THIS MODERN WORLD

Time to turn the tables. Go, do what the man says.

Not my stuff — I said I’d stop pimping it, and I will. But a couple of my friends have books out that you ought to consider.

— Ruben Bolling has just released an oversized, 224-page compilation of his Tom the Dancing Bug strip. I stayed up too late last night reading this one. You certainly must be familiar with Ruben’s work, if not, all I can say is that it’s one of the few comic strips I can read at this point in my life and still be reminded why I loved comics in the first place.

— If you read Wil Wheaton’s site, you know his writing is funny and poignant. He’s collected his best and expanded on it in Just a Geek. A fine gift for anyone interested in blogging and/or Star Trek. (I know, what are the chances that there’s going to be any overlap there?)

Jeff Cohen:

In this weekend’s mainstream media reports on Gary Webb’s death, it’s no surprise that a key point has been overlooked — that the CIA’s internal investigation sparked by the Webb series and resulting furor contained startling admissions. CIA Inspector General Frederick Hitz reported in October 1998 that the CIA indeed had knowledge of the allegations linking many Contras and Contra associates to cocaine trafficking, that Contra leaders were arranging drug connections from the beginning and that a CIA informant told the agency about the activity.

When Webb stumbled onto the Contra-cocaine story, he couldn’t have imagined the fury with which big-foot reporters from national dailies would come at him — a barrage that ultimately drove him out of mainstream journalism. But he fought back with courage and dignity, writing a book (Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion) with his side of the story and insisting that facts matter more than established power or ideology. He deserves to be remembered in the proud tradition of muckrakers like Ida Tarbell, George Seldes and I.F. Stone.

A month ago, I wrote a short essay for Slate (which they used). Today in the mail, I received a large envelope full of numerous forms I have to fill out in order to collect the pittance I am owed. Among the highlights, I am asked to sign away world rights to edit, publish, and distribute the material, as well as to irrevocably and unconditionally waive in perpetuity any rights I may have “under any law relating to ‘moral rights of authors’ or any similar law throughout the world.” In short, if I grant them permission to use the piece in any way they want, forever and ever, then I can collect my one-time fee. Not that any of this matters in a practical sense — this little one-off essay is unlikely to be a hotly contested property — but you have to understand that as a self-syndicated cartoonist, I’ve been fending off rights-grabs like this my entire career, and am extremely cautious about what I sign. And the thing is, I didn’t go to Slate saying, hey can I please work for you? I’ll sign anything you want! They asked me to contribute a piece, I agreed — and a month later, I find out that if I want to be paid, I have to sign something I consider morally objectionable. And I am told that if I don’t sign, I don’t get paid. (It would have been nice to know this before I did the work, of course — I would certainly have passed on the assignment.)

Additionally, I am instructed to fill out a multi-page New US Vendor application, as if I were simply another eager supplicant petitioning Microsoft, a would-be supplier of silicon wafers or mother boards or bubble wrap or some damn thing. To prove my tax status, I must list 3-5 current clients, including phone numbers, provide my business letterhead, business card, a company brochure, and a copy of my business license. Now, as far as I know, they aren’t licensing political cartoonists quite yet, and as for the letterhead, brochure, etc. — I couldn’t supply most of that if I wanted to, because I don’t have any of it. I do everything via email these days. It’s this nifty thing, you do it on computers. Somebody should tell the folks at Microsoft about it.

Apparently everyone who writes for Slate jumps through these hoops, which I find somewhat astonishing — but I am often astonished by the things other people are willing to do. As for me, at this moment, it looks like I gave Bill Gates a day of work for free. Shit happens, I guess.

(Edited for clarification.)

So the guy Bush wanted for homeland security turns out to have had a nanny problem, alleged mob ties, and, we now learn via the Daily News, was conducting two simultaneous secret affairs, one with publishing magnate Judith Regan. (Actually the News calls it “Kerik’s triple play — wife, 2 galpals.”)

Wow.

Apparently when Kerik’s name came up in the White House, everyone’s eyes glazed over and they all just started chanting “9/11…9/11…”