SlowpokeBlog

According to the NYT, new White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten plays bass guitar in a band called The Compassionates. I don't know whether this is a reference to "compassionate conservative," but it's hard to imagine that it isn't.

Also, this piece about lobbyists by Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone is pretty funny (via WorkingforChange).

I sometimes experience a vague sense of frustration that I cannot simply hit CTRL+F to find keywords in books. That's the seed behind the Googlitis panel of this cartoon, though a post-cartoon Google search revealed others have had similar ideas before me. It's hard to stay ahead of the geek curve. (As if to prove my point, a quick Google search reveals 92 instances of "geek curve.")



Last week's strip concerned that laughable quote from South Dakota state senator Bill Napoli that everyone sentient has heard by now. I regret that space limitations caused me to leave out the line, "She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated." Following the interview, Mr. Napoli repaired to the senate gym for a cold shower.

I thought about throwing in a gag about secondary virginity, that abstinence-movement phenomenon in which non-virgins pledge to swear off boffing until marriage. It never made its way in, but I did find this fairly-inspired spoof site (ignore the broken frame and scroll down past the ads at the top of the page).

Interesting things are afoot here at the SlowpokeBlog. This site will be moving to a new server soon, so there's a possibility of downtime and emails to me bouncing for a short period. Ultimately, the site will be located at www.slowpokecomics.com, which is already the "official" URL, though many people link to the long, unwieldy UVA address. So start updating those links now! More announcements to follow.

Every so often I do a social-commentary cartoon that winds up provoking more impassioned emails than many of my more overtly-political strips (see "What's In a Name?" from 2005, in which I made fun of people who name their babies "Cash." Incidentally, I recently heard from someone with a baby named Cash who thought the cartoon was a hoot.) "Semester at Sea" appears to be one such strip. A professor who has taught with the program writes:

...Most faculty who sail with the program will say (I interviewed several before becoming connected to the program) that the teaching and learning on the ship is as if not more rewarding and meaningful (in terms of learning outcomes and the impact of education on one's life and critical thinking skills) than work back on land campuses. That's not to say that a few flakey courses don't sneak their way in, but no more so, in my experience (as both a teacher on the ship and as an academic advisor for students who sail) than what we see on the home campus. I guess, then, that I'd respectfully challenge you to question your easy assumption about courses being less rigorous or demanding on the ship than on "regular" campuses. That hasn't been my experience at all.

Likewise, on my two voyages, most of the students with whom I sailed were middle class, or low to lower middle class students, who saved and scrimped and scraped to get the $$$ to attend. This isn't, in other words, a "rich kids" experience, especially not in light of the financial aid awarded by SAS...

Well, what can I say? If anyone wants to send a cartoonist on a Semester at Sea voyage, let me know. I'd be delighted to do a strip about my experience.

I've received both positive and negative emails about my "Semester at Sea" strip. One person was particularly incensed:

As an alumni of the Semester at Sea program it is clear to me that you read a headline somewhere and wrote a strip. Take five minutes, maybe even go to their website, and find out about a program before you malign it.

Semester at Sea is not a new program it has a long history of success at the University of Pittsburgh and before that at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Its' "cruise ship as campus" is the only traveling accredited university in world and it exposes 1300 students a year to between 8 and 12 countries around the world. All of these nations are either 3rd world or developing countries chosen specifically to give students an opportunity to see a culture that would be difficult or nearly impossible (Korea or Vietnam) to see on their own.

Generally I find your work funny and well done, but now knowing that you do so little research into your topics, I doubt that your commentary on politics or current events will really mean much to me.

Ouch! Actually, this cartoon is informed by how the program is being handled at UVA. The administration has done an end-run around the academic departments whose courses it intends to teach on this cruise ship, angering many faculty. The anthropology department has refused to allow the ANTH course description to be attached to any course offered in the program because they have not been consulted to make sure it will meet the standards of the department. Since the Semester at Sea is so clearly academically problematic here, it's an open satirical target.

In today's academic climate, where increasingly only the wealthy can go to college, one could not ask for a better symbol of the commercialization of education than a campus as cruise ship. I mean, you have to admit the idea is kind of funny, especially in the context of UVA, where students often drive nicer cars than the staff. If it were on any kind of ship other than a cruise ship, and was actually academically rigorous, and gave ample need-based scholarships to ensure it wasn't mostly rich kids, then it would sound like a worthwhile experience to me. Americans desperately need to see the world, though I'm not sure brief port-of-call journeys qualify as getting to know other cultures.

If others have had good experiences with the Semester at Sea elsewhere and wish to tell the world that the way it seems to be working at UVA is not the way it has to work, write to me and maybe I'll print your letters here.

I couldn't resist doing a cartoon about UVA's decision to host the Semester at Sea program which, as the cartoon states, involves students earning academic credit for taking courses aboard a cruise ship that sails around the world. The program had been previously hosted by the University of Pittsburgh. I appreciate the idea of getting students to think outside the America box, but -- a cruise ship!? So you stop and build a well for a few days in Mozambique, then hop back on the luxury liner and drink a smoothie. I mean, it sounds like a jolly good time, but I'm not sure I'd call it college. A cruise ship campus is the perfect metaphor for the commercialization of higher education happening now in this country, in which college becomes a country club -- or cruise ship -- for the elites who can still afford it.

Count me in as one of the people hoping former Virginia governor Mark Warner can upend Hillary in the Democratic primaries.

Mr. Slowpoke and I got a big laugh out of this Time Magazine cover when we saw it in a grocery store. We chuckled the entire way down the cereal aisle. Then, somewhere past the Honey Bunches of Oats, dismay set in.

The article itself is far from a glowing evaluation of the Bushies' current situation, but it's heavy on mindless, personality-oriented babble like the following paragraph:

ACTUALLY, WHATEVER CLOUDS REMAIN OVER the White House were not hard to explain, say those who have studied weather patterns between Bushland and Cheneyland. They have always been separate worlds, far more than the public image of a tight, disciplined team suggests. Bushland is by instinct more reformist, more political, more female and, in places, deeply devout. Cheneyland is more Establishment, more male, more button-down, more secretive. One man came to town worried about domestic affairs; the other was focused entirely on matters foreign, although 9/11 forced a convergence. One man wants to do the deal, find the compromise; the other avoids it like the plague.

Bush is more "reformist"? More "female" (whatever that means)? More wanting to "do the deal, find the compromise"? Says who? Certainly not anyone actually following the news. I'm also not convinced that the administration is in trouble, as they’ve been able to accomplish practically everything they've wanted. Perhaps with some actual reporting, they would be in more trouble.

On a lighter note, I’ve been meaning to post a link to Miss Beazley's page on the White House website ever since I discovered it, to my great amusement, a couple of months ago. Sadly, I'm sure there are people out there whose voting habits are influenced by this sort of thing.

Uh oh! A Rush fan has issued a fatwa over my cartoon.

I'm sure I speak for the dozens of Rush fans when I say that you're recent diatribe mocking Geddy Lee ("Veggie Lee") is both offensive and unacceptable. Would you mock any other Classic/prog rock band? Why is it acceptable to degrade Rush yet no word is spoken against Styx, Yes, Genesis or Metallica? And why the stereotypical depiction of the fanbase? I don't have a Rush t-shirt, nor a pony tail (ok maybe the receding hairline and van dyke beard were accurate...but still, you get my point!)

Your actions have branded you as a blasphemer and a Rush "fatwa" is being declared on you until you retract your anti-Rush cartoon. The Rush fans of the world will gather, rent a bus or two, and spend several hours picketing your place of employment until lunch (or brunch if they are from Europe) occurs.

You've been warned!

Actually, this sounds kind of pleasant. I'll bring the beer, OK?

Thanks for the all the email from Rush fans. The choice of Rush was inspired by my sister-in-law's fiancee, who is a diehard fan. Many of the hipsters I've known have looked down on Rush, and I've always found this sort of rock&roll infighting amusing. So Rush seemed a good candidate for my analogy to the Danish cartoon controversy.

Well, it didn't take long for this one to make its way around the Rush message boards. I'm glad Rush fans seem to have a good sense of humor, unlike the two riot-starters depicted in the cartoon.

It took me a while to come up with an idea for a strip about the Danish cartoon controversy because the issue is so complex. No metaphors for the situation seemed to work perfectly. The Rush Riots are clearly not a perfect metaphor, but at least allowed me to have some fun with the subject. Buried in the strip is a point, sort of -- that the "cartoon riots" are not merely about people reacting to a cartoon, as though all of this were happening in a vacuum. Note that the eggplant alone does not cause the Rush Riots. The fourth panel is a reference to the Danish Imam who circulated an image of Muhammad with a pig nose -- actually a photo of a bearded guy from a French farm show -- that did not appear in the Danish paper (not that those cartoons were in good taste). Hence the Rush fans' doctored photo of a rotting eggplant.

Someone on the Rush boards rightly caught my allusion to Pavement singer Stephen Malkmus. In the song "Stereo" he sings, "What about the voice of Geddy Lee / How did it get so high? I wonder if he speaks like an ordinary guy? (I know him and he does!)"

I also refer to the Rah Bras, from Richmond, VA. Only after I drew the cartoon did I realize I went to school with vocalist Isabella Rubella. Not only that, but for a few short weeks we were in a band together. I don't think I'd even call it a band -- we sounded pretty egregious. Come to think of it, Malkmus went to UVA too, though he was a little before my time. See, southern schools aren't all about the frats. Just mostly.

And speaking of rock and roll, there should be some sort of interview with me in the next issue of Punk Planet, along with other cartoonists, about the Danish thing.