Bors Blog
Archive for July, 2007
Comix!
Been busy plugging away on comics over here. I’ll have a little sketch report from the Body Worlds exhibit coming when I scan them all in–probably next week. In the meantime, I’ve been wanting to link to some funny cartoons I’ve seen.
- Bob the Angry Flower has a Max Saw and he knows how to use it.
- Big Fat Whale has goodish news from Iraq.
- Mikhaela draws a gay-off.
- Slowpoke analyzes the outrage over Michael Vick’s puppy torture in light of other moral outrages.
- and Tom the Dancing Bug shows why his strip rules and why we may be subject to ironic Harry Potter nostalgia in 15 years when those 12-year-olds become hipsters.
No Place Like Home
Check out this feature in the latest issue of Atlantic Monthly. They’ve taken a Google shot of a street in a Baghdad neighborhood and detail the homes that have been abandoned, guarded, raided, or had residents that have been killed or kidnapped.
House 1Occupied by a Sunni family of seven, headed by a well-known businessman. In the Spring of 2006 his four-year-old grandson was abducted and ransomed for $20,000. The kidnappers sent a note of apology with the boy, saying they need the money to leave Iraq.
(via David Axe)
The Secret!
I have a new one page comic in the Boston Phoenix about The Secret.
You can read my first comic about the self-help book and all I really have to say on the subject here.
Mail Bag
“I just read your cartoon about Sex Ed on the ACLU website and was surprised that it almost perfectly describes lessons that I received from the Operation Keepsake organization at Wiley Middle School (in University Heights) about five years ago. They lied about STDs and condoms, saying that HIV could easily pass through the microscopic mesh that condoms are made of (the instructor used the chalk board to illustrate this) and that sperm sometimes wiggles on through. They pressured us to sign abstinence pledges and we learned about “secondary virginity” in case we were already tainted. We played fun games about the doom of premarital sex (complete with a Wheel of Misfortune containing STIs, pregnancy, depression and a couple get away free spots). Gay people were not in the lesson plan. I’m pretty sure some of my classmates got pregnant in high school.”
Christians United for Armageddon
Max Blumenthal is back again with a video from another conference, Rapture Ready: Christians United for Israel. by “for” Israel they mean for it’s destruction in the second coming.
New Toon: Guantanamo Health Care
As Michael Moore shows in SiCKO, Guantanamo detainees are given top notch health care while poor Americans are denied treatment and dumped on skid row. hmmm…I wonder if something is wrong with our system. So when conservatives talk about how great evil-doers have it down there–how it’s like a five star resort–they would be right if only for the having no legal rights and being tortured thing, which is kind of strange in light of the fact that they get better health care than many Americans.
And I always love an excuse to draw people getting tortured. Not sure why. I did manage to refrain from drawing a detainee with panties on their head. Cartoonist Masheka Wood recently informed me that I do that a lot.
Person Of The Year
August is right. Liberals shouldn’t get upset that Rupert Murdoch is on the shortlist for Time’s Person of the Year.
I realize that this is a painful exercise in futility one must go through every. Single. Flipping. Year, but Person of the Year isn’t an award. In fact, it’s not even supposed to be an “honor.” It’s a special profile that recognizes, and I’m quoting here, “the man, woman, or idea that for better or worse, has most influenced events in the preceding year.” One of the richest people in the world in control of one of the most influential media empires in the world taking over the most influential financial information resource in the world sort of qualifies, don’t you think?
I find this irksome as well. Hitler was once given the Person–well, Man back then–of the year award. Osama Bin Laden should have been granted the title in 2001 (one could make the argument that he changed the world that year). Instead we got “America’s Mayor.“
These days we get things like “The American Soldier” and, the worst of all, “You” to appeal to people in checkout lines at the grocery store.
Myopic Madness
What, did you think I was exaggerating?
Rudy Giulinai: Asked about HIV, He Answers With 9/11
Asked about increasing federal support for HIV medications, Giuliani discussed what he considers appropriate federal responsibility in health care. “I don’t want to promise you the federal government will take over the role,” he said, drawing applause and shouts of “all right.” Then, in some interesting twists, he turned the HIV question into a 9/11 answer:
“My general experience has been that the federal government works best when it helps and assists and encourages and sets guidelines on a state-by-state, locality-by-locality basis. It’s no different from the way I look at homeland security. Maybe having been mayor of the city, I know that your first defense against terrorist attack is that local police station, or that local firehouse.”
Then later he just lies about healthcare:
“We don’t want socialized medicine. Maybe you should go see ‘Sicko,’ see if you agree with Michael Moore that we should have the Cuban health care system. That’s where the Democrats are taking us All the places that have government-run health care, it’s inferior to us.“
That’s just a lie. France, Spain, Italy–all have superior systems. In fact, we are ranked 37th in the world, just a few spots above a poor communist dictatorship called Cuba. Yay for us!
In Thursday’s comic, I’ll show the dark side of the free Guantanamo Bay healthcare system.
New Toon: Chinese Safety Standards
That was pretty crazy how the Chinese government killed that bureaucrat for taking bribes. When you get executed in China, your family gets a bill for the bullet they discharge into your head. Nice.
CWA Events
Cartoonists With Attitude will be making appearances at upcoming cons. Come out and see us. For the Stumptown convention in Portland, I am in the process of setting up one or two events outside the convention that will feature a slideshow and panel discussion (and maybe a signing).
- July 26-29 @ 10am – 7pm | San Diego: Cartoonists with Attitude at San Diego Comic-Con Ted Rall, Keith Knight, Shannon Wheeler and more! (San Diego Convention Center)
- July 27-28 | San Diego: Shannon Wheeler’s Too Much Coffee Man Opera Wheeler reprises his hit comic opera for the San Diego Comic-Con crowd. Fri. July 27 at 5 p.m. and 11 p.m.; Sat. July 28 at 2 p.m. and 11 p.m. Evening shows $20, day shows free to Comic-Con attendees.
- September 28 @ 7 pm | Boston: Cartoon Signing and Slideshow with Mikhaela Reid and Masheka Wood (exact location TBA)
- September 29-30 | Portland, OR: Stumptown Comics Fest featuring Ted Rall, Shannon Wheeler, Matt Bors, Stephanie McMillan, Ben Smith and more! (Lloyd Center Doubletree)
- October 12-13 | Bethesda, MD: SPX Ted Rall, Mikhaela Reid, Masheka Wood, Brian McFadden, Jen Sorensen, Stephanie McMillan, August Pollak, and more!
