AR Comics, Politics by Cej
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While this comic isn’t directed at anyone in particular, I find that the ability to use logic and reason seems increasingly to be a lost art. And it has given way to winning at any cost.
Here’s the thing: the world is growing increasingly complex, and we are facing some really dire problems (financial meltdown, climate crisis, dwindling resources, to name but a few); and we need to have some serious, thoughtful debate and discussion on how we are going to address these issues.
I don’t have all the answers—no one does. Which is why we need to talk through the problems in a reasonable, concentrated way—using facts, not emotions. But instead we seem to be yelling about things that have no relevance.
It was bad enough when TV and politicians eschewed meaningful and rational discussion; but now I see this same madness replicated in the way we talk to one another.
Democracy depends on free speech; but that speech has to be substantive.
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AR Comics, Politics by Cej
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I worry about lots of stuff; and the idea that we are now at 6.7 BILLION people on the planet kinda terrifies me. Of course, when I mention this to people, I get funny looks (at best).
Although we Americans live in the “developed world,” overpopulation does affect us. It can be hard to see, which is why in the comic I tried to point out some of the everyday consequences of too many people; I didn’t include some of the more disturbing trends like climate change and peak oil that no one wants to discuss.
Now you could argue that many of our problems are the result of poor resource management—and you’d be right. But population and limited resources are two sides of the same coin: there are too many people using too much stuff and doing it incredibly inefficiently (and unfairly). And even if we were to become extremely conservative*, we’re still going to have tremendous challenges in meeting the needs of the 9 billion that are expected to be here soon.
*Obviously, I’m using the word in the “using less” sense, not in the “let’s give tax cuts to rich people” sense.
Excellent short talk on population growth from
TED.
Read Other Posts About: Cannon Fodder, environment
AR Comics, Politics by Cej
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I realize that it’s a lot of work for journalists to describe what is happening in the world, especially when it’s so much easier to act as stenographers for politicians and corporations. The idea that the media is still calling this “a spill” two months into the crisis proves to me that they’re reading talking points from BP.
BP has gone out of it’s way to hide and obfuscate what’s going on, both under the water and on the beaches. Why is it when a famous person is on trial, the media sue to be let into the courtroom; but when tens of thousands of barrels of oil a day (even by independent early estimates) are spewing into the Gulf, why is no one suing BP for accurate information—or access to beaches? I guess that information qualifies as a “protected Corporate secret.” Besides, it’s not like we need that data to make decisions or anything.
Other alternatives to “spill”:
- “a gusher”
- “an underwater volcano”
- “a fucking disaster”
- “free market capitalism”
- “what happens when you deregulate everything”
- “Reaganomics at work”
Hey, maybe we can use the invisible hand of the marketplace to plug the hole!
AR Comics, Drawing Board, Politics by Cej
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I guess I’m not real worried about the cost of the clean up to BP. At $40 million a day in profit, they can afford to employ many of the out-of-work people. Just using Tony Hayward’s salary ($4.7 m/yr), BP could hire a couple hundred people for a year. Obviously, money alone won’t fix the environmental problem (and it’s unclear if anything will), but money goes a long way toward easing the economic burden.
Let’s face it, unlike any other business, resource extraction is essentially giving a company the license to take something (oil) that either belongs to no one or belongs to everyone, and then sell it at an ungodly profit. No doubt, drilling for oil is expensive, and I believe that extractors should be able to make a profit on their risk. But beyond that, it should be heavily taxed. Again, such resources either belong to everyone or to no one, so it’s ridiculous to say that it belongs to whoever grabs it (yes, I know that goes against established law). And given the importance of oil to our economy and the environmental damage that even “safe” extraction causes, those tax revenues could go to paying for things society really needs—like environmental protection or renewable technologies—rather than yet another house for Tony Hayward.
And, yes, kids, that is socialism.
Drawing Board
I did this one with a brush thinking that it would make things look more oily. Instead, it just made them more sloppy. Tony came out a lot less cartoony than intended, and much of the detail in panel 2 got splotchy and unclear. I really need to work on drawing/inking liquids.
Oh well, this was kind of a knock-off joke, so I can’t get too worked up about it.
AR Comics, Politics by Cej
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This one has been bouncing around in my head for years. I decided to do it now, upon hearing that The Washington Times was likely going out of business. No, it’s not that the paper is no longer making a profit—it never has made one. It’s that the Times‘ is losing its sugar daddy (the Unification Church).
The Washington Times was the “answer” to the “liberal” Washington Post. And because of its rightward leanings, conservatives have been willing to overlook its dubious heritage. To wit, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon—who (no shit) says he is the Second Coming of God—has owned and kept the financially failing paper afloat since its founding 1982. And as long as the paper kept beating up on Communists and liberals (because, really, what’s the difference?), conservatives have been able to ignore the cognitive dissonance of being fed propaganda about the virtues of the American free market by a company that only survives through welfare from a foreigner.
Personally, I don’t care what you read. It’s a free country. But I don’t know how anyone who writes for the paper can take themselves seriously, much less look themselves in the mirror.
Drawing Board
Thanks to Mark for help with the wording. I also (sorta) incorporated some of his thoughts on the pictures. Thanks to John for posing as the Yellow Peril. For more on the background, see the original Drawing Board Post.
AR Comics, Drawing Board, Politics by Cej
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Drawing Board
Now my fellow ‘Racers may argue that this meager diagram can’t count as my monthly comic contribution. I agree, but I want to point out that this image, in its own little way, is the epitome of a good cartoon.
Now I’m not arguing that this IS a great cartoon. You either like it or you don’t. But as someone who writes and edits for a living, I make use of a lot of charts and diagrams specifically because they can impart a great deal of information very quickly and easily. And as cliche as it may sound, a picture is not only worth quite a few words, it sometimes does the job better because you get everything you need to know in an immediate holistic way that sentences simply can’t convey.
One of my struggles as a cartoonist is figuring out how much information is necessary to get a point across. Typically, I start with too many words and image details; and I keep stripping it down until I feel like the cartoon can’t lose anymore and still be clear. (And then Mark tells me to take out even more).
So I really appreciate an idea expressed simply.
(By the way, I cut out a lot of detail in this one, too. I had more year markers, and more intricate labels, and more text, and….)
AR Comics, Politics by Cej
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It snowed today in Houston, an admittedly rare event in this part of the world. In addition to icy water, such an episode releases a flurry of right wingers and people who got no better than Cs in science telling me how “this proves Al Gore wrong.”
Setting aside the misdirected animosity, I really don’t understand this kind of ignorance. Even if you really don’t know the difference between weather and climate, how can you not recognize the gaping hole in your logic?
To wit: if one day of severely cold weather disproves global warming, why don’t the hundreds of really hot days (like we get most of the year in Houston) re-prove it? Is it stupidity or hypocrisy?
For the record:
Weather measures the local environmental conditions, typically on the scale of hours or days. Climate measures the average conditions over larger scales of time, typically on the scale of decades or even centuries. The weather conditions of a any single day (or even a month) really don’t matter much. And in fact, one would expect that there would be days significantly hotter or significantly colder than others. That’s why we talk about average conditions: so that no outlier data skews the overall picture of what is happening.
And when we look at the average temperature of the earth over the long term (not a single snow day, folks), we see an alarming warming pattern. Even a rise of a few degrees can have significant (and potentially disastrous) ramifications on plant and animal populations, local weather patterns, and water levels in low-lying areas. We ignore it at our peril.
AR Comics, Politics by Cej
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Drawing Board
The beginnings of this baby can be seen here and here. So after more agonizing and procrastinating than is really appropriate, I have finally finished this. And I’m relatively happy with it. The last 3 panels are, I think, the weakest: panel #7 is just an unreadable mess (it’s supposed to be tainted food and drugs—note the 3-legged turkey—but it’s really not all that different from panel #3); panel #8 should have our narrator clumsily fighting a war, not the actual troops; and panel #9 is also an unreadable mess (it’s difficult to fit crime, disaster, poverty, pollution, and corporate takeover all in one panel).
I reduced the text even further based partly on Mark’s suggestions. I’m always a little worried about making the text too sing-songy, but hopefully I cut and sang about the right amount to get the point across.
Read Other Posts About: Cannon Fodder, drawing board
AR Comics, Drawing Board, Politics by Cej
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DRAWING BOARD
Most of the preparation for this comic can be found in the following posts:
As to the concept of how media affects us, I do believe that media have a profound effect on how we behave. However, it’s not a simple 1-to-1, monkey-see, monkey do effect. Your genes, history, and environment are all strong contenders. That said, repeated exposure to certain types of media (and this is key) without counter-balancing stimulus can lead you down a murkey path to anti-social behavior. Or conversely, to (what is considered by some) “socially desired behavior,” such as buying shit you don’t need.
Read Other Posts About: Cannon Fodder, media
AR Comics, Drawing Board, Politics by Cej
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Drawing Board
This one came to me quickly, although it took a lot of tweaking; and I’m still not happy with the final product, as I think the woman comes off as too pathetic (and certainly not a stand-in for all women who need reproductive services).
I had originally intended to have the protesters argue against health care, education, etc., as there often seems to be a large overlap between people who insist on no abortions and people who insist on no social services. But I decided that trying to work in that angle would only complicate the comic (and make it more wordy). It almost works better to have the protesters be useless at the other stages of the life cycle.
I had also originally drawn an umbilical chord going from pregnant woman to baby to little girl, etc. in order to emphasize the connection between them and the cyclicality of the life cycle. But I decided that it was confusing without adding much to the comic; so I dropped it.
A couple of other points about the comic:
1) The woman in panel one and panel six is clearly far along in her pregnancy—probably too far along to get a legal abortion. But I chose to make her obviously pregnant because this is comics, and a skinny woman wouldn’t be the iconic image that I needed.
2) Although about twenty years pass between panel one and panel six, the protesters don’t age (or change their clothes). Again, I kept the image simple as not to add confusion. Still, I like the added implication that the protesters never seem to change.
3) I don’t know why the baby in panel two is larger than the little girl in panel three. Maybe that’s how big you have to be to talk at that age…
Finally, a comic can only present so much information. And undoubtedly, abortion is a complex subject. No one-page comic is going to present the issue with all the necessary subtlety. To those of you who take offense, I point you to some of my other comics/posts. They may not assuage you, but they will at least give you a better idea of my position.
AR Comics, Politics by Cej
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Drawing Board Continue reading →
AR Comics, Politics by Cej
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Drawing Board
Continue reading →
AR Comics, Politics by Cej
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I suppose this cartoon may seem a bit late, but really…isn’t it already too late?
Other Action News fun here and here.
AR Comics, Politics by Cej
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I hate to even comment on the “bitter” topic, because I hate to lend it any credence. Can we please talk about some issues? I swear, even if the economy, the environment, and the war weren’t tanking, I’d still find these “conflicts” ridiculous. It truly seems as if the media trying to torpedo the very idea of an honest debate. They aren’t even pretending to care anymore…
Read Other Posts About: Cannon Fodder, Clinton, Obama
AR Comics, Politics by Cej
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I can’t tell you how safe it makes me feel to know that The People Who Know Better understand that bailing out financially illiterate schmucks would ruin the economy, but bailing out people who really ought to have seen this coming is the right thing to do.
Hey it’s only money, right? What’s a few trillion when we’re talking about taxpayer dollars?
Read Other Posts About: Cannon Fodder, economy
AR Comics, Politics by Cej
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I still want to tweak the dialogue a bit, but I think the intent is clear…
AR Comics, Politics by Cej
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Edwards who? Clearly, my laziness makes it difficult to keep up with current events. Still, in this cartoon, the media is the message, not the specific candidate. And the media will still suck long after this presidential primary campaign is over.
I thought about making this another Soapbox comic, but it occurred to me that I may have more media-specific rants in me. Just gotta keep overcoming the laziness…
Read Other Posts About: Cannon Fodder, news media
AR Comics, Politics by Cej
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This joke seemed a little obvious to me, so I won’t be surprised to see it elsewhere (but I haven’t yet!).
It should come as no surprise that the people who yell the loudest about supporting the troops are the same ones who do the least to, you know, actually support them. The conditions at Walter Reed Army Hospital are only the latest revelation of poor planning by this Admisitration in this war of choice. Expect more horrors next week…
Read Other Posts About: Bush, Cannon Fodder
AR Comics, Politics by Cej
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Uncritical patriotism has always annoyed me; the last six years have only heightened the irritation. And it seems that those who scream loudest tend to be the least informed.
As JoAnn pointed out, it makes just as little sense to hate America uncritically. Which is true enough, I suppose. But I’ve found that actual America haters are pretty rare. They’re really more of a boogeyman the Right uses to whip up the crowds and to undermine the Bill of Rights.
That said, being critcal of something, whether it be your country or your child, is not hate. It’s a sign of true love.
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AR Comics, Politics by Cej
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