Archive for December, 2007

A walk down memory lane

This cartoon ran last March, a few months before the subprime crisis really began to hit critical mass. At the time, most of the feedback I got from readers suggested that I did not know what I was talking about, or that I was making too much out of a minor trend.

Little did we all know …

posted by Tom Tomorrow at 1:18 PM | link
The Glenn Beck Experience

From Norman Solomon (via email):

When I picked up a ringing phone Monday morning, the next thing I knew a producer was inviting me to appear on Glenn Beck’s TV show.

Beck has become a national phenom with his nightly hour of polemics on CNN Headline News — urging war on Iran, denouncing “political correctness” at home, trashing immigrants who don’t speak English, mocking environmentalists as repressive zealots, and generally trying to denigrate progressive outlooks.

Our segment, the producer said, would focus on a recent NBC news report praising the virtues of energy-efficient LED light bulbs without acknowledging that the network’s parent company, General Electric, sells them. I figured it was a safe bet that Beck’s enthusiasm for full disclosure from media would be selective.

A few hours later, I was staring into a camera lens at the CNN bureau in San Francisco while Beck launched into his opening. What had occurred on the “NBC Nightly News,” he explained, “was at best a major breach of journalistic integrity.” And he pointed out: “The problem isn’t what NBC is promoting. It’s what they’re not disclosing.”

A minute later, Beck asked his first question: “Norman, you agree with me that they should have disclosed this?” The unedited transcript tells what happened next.

Read the rest of this entry »

posted by Tom Tomorrow at 12:10 PM | link
Travel Pics Not in the Guidebook: Imagine Being a Kid in Colombia

As a lifelong fan of the crudely named and endlessly frustrating Cleveland Indians, I couldn’t help but smile to see that folks in Colombia are also willing to turn fellow human beings into mascots for a team that never wins the title.

Ladies and gentlemen, the last-place Cartagena Indians:

KidsLoveBeisbol.jpg

The kids reminded me of my own friends when we were that age. And Cleveland Stadium was about as well-kept back then, too.

However, my friends and I never had our psyches gently pummeled quite like this:

NoMas.jpg

Those are three beautiful Colombian children playing with Santa Claus. Right next to a sign twice as big as they are, urgently warning families to stop paying kidnappers.

Can you imagine growing up with that? What would that have done to how you feel about yourself and the world?

I don’t even pretend to know the answer for myself.

posted by Bob Harris at 7:34 PM | link
90,000 Sign Onto Wexler Call for Impeachment Hearings

Wexler Wants Hearings, where Judiciary Committee members Robert Wexler (D-FL), Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) call for impeachment hearings for Vice President Cheney, has almost 90,000 signatures as of Monday afternoon. If you haven’t already, I encourage you to sign it—the more people who do, the more likely it is big online groups will jump in and make it a cause of their own. Then we could be talking about 500,000 signatories…which in turn would make room for all kinds of good things.

posted by Jonathan Schwarz at 7:14 PM | link
TomDispatch: Rebecca Solnit on Hopeful Books

link

The Secret Library of Hope
12 Books to Stiffen Your Resolve

By Rebecca Solnit

Hope is an orientation, a way of scanning the wall for cracks — or building ladders — rather than staring at its obdurate expanse. It’s a worldview, but one informed by experience and the knowledge that people have power; that the power people possess matters; that change has been made by populist movements and dedicated individuals in the past; and that it will be again.

Dissent in this country has become largely a culture of diagnosis rather than prescription, of describing what is wrong with them, rather than what is possible for us. But even in English, a robust minority tradition can be found. There are a handful of books that I think of as “the secret library of hope.” None of them deny the awful things going on, but they approach them as if the future is still open to intervention rather than an inevitability. In describing how the world actually gets changed, they give us the tools to change it again.

Here, then, are some of the regulars in my secret political library of hope, along with some new candidates:

The rest.

posted by Jonathan Schwarz at 7:05 PM | link
Boston Globe review of Who Hates Whom

For a teeny paperback that came out over two months ago without any big-paper reviews even expected, this write-up in the current Sunday Boston Globe was certainly a pleasant surprise, one I share here despite the demands of modest decorum because my publisher really likes it for some reason when people buy my books:

“[I]ntriguingly informative… revelatory — and wryly funny about some very serious subjects… Harris’s sly wit and infectious curiosity make understanding world chaos fascinating reading… witty, horrific, and necessary…”

Holy crap. Thanks, Globe. I liked a lot of your reporting on the Aqua Teen bomb scare, too. I’d want to buy you a beer or something, if you weren’t like this giant disembodied corporate entity and all.

So one last plug here (and really, I think this is it): if you want a last-minute gift for a friend who can read, (or ten copies, heck, it’s the holidays!), here’s the Amazon link.

Now read the next post about Wexler’s call for hearings and the rule of law and stuff. Just a teensy bit more important than my puny little book.

posted by Bob Harris at 7:54 PM | link
56,000 Sign Onto Wexler Call for Impeachment

If you haven’t seen it yet, check out the website Wexler Wants Hearings, where Judiciary Committee members Robert Wexler (D-FL), Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) call for impeachment hearings for Vice President Cheney. If you’re the kind of weirdo who thinks the rule of law is a good thing, I strongly encourage you to sign the petition supporting them and then tell everyone you know about it. They have 56,000 people already in just two days, and the more clamor they hear from us here in Lilliput, the more willing they’ll be to go further.

posted by Jonathan Schwarz at 2:17 PM | link
Colombia’s Version of “Just Say No”?

Traveling around South America for a couple of months. My Spanish still sucks, so my translations may not be perfect, but estoy aprendiendo. Deal with it.

You know you’ve arrived in Bogotá when the airport is filled with signs warning you not to mule.

It would be very sad for your family if you were a mule!

Interesting that the deterrent here isn’t jail, violent reprisal, or any other punishment — they’re appealing to shame and family honor.

Here’s another anti-mule sign, this one posted in front of the McDonald’s in the airport food court.

And since you told your family you were a mule?
(With, I believe, roughly the tone of “and how’s that working out for you?”)

Again, the emphasis is on family shame above all other deterrents. Including the nice young men with with large weapons nearby.

Not sure what that says about Colombian culture, but it’s hard to imagine the US analog having any effect: Kids! If you got involved with drugs — your parents wouldn’t like it.

Yeah. That would totally work.

Not sure how well it’s working in Colombia, either. But still, fascinating to see.

Update: The second one may be closer to “And have you already told you’re family you were a mule?”. The same general gist. I’m still working on my Spanish, obviously. Yo disculpe para cualquier errores durante este proceso.

posted by Bob Harris at 9:52 PM | link
Three New Democrats in Impeachment Effort

Robert Wexler (D-FL), Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), all members of the House Judiciary Committee, have created a website calling for impeachment hearings for Vice President Cheney:

WEXLER WANTS HEARINGS

This is particularly significant because Wexler isn’t a member of the progressive caucus, which indicates the center of gravity on the issue is shifting. The site has additional information, including their new op-ed and ways to support them.

posted by Jonathan Schwarz at 3:35 PM | link
Junk Media Makes Us Sick

From Stop Big Media and the talented Matt Thompson. (See some of Thompson’s previous work here.) You may notice how both videos make use of the work of a certain progressive cartoonist.


posted by Jonathan Schwarz at 12:20 AM | link
Gotcher war on Christmas right here

I think this tops anything we secularists could do to Christmas. (Painful as it is, I do recommend watching it all the way through — it’s bad on so many levels, it approaches an Ed Wood level of unintentional genius.)

posted by Tom Tomorrow at 1:52 PM | link
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