This cartoon is about a whale! NO! This cartoon is about being happy!

Um. No. This cartoon is about institutional failures that lead to tragedy and horror.

I don't think you're miserable enough. I'll teach you to be miserable. I'll teach your grandmother to suck eggs.

Originally published at mooreroom.

Let us play the world's smallest violin for Lou Dobbs. Then cut the instrument in half and rub it on rat genitals for Sarah Palin.

Dobbs went on O'Reilly to imply with the subtlety of a railroad spike through the head that CNN is in the tank for Obama and could not countenance his "rigorous, empirical forethought, analysis and discussion." Or perhaps after years of tolerating Dobbs' increasingly dishonest and paranoid racism, CNN had to draw the line at birther conspiracies. I mean, really, Lou. There's disinformation and then there's just plain crazy talk.

Speaking of which, Palin went on Oprah to demonstrate that when it comes to self-victimhood, O'Reilly and Dobbs are rank amateurs. Can you believe Katie Couric had the nerve to ask follow up questions? Is she like a journalist or something? In Palin's world, asking an Alaskan about reading material is typical Lower 48 bigotry, and not, say, an invitation to reveal more about yourself, your ideas and your world view. "Read any good books lately?" "What?! Of course I read!"

When it comes to "the Levi question," I'll leave snark aside. Frankly, she's probably right. What good can come of that young dude's squeezing out every last second of fame? I mean, other than our schadenfreude? Palin chose the "better part of valor" here, refraining from a media spat and gaining the rhetorical advantage as a Caring, Suffering Grandma. That's not snark, that's semiotics.

Oh, but wait, she did get in that dig about his "aspiring porn career." Spat on.

Originally published at mooreroom.

Tea Party organizers in Danville, Virginia are planning to burn Congressman Tom Pierriello (D-VA) in effigy, because they object to Pierriello's yea vote for national health care reform. This has caused some consternation over at Talking Points Memo, where commentators have likened effigy-burning to hate speech, anti-patriotism, and the Ku Klux Klan. In this respect, they share the sense of alarm expressed by the local Democratic Party chairman:

"These shocking and despicable acts are becoming all too common at extreme right-wing Republican rallies. Hanging Members in effigy or displaying images of Nazi concentration camps on the steps of the Capitol have no place in any debate and Republican Members of Congress must condemn these actions...."

One commenter had the presence of mind to point out that this sort of activity is actually protected speech -- much like flag burning -- and has a long tradition going back to the Revolutionary War period. But why go back that far? Do a Google image search on "Bush effigy" and see what you get.



It's not hard to find images equating Bush with Nazis, either. Personally, I think there are much sounder arguments to make that analogy (torture, domestic surveillance, secret detention, etc., etc.) than the paranoid fantasies teabaggers would suggest. But we on the Left should at least be intellectually honest enough to recognize our own overheated rhetoric in the mouths of our opponents.

I understand the alarm. I share it with my colleague Jenn Sorensen. Intellectual honesty is certainly sorely lacking among those who equate the "public option" with Joseph Mengele or the mass graves of Nazi concentration camps; by all means, criticize it. And the mentality behind such associations -- the paranoia, the ahistoricity, the racism -- becomes all the more worrisome when expressed by gun-strapped idiots eager to "water the tree of liberty." Paul Krugman diagnosed this paranoia brilliantly the other day, and rightly worries that "the country could become effectively ungovernable in the midst of an ongoing economic disaster."

What he didn't mention, although I bet it was in the back of his mind is that the teabaggers are not only the latest expression of right wing irrationality, but also the latest manifestation of populism-preluding-fascism: "Right-wing populism can act as both a precursor and a building block of fascism, with anti-elitist conspiracism and ethnocentric scapegoating as shared elements." Sound familiar? This is what really concerns me about this movement, not the effigies. I don't see what "politeness" will do in the face of these people.

Originally published at mooreroom.

From The Oregonian:

Gordon Cederholm, 45, of Milwaukie has lived with HIV for 25 years and said he was skeptical about using marijuana as medicine when he got his Oregon card less than a year ago.

"At first, I thought: What does being a pothead have to do with it?'" he said. "I didn't know the benefits in marijuana. Now, I find that I'm a better person when I smoke."

Originally published at mooreroom.

From Jeff Sharlet's Salon article on Bart Stupak and Joseph Pitt's house-mates:

In its internal documents, the Family refers to itself as an "invisible organization" and the "prayer cells" into which it organizes politicians as "invisible believing groups.'"

The connotations run wild: part Manson Family, part Al-Qaeda, part Illuminati, part Scientology. I try not to invoke the word "post-modern" much these days, but I can't think of another word that fits. Well, other than "creepy" and "ludicrous" and "risible" and "scary."

Thanks to Stupak and Pitts, I learned another interesting word:

Together, they're poster boys for the evangelical/conservative Catholic alliance known as "co-belligerency," a culture war strategy designed to take territory within the Democratic Party as well the GOP. [em-phassis mine]

I don't know if that's the Family's word or Sharlet's own diction, but it raises an eyebrow or two (or three, if your third eye is alarmed.) On Sharlet's part, it could be rhetorical overload; he's genuinely --and rightly-- concerned about the religious right's (admittedly smart) tactic to infiltrate both parties to push their agenda forward. But the rest of us --secular left, religious left, or middle, or whatever word choice you wanna make-- could take a page from the fanatical fundy insurgency manual and (hopefully) adapt it with more intellectual honesty and transparency.

Anyhoo, just to be self-promoting "hoower", here's my relevant cartoon for this week.

Originally published at mooreroom.

Here is this week's In Contempt cartoon. I switched out the pickups and the tuners, installed a Bigsby tremelo for greater sustain, and filed down the nut. Now it plays like a dream, tone for days and the leads just SCREAM!

Originally published at mooreroom.

The Planned Parenthood Action Center has a form letter you can send to the White House to encourage President Obama to defend women's reproductive rights as the Senate debates health care reform. There's pre-written stuff, but I have heard from activists in various fields that more attention/weight is given to original writing. Maybe that's a fairy tale we tell ourselves to get to sleep at night, but I wrote my own verbage:

An unfortunate part of the health care reform legislation passed by the House of Representatives this weekend denies coverage of abortion procedures for subscribers to the so-called "public option" and receivers of federal subsidies to purchase health insurance.

This rule effectively robs women of the right to exercise reproductive rights upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court for almost four decades. Poor and lower middle class women do not have the means to pay out-of-pocket. We should not tolerate the creation of such a caste system for women's rights.

This rule also affects the coverage of women who have health insurance. Any woman who works for a small business mandated to purchase insurance through one of the exchanges will not have access to abortion procedures. Currently most health insurance companies cover abortion; yet these companies will have to create separate plans that only women who do not need public assistance can afford. This could become an increasingly small group and potentially wipe out health coverage for abortions altogether.

This is not what you promised in your run for President; indeed, you promised to uphold the reproductive rights of women. So live up to your promise. As the Senate debates health care reform, defend women's reproductive rights and fight against the inclusion of legislation that would deny coverage for abortion procedures.

Thanks for reading,

Link found via Tara Dublin.

Originally published at mooreroom.

This shooter is mentally ill. This other shooter is a terrorist.

Or perhaps this shooter cracked under economic pressures. And this other shooter cracked under anti-religious racism and the pressures of war.

Whenever these violent outbursts occur, I never feel that the explanations for them are adequate. Yet how we explain them -- and our arguments over which explanations are better than others -- say more about our prejudices and biases than the horrible events themselves. Certain factors come up again and again: mental illness, economic struggles, war trauma, religious extremism and racism. Not all of these elements are present in every case -- and based on the two most recent events, I have neglected to list other forces that strongly influence "active shooter" cases, such as misogyny and homophobia. I think a big mistake some folks make, especially those in the punditry profession (which is congenitally given to conclusion-jumping), is latching onto one of these factors in isolation from the others. Those with an axe to grind against Muslims have seized upon the Ft. Hood shooting as a case that proves all their other condemnations of Islam as a religion, political correctness, multiculturalism, and, for good measure, Barack Obama and the "liberal media." None of that is very helpful, but it isn't much better to cite the other factors of war, racism, mental illness, etc. without considering them all together as systemic forces that will eventually combine to produce random acts of violence, whether of the active shooter kind, or in cases of rape, domestic abuse, and/or suicide. After all, most people with mental illnesses (a nebulous category that we should refrain from generalizing upon, anyway) do not go on shooting rampages. So far Marc Armbinder is the only high profile media professional who has urged restraint:

Does shooter story today focus on Islam, on the man himself and his demons, on the Army and war? Lots of data points = context needed.

This event, like the Columbine shootings ten years ago, will be endlessly pored over. I still have not figured out Columbine, but there is at least the positive influence of The Columbine Project to help teens address the kinds of issues that were brought to light by that awful event. Armbinder is right, however: context is needed, and to fully appreciate it, we need time to think before we speak.

So, ya know, STFU.

Originally published at mooreroom.

I have been waiting for this shoe to drop:

Under the agreement, anti-abortion Democrats will be permitted to offer an amendment on the House floor to the health-care overhaul bill. The amendment would prohibit a new government-run insurance plan created by the health-care bill from offering to cover abortion services, congressional sources said. It would also block people who received federal subsidies for the purchase of health insurance from buying policies that offered coverage for abortions.

Link found via August. Despite a U.S. Supreme Court ruling written almost 40 years ago, reproductive choice remains effectively a class privilege, not a right a woman can exercise over her own body. Too poor to pay out-of-pocket for an abortion? Well, just be glad you're not an undocumented worker, missy; they get bupkis.

Not that any of the above surprises me. But it does get me wondering: What impact does such a rule have for the health insurance plans of women who do not receive subsidies? Will private insurers create a separate plan for publicly assisted subscribers? Will abortion-covered plans cost more? I don't know much about health coverage for women, save that companies have treated domestic abuse as a "pre-existing condition" -- a loathsome practice that doesn't bode well for reproductive choice.

UPDATE: Barry has more info on this compromise, including an answer to my questions above.

Because many small employers are expected to switch to using the exchanges, this means that women who currently have abortion coverage through their small employer, will have their coverage replaced with insurance that doesnt cover abortion.

Originally published at mooreroom.

Walt Disney + Jim Carrey + Robert Zemeckis + 3D animation + The Valley of the Uncanny + Charles Dickens = money that could have saved a few state social programs for the poor and the needy.

I sense some irony here.


The only "Christmas Carol" worth watching (not counting The Muppets.)

Originally published at mooreroom.