SlowpokeBlog

NY Times columnist David Brooks recently spoke here at UVA on the deepening of the political divide in America. He suggested that both sides construct their own reality, distorting the facts to suit their partisan preconceptions. During the Q&A I asked him, "Am I correct to understand that you think both sides are equally guilty of distorting reality?" His reply, in a nutshell, was yes. One of the things he cited as distortion on the right was taking Kerry's "reducing terrorism to a nuisance" quote out of context.

Fast forward ten days to Brooks' latest column:

The nuisance is back!

Remember when John Kerry told Matt Bai of The Times Magazine that he wanted to reduce the terrorists to a nuisance? Kerry vowed to mitigate the problem of terrorism until it became another regrettable and tolerable fact of life, like gambling, organized crime and prostitution...

Well, the Osama bin Laden we saw last night was not a problem that needs to be mitigated. He was not the leader of a movement that can be reduced to a nuisance.

Brooks is a master of seeming moderate and reasonable in person, but in print he becomes just another spin man.

As a political cartoonist, it's a bit stressful doing the last strip that is going to be seen before the Most Important Election Since the Big Bang. However ridiculous it may seem -- and I have no pretenses of changing anyone's mind about who to vote for -- you feel as though the fate of the universe could hinge on your little cartoon. So, I decided to draw up a simple laundry list of the most egregious acts perpetrated by our guv'ment over the past four years. Call me a nerd, but it's actually something I've been wanting to do for a while, if only for my own sense of the big picture. Well, let's just say the list got awfully long, and I had to leave out a lot. In fact, I'm certain I could get an entire second strip out of the items I didn't use.

An aside: a friend of mine has pasted political factoids all over the back of her car, and she updates them regularly. It's really quite a sight. It occurred to me that only a progressive would cover their car with facts.

Slowpoke Voter Guide 2004

Eminem on Bush:

Look in his eyes, it's all lies, the stars and stripes
They've been swiped, washed out and wiped,
And Replaced with his own face, mosh now or die
If I get sniped tonight you'll know why, because I told you to fight

You can hear the new single "Mosh" here.

Figured some of you might be interested in seeing the cover I drew for this week's C-VILLE Weekly, my hometown alternative newspaper. I'm generally more comfortable drawing people than large mechanical objects, but I think it came out okay. And damn, I really do hope we get a streetcar.

Rumor has it that Slowpoke: America Gone Bonkers is now printed and making its way around the country. I haven't seen it yet, but my publisher assures me it looks "fantastic." I hereby announce that signed copies with doodles, personalized messages, haikus, tone poems, or enigmatic koans from yours truly are now available through the Alternative Comics website.

Figured I'd take a break from the Bush outrage and address the nonvoters who really could save this country from doom if they got off their duffs. I'm not being hyperbolic here; just read today's New York Times editorial about Supreme Court appointments if you want to see a horrific vision of the future.

People Who Could Save the Day

Mind-blowing quote from a senior White House aide in Ron Suskind's fascinating New York Times Magazine article on Bush and faith:

The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

I believe this used be called insanity.

Check out the current issue of Ms. Magazine, which contains my "CROX News" cartoon. Also, I have a couple illustrations in the October issue of Nickelodeon. Look for a woman using a cockroach as a teabag.

I've noticed a sci-fi quality creeping into my cartoons lately. Our political discourse has clearly entered the realm of what used to be considered science fiction. When you have Paul Krugman writing about reality control, Bob Herbert referring to Bush's parallel universe, and even Kerry using the term "Orwellian" -- well, you know something's up. And now the possibility that Bush has been wired during the debates? This is just getting too surreal. Oh, and that bizarre yelling at the moderator that would have ended Kerry's career had he done it? Did no one find that frightening? Shouldn't that be replayed endlessly on cable news, a la Howard Dean's so-called scream?

The latest strip is about an issue the Dems should be hitting hard: the fact that the Bush EPA is trying to weaken plans to reduce mercury pollution, which MAKES CHILDREN RETARDED, among other things. It was tricky figuring out how to do the strip without seeming like I was making fun of the mentally challenged, so I used a sort of analogy...

Dawn of the Bush Babies

Just as I expected, the media spin seems to be that Bush was much improved in this debate because he didn't make funny faces. The line is that he seemed much more composed.

This, of course, is total crap. Winky, blinky, wimpy Chimpy was just as idiotic -- dare I say, even more embarrassing to watch than during the first debate. I mean, my God, there was a treasure trove of Bushisms in those 90 minutes!

I wasn't happy when we found out there wasn't weapons

I hear there's rumors on the Internets...

And what my worry is is that, you know, it looks like it's from Canada, and it might be from a third world. (Drugs from outer space? Who knew?)

What happens in those forests, because of lousy federal policy, is they grow to be -- they are not -- they're not harvested.

That's why I proposed a hydrogen automobile -- hydrogen-generated automobile.

I guess you'd say I'm a good steward of the land. (Not technically a Bushism, just an incredible display of chutzpah)

This is different from saying, "OK, let me incent you to go on the government."

And after Kerry explained that the partial-birth abortion ban did not make an exception for the life of the mother, Bush just said:

And he was given a chance to vote, and he voted no. And that's just the way it is. That's a vote. It came right up. It's clear for everybody to see. And as I said: You can run but you can't hide the reality.

What a fucking bastard.

I felt that SPX went really well this year. Granted, my book was still at the printer (my fault, not theirs), so I didn't have that to sell as I'd hoped. But I managed to sell nearly all the old books I'd brought with me, and met quite a few people who were familiar with the strip through one publication or another, which is always cool. The "Comics & Politics" panel I was on drew a larger crowd than I'd anticipated, and people asked good questions. It's great to see political cartoons finally getting some attention from the indie crowd.

For me the highlight, in addition to hanging out with my cartooning buds, was meeting Steve Brodner, whose wild caricatures and illustrations you have most certainly seen in Rolling Stone and elsewhere. Knowing that he drew a caricature of fellow cartoonist Mikhaela Reid, I asked him if he'd mind doing a quick sketch of me in my copy of Freedom Fries, which he most obligingly did:

I will treasure it always. (Hmm... does my hair really explode out of my head like that?)

Tonight's debate was not as much fun to watch as the Kerry-Bush debate, since Cheney did not make a gigantic ass of himself; also, it was painful watching him knowingly spew lie after lie through that gnarly mouth of his (still insisting Saddam had ties to Al Qaeda! Still slamming Kerry for voting against weapons systems that Cheney himself opposed!). But Edwards was truly brilliant -- would that I could argue so cogently on my feet like that. He was clearly at the top of his game. If you know your facts, it was OBVIOUS that Edwards won. If you don't know anything, well... just look at them, for cripe's sake! Cheney came off as a cold prick. He is the physical embodiment of awesome corruption.

I'm sure this will be all over the web soon if it isn't already, but the site Cheney referred to, factcheck.com, actually takes you to George Soros's site which bears the title, "Why We Must Not Re-Elect President Bush."

Well, I'm afraid it's a Classic Slowpoke this week. I had a bit of a book-related emergency last week. The proofs came back from the printer, and I had some major revisions to make before I left for SPX (report to follow soon). I swear, getting a book out is like giving birth to a nine-headed baby. Not that I would know about that.

Gadget Hieroglyphics