Apropos of our ongoing theme of nutballery, I thought I would share my memories of the very first time I encountered Glenn Beck. It was the summer of 2006, and Mr. Slowpoke and I were driving to the Outer Banks of North Carolina for a week at the beach. We stopped for dinner at a pizzeria just shy of the coast. The place had multiple TVs blaring CNN Headline News. As we sat there, I noticed the talking head -- some guy with a buzzcut -- was ranting about how scandalous it was that prisoners were being given ice cream. We had no choice but to listen to the man's unhinged diatribes throughout our meal. I can't remember everything else he said, but I do recall leaving the pizza joint feeling strange that everyone had just sat through that like it was normal. Mr. Slowpoke and I couldn't stop talking about it as we finished our drive. "Who was that thug?" we wondered. And now we know.

We're currently at 399 Slowpoke fans on Facebook. Won't you be the one who pushes us into the 400 club?

You can also find out about things like my frustrations with frozen broccoli if you follow me on Twitter.

[UPDATE: Thanks to Steve and Justin for rising to the cause!]

If only the teabaggers would channel their anger into punk, the world might be a better place.



Be sure to wait for the chainsaw! I do feel sorry for the guitar, though.

I pretty much blogged about this cartoon last week in my post about the country going crazy. In a sense, this is Part Two of the "Suspicious Minds" strip about global warming deniers included in that post.

One thing that struck me about that NYT article about tea partiers was the strangeness of this very sweet-sounding retired woman embracing a movement tinged with the threat of armed rebellion. The wholesome-looking woman in the snowman sweater is an attempt to show this disconnect.

Reader Gerard points out the uncanny resemblance between House Minority dipwad John Boehner and Taylor Negron, a.k.a. the pizza guy from "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," and more recently one of the comedians in "The Aristocrats." When the docudrama of this era of political folly is made, Mr. Negron should be a shoo-in for the role.

Maybe I gave that title to my second book a little too soon. A number of things I've read lately have me convinced we're becoming a nation of cultists, and the future doesn't look pretty. The global warming "hoaxers" think that climate change is a giant conspiracy (see related cartoon at left). Meanwhile, things are actually getting worse than people thought. Creationists are seizing on this public mistrust of scientists to advance their decades-old battle against the teaching of evolution. The Tea Party movement has channeled legitimate frustrations with the economy into a bizarre tangle of conspiracies against the federal government. And as Frank Rich put it, the most significant -- and ominous -- political event of February was Joseph Stack flying his plane into an IRS building, killing an employee, and being lionized in some quarters as a hero. All of this, of course, is goaded on by hyperspecialized political media that convinces people of their own reality bubble, and the incendiary rhetoric of pundits like Glenn Beck.

We truly do seem to be entering a new Dark Age, even worse than the morass of the Bush years. The country is deeply confused and heavily armed. Throw in several more years of economic failure, and you've got a recipe for disaster. Not to be a downer or anything.

The Democrats have been courting the Republicans like a lovelorn suitor who just won't give up. It seems like more effort is being put into appearing "bipartisan" than into actually selling the health care bill. Note to Dems: people don't give a flying Froot Loop about bipartisanship -- they're worried about their jobs and the crushing cost of health care. Just do something already, and let Repubzel call you a meanie. All she really respects is power anyway.

This NYT/Reuters article about the gold medal-winning women's hockey team made me chuckle:

Members of the Canadian team, still wearing their gold medals and uniforms, returned to the ice long after spectators had left Canada Hockey Place following their 2-0 gold medal match win over the United States.

They partied for nearly 30 minutes, drinking beer, smoking cigars and laying stretched out across the ice while joking with photographers and cleaning staff.

One player was seen by reporters climbing onboard the ice resurfacing machine parked on the ice, honking the horn several times and appearing to try to drive it.

Hockey Canada issued a statement saying it did not condone such behavior and apologized if their players' celebrations had offended anyone.

I say drunkenly honking the Zamboni horn is entirely appropriate! Had the team tipped over the Zamboni, that may have pushed the envelope, but as far as I can tell, these ladies are being exemplary Olympic role models.

Love this photo. Via my colleague, Campus Progress editor Kay Steiger, Canada rubs it in (presumably after hockey loss?):

I dig the Winter Olympics. I love the beauty and precariousness of snow sports; I appreciate the (relative) absence of bloated salaries and thick-necked machismo; and perhaps most importantly, I enjoy the abundance of cute European dudes with names like "Wolfgang." Plus, there are actual women competing, something you pretty much never get to see have to seek out on national television .

I dig everything, that is, except for ice dancing. I mean, come on, people. Wake up and smell the cheese! You know what I'd like to see? Totally nonchalant ice dancers. At the end of their routine, instead of acting like they just survived a hurricane, they'd be like "whatev." I'd give that performance a gold.

A bit late posting this to the blog, as I've been busy with my moonlighting gig, hostessing and pouring wine. It seems the entire northern hemisphere is on spring break this week.

Enough people were confused by last week's cartoon that I decided to issue a clarification. Given the ongoing rash of terrible cartoons about snow disproving global warming, I felt it important to clear my name. I hope you regular readers don't take the insult in the last panel personally.

While I thought this one was kind of a throwaway, more people have written emails of approval than I expected. Which confirms my belief that I can never predict which cartoons of mine readers will like!

PS: It was thanks to me that this guy managed to get a table at a full restaurant the other night:


It was hard, but as I sat his party, I resisted any temptation to sing "Footloose" or "Danger Zone."

Argh! I just realized that some people are reading this week's cartoon as an endorsement of the view that snowstorms disprove global warming. Not regular readers, I'm guessing. I think the sarcasm is obvious from the beginning, but doesn't the last panel give it away? With the line about rain in Europe disproving droughts in Africa? Put on your irony caps and READ MORE CLOSELY, PEOPLE!

I'm going to insult another cartoon now. This one apparently suggests that feminists dislike Sarah Palin for her looks and mannerisms, as opposed to her politics. Okay, you got me. I find her politics so enlightened, she could lead the colonial fleet on "Battlestar Galactica" -- but I just can't get past that beehive.

(Related cartoon: "What's in the Beehive?")

Bad editorial cartoons suggesting winter weather somehow disproves global warming have been chapping my hide for weeks now. Brian recently alerted me to this blog, which actually collects them. (Scroll down to April 8 for a nice rebuttal.)

Then I saw this story on TPM about an absolutely moronic GOP ad attacking the Congressman I voted for when I lived in Charlottesville. A description:

The ad, called "12 inches of Global Warming" is specifically targeting Reps. Rick Boucher (D-VA) and Tom Perriello (D-VA) in advance of the fall midterm elections.

Boucher and Perriello "think global warming is a serious problem for Virginia" the ad claims, "so serious" they voted to "kill jobs" by backing the House cap-and-trade bill this summer.

The Web ad, set to soothing music, asks Virginians to call Boucher and Perriello "and tell them how much global warming you get this weekend. Maybe they'll come help you shovel."

It doesn't take much effort to understand that snow is consistent with global warming and that 2009 was one of the hottest years on record (via BoingBoing).

Speaking of people torn in two, I occasionally get emails from somewhat confused conservatives who like my cartoons but hate my politics. Yesterday I received this ambivalent classic:

Jen -- Needed a laugh, went to your strips. Decade of Doom = clever, funny! Circle of Stupidity = dumb

One reader's (viewer's?) opinion fwiw. Human nature and life's wackiness probably offer better material than your political preferences, IMO. But good luck to you!

Um, thanks?

So the Supreme Court ruled that corporations can spend as much as they want to influence elections. I've been watching with exasperation as various lefties tie themselves in knots over perceived conflict between the First Amendment and the destruction of what little remains of our democracy. It's not that complicated, people!

There's free speech, and then there's money you can spend to advertise that speech. Under campaign finance laws, corporations are still free to say whatever stupid thing they want, no matter how boneheaded or contrary to the public good. They just can't flood the airwaves -- the public airwaves -- with paid propaganda that most ordinary Americans can't afford themselves. (Yes, I know the law also affects labor unions and groups like Planned Parenthood, whose vast war chests simply crush those of giant multinationals, no?)

Using the court's logic, those without money to advance their viewpoint have, de facto, limited free speech. It all goes back to Isaiah Berlin's (and others') concept of positive and negative liberty: corporations' "freedom" to dominate the media (thus intimidating politicians in the process) takes away your freedom to be heard; or freedom from having your voice effectively censored.

Addendum: As an example of the conflicted lefties mentioned above, there's Glenn Greenwald, who takes an abstract, libertarian view of free speech (as opposed to empirical). He messily tries to argue against making a distinction between money and speech here. But he uses a bunch of ridiculously extreme counterexamples no one is proposing. In the 21st-century mass media age, a legal entity with millions and millions of dollars to purchase and distort reality is a little different from the piddling amounts of money spent in citizens' political activism.

"Comic Riffs" blogger Michael Cavna asked several cartoonists their thoughts on the new Apple tablet. You can read my response here. Also, my name suggestion for the tablet can be found here.