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Saturday, February 23, 2002
Redistributing the wealth Tribeca, for the vast majority of you who do not live in New York, is the area immediately north of the World Trade Center site. I had a wonderful loft workspace in the neighborhood for awhile, which I was only able to afford because it was an illegal sublet. (This is also why I eventually got the boot and had to move, at the same time that I was deep in an animation project and trying to plan for my then-imminent wedding. It was a hassle at the time, though in retrospect, I can't say I'm sorry it happened this way. ) Anyway, to get to the point, Tribeca--the occasional random cartoonist aside-- is a high-income neighborhood full of very expensive lofts. We are not talking about people who live hand to mouth here. But according to this article in The New Yorker's Talk of the Town section (and I'm not sure how long that link will be good, so apologies in advance if it's broken), the Red Cross has been canvassing Tribeca, trying desperately to pass along the contributions of millions of Americans to the residents of what may be one of the wealthiest urban neighborhoods in America. (Or it may not. I don't have any statistics here. I'm just guessing, and as always, I could be wrong™.) The writer describes the scene in the lobby of a building full of "expensive duplexes," in which the Red Cross has set up card tables: In the lobby, meanwhile, the building's residents were getting punchy. They just looked at one another and laughed. One man smirked and said, "Sub-Zero." A woman thought that she might donate twenty, maybe twenty-five, per cent of the proceeds to an organization that supports rescue dogs. A week later, a first installment had arrived, by Federal Express, but she was expecting more. "I want that money," she said. "I She did not love the idea enough, however, to redirect all the funds. "I'm trying to get extra therapy sessions out of it," she said. The Red Cross had told her that if she'd been traumatized in some way by the events of September 11th it would reimburse her for psychiatric treatment. "I gave a form to my analyst, for her to sign. She was very clear: she'd fill out a form, but she wouldn't lie." Her particular September 11th I'm sorry, but this is appalling. I'd be willing to bet that most of the people who opened their checkbooks and responded with such overwhelming generosity in the immediate aftermath of that terrible day--I'd bet they earn, if they're lucky, maybe one fourth as much as the average Tribeca resident. And somehow I don't think that buying some yuppie a Sub-Zero is quite what they had in mind.
The mailbag, once again Dean Taylor provides this perspective concerning my earlier post about John Ashcroft and Christianity: Please hear me out - I am not a "Jesus freak", and am not denouncing you for stating that our freedoms aren't a "gift from the Almighty Gawd". Indeed, I am an atheist, and would agree that God, should he exist, plays little or no part in government, and that church and state are two entities that should be kept distinct and seperate. What I take issue with is your implication that our rights and freedoms are _granted_ to us by the Constitution - that our government, in its wisdom and decency, has decided to _allow_ us to be free. Washington, Jefferson, Adams and Madison would achieve enough spin in their graves to power the Western Hemisphere if such were accepted as the truth. In fact, the Founding Fathers based much of their philosophy of government on the writings of John Locke, who believed that mankind was free and equal to each other _by nature_, not by decree of any government, whether "of the people" or not. Now, the Founding Fathers may not have been Orthodox Christians, but they did believe in God, and therefore, that we owed our natures, and thus those freedoms, to God. Indeed, the Declaration of Independence states that "we are endowed _by our Creator_ with... unalienable rights". As I am not a Christian, I cannot agree with their beliefs on the source of our freedoms, but I do believe in their existence, and would even if the US Constitution was amended to take them away. According to Locke, people create governments, not to "give" them freedom, but to _protect_ the freedom they naturally posess. It cannot "give" us our rights, any more than it can take them from us.
A couple from Cursor.org The downside of those $300 tax rebate checks explained here. And here we learn that Enron apparently maintained a Potemkin trading floor, described by a former employee as "an elaborate Hollywood production," in order to convince analysts that business was booming. They would build out the sixth floor of 1000 Smith in what I called a Hollywood set," Elkin said. "They would build out a set with a big, 36-inch flat panel screens and the teleconference conference rooms." Elkin said that it was all an act, and that no trades were actually made there. The people on the phones were talking to each other. "They would ask us to go alternately, in like hour shifts down to the sixth floor," Elkin said. "And sit and pretend that we lived and worked there." You just can't make stuff like that up. -------------------- Thursday, February 21, 2002
Service with a simile Requests for more information about the Founding Fathers and their opinion toward Christianity have been pouring in like, um, rain through a leaky church roof. Or something. Anyway, here's a link from reader Brad Nasman, who has a search engine and isn't afraid to use it.
Fuzzy math Alert reader John Hart sends this link. Apparently the Pentagon--that model of fiscal responsibility which has, of late, taken to tossing hundred dollar bills out of planes over the skies of southern Afghanistan, and to whom taxpayers will be giving an additional $48 billion this year--has misplaced 2.3 trillion dollars, which amounts to $8,000 for every man, woman and child in this country. Twenty years ago, Department of Defense Analyst Franklin C. Spinney made headlines exposing what he calls the "accounting games." He's still there, and although he does not speak for the Pentagon, he believes the problem has gotten worse. "Those numbers are pie in the sky. The books are cooked routinely year after year," he said. Another critic of Pentagon waste, Retired Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan, commanded the Navy's 2nd Fleet the first time Donald Rumsfeld served as Defense Secretary, in 1976. In his opinion, "With good financial oversight we could find $48 billion in loose change in that building, without having to hit the taxpayers." What could you do with an extra $8,000 in your pocket? (Not to mention another $8,000 on top of that for every member of your family?) Kind of makes those $300 rebate checks pale by comparison, doesn't it? -------------------- Wednesday, February 20, 2002
Your wish--my command In response to several requests for a link to the source of the Ashcroft quote.
Not entirely sure what to make of this  There are some truly disturbing images posted here. (Update: link appears to be dead now. Sorry--you'll just have to enjoy this one for the time being.)
It just makes your head hurt Civilized people--Muslims, Christians and Jews--all understand that the source of freedom and human dignity is the Creator. Civilized people of all religious faiths are called to the defense of His creation. We are a nation called to defend freedom--a freedom that is not the grant of any government or document, but is our endowment from God. So sayeth John Ashcroft yesterday, and so this blog continues to wander deeper into the thorny thicket of church and state. Think about this: the Attorney General of the United States of America has publicly declared that the freedom of our nation is not derived from the Constitution, the work of that group of Deists and freethinkers who gathered one sweltering Philadelphia summer to lay the cornerstone of a government based on the rule of law --but is, rather, a miraculous blessing bestowed upon us by some supernatural entity. In a sane world, that statement alone would be grounds for impeachment. Ashcroft is also clearly making an attempt here to give lip service to religious tolerance--of course we all believe in a Supreme Being, we all just worship Him in our own special way. Just makes you want to join hands and sing Kumbaya, doesn't it? It's all nonsense, of course. Ashcroft is a Pentacostalist, who believes that anyone who has not accepted Jesus Christ as his or her personal Lord and Savior is condemned to the fiery pits of hell, to suffer pain and torment and bad cable reception for all eternity. (I may have some of the specifics wrong, but you get the general idea.) His beliefs are certainly more accurately represented by a statement he made to conservative columnist Cal Thomas: "Islam is a religion in which God requires you to send your son to die for him. Christianity is a faith in which God sends his son to die for you." He later denied saying this, but come on--Cal Thomas is a die-hard Republican, who most likely reported the quote because he agreed with it. What possible motive would he have for making something like that up?  Look, I wish this stuff didn't have to come up. Organized religion isn't my cup of tea, but if it helps you find solace in an uncertain world, more power to you. The quest for spiritual understanding is as old as human history, and I would not be so arrogant as to issue a blanket condemnation of anyone who's ever tried to put the larger questions of the universe into some comprehensible form. Just keep your religion away from our laws, and we'll all get along just fine. Unfortunately, when you believe that an omniscient Creator has chosen to reveal to you, in all your specialness, the One True Way--and extraordinarily enough, that One True Way happens to dovetail neatly with your own lunkheaded political philosophy--well, you just can't keep something like that to yourself, can you? When everyone who disagrees with you could be saved from the lakes of fire and bad cable reception and so on if only you could change their minds, by any means necessary-- --well, that kind of thinking got us where we are today, didn't it?
-------------------- Tuesday, February 19, 2002
More from our friend Justin Under the subject line "Some education for you," Justin sent me an article by conservative economist Lawrence Kudlow, which is fair enough--Reaganite propaganda is unlikely to sway me, but I do prefer the exchange of ideas to generalized accusations of treason and ungodliness. At the same time, I downloaded an email from a reader who sent along these quotes: "The United States is in no sense founded upon the Christian Doctrine." - George Washington "I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature." - Thomas Jefferson "The Bible is not my book, and Christianity is not my religion. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma." - Abraham Lincoln And--oh, gosh, I should really try to exercise more self control, but there the two messages were, sitting side by side in the inbox , and while I know from long experience that getting sucked into email exchanges with people like Justin is a losing game, I just couldn't resist forwarding them on to him. This is the complete text of his near-instantaneous reply: Have fun in hell. Boy, do these guys know how to win a debate or what? * * * There's another Lincoln quote that seems applicable here as well: When the Know-Nothings get control, it [the Declaration of Independence] will read: "All men are created equal except negroes, foreigners and Catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some countrywhere they make no pretense of loving liberty -- to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure,and without the base alloy of hypocrisy. They sure don't make Republicans like that anymore. -------------------- Monday, February 18, 2002
More on ignorance Reader Eric Perlin picks up the ball and runs with it: Yes, that e-mail from Justin Milauckas contained a lot of ignorant statements, including one glaring one you neglected to address: Its our forefather's belief in God This is a popular view among many conservatives, but it is historical revisionism. The reality is that the founders of this country were NOT a bunch of Jesus freaks. For a detailed analysis of the religious beliefs of America's founders, you can go to this link: www.thehappyheretic.com/11-97.htm When you hear anyone claim that Washington, Jefferson, or Ben Franklin were Christians, ask them to cite just ONE document in which any of those guys proclaimed their faith in Jesus. Using the words "our creator" in the Declaration of Independence is the closest thing these right wing historical
Cloning cats  God knows, this is just what we need--a new, improved way to produce even more cats. What'll those darned scientists think of next?
Quit bashing my country or leave That was the subject line on the following email, from Justin Milauckas: You are either an atheist or ignorant... I saw your cartoon for the first time. Mocking Bush obviously shows your position. It's people like Bush who are trying to re-build our morality in this country, and yes, using God as a basis. You know, that spirit our country was founded on. Do some research pal. Its our forefather's belief in God and following him is what made this country great. And people like you, and Clinton, whom I'm sure you support, are the ones tearing it down. And you can be true as a liberal, and post this wherever you see it benefits yourself... There's so much wrongheadedness packed into that one small paragraph, it's hard to know where to start. With the notion that atheism is the equivalent of ignorance? The very fact that atheism and God are being brought up in reference to an Enron cartoon? The irony of someone who has no idea how I felt about Clinton--who's seen exactly one of my cartoons and clearly couldn't be bothered to click the Cartoon Archive button and read a few more--telling me to "do some research"? And then there's the suggestion that it is uncceptable to mock an American president, followed quickly by a derogatory reference to the last elected president. Not to mention the idea that a president who will not discuss things he may or may not have done before he reached adulthood at the age of forty is an exemplar of morality we should all strive to emulate. But the most important point is in the subject line: quit bashing my country or leave. It's his country, folks, you just live here, and you'd better start behaving yourselves. It's a sentiment reflected in that Ann Coulter quote that's been making the rounds lately: "We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed too. Otherwise they will turn out to be outright traitors." Leaving the perverse correlation of the Taliban and liberalism for another time, the funny thing about this is that more than half the voting public cast their ballots for Al Gore in the last election, and if you add Nader voters into that, it's pretty clear that the majority of politically-sentient American citizens fall somewhere along the moderate-liberal to radical-left spectrum. There are, god knows, enormous differences of opinion within that spectrum, but if (like Justin and Ann) you want to divide the American people along the simplest possible ideological lines, there's no getting around it: we are the majority. And I don't know about you, but I'm getting damn sick and tired of being treated like some sort of interloper in my own home. But hey, you have to give Justin credit for writing. Ever since I posted the accountability notice above my email address (in short, if you're not willing to stand behind your words publicly, don't write me, because you have no expectation of anonymity here), mail from conservatives has dropped off by maybe ninety percent. You can draw your own conclusions from that.
Remain calm I know, there's no new cartoon posted on Salon today. That's because today's a holiday. They'll probably put it up tomorrow morning.
A quickie A couple of interesting items (which, to give credit where due, I found through the always-useful Cursor site): --The myth of America's red vs. blue electoral map deconstructed. It is therefore necessary to replace that artificial red-blue map that was obtained by rounding 49% down to zero and 50% to one hundred by a more accurate map that reflects how the voters actually voted. I have created such a map by simply mixing red, blue and green for each state, with the ratios equal to the percentage that Bush, Gore and Nader received in the 2000 election. (Turns out the country's mostly purple.) --The Smoking Gun posts pages and pages of letters and notes between George W. Bush and Ken Lay. No real surprises, just the average voluminous correspondence of two guys who hardly even know each other. --------------------
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