While there are other topics we could talk about today - like the 2012 GOP candidates stepping all over each other, and themselves, in New Hampshire, we think the most valuable subject we could talk about today is one of our favorites: cartoons.
This weekend, there will be three different events for you, our readers, to get out and see in different places around the country - and all of them are related to cartoons and cartooning.
If you're in the Midwest, near Lincoln, we invite you to stop by this evening (Friday) at the Haydon Gallery in the Haymarket, to meet Paul face-to-face - along with four other troublemakers cartoonist friends of ours. The event is a fund-raiser called "A Toon For Meadowlark," to help raise funds for the Meadowlark Music Festival.
The cartoonists are legends, and include our own Paul Fell; Mike Edholm, our current President of the North Central Chapter of the National Cartoonists Society; John Hambrock, of The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee; Milt Prigee, whose work has been seen in Time, Newsweek, U.S. News & World Report, The New York Times, and Washington Post; and Tom Richmond of Mad Magazine.
You'll be able to meet the cartoonists, buy some of their works, and talk with them beginning at 5:30 tonight.
If you're going to be in the Southeast or Mid-Atlantic regions this weekend, you may want to take a road trip to a comic art convention called HeroesCon, happening in Charlotte, North Carolina. Our friend Eric Menge (who also happens to be the husband of our editor, Amy) writes an online graphic novel called Snow by Night. He and his cartooist/artist Brittany will be there to promote their graphic novel, sell copies of Chapter 1, and meet with fans. If you go, they'll be at table SP-45. Stop by and say h, and check out Snow by Night in hard-copy form!
If you're near our West Palm Beach offices, we recommend stopping by the Norton Museum of Art, to check out the "Out of This World" exhibit beginning this Saturday. The exhibit will feature costumes, pictures, comic artwork, and related items from such entertainment and comics legends as Star Trek and Batman (and now we all know who Tom Richmond loaned his Batman costume to).
As most people know, we love comics and cartooning - so we're glad we get to share these opportunities to meet some of our favorite cartoonists this weekend. Remember - without cartoon art, you'd likely have to sit around and watch news clips and pictures of pretend Presidential candidates steal the media spotlight from actual announced candidates.
We shudder to think of what a horrible world that would be.
No matter where you go this weekend, we hope you enjoy some cartooning - even if it's just the characters on a cereal box.
Friday, June 3, 2011
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Time's Up
Since the Great Recession began in 2008 (under President Bush), we've been saying, ever more intensely, many of the same things the wisest minds in economics have been saying: that the U.S. government needs to do more, not less, to help the economy recover. That we should bring back a WPA-like program. That American corporations are NOT paying an effective tax rate that's too high; rather, they're paying an effective rate that's too low.
We have warned countless times that if the idiots in the great American masses didn't wise up and quit voting against their own best interests, America would hit another economic wall, sooner rather than later.
On Wednesday, we were sadly proven right once again.
As early jobs-related numbers rolled out on Wednesday and manufacturing orders and other economic data began rolling in, it was clear that the economic numbers were going to take another hit - and they did. Don't expect the news to get better the next few days, as the official numbers for job creation, unemployment, and other economic news are released.
While specific, accurate, long-term economic forecasting is FAR more complicated than most people on Earth can even imagine, the generalities of economics are not all that complicated. Yes, it IS about supply and demand, as many Americans often say. But the problem isn't the supply, or even the potential supply.
There are millions of Americans who would love to have a job - and even more who would love to have just one job. These are mostly educated, experienced, well-trained, skilled workers, who have been ignored and overlooked, as businesses and corporations of all sizes keep searching for something that doesn't exist - the perfect worker, who is willing and happy to become a slave.
We have far more supply than we can use in America right now - and not just of workers.
What we don't have right now is demand.
When millions of Americans are one illness, one car wreck or one natural disaster away from complete economic ruin, spending an extra ten or twenty dollars each month isn't even a possibility. That inability to spend drives demand down - which just reinforces the downward economic spiral.
The fact is, one percent of the world's households hold nearly forty percent of the world's wealth. Historically, that kind of imbalance only leads to one place - war, which tends to level the playing field in the short term, usually starting with the violent deaths of the wealthy and ending with the starvation deaths of the poor.
This shouldn't be news to you. We've told you this before.
In the face of this screaming economic siren, however, our politicians in Washington DC - from both parties - saw fit this week to waste more time, money, and energy holding a fake vote that could pull the final support out from under the entire world economic system.
Since they won't do anything - or even say what needs to be said - we will.
It is time to stop using false equivalences. It is time to stop finding excuses not to act. It is time to stop being afraid we might anger someone if we DO something to get ourselves out of this economic disaster. If corporations threaten to leave because we're going to make them pay a more fair effective tax rate? Let them follow through. If we need to raise taxes on the rich? Do it. Taxes were higher under Ronald Reagan than they are now, and America's upper class and corporations did just fine then.
It is time to do what needs to be done for our country and its people, to help them make progress on their lives, above all else.
If there is any one lesson from the piles of numbers coming out, that should be it.
Time's up. The time to debate is over. It's time to move on - and act. Now.
We have warned countless times that if the idiots in the great American masses didn't wise up and quit voting against their own best interests, America would hit another economic wall, sooner rather than later.
On Wednesday, we were sadly proven right once again.
As early jobs-related numbers rolled out on Wednesday and manufacturing orders and other economic data began rolling in, it was clear that the economic numbers were going to take another hit - and they did. Don't expect the news to get better the next few days, as the official numbers for job creation, unemployment, and other economic news are released.
While specific, accurate, long-term economic forecasting is FAR more complicated than most people on Earth can even imagine, the generalities of economics are not all that complicated. Yes, it IS about supply and demand, as many Americans often say. But the problem isn't the supply, or even the potential supply.
There are millions of Americans who would love to have a job - and even more who would love to have just one job. These are mostly educated, experienced, well-trained, skilled workers, who have been ignored and overlooked, as businesses and corporations of all sizes keep searching for something that doesn't exist - the perfect worker, who is willing and happy to become a slave.
We have far more supply than we can use in America right now - and not just of workers.
What we don't have right now is demand.
When millions of Americans are one illness, one car wreck or one natural disaster away from complete economic ruin, spending an extra ten or twenty dollars each month isn't even a possibility. That inability to spend drives demand down - which just reinforces the downward economic spiral.
The fact is, one percent of the world's households hold nearly forty percent of the world's wealth. Historically, that kind of imbalance only leads to one place - war, which tends to level the playing field in the short term, usually starting with the violent deaths of the wealthy and ending with the starvation deaths of the poor.
This shouldn't be news to you. We've told you this before.
In the face of this screaming economic siren, however, our politicians in Washington DC - from both parties - saw fit this week to waste more time, money, and energy holding a fake vote that could pull the final support out from under the entire world economic system.
Since they won't do anything - or even say what needs to be said - we will.
It is time to stop using false equivalences. It is time to stop finding excuses not to act. It is time to stop being afraid we might anger someone if we DO something to get ourselves out of this economic disaster. If corporations threaten to leave because we're going to make them pay a more fair effective tax rate? Let them follow through. If we need to raise taxes on the rich? Do it. Taxes were higher under Ronald Reagan than they are now, and America's upper class and corporations did just fine then.
It is time to do what needs to be done for our country and its people, to help them make progress on their lives, above all else.
If there is any one lesson from the piles of numbers coming out, that should be it.
Time's up. The time to debate is over. It's time to move on - and act. Now.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Burning Question
Since we're now past Memorial Day, the traditional start to summer has begun - and the city of Lincoln began heating things up by having most of the Lincoln Public Schools District Office burn to the ground Monday night.
That massive fire wasn't the only subject that crossed our minds today.
The harsh rebuke of the Republican Party from Bruce Barlett, former top advisor to both President Reagan and President Bush (the elder), was a burn of an entirely different kind, one that we did not expect. We've also got a burning desire to dig back into the debt ceiling battle - which turned an even scarier corner last night, after the GOP-led House of Representatives' bit of overheated political theatre.
Our focus today, though, is on the many people in our hometown, Lincoln,NE, who are focused on the aftereffects of that devastating fire at the LPS Administrative office.
As we've mentioned on occasion, one of our own, web guru Shawn, experienced a similar fire disaster three years ago this July - so he knows what many of those who worked in that building may be going through.
Right now, the people who worked there - and everyone who worked in any school in the area - are feeling a mix of emotions. Loss, regret, sadness, and worry are just a few of the emotions that many Lincoln teachers, secretaries, and administrative staff are likely dealing with today.
The burning question those victims are asking themselves - and probably others - is one that no one can answer with absolute clarity. Having been through a similar experience, however, we can give some advice, as a good friend gave to our staffer when disaster happened to him.
That burning question is just this: When will things get back to normal?
It takes time, hope, and the support and help of friends and neighbors, to get past any major disaster, including a fire like the one Lincoln experienced. Like it or not, it also takes money and a willingness to work together for the common good of everyone affected by the disaster.
We hope that Lincolnites take the attitude of combined sacrifice and community effort to work together to recover from this disaster, and not adopt the attitude displayed recently by GOP house Majority Leader Eric Cantor, that emergencies shouldn't be treated like emergencies.
That attitude, that we are each part of an "own"-ership society - where each of us are on our own - is the one ingredient that anyone attempting to recover from disaster doesn't need. It turns most hope to hate - and it makes recovery take much longer.
We don't know when things will get back to normal for Lincoln's school workers, any more than we know how long it will take for the people living in Joplin, Missouri, those recovering from the tornadoes in Alabama, or those affected by the floods along the Missouri and Missippi.
What we do know is that if you know any of those folks affected, we hope you reach out to them. Offer help - even if it's just a few moments of your time to let them vent about their frustrations.
Let them know they are not alone.
That's the first step to getting back to normal.
That massive fire wasn't the only subject that crossed our minds today.
The harsh rebuke of the Republican Party from Bruce Barlett, former top advisor to both President Reagan and President Bush (the elder), was a burn of an entirely different kind, one that we did not expect. We've also got a burning desire to dig back into the debt ceiling battle - which turned an even scarier corner last night, after the GOP-led House of Representatives' bit of overheated political theatre.
Our focus today, though, is on the many people in our hometown, Lincoln,NE, who are focused on the aftereffects of that devastating fire at the LPS Administrative office.
As we've mentioned on occasion, one of our own, web guru Shawn, experienced a similar fire disaster three years ago this July - so he knows what many of those who worked in that building may be going through.
Right now, the people who worked there - and everyone who worked in any school in the area - are feeling a mix of emotions. Loss, regret, sadness, and worry are just a few of the emotions that many Lincoln teachers, secretaries, and administrative staff are likely dealing with today.
The burning question those victims are asking themselves - and probably others - is one that no one can answer with absolute clarity. Having been through a similar experience, however, we can give some advice, as a good friend gave to our staffer when disaster happened to him.
That burning question is just this: When will things get back to normal?
It takes time, hope, and the support and help of friends and neighbors, to get past any major disaster, including a fire like the one Lincoln experienced. Like it or not, it also takes money and a willingness to work together for the common good of everyone affected by the disaster.
We hope that Lincolnites take the attitude of combined sacrifice and community effort to work together to recover from this disaster, and not adopt the attitude displayed recently by GOP house Majority Leader Eric Cantor, that emergencies shouldn't be treated like emergencies.
That attitude, that we are each part of an "own"-ership society - where each of us are on our own - is the one ingredient that anyone attempting to recover from disaster doesn't need. It turns most hope to hate - and it makes recovery take much longer.
We don't know when things will get back to normal for Lincoln's school workers, any more than we know how long it will take for the people living in Joplin, Missouri, those recovering from the tornadoes in Alabama, or those affected by the floods along the Missouri and Missippi.
What we do know is that if you know any of those folks affected, we hope you reach out to them. Offer help - even if it's just a few moments of your time to let them vent about their frustrations.
Let them know they are not alone.
That's the first step to getting back to normal.
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