Things I'm thankful for

I am thankful that pepper spray and pizza are apparently both vegetables now (although I may have ordered my last veggie pizza until the current unpleasantness ceases).

I am thankful that the Congressional SuperCommittee died without making things noticeably worse.

I am thankful that, although there are twenty-seven GOP presidential debates on the calendar so far, fourteen of them are already over. (GOP voters: Are you with me on this one? Huh? Are you with me? Anybody?)

I'm thankful that, after all these years, Newt is finally getting his fifteen minutes.

I'm thankful that his fifteen minutes are likely to be over by Cyber Monday.

I'm thankful that all those cops haven't gotten too much Occupy hippie blood on their nice, new riot gear.

I'm thankful for those people who stood in line all night at Best Buy for one of the two 40” HDTV flatscreens for $200 in stock on Black Friday.

I'm thankful I have sense enough not to have been one of them.

I'm thankful that Oregon is at least temporarily out of the state-sponsored execution business.

Today's toons have been carefully chosen from the finest of this week's free-range, cruelty-free political cartoon pages at Slate, Time, Mario Piperni, About.com, and Daryl Cagle, stuffed with rice, onion, sliced almonds, water chestnuts, and fried turkey liver; then roasted for 17 minutes per pound of humor, basting about once per hour:

p3 Picks of the Week:   Mike Luckovich, Dave Granlund, Charlie Daniel, John Darkow, Nick Anderson, Daryl Cagle, Adam Zyglis, and Monte Wolverton.

p3 Legion of Honor (with Drumsticks): David Fitzsimmons.

p3 Best of Show (class Amphibia): Tom Toles.

p3 Certificate of Harmonic Toon Convergence: Chad Lowe and Clay Bennett. 

p3 Award for Best Adaptation from Another Medium (tie): Steve Breen and Jimmy Margulies. 

Special Massive Multiplayer Toon Convergence Event: (Kryptonian edition).

p3 World Toon Review: Patrick Chappatte (Switzerland), Cam Cardow (Canada), Ollie Johansson (Sweden), and Michael Kountouris (Greece).


Ann Telnaes celebrates the most wonderful time of the year (if you're in the right place).


Mark Fiore tells us what he's thankful for -- and can you blame him?


Via Matt Bors: Local police brainstorm for ways to win the social media PR war against Occupy.


Tom Tomorrow honors the real victims in the war against sexual harassment. Oh, the humanity!


The K Chronicles has one of the oddest heart-warming stories I've read in a while.


Tom the Dancing Bug reminds us of the main problem with being a super-hero with god-like powers: No one's ever satisfied.


From Comic Riffs comes the news that frequent p3 Sunday morining toons notable and Pulitzer winner Mike Keefe is semi-retiring after taking a buy-out from the Denver Post.


Red Meat's Ted Johnson is back again this week, with a valuable lesson.


You must remember this: Portland homeboy Jack Ohman is thankful (maybe) for the fundamental things that apply as time goes by.


I'm a pointer! Dere it is! Dere it is! Dere it is! Time for another Charlie the Dog story with Porky Pig. Charlie is one of those characters that just never seemed to catch on, even though he's one of my favorites (go figure, huh?). Written by Michael Maltese and directed by Chuck Jones in 1949. Musical director Carl Stalling has great fun with the flip-chart gag at the beginning. According to Wikipedia, several scenes of cartoonish violence -- mainly characters kicking each other, it appears, which seems pretty much of a misdemeanor in the realm of cartoon violence -- got cut out for TV syndication. Charlie's “Russian cossack” voice is a Mel Blanc version of one of the famous tag-lines of popular radio and TV comic Bert “The Mad Russian” Gordon.

If your browser won't display the embedded version, click here. 

p3 Bonus Toon: Jesse Springer knows something that Oregonians can be thankful for.

Test your toon-captioning skills at The New Yorker's weekly caption-the-cartoon contest. (Rules here.)

Saturday morning tunes: You'll know you're reasonably there

I sort of had to give Arlo Guthrie a pass on Thursday because I've never been able to find a good online performance of “Alice's Restaurant;” so here's probably the most beautiful song he ever wrote.

If your browser won't display the embedded version, click here.

Lucky thing Bush never liked to travel much

(Upated below.)

Because here's one more place he really can't visit:

Bush and Blair found guilty of war crimes for Iraq attack

A tribunal in Malaysia, spearheaded by that nation’s former Prime Minister, yesterday found George Bush and Tony Blair guilty of “crimes against peace” and other war crimes for their 2003 aggressive attack on Iraq, as well as fabricating pretexts used to justify the attack.

(Update: Oops. Now Switzerland's off the list too.)

For your Thanksgiving viewing pleasure: One of the two funniest scenes in 1970s sit-com history*

From 1978, the finale of the legendary “Turkeys Away” episode of WKRP in Cincinnatti. It was written by veteran TV writer Bill Dial, who later wrote for Sliders, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Star Trek Voyager.

But no matter how big a fan of any of those shows you might be, you have to admit none of them came up with a line as good as this: As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.

If your browser won't display the embedded version, click here to see it on Hulu. The scene begins at 17:12 and ends at 23:36.

^*For the record, this is the other one.

Quote of the day: The vital Constitutional importance of the guest list for Sally Quinn's next party

Here's Charles Pierce on ducking responsible governance by handing tough decisions over to elite insider cliques rather than just doing what the Constitution requires:

[T]he one lesson to be drawn from the debacle that is the SuperCommittee is that it's past time for people to abandon the notion that we can get out of our problems if just the right number of people from Sally Quinn's holiday party list can get together in a room and pretend to like each other. That's what got us the Nixon pardon, the Tower Commission that helped bury Iran-Contra, the reluctance to impeach Ronald Reagan over the latter, and the thumb-sucking over the conviction of lying weasels like Scooter Libby. It's a nice life there in Versailles.

Sunday morning toons: Eagle and Kitten Cuteness

Today's p3 toon offerings have been meticulously hand-selected from the week's political cartoon pages at Slate, Time, Mario Piperni, About.com, and Daryl Cagle:

p3 Picks of the Week:   Mike Luckovich, Pat Bagley, Bob Gorrell, John Cagle, John Darkow, Lalo Alcaraz, , R. J. Matson, Adam Zyglis, Clay Jones, and Monte Wolverton.

p3 Award for Best Adaptation from Another Medium (Part 1): . (Note: The “other medium” might not be what you think it is. If you're in doubt, go here.)

p3 Award for Best Adaptation from Another Medium (Part 2): Stuart Carlson.

p3 Award for Best Adaptation from Another Medium (Part 3): John Darkow.

p3 Special Tribute to the Irreplaceable Service Iowa and New Hampshire Perform for the Nation: Ben Sargent. 

p3 Special Mention for Being the Toon That Made No Sense to Me This Week Clay Bennett.  Don't get me wrong: I like Bennett's layouts. I note with interest and approval that the “Occupy” guy is not depicted as a hippie, an ex-hippie, a dead-ender, or a stoner, although the “Stupefy” fellow appears a little older and is in a suit and tie. I just don't understand the playoff of the two signs, or the looks they're exchanging. Stupefy?

p3 “American Dream” Medal: Mike Keefe. 

p3 World Toon Review: Cam Cardow (Canada), Jiho (France), Martin Sutovec (Slovak Republic), and Petar Pismestrovic (Austria).


Ann Telnaes explains why you won't be seeing a peace divident anytime soon.


It takes a minute or so to find its groove, but Mark Fiore's ad for ContagionEx ends up being the funniest thing he's done in a good while. Remember: When you're getting screwed by Wall Street, you're also getting screwed by everyone who's ever screwed Wall Street too! Protect yourself!


And for you Anglophiles out there, Taiwan's Next Media Animation brings you the happy news: The marriage of the heir apparent to the heir apparent to the British throne may soon be blessed with issue.


Perhaps the Republicans have been that close to getting it right all along: From Jen Sorenson comes the problem and the solution.  


Tom Tomorrow presents an unearthly tale of horror and possession. And it's probably not going to end well, either.


Tom the Dancing Bug presents “Billy Dare: Into The Uncanny Valley.” Uhm, it's a tad meta.


Of all the Charlie Brown apps in the world, you're the Charlie Browniest: Comic Riffs brings the news that the classic Charlie Brown TV specials, including the legendary Christmas story, will soon be available as digital apps.


Red Meat's Ted Johnson faces the pain.


The Comic Curmudgeon looks forward to A Very Special Dick Tracy Hanukkah!


Portland homeboy Jack Ohman raises the question: Should we call the whole Supercommittee thing off?


Your Eagle-and-Kitten “Awww” Moment: “Go Fly a Kit” (1957) is a sort of empty-headed but endearing bit of fluff directed by Chuck Jones. Jones usually produces stories that are a little more cynical and self-reflexive, but this just seems to be one of his sweet moments. Let's just go with it. The characters' names are Marc Anthony and Pussyfoot. I don't know why.

If your browser won't display the embedded version, click here.

And for an extra dose of cuteness: Suzanne at FDL brings back a 1952 Disney minor gem: Susie the Little Blue Coupe. Note the voice talent names.


p3 Bonus Toon: Jesse Springer notes this unpleasant statistic: The average annual cost of child care in Oregon is $10,392 -- nearly $4,000 more than the annual state college tuition.

Test your toon-captioning skills at The New Yorker's weekly caption-the-cartoon contest. (Rules here.)

"The people" -- remember them?

One hundred forty-eight years ago today, Abraham Lincoln picked up American political discourse and placed it on another track: His dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg honored an America “conceived in liberty,” to be sure, but also one “dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

The previous fifty years had amply shown that a nation concerned merely (!) with liberty (and the attendant worship of states' rights) wasn't enough; it must also dedicate itself to the opportunity of all its citizens (and not just, for example, to that of the wealthiest and best-connected of its citizens -- or of its citizen-like contract-based life-forms).

It's 267 words long, and takes about two minutes to read it first to last. Seriously. Go for it.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Saturday morning tunes: It would be a pretty poor revolution that didn't inconvenience someone

You say you got a real solution? Well, you know, we'd all love to see the plan. (Shoo-bee doo-wah!)

If your browser won't display the embedded version, click here

(Dedicated to the folks who were happy to see the #Occupy Portland camp dismantled, and the participants arrested or driven off, because they found it to be inconvenient.)

The unforgiving minute: Connect the dots

Congratulations to Bob Costas and NBC for becoming part of the problem.

Accused pedophile Jerry Sandusky has a First Amendment right to make his case to the public (however much his lawyers probably wish he wouldn't exercise it).

That doesn't create some Constitutional obligation on NBC/Costa's part to cash in by giving him a national audience for his preposterous claims of innocence. Sandusky allegedly got away with child rape for years, while people connected with him at Penn State knew about it, because at the end of the day it was good business to indulge him.

Connect the dots, Bob.

Sunday morning toons: Priorities

Lots of toons this week about Cain and Perry.

Oddly, there was not much of anything out there about the defeat of the “personhood of the blastocyst” amendment in Mississippi, the repeal of the anti-union laws in Ohio, the recall of the odious Russell Pearce in Arizona, or the restoration of same-day voter registration in Maine. What -- there's nothing funny about those things? Or is it just that Cain and Perry jokes are easier (which is certainly true, but . . . )?

I unearthed only one toon about the disgraceful covering-up-child-rape scandal at Penn State, and that's enough. If I wanted to support an organization that looks the other way on pedophilia, I'd be rooting for Notre Dame, thanks very much.

Today's selections have been lovingly hand-selected from the week's political cartoon pages at Slate, Time, Mario Piperni, About.com, and Daryl Cagle:

p3 Picks of the Week:   Mike Luckovich, Mike Keefe, Stuart Carlson, John Darkow, Walt Handlesman, Nate Beeler, Steve Kelley, Chuck Asay, and Monte Wolverton.

p3 Legion of Honor Award: Steve Breen.

Belated Celebration of Veterans Day: Tip of the p3 hat to Michael Ramirez, Marshal Ramsey, Gary Varvel, and Glen McCoy,

p3 World Toon Review will be back next week.


Ann Telnaes marks the observance of Veterans Day at Dover AFB. (Thanks so much, Former President Codpiece.)


From their headquarters at the Hall of Justice, Mark Fiore brings you the latest adventures of SuperFriendsCommittee!


No, I changed my mind: One shot at Penn State this week isn't enough after all. Here's Taiwan's Next Media Animation appropriately un-awed report.


At This Modern World everything old is new again.


Keith Knight notes the latest round in the ongoing struggle by conservatives with the concept of “satire.”


Tom the Dancing Bug's Hollingsworth Hound endures injustice for the sake of his country.


Here's the hint: It was found in a shed in California, and it's got a big green car on it. Oh yeah, and it's probably worth over a million bucks. Give up? Comic Riffs has the answer


Red Meat presents Bug-eyed Earl's Halloween debriefing.


The Comic Curmudgeon pays tribute to the target that will never die, even if Bil Keane, its creator, did.


Portland homeboy Jack Ohman muses on Cain's chances of scoring.


Theology and home furnishing tips: You get them both in “The Heavenly Puss,” a Tom and Jerry toon directed in 1953 by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, with musical direction by Scott Bradley. (Home furnishing tip: Don't put your upright piano on the runner at the top of the stairs.) The Heavenly Express scene has some unusually-dark moments for Hanna and Barbera, beginning with Tom's worried look back at his (dead?) body, the sad image of Fluff, Muff, and Puff, and the very un-Hanna-Barbera renderings of Tom's face when he sees his possible fate.

If your browser won't display the embedded version, click here.

Bonus animation: Hat-tip to Suzanne at FireDogLake for unearthing this one: Gypsy mice, flying cat-bats, and Mighty Mouse -- as an operetta.


p3 Bonus Toon: Jesse Springer celebrates one more reason Oregon's such a cool place to live.

Test your mad toon-captioning skills at The New Yorker's weekly caption-the-cartoon contest. (Rules here.)

Saturday morning tunes: Don't you start away uneasy

No. Really. Jethro Tull live.

If your browser won't display the embedded version, click here.

Quote of the day: Yes, sometimes things really are that simple

(Updated below. Link fixed, too.)

Here's Will Bunch on the riots at Penn State last night:

“Of course we’re going to riot. What do they expect when they tell us at 10 o’clock that they fired our football coach?”

-- Paul Howard, 24-year-old Penn State aerospace engineering student, as quoted in the New York Times.

OK, so maybe Paul Howard is no rocket scientist. (Oh wait, actually he is a rocket scientist!)

Heh.

I give Bunch full marks for diagnosing the immediate problem (stunning lack of proportion about both rioting and football programs), but his prescription (dissolving the main campus at University Park and distributing its student population among the 19 commonwealth campuses) is pure fantasy.

It isn't that schools like Penn State are, to continue Bunch's downsizing analogy, too big to fail. It's simply that the phenomenal amounts of money floating around in a college athletics system that not only permits but almost demands dishonesty constitutes -- to return to the banking metaphor again -- a clear moral hazard.

Update: Oh yeah, almost forgot to mention the main point here: Children were raped. Adults knew about it.

Eleven!

This morning at 11am (naturally) ET, my favorite live-streaming campus radio station WCCR-LP-FM will present “11-11-11: A Celebration” -- a one-hour tribute to Spinal Tap co-founder Nigel Tufnel (today is Nigel Tufnel Day; you did remember that, didn't you?) and the rest of the band (both living and mysteriously dead).

Bear in mind, of course, that 11am ET is about an hour from now on the west coast.

Classic Tap cuts will be mixed with never-before heard behind-the-scenes stories about the world's loudest -- and most punctual -- heavy metal band.

If your browser won't display the embedded version, click here. And crank it to eleven.

Thrill! to the story of the secret wartime technology behind Tap's classic “crank it to 11” sound!

Marvel! at the self-improvement movement -- Become Your Eleven -- inspired by the Tap's music!

Quake in fear! at the secret messages revealed when you play “Number Eleven” backwards!

And for the record: I'm not saying I wrote any of the original material for the show, and I'm not saying I performed any of it either. I'm just saying it might sound a lot like I maybe did.

The show will be re-aired today at 3pm ET/12pm PT. After that, it could be like those Disney films that go into the vault, not to be seen again for another 20 years.

Sunday morning toons: The seven billionth person

There are now seven billion people on the planet earth -- and over 50 of them have not yet been associated with leaking the Herman Cain harrassment story.

There are now seven billion people on the planet earth -- and about 700 million of them (or one-tenth, or roughly the equivalent of the population of the three largest states in the United States) control half of the wealth on the planet.

There are now seven billion people on the planet earth -- and by next September, over one-third of them will have spent a couple of weeks in the limelight as the GOP presidential frontrunner.

There are now seven billion people on the planet earth -- of whom over 900 million are underfed.

There are now seven billion people on the planet earth -- and their average annual income is $7000.

There are now seven billion people on the planet -- and the GOP's ambitious plan is to make sure that none of the ones living in America will ever be eligible to vote again.

There are now seven billion people on the planet -- and with each tick of the clock, a few less of them care about the NBA lock-out.

Today's selections have been lovingly hand-selected from the week's political cartoon pages at Slate, Time, Mario Piperni, About.com, and Daryl Cagle:

p3 Picks of the Week:   Mike Luckovich, Bill Day, Eric Allie, Mike Keefe, Dave Granlund, Rob Rogers, Clay Jones, Jim Morin, Clay Bennett, Steve Sack, Bok, Chad Lowe, Matt Davies, and Monte Wolverton.

p3 Best of Show: Nate Beeler.

p3 Award for Best Adaptation from Another Medium (tie): Gary Varvel and David Fitzsimmons. 

p3 Legion of Merit: Rob Rogers.

p3 “You May Think It's a Superman Reference, But It's Really an Incredibles Reference” Award: Nate Beeler. 

p3 World Toon Review: Martin Sutovec (Slovakia), Patrick Chappatte (Switzerland), Ramzy Taweel (Palestine), and Ingrid Rice (Canada).


As Ann Telnaes reminds us, every barbecue hs its winners and its losers.


Mark Fiore demonstrates the political power of taking a very bad idea to its logical conclusion. Will you end up with a priceless golden scepter? Or a wooden squirrel stick?


Herman Cain's not the only one in hot water this week: Taiwan's often-ineffable Next Media Animation brings us the latest word of the unlikely-sounding Justin Bieber paternity suit.


Follow along on This Modern World as we learn two new words from Officer Friendly.


The K Chronicles present: Only In L.A.


Tom the Dancing Bug has a lovely little dream.


Thirties magazine cartoons: They weren't all about Thurberesque bloodhounds and tweedy upper-West Siders trading mots about domestic wines. Comic Riffs celebrates the work of Depression-era cartoonist Syd Hoff, whose work appears new again in the age of the Occupy movement.


Red Meat's Ted Johnson explains that gradually sinking feeling you've been getting for years.


Portland homeboy Jack Ohman says, don't think of them as millionaires versus billionaires; think of them as workers and job creators who don't see eye-to-eye yet.


The better mousetrap: That's what Tom thinks he's invented, anyway, in “Designs on Jerry,” directed by Joseph Hanna and William Barbera, with musical direction by Scott Bradley (produced in 1953, but not released until 1955):

(Note to Facebook friends: If you're reading this in FB Notes, click here to see the video.)

p3 Bonus Toon: Here at p3, we join Jesse Springer in saluting Oregon's Senator Jeff Merkley, who, with a handful of other senators, has sponsored a proposed Constitutional amendment aimed at overturning the Citizens United decision, allowing Congress to set limits on campaign spending. If you care about the US being a democracy in anything other than name, this is a no-brainer, although it's merely the beginning of a bitter fight that could easily take a decade to resolve. (Not pictured: Oregon's other US Senator, Ron Wyden.)

Test your toon-captioning kung fu at The New Yorker's weekly caption-the-cartoon contest. (Rules here.)

"Death is a distant rumor to the young."

CBS mainstay Andy Rooney, dead at 92.

Saturday morning tunes: I'm looking for pound notes, loose change, bad checks, anything

Next Friday, as you  probably don't really need to be reminded, is Nigel Tufnel Day.

Yes, 11/11/11 is the day when fans around the world will take a moment to pay their respects to the legendary lead guitarist, who, along with David St. Hubbins and Nigel Smalls, founded the world's loudest -- and most punctual -- rock band: Spinal Tap. The date was selected, of course, in honor of Nigel's famous custom-made Marshall amp which . . . well, let him explain.

In fact, I'm at work with my old friend and colleague Keith Semmel, producer and host of “Strictly the Sixties” (available live-streaming on WCCR-LP-FM) on a a very special tribute show for Nigel and the lads, going all the way back to their early days in the 1960s as The Originals, then The New Originals, then The Thamesmen, in which latter incarnation they hit the charts with this skiffle hit “Gimme Some Money.”

The tribute show will be broadcast this Friday at 3pm Eastern/12pm Pacific. I'll let you know as further details float to the surface.

This performance was, I believe, on the short-lived 1960s pop music show “Hullaba-Dig-A-Go-Go.” It's especially significant because it captures a performance by early drummer John “Stumpy” Pepys, the first in a long line of drummers for the band to die horribly, or mysteriously, or both. (In Pepys' case, it was a freak gardening accident in 1969, which the authorities agreed was better left “unsolved.”)

If you're reading this in FB Notes, you'll need to click here to see the video.

No! (Back regardless of popular demand)

No sun--no moon!
No morn--no noon!
No dawn--no dusk--no proper time of day--
No sky--no earthly view--
No distance looking blue--
No road--no street--no "t'other side this way"--
No end to any Row--
No indications where the Crescents go--
No top to any steeple--
No recognitions of familiar people--
No courtesies for showing 'em--
No knowing 'em!
No traveling at all--no locomotion--
No inkling of the way--no notion--
"No go" by land or ocean--
No mail--no post--
No news from any foreign coast--
No Park, no Ring, no afternoon gentility--
No company--no nobility--
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member--
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds--
November!

-- Thomas Hood (1844)
(sometimes quoted by
Rumpole, the Old Bailey
Hack, even though it
doesn't appear in his
Quiller-Couch edition
of the Oxford Book 
of English Verse)

Fifty-one days until the days start getting longer again.