Sunday early afternoon toons: Lauer-ing the bar, monetizing the memory

The sad part is that, just as Trump will apparently never be able to blurt out something so toxic that he can't recover from it (assuming it doesn't increase his approval rating from the get-go), my guess is that Matt Lauer's terrible job as the overmatched host of the Commander in Chief forum last week will soon disappear down the memory hole. Using one third of his time with Clinton rehashing the asked-and-answered "questions" the emails? Ignoring the Dye-Blond Buffoon's lies, evasions, and inaccuracies? Pffft. Put Matt back on the Today show for a week and let him land that day's "get" – perhaps a collie who rescued a boy from a mine by running to town for the sheriff – and all will not only be forgiven, it'll be forgotten.

And, for the record, I'm with Brother Pierce: I object to calling it the "Commander In Chief Forum," because the country is slowly but surely coming to think that the Presidency has no other function, and that being CinC makes the president the boss of me. (Spoiler: Nope.) And, although Pierce doesn't mention this himself, I object to the symbolism of holding it on an aircraft carrier. Have we really forgotten the last time a big press draw like this was held on an aircraft carrier? A Facebook commenter said yeah, but what about veterans' issues, to which I should have replied (but didn't, alas) that Veterans' Affairs is a cabinet post (hence, part of the Executive branch), not a wartime responsibility of the CinC, and so we don't need the invocation of the latter role to expect presidential candidates to answer policy questions on the topic. If I really wanted gratuitous military symbolism, I'd be watching an NFL game right now. Unfortunately, I imagine the CinC Forum is here to stay as a part of the presidential election ritual.

Also, what's the big deal about athletes kneeling during the national anthem, rather than standing at attention with hand over heart? First amendment issues aside, we're once again confusing football and soccer uniforms with military uniforms, and the standards of behavior appropriate to each. Besides, kneeling is also a way to show respect, and even subservience – ask Zod.

And finally, our highest honors to to ex-Oregonian Jack Ohman for recognizing that we will never forget the meaning of today's anniversary until the last advertising account manager no longer remembers. As a parallel piece, Comic Strip of the Day looks back at what was not political cartooning's finest hour.

Today's toons were selected by an underqualified morning talk show host from the week's offerings at McClatchy DC, Cartoon Movement, Go Comics, Politico's Cartoon Gallery, Daryl Cagle's Political Cartoons, About.com, The Nib, and other fine sources of cartoon goodness.

p3 Picks of the week: Mike Luckovich, Jeff Danziger, John Deering, Lisa Benson, Tim Eagan, SigneWilkinson, Jeff Stahler, Matt Weurker, and Monte Wolverton.

p3 Best of Show: Matt Davies.

p3 Legion of Merit: Stuart Carlson.

p3 Medal of Mandatory Freedom (tie): Jim Morin and Brian McFadden.

Ann Telnaes is relieved: Trump does have a plan after all.

Mark Fiore presents Suzie Newsykins, whose only summer mistake was listening to grown-ups.

Tom Tomorrow has too nearly captured the essence of my Twitter feed.

Keith Knight asks an interesting question, but it's hard to tell which answers (if any) are made up.

Reuben Bolling wins the Saul Steinberg Prize.

Carol Lay returns to a theme she owns: the search for the perfect Other. Once again: happy ending or not?

Red Meat celebrates a generational rite of passage: summer camp.

The Comic Curmudgeon salutes Six Chicks for committing.

Sometimes it seems like Comic Strip of the Day and Sophie Yanow are about the only ones out there in the Tooniverse paying attention to Standing Rock. Although I suppose that may change if Amy Goodman is indeed arrested. To be clear, I'm a fan of both Goodman and the First Amendment, but I suppose I feel the same way about Standing Rock and the prospect of its white First Amendment martyr as I used to feel about the Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethons for the Muscular Dystrophy Association: If a spectacle like this is what it takes to get some action on the problem, then so be it.

Read the label! As a shout-out to a friend, here's "Hopalong Casualty," directed in 1960 by Chuck Jones from his own story. I usually don't feature Warner Bros cartoons from beyond the mid-1950s because the production values got poorer and poorer (and you can see it happening here), but this is a gem, mainly because Jones is a master of timing and understood the logic of the Coyote and Road Runner (his own creations, after all) so well. Almost half of this toon is taken up with the "Acme Earthquake Pills" gag, which is one of the funniest bits in all of cartoondom. If you Google "acme earthquake pills" you'll find there are two or three clips of just that three-minute bit, but they're all ruined by the same well-meaning but thoroughly misguided overdubbing of music director Milt Franklyn's minimalist soft-tympani-roll driven build-up and use of bizarre sound effects – and silences, which always signaled something worse was to come – with someone's heavy-handed use of "creeepy music" that only occasionally syncs with the mood of the exact moment. (No links.) Enjoy Hopalong Casualty at Vimeo.

The Magnificent Oregon Toon Block:

Ex-Oregonian Jack Ohman observes that everyone in Casablanca has problems. Maybe theirs will work out.

Documented Ex-Oregonian Jen Sorensen watches as the world reacts to the EpiPen scandal in the US.

Matt Bors hits it on the nose: This election though, am I right?

Jesse Springer looks on with concern at the latest symptom of Oregon's seemingly perpetual budget woes.

Test your toon-captioning mojo at The New Yorker's weekly caption-the-cartoon contest. (Rules here.) And you can browse The New Yorker's cartoon gallery here.

Sunday morning toons: Fear of a Trump planet! And other horrors.

(Welcome to visitors from The Vagabond Scholar and other kind supporters out there! And thanks to Batocchio for continuing to do the lifting and toting that keeps the Jon Swift Memorial "Best Post of the Year" Roundup!)

Marshall Ramsey captures the theme of this week's toon review. (Hint: It leads to the dark side. Second hint: It's the mind-killer.)

Yes, you can just smell the sour odor of fear out there everywhere this week. Establishment Republicans fear Trump. Americans, egged on in no small part by Trump, fear Muslims (whether they're Still Over There, or Already Over Here, or Over There But Trying to Get Over Here). People who know what fascism is (Jonah Goldberg obviously doesn't make the cut here) fear Trump's most ardent followers.

Antonin Scalia fears that black students are setting their educational sights too high. Students and faculty at the University of Texas now have a lot more to fear than just a shooter on the University Tower. Second Amendment enthusiasts, at long last, may see their fears of Obama comin' for their guns to be even remotely justified.

People with ocean-front property or farm land in the Central Valley – or children – fear the Paris climate agreements won't do anything – and the people who think climate change is all a hoax perpetrated by corrupt scientists and sinister one-world government types fear that it somehow might.

Today's toons were selected in a flight-or-fight frenzy from the week's offerings at McClatchy DC, Cartoon Movement, Go Comics, Politico's Cartoon Gallery, Daryl Cagle's Political Cartoons, About.com, and other fine sources of cartoon goodness.

p3 Picks of the week: Mike Luckovich, Matt Davies, Bill Day, Dana Summers, Gary Varvel, Signe Wilkinson, Nick Anderson, Steve Breen, Joe Heller, Chan Lowe, Paul Szep, Matt Wuerker, and Monte Wolverton.

p3 Best of Show: Ted Rall.

p3 Legion of Merit: Clay Jones.

p3 Mollusk Medal of Distinction (with Slime Trails): John Cole.

p3 Certificate of Harmonic Toon Convergence: Jeff Danziger and Clay Jones.

Ann Telnaes says we really only have one thing to fear. She could be right.

Mark Fiore illuminates the Trump/FDR parallel: It starts with "We have nothing to fear but . . . " and then, unfortunately, it ends right there. Funny, isn't it, that the Short Fingered Vulgarian would latch onto Roosevelt's worst moment as president for his inspiration?

Tom Tomorrow's Sparky learns that it's okay to stoke fear, or even to give in to it, so long as we're practical about it.

Keith Knight asks the obvious question.

Reuben Bolling unveils the NRA's plan to make Christmas last all year. (Hint: it rhymes with "year.")

Red Meat's Stubbo may not be feeling any fear, but he made me realize I need to get my flu shot stat.

The Comic Strip Curmudgeon locates the Fear of Christmas Alone in a rare one-panel Blondie.

Comic Strip of the Day notes a historic occasion when the fear of farts, the odd Jesus Christ, and the occasional oh fuck off provided much-needed leverage in negotiation. The post also confirms my long-standing belief that there aren't many guys who once had a VW bus, but got rid of it, who don't have moments when they wish they still had it. If it was running right.

Lucky Lois – always gets her story! "Terror on the Midway," directed by Dave Fleischer in 1942 with animation by James Davis and the magnificently-named Orestes Calpini, was the last of the 17 Superman theatrical cartoons produced by Fleischer Studios. After Famous Studios took over, the stories (which until then hadn't noticed that World War II was going on) were much more about the Man of Steel battling Axis powers. (Interestingly, covers from the comic series at that time had lots of stirring imagery of Superman jumping into battle against the Germans and Japanese, but the stories inside had little or no connection to the war, based on the concern that it would disrespect American soldiers to suggest that they had to fight it out for four years while Superman could have ended the war in a day.) Uncredited voice work by Joan Alexander (Lois), Bud Collyer (Clark/Superman), Jack Mercer (carnival barker), and Jackson Beck (narrator). Mercer and Beck were also the voices for Popeye and Bluto, respectively, at the same studio.

The Oregon Toon Block of Terror:

Ex-Oregonian Jack Ohman imagines something that even Trump might fear.

Very Possibly Ex-Oregonian Jen Sorensen puts fear in its place (hint: after the next shooting, before the next intimidated politician speaks up, next to the cash register).

Matt Bors knows what has him worried. I like the detail of the mustache swirling as much as his combover. You'll see. Also, although I'm not a yooge fan of the pun, he has one of two that I found amusing this week. Here's the other.

After spending last Tuesday night/Wednesday morning bailing water from a record rainfall, I'm totally down with Jesse Springer about the one thing that holds no fear for Oregonians. Of course, the thought of being stranded at sea on what looks like someone's enormous hairy butt-cheek – well, okay, that might strike a little fear in my heart.

Test your control of the toon-captioning Force at The New Yorker's weekly caption-the-cartoon contest. (Rules here.) And you can browse The New Yorker's cartoon gallery here.

The p3 Sunday Comics Read-Along: Pearls Before Swine, Doonesbury, Rhymes with Orange, Zits, Adam @ Home, Mutts, Over the Hedge, Get Fuzzy, Prince Valiant, Blondie, Bizarro, Mother Goose & Grimm, Rose is Rose, Luann, Hagar the Horrible, Pickles, Rubes, Grand Avenue, Freshly Squeezed, The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee, and Jumble.

Because an egg timer can't measure an interval of less than three minutes

Several weeks ago I lamented that a 24-hour clock is no longer adequate to mark the time between mass shootings in America; we needed to start using an egg timer.

Two shootings today (so far - it's not even dark on the west coast yet), and I'm beginning to think that even an egg timer is too crude an instrument.

We're going to need a stopwatch.

At this rate, we'll soon have to use a cesium microwave atomic clock.

Sunday morning toons: Overdone Thansgiving fare

If you couldn't come up with a way to point out the shame of the US's current spate of anti-refugee animus that didn't involve the torch of the Statue of Liberty, the Emma Lazarus poem on her base, or the myth of the First Thanksgiving, you might have made the cut this morning, but the odds weren't in your favor. But I was willing at least to consider quotes from Delacroix's "Liberty Leading the People" because underneath this hardened and cynical exterior I'm a softie at heart. And besides, like Peter Venkman, I have this indecent attraction to hottie 19th-Century French embodiments of liberty and democracy. I don't apologize.

And there were several toons that employed the refugee toddler in the red shirt and blue shorts washed up on the shore several weeks ago, but that whole angle was just too specific and too ghastly for me. Sue me.

And if you only like France again because they want to bomb the crap out of people in the Middle East you don't like again, you faced slim odds on that too. In fact, I liked Daryl Cagle's piece, below, precisely because I couldn't tell which side it was taking.

But if you're more worried about the 3000 innocent Americans killed by terrorists since 2001 (or about your re-election chances) than the far higher number of American children who've killed someone or been killed under our ridiculous gun regime, then God, Jed, I don't even want to know you.

And I only found one cartoon on the touchy subject of Charlie Sheen's HIV status, and it wasn't dismissive enough of the self-replicating train wreck he's become or the fact that he got time on The Today Show to parade it as his virtue in standing up to blackmail, so I'm afraid I let it pass. He has had his moments, but few of them are recent and there are times when I think he should have retreated into obscurity after Ferris Buehler.

Today's toons were selected from the week's offerings at McClatchy DC, Cartoon Movement, Go Comics, Politico's Cartoon Gallery, Daryl Cagle's Political Cartoons, About.com, and other fine sources of toony goodness.

p3 Picks of the week: Mike Luckovich, Steve Breen, Walt Handlesman, Steve Kelley, Chan Lowe, Jim Morin, Rob Rogers, Jeff Stahler, Tom Toles, Signe Wilkinson, Darrin Bell, Matt Wuerker, Brian McFadden, and Monte Wolverton.

p3 Best of Show: Tim Eagan.

p3 Award for Best Adaptation From Another Medium (tie): Clay Jones, Mike Keefe, and Jack Ohman.

p3 Legion of Merit (with Citation for Waterboarding the Cat): Jeff Danziger.

p3 Croix de Guerre: Ted Rall.

p3 Certificate of Harmonic Toon Convergence: Gary Varvel and Glenn McCoy.

p3 World Toon Review: Patrick Chappatte (Switzerland), Giaccomo Cardelli (Italy), and Konstantino Tsanakis (Greece),

Ann Telnaes notes how close we are to the prediction by Sinclair Lewis. Or by Huey Long. Or somebody.

Mark Fiore points out (again) what should have been obvious (long ago): Terrorism depends, reliably, on the West – and especially the US, I'm sorry to say – to react like a drunk in a bar at 11:30pm on a Friday whose drink got sloshed when he was bumped by a stranger. But the correct response – or at least part of it – will never happen: Putting pressure on our partners in peace.

Tom Tomorrow gets to the satiric nubbin in panel five, but then it takes an ugly turn back toward reality in panel six.

Keith Knight is obviously tired of letting transitory fluff obscure the real issues.

Reuben Bolling presents, among other things, the continuing adventures of Percival Dunwoody, Idiot Time Traveler from 1909 – except this time there are more idiotic time travelers in play.

Red Meat's Bug-Eyed Earl resists a temptation, but not as awful a temptation as you might have expected.

The Comic Strip Curmudgeon notes the continuity problems of legacy strip madness. For the record, Blondie Boopadoop was a flapper of the Betty Boop era who improbably married Dagwood Bumstead, the son of a wealthy tycoon who thereupon cut his fly-haired son off without a penny, 

Comic Strip of the Day takes the day off from political cartooning. The results take a sharp turn toward pets and dessert pastries.

A thunder of jets in the open sky: This week marked the 56th anniversary of the Rocky and Bullwinkle franchise in 1959. Known for its great writing, surprising political satire, shameless puns, infinite bumpers, and dreadful animation, R&B was that generation's gold standard for Marketed to Children/Written for Adults television humor. Here's the story of Bullwinkle inadvertantly inventing rocket fuel from a family fudge cake recipe, the secret origins of Peabody and Sherman, and the story of Rapunzel like you've never heard it before.

The Modest Oregon Toon Block:

Ex-Oregonian Jack Ohman polls the donor base.

Allegedly Ex-Oregonian Jen Sorensen provides a handy guide to distinguish Us from Them.

Matt Bors watches as France once more endears itself to good Americans, and Americans endear themselves to . . . well, go ahead and guess.

Jesse Springer pulls back the curtain on Oregon's public records request laws:

Test your toon captioning super-powers at The New Yorker's weekly caption-the-cartoon contest. (Rules here.) And you can browse The New Yorker's cartoon gallery here.

The p3 Sunday Comics Read-Along: Pearls Before Swine, Doonesbury, Rhymes with Orange, Zits, Adam @ Home, Mutts, Over the Hedge, Get Fuzzy, Prince Valiant, Blondie, Bizarro, Mother Goose & Grimm, Rose is Rose, Luann, Hagar the Horrible, Pickles, Rubes, Grand Avenue, Freshly Squeezed, The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee, and Jumble.

Sunday morning toons: Yooge and Obviously Very Classy

If your cartoon used "political correctness" as a term of opprobrium, you have been played by the right and you didn't make the cut today (even if you're a cartoonist whose work we've been happy to feature before – you know who you are).

If you really think that throwaway coffee cups are an important part of the national conversation on anything except throwaway coffee cups, you missed the cut by a country mile. (If, on the other hand, you get the irony of complaining about that in the first place, you may very well have gotten one of the coveted p3 golden tickets today.)

If you regard the ISIS terror attacks in Paris on Friday as a great opportunity for the US (at least those parts of it that don't contain your friends and family) to get its war on, you didn't make the cut. At least in the old days, there was the assumption you'd at least be willing to buy war bonds (link goes to an image with a casual WWII-era racial slur; consider yourself warned). In fact, if your take on the Paris attacks is summarized in any of these, you didn't make the cut.

And no, that's not <air quotes>political correctness</air quotes>, nor is it censorship. Shush. (Nope. Not censorship either.)

Today's toons were selected, based on how they were polling in Iowa last week, from the offerings at McClatchy DC, Cartoon Movement, Go Comics, Politico's Cartoon Gallery, Daryl Cagle's Political Cartoons, About.com, and other fine sources of toony goodness.

p3 Picks of the week: Mike Luckovich, Clay Jones, Glenn McCoy, Jim Morin, Jeff Stahler, Signe Wilkinson, and Monte Wolverton.

p3 Best of Show: Chan Lowe.

p3 Legion of Merit: Darrin Bell, John Deering, Jerry Holbert, and especially Rick McKee.

p3 Award for Best Repurposing Of A Disturbing April 1976 National Lampoon Cover: Henry Payne.

p3 Award for Best Adaptation From Another Medium: Daryl Cagle

p3 "If You Think There Are Invisible Rats and Bugs on the Wall, You're Ray Milland in "The Lost Weekend," But If You Believe an Invisible Hand Guides All Markets Toward Optimal Outcomes, You're a University of Chicago Economist" Medal: Matt Weurker.

Today's p3 Certificate of Harmonic Toon Convergence will be presented by Comic Strip of the Day.

King Features Syndicate is celebrating its 100th birthday with a special comics insert for local newspapers. From Krazy Kat to Rhymes with Orange, Prince Valiant to Flash Gordon, from Popeye and Betty Boop to Hi and Lois, it's a fun historical tour. But you won't find it in today's Sunday Oregonian.

Ann Telnaes live-sketches last week's GOP presidential debate, and discovers the Jack Lemmon lurking inside of Jeb! Bush.

Mark Fiore wonders what planet climate-change deniers are living on.

Tom Tomorrow says it's all about the post debate ritual. And, of course, the "But Later."

Keith Knight reflects on a missed opportunity.

Reuben Bolling says, Have a nice day, Citizen! You have been warned!

Red Meat's Bug-Eyed Earl been hangin' out in the park all mornin'.

The Comic Strip Curmudgeon's Google search history will never be the same – and he has Snuffy Smith to thank.

Comic Strip of the Day reviews the immediate post-Paris options: sorrow and bluster.

Speaking of King Features, Popeye, and Betty Boop: He was already a hit in the comic pages when Popeye's first theatrical appearance (and Olive's, and Bluto's) got a kickstart from the already-established Betty Boop in the 1933 "Popeye the Sailor," directed by Dave Fleischer, with animation by Seymour Kneitel and Willard Bowsky. (Kneitel kept his animation and, later, directing duties all the way through the low-budget made-for-TV Popeye cartoons of the early 1960s.) Uncredited voice work by Billy Costello (Popeye), Bonnie Poe (la Boop and The Slender One), and William Pennell (Bluto).

The music department had a good time on this one: In addition to "Strike Up the Band (for Popeye the Sailor)," a shameless borrowing of the 19th century song "Strike Up the Band (Here Comes a Sailor)", this cartoon introduced the song that would eventually be Popeye's theme (loosely borrowed by songwriter Sammy Lerner from Gilbert and Sullivan and, if Wikipedia is to be believed, written in two hours), plus brief quotes from "The Sailor's Hornpipe," "The Volga Boatman" and "Bollocky Bill the Sailor," the latter of which was repurposed from an old and off-color 19th century drinking song into the theme for Bluto's role as Barnacle Bill the Sailor in the 1935 short "Beware of Barnacle Bill."

There are occasional internet references to this short as having been "banned," which is a bit of a stretcher. The casual racism (consider yourself warned) of one scene and the hanging-by-a-thread quality of Betty's lei and grass-skirt hula wear did cause some TV stations to keep it off the air for a while after they were syndicated in the early 1950s (the sexy Boop performance was probably more of a problem at the time than the "darkie" sight gag, unfortunately; and of course the ritual violence against Olive wasn't a problem until much, much later).

The Yooge and Obviously Very Classy Oregon Toon Block:

Ex-Oregonian Jack Ohman made me laugh.

Possibly Ex-Oregonian Jen Sorensen has a dream, in which green M&Ms figure prominently.

Matt Bors explains that whole Syria thing. It'll definitely put your mind to rest. 

Jesse Springer captures the moment: While surveiling #BlackLivesMatter for potential threats to police – and that should have been enough to make somebody stop and rethink things, right there – Oregon's Department of Justice wound up targeting their own Director of Civil Rights. Well played, OR DOJ. Well played.

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

The p3 Sunday Comics Read-Along: Pearls Before Swine, Doonesbury, Rhymes with Orange, Zits, Adam @ Home, Mutts, Over the Hedge, Get Fuzzy, Prince Valiant, Blondie, Bizarro, Mother Goose & Grimm, Rose is Rose, Luann, Hagar the Horrible, Pickles, Rubes, Grand Avenue, Freshly Squeezed, The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee, and Jumble.

Shifty. Untrustable.

So this happened:

At the recent CPAC gathering, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a likely Republican presidential candidate, seemed to stumble on one of the basic facts of the Middle East. “The reason Obama hasn’t put in place a military strategy to defeat ISIS is because he doesn’t want to upset Iran,” the Florida Republican said.

Alas for Senator Rubio, Iran and ISIS are enemies. (Much like al Qaeda under bin Laden and Iraq under Saddam were , although that didn't stop the Cheney-Bush administration, did it?)

Still. Iraq, Iran, ISIS -- all four-letter adversaries beginning with "I." You know who's next, don't you?

Ikea.

I mean, seriously -- what's the deal with those sneaky Swedes?

Winifred Ames: What have they done to us?

Conrad 'Connie' Brean: What have they done for us? What do you know about them?

Winifred Ames: Nothing.

Conrad 'Connie' Brean: See? They keep to themselves. Shifty. Untrustable.

Quote of the day: They end in blood, always

This is the mass, unbridled, brainless Id of the barbarian at war with modernity in all its expressions. This is where anti-science leads, where a contempt for education leads, where the suppression of women leads, where marrying political fanaticism to religious fervor almost always leads. This is where theocracy brings us, over and over again. In 1572, in Paris, on St. Bartholomew's Day, 3000 French Huguenot Protestants were butchered by Catholic mobs. (The death toll throughout France is thought to have been over 70,000.) None of this is new. It rises from the same foul ground it always has. This is why Mr. Madison believed that the adoption of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire by Constantine to be one of the worst things that ever happened to both religion and government. Official religions end in blood, always. That's why we don't have one here.

- Charlie Pierce on the Charlie Hebdo murders this week, and the animating forces behind it. (But wait – "almost always," Mr. Pierce? Marrying political fanaticism to religious fervor almost always leads to this kind of mindless self-righteous bloodletting? How did that adverb get in there?)

For a look at the bloodthirsty delight over at Fox News, read Steve M.

For a know-your-terrorist-sympathizers pop quiz, read John Cole.

‘6079 Smith W.! Yes, YOU! Bend lower, please! You can do better than that.'

Well, this is interesting.

I was trying to find out what local cinemas would be showing Citizenfour, the documentary about NSA whistleblower-on-the-run Edward Snowden, so I plugged the film name and a ZIP Code into Google.

The first four hits were showtime pages for area theaters.

Take a look at the fifth one.

Title quote source, as if you didn't know.

Oh, who's kidding whom?

Since the school shooting in Troutdale this morning, this image has started cropping up on my Facebook feed.

For a moment I considered shopping a version that said "There'll be more" – because of course there will be – and putting it up, but I wasn't in the mood to be pointlessly right at a moment like this.

So I'll just share this observation by Charlie Pierce:

"The ego of the disgruntled must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of students."

We live in a sick, sad country.

Forty-four years

There'll be more to say about the whole misguided affection for "a well-regulated militia" -- in whose present and most popular American self-proclaimed incarnation is neither a militia nor anything remotely resembling well-regulated.

Let's just let it stand for now at this: If this is what a well-regulated militia could accomplish in 1970, we should be damned well afraid of the uninformed Second Amendment fetishists running around out there in camo at the moment.

Breakfast

I was fixing breakfast (I'm on the west coast) when NPR gave me the news that the first tower had been hit.

Quote of the day: Conjuring words

How in the world do they convince themselves that they can assume this power and that we would be any better at handling it than the East Germans were? Because we insert the right democratic conjuring words into our statutes and then ignore them?

- Charlie Pierce, expressing some doubts that the secret FISA courts are (1) even remotely transparent or (b) a meaningful check on government spying rather than a captured pawn in that very process.

A quantum of umbrage: Our sick sad country

The free market in action:

NRA member Timothy Campbell of Dallas, Texas, says he has called Boston and MIT police departments over a dozen times since the murder of an MIT police officer last Thursday, but neither department has been willing to release the exact brands and models of guns used. While many cite fears that guns like the ones used in acts of terrorism or mass murder will be targeted for stricter regulation or even banning by the government, Campbell, an avid gun collector, says he recognizes that the odds that access to such weapons would be restricted are "essentially zero," he still is eager to purchase the guns as soon as the Tsarnaev weapons are identified. "I don't really know why I want to own them so bad," he said during an interview conducted this morning. "I guess it's probably a penis thing."

Gee, Tim. You think?

And here's the reason that the arms industry doesn't want to prevent mass shootings: they're good for business.

An executive with a prominent gun manufacturer said that having one of a company's guns used in an incident of mass murder or terrorism can represent a substantial boon to profits.

Oh, yeah -- and all those munitions-manufacturing corporations that are profiting off the carnage -- that are in fact building the carnage into their business model? A majority of the Supreme Court says they're people.

Quote of the day: Infiltration

We know that people are now being trained to come in and act like Hispanics when they’re radical Islamists.

- Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Of Course TX-Naturally), linking the Boston bombing to two of his most cherished fever-dreams: Islamic terrorism and immigration.

Don't laugh; after all, we know that somewhere in Texas they're now training ignorant, racist peckerwoods to come in and act like United States Congressmen.

Quote of the day: The living definition

A federal prosecutor leaves a case because he's afraid he and his family might be shot. That is the living definition of terrorism. Where's Liz Cheney?

-Charles Pierce on the great, big, honking ugly secret that no one on the right, no one in the media, and certainly no one in the gun industry wants us to think about: We've got far more to worry about, terrorism-wise, from extremely well-armed home-grown white supremacists than we do from any Muslims with exploding shoes.

Welcome to the back seat

When I watched the news footage of the two armed men strolling down the sidewalk in the Sellwood neighborhood of Portland with loaded semi-automatic rifles slung over their shoulders, there was something oddly  . . . familiar about the scene. The two men claimed they were hoping to invite a dialogue about Second Amendment rights, and professed surprise and disappointment that the local residents, shoppers, and storekeepers were heading for cover and frantically dialing 9-1-1.

David Neiwert put paid to that silly self-justification in short order. But still -- what was it about the whole scene that seemed so recognizable, from another context?

Then I read Saturday's story of the Utah man who walked into a local J. C. Penney's with an unloaded semi-automatic rifle and a Glock which he generally carries, he said, against the appearance of  ”“criminals, cartels, drug lords' and other 'evil men'” -- all widely known to frequent the customer service counter at Penney's. (The idea that some people might consider someone who brings firearms into a department store to be an “evil man” himself apparently didn't occur to him.) Once again, the man claimed his purpose was to educate Penney's shoppers about the safety of firearms in the right hands.

This time I remembered. It generally goes something like this:

The family has been driving for a couple of hours, Mom and Dad in the front, little Johnnie and his younger sister Susie buckled up in the back.

Bored, looking for attention, looking for a way to torment his sister, Johnnie starts holding his finger about an inch in front of her face.

“Mom! Make Johnnie stop!”

“I'm not touching her!”

“Johnnie, stop bothering your sister.”

“But I'm not touching her!


Let's see: Childish, deliberately provocative, disingenuous, self-righteous . . . check, check, check, and check.

But at least little Johnnie wasn't packing.

Quote of the day: Shared dread

[Y]ou don't have to wear a Reynolds Wrap fedora to wonder whether or not the government cracked down on Aaron Swartz because some of America's giants of industry were fearful that they might be next after JSTOR. When the government and the corporate world share a dread over something the rest of us value, and they act in concert against it, then very bad things can happen to self-governing republics.

- Charles Pierce, reflecting on the first of two lessons that might be learned from the scandalous and tragic government prosecution of Aaron Swartz, leading to his death by suicide in custody last week at age 26.

Thought for the day:

If al Qaeda had attacked us on July 11th, 2001, instead of September 11th, not only could they have stampeded us into giving up many of our fundamental freedoms in exchange for a false sense of national security, they could have driven out of America the world's largest operator, franchisor and licensor of convenience stores -- whose trademarked motto is, significantly, "Oh thank Heaven."

A quantum of umbrage: The company they keep

At least this Navy SEAL can claim membership in an even more elite group -- people doing highly secret work for the U.S. government who were outed by a shameless media hack simply as an exercise in conservative payback.

The only other member is Valerie Plame.

Refresh my memory -- Is this sort of thing even a crime anymore?

Fitting the punishment to the crime

Long-time p3 correspondent Doctor Beyond recently sent me a link to this story:

German court finds former Nazi guard guilty of 27,900 deaths

Munich, May 12 (IANS/RIA Novosti) A court in Munich Thursday found 91-year-old Ukraine-born Ivan Demjanjuk guilty of helping to kill at least 27,900 Jews at a Nazi extermination camp in 1943.

Demjanjuk was drafted into the Soviet army in 1940 and was serving in eastern Crimea in 1942 when he was captured by the Germans. He was then inducted as a guard at the Sobibor concentration camp in occupied Poland.

Prosecutors said Demjanjuk was involved in the murders of at least 27,900 Jews at the camp between March and September 1943.

Demjanjuk was deported from the US to Israel in 1986 to face allegations that he had served as a camp guard nicknamed ‘Ivan the Terrible’ at the Treblinka death camp. However, this accusation could not be proven.

The Munich trial began in November 2009. Demjanjuk attended the 18-month court proceedings in a wheelchair and sometimes lying down, with his family trying to argue that he was too infirm to stand trial.

The court Thursday sentenced him to five years in prison.

Dr. B added this comment:

"I would love to know the thinking behind this sentencing. On one hand, it seems way too lenient, and on the other it seems completely futile."

Indeed: Five years for 27,900 deaths works out to about one day in prison for every 15 deaths he helped bring about -- and that's assuming the 91-year-old Demjanjuk survives five more years.

I remember when the contested deportation for trial from the US to Israel made it a newsworthy story here (the "Ivan the Terrible" nickname helped attract media notice).

My sense is that Germany's efforts to distance itself from the Nazi years, while sincerely meant, are nevertheless doomed to produce absurdities like this.

For another example: German law makes it a crime to deny that the Holocaust took place. No person with a functioning moral compass can fail to sympathize, but that law really is the reductio ad absurdum of speech-control laws. Can you imagine how empty the streets in America would be if we could arrest people for saying something that everyone knows is factually and historically incorrect? (Let alone what it would be like if we could arrest people for saying something that everyone merely "knows" is factually and historically incorrect?) Even if it was something of astonishing malice or cruelty?

So yes, I sympathize with Germans' feelings about their 20th century history, and I'm also glad it continues to bother them so much; and I certainly have no sympathy for Demjanjuk, who by everything I've read is still an ugly piece of work even if he'd been innocent of all those deaths. But this does make German law look a little foolish.

What Demjanjuk did was horrible. The fact that he's still alive and apparently unrepentant (or was, in articles I read at the time of his extradition) makes it all feel even worse, of course. The usual justifications for the death penalty hardly work here (to deter other Nazi death camp workers in the future?). But the fact is that we probably can't create laws that will deal appropriately with someone who would participate in the killing of 27,900 human beings.

Or, for that matter, someone who would orchestrate the killing of 2977 human beings -- which brings us to the assassination of Osama bin Ladin. I'm not a fan of presidential power to order killings, and I'm in favor of putting captured terrorists on trial on US soil, But I suppose you can reach a point where there really are some crimes that you just can't design a punishment to fit.