There are a whole host of reasons why everyone on our staff enjoys both weekends and traveling, but one of the most important reasons is when we get to combine the two so that we can see our family, whatever that means these days.
This weekend, some of our extended cartooning family will be conveniently located near the Mall of America, in Minneapolis, for the Fall meeting of the North Central Chapter of The National Cartoonists Society. Another part of our family will be in Washington, DC, where the official dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial will be happening.
We're willing to bet that - like us - you've also got some friends you've known so long and so well that they're more like family than anything else. If the crazy stories you have from spending time with your "chosen family" are anything like the stories we have, we imagine that your tales are filled with laughter, love - and things you can't actually publish if you'd ever hope to get another gig. [Bucky - we're lookin' at you.]
The family we choose in life is almost more important than that in which we've been brought up. These are the people we bring into our homes and lives - and this weekend, some of them are people we'll be sharing with you, our readers.
If you're lucky enough to be in the Minneapolis area this weekend, we invite you to come out and see some of our family at the Midwest Comic Book Association FallCon. Stephan Pastis of "Pearls Before Swine", John Hambrock of 'The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee", Jerry Van Amerongen of "Ballard Street", as well our own wonderful editorial cartoonist, Paul Fell, will be there. Frankly, the entire membership of the North Central Tooners are incredibly talented people you might know - and we hope you get a chance to meet some of them this weekend.
If you're lucky enough to be in DC, the events around the Tidal Basin at the dedication of the MLK memorial should be beautiful, and include some folks you might also know, like Aretha Franklin, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rev. Al Sharpton, Vice President Biden, and a guy one of our staff members calls his old boss - although we'd recommend that you call him President Obama.
No matter where you are this weekend, we hope that you take a moment and give thanks for your family of all kinds, whether they're the ones who chose you, or they're the 'family' that you've chosen.
Sure, there may be members of your extended family that occasionally make you want to grab the duct tape, and "assist" them to be quiet.
Just remember - they're family, and in a shorter time than you know, you'll all be strewn to the four winds again, back in your own homes... and wishing you had more time to spend with them again.
We hope you will enjoy your weekend as much as we will.
Friday, October 14, 2011
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Dancing To The Wrong Tune
While the actions of the conservative mainstream shouldn't be too surprising to anyone anymore, the resistance by many on the political right to accept reality still has a way of shocking us.
Both the fact that the Occupy movement is still growing, and that its general reason for existence is legitimate are both facts we've seen, heard, and read and that most on the far right are attempting to stomp out.
For example, "Biden Warns of More Rapes and Murders If Jobs Bill Is Not Passed," a headline that screams from the conservative 'Weekly Standard' website, is a disgusting attempt to impugn Vice-President Joe Biden. The facts that the V.P. stated yesterday in Michigan aren't unusual. As the economy has worsened, Flint, Michigan's murder rate has climbed as the ranks of its law enforcement personnel have been reduced.
This isn't some wild-eyed statistic. Numbers like these, saying almost the exact same thing, have been common, factually-based knowledge for years.
When there are more people out of work, crime rates go up.
In a sane world, the goal of a normal society in an economic situation like the one currently facing the U.S. would be to do whatever is necessary to increase the number of jobs as fast as possible. Passing a bill which would directly create or save jobs in the public sector and encourage job creation in the private sector would be one rational choice.
Something, perhaps, like the American Jobs Act, proposed by President Obama.
In the U.S. Senate, however, legislators seem to have a different goal. In case you missed it, the U.S. Senate voted on the right to debate the President's bill this week - they weren't even voting on the actual Jobs bill, just the right to talk about the jobs bill - but Republicans effectively filibustered the discussion, so the bill went nowhere.
It's an obvious fact, Republicans don't want the economy to get better. Period. We're not going to beat around the bush about it any more. Far too many Republicans have become dangerous obstructionists, acting as though anything that's good for the President is bad for them. Cowardly centrist Democrats, like Montana's Jon Tester or Nebraska's Ben Nelson, enable those Republicans with wimpy behavior of their own. Nelson and Tester are obviously more concerned with saving their own jobs than they are with saving the jobs of their constituents and putting folks back to work.
Their actions, and the actions of any legislator who stands against a jobs bill right now seem counter-intuitive to us, since two thirds of Americans are in support of President Obama's jobs policies. Further, one of the key provisions of the President's bill - to make sure that the jobs projects are paid for - was to raise taxes on the richest Americans.
Sixty four percent of Americans agree with raising taxes on the rich - and that includes Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. Many of these people may still be out of work in 2012 - and they will certainly remember which Congresspersons stomped on a perfectly viable plan to help more Americans get jobs.
Both the fact that the Occupy movement is still growing, and that its general reason for existence is legitimate are both facts we've seen, heard, and read and that most on the far right are attempting to stomp out.
For example, "Biden Warns of More Rapes and Murders If Jobs Bill Is Not Passed," a headline that screams from the conservative 'Weekly Standard' website, is a disgusting attempt to impugn Vice-President Joe Biden. The facts that the V.P. stated yesterday in Michigan aren't unusual. As the economy has worsened, Flint, Michigan's murder rate has climbed as the ranks of its law enforcement personnel have been reduced.
This isn't some wild-eyed statistic. Numbers like these, saying almost the exact same thing, have been common, factually-based knowledge for years.
When there are more people out of work, crime rates go up.
In a sane world, the goal of a normal society in an economic situation like the one currently facing the U.S. would be to do whatever is necessary to increase the number of jobs as fast as possible. Passing a bill which would directly create or save jobs in the public sector and encourage job creation in the private sector would be one rational choice.
Something, perhaps, like the American Jobs Act, proposed by President Obama.
In the U.S. Senate, however, legislators seem to have a different goal. In case you missed it, the U.S. Senate voted on the right to debate the President's bill this week - they weren't even voting on the actual Jobs bill, just the right to talk about the jobs bill - but Republicans effectively filibustered the discussion, so the bill went nowhere.
It's an obvious fact, Republicans don't want the economy to get better. Period. We're not going to beat around the bush about it any more. Far too many Republicans have become dangerous obstructionists, acting as though anything that's good for the President is bad for them. Cowardly centrist Democrats, like Montana's Jon Tester or Nebraska's Ben Nelson, enable those Republicans with wimpy behavior of their own. Nelson and Tester are obviously more concerned with saving their own jobs than they are with saving the jobs of their constituents and putting folks back to work.
Their actions, and the actions of any legislator who stands against a jobs bill right now seem counter-intuitive to us, since two thirds of Americans are in support of President Obama's jobs policies. Further, one of the key provisions of the President's bill - to make sure that the jobs projects are paid for - was to raise taxes on the richest Americans.
Sixty four percent of Americans agree with raising taxes on the rich - and that includes Republicans, Democrats, and Independents. Many of these people may still be out of work in 2012 - and they will certainly remember which Congresspersons stomped on a perfectly viable plan to help more Americans get jobs.
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
P.H.D. In HHS
For our readers who also pay attention to other Nebraska-based news media, it may have seemed like a homecoming of sorts this week for a story that most Nebraskans would prefer to put behind them.
Instead, no matter how many times Governor Dave Heineman and the heavily conservative Nebraska Legislature attempt to sweep the political, economic, and personnel disaster that is the current Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services under the rug, the filth of failure keeps emerging.
The Department of Health and Human Services - also known as HHS - is back in the news for multiple reasons.
To start with, the Beatrice State Developmental Center - known to many as the BSDC - is back in the spotlight and again, the news isn't good. This time, multiple BSDC staff members were accused of abusing the Center's disabled residents, or simply ignoring abuse of BSDC residents.
According to state Sen. Steve Lathrop, chairman of a legislative oversight committee, the BSDC - and indeed, the entire Nebraska HHS - appears to be sliding into a pattern of cutting corners and overworking staff that got the HHS into serious trouble not that long ago.
If this sounds all too sickeningly familiar, this isn't the first time HHS has failed in its responsibilities of caring for some of Nebraska's most vulnerable citizens.
Understaffing, overcrowding, and abuse previously led the BSDC to lose its Medicaid certification and the Federal funding that comes along with it. The Department of Justice got involved, and the Unicameral set up the commission that Sen. Lathrop currently chairs to look into these charges.
Yet the abuse happened anyway.
We haven't even gotten to the HHS official in charge of Nebraska's failed child welfare privatization project, who is resigning at the end of this week. There's also the ridiculous HHS ruling on a new county jail construction project near Nebraska's capitol city. That HHS ruling could cost Lancaster County hundreds of thousands, or possibly millions of taxpayer dollars, to fix - even though neither the county or the state is responsible for the expensive construction screwup.
We will be the first people to tell you that government - when it's operated properly - is RARELY the problem, and is often the solution.
The Nebraska HHS, however, isn't even close to being operated properly.
HHS's biggest problem seems to be senior executives and managers who insist on blithely blowing past massive cost savings on their crusade to privatize the entire Department, and slashing costs far beyond the point of sanity.
Paying for an adequate number of quality employees could have alleviated many of the problems now facing HHS - and also Nebraska taxpayers. Improving on the state system for child welfare instead of trying to privatize the system seeing to the care of many of Nebraska's most at-risk children also could have saved Nebraska taxpayers a whole pile of money in the long term.
Instead, Gov. Heineman and many of our state senators have been trying to hide the inconvenient truths about how bad Nebraska's HHS system has become by flashing their P.H.D.s - Pile it Higher and Deeper - on HHS's problems.
It's long past time they should make an honest effort to clean up the mess they've made.
Instead, no matter how many times Governor Dave Heineman and the heavily conservative Nebraska Legislature attempt to sweep the political, economic, and personnel disaster that is the current Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services under the rug, the filth of failure keeps emerging.
The Department of Health and Human Services - also known as HHS - is back in the news for multiple reasons.
To start with, the Beatrice State Developmental Center - known to many as the BSDC - is back in the spotlight and again, the news isn't good. This time, multiple BSDC staff members were accused of abusing the Center's disabled residents, or simply ignoring abuse of BSDC residents.
According to state Sen. Steve Lathrop, chairman of a legislative oversight committee, the BSDC - and indeed, the entire Nebraska HHS - appears to be sliding into a pattern of cutting corners and overworking staff that got the HHS into serious trouble not that long ago.
If this sounds all too sickeningly familiar, this isn't the first time HHS has failed in its responsibilities of caring for some of Nebraska's most vulnerable citizens.
Understaffing, overcrowding, and abuse previously led the BSDC to lose its Medicaid certification and the Federal funding that comes along with it. The Department of Justice got involved, and the Unicameral set up the commission that Sen. Lathrop currently chairs to look into these charges.
Yet the abuse happened anyway.
We haven't even gotten to the HHS official in charge of Nebraska's failed child welfare privatization project, who is resigning at the end of this week. There's also the ridiculous HHS ruling on a new county jail construction project near Nebraska's capitol city. That HHS ruling could cost Lancaster County hundreds of thousands, or possibly millions of taxpayer dollars, to fix - even though neither the county or the state is responsible for the expensive construction screwup.
We will be the first people to tell you that government - when it's operated properly - is RARELY the problem, and is often the solution.
The Nebraska HHS, however, isn't even close to being operated properly.
HHS's biggest problem seems to be senior executives and managers who insist on blithely blowing past massive cost savings on their crusade to privatize the entire Department, and slashing costs far beyond the point of sanity.
Paying for an adequate number of quality employees could have alleviated many of the problems now facing HHS - and also Nebraska taxpayers. Improving on the state system for child welfare instead of trying to privatize the system seeing to the care of many of Nebraska's most at-risk children also could have saved Nebraska taxpayers a whole pile of money in the long term.
Instead, Gov. Heineman and many of our state senators have been trying to hide the inconvenient truths about how bad Nebraska's HHS system has become by flashing their P.H.D.s - Pile it Higher and Deeper - on HHS's problems.
It's long past time they should make an honest effort to clean up the mess they've made.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)