Alas, a Blog | Feminist, anti-racist, pro-fat, plus whatever else we feel like talking about.

Cartoon: What Kind Of People Sexualize Children?

Posted on December 29, 2020 by Ampersand

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This strip was drawn by my frequent collaborator Becky Hawkins. As usual, Becky excels at communicating setting after setting in small panels; I think the store interior in panel 3 is particularly nice. I also love the way she ages Lucy and Lucy’s dad from panel to panel.

“They’re coming after your children!” was, for decades, an argument made by the right against lesbian, gay and bi rights. (And other groups! Becky and I lampooned this back in 2017). And although some conservative diehards are still making that argument, by and large they’ve switched to claiming that rights for transgender people are endangering children.

This argument comes in a lot of forms. The one this cartoon is about – the idea that recognizing that some children are transgender is sexualizing those children – is one that I’ve mostly heard from random angry transphobes on Twitter, but this false connection is also made in more respectable sources, like the Heritage Foundation.

The cartoon is also about the ways that adults project their own ideas about gender roles onto children. (Very heteronormative ideas, I would add.) This sort of projection is not exclusively right-wing: Virtually all people look at young boys and girls and see whatever they believe about sex roles reflected back at them.

So the answer to the dad’s question in the last panel? Ordinary people do. And they do it all the time.

(The most extreme and creepy examples of it – child beauty pageants and purity balls – do seem to be right-wing.) (#Notallrightwingers do this, thankfully.)

When I was doing research for this cartoon, I found some of the photos from child pageants so disturbing that I decided to switch the scene of panel 3 from “Lucy” actually in a pageant to Lucy’s dad shopping for the dress, just so I could have the dress be on a mannequin rather than on a girl.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels, plus a tiny “kicker” panel below the bottom of the comic.

PANEL 1

Two toddlers, one a blonde girl dressed in pink, and the other a boy in blue, are playing in a sandbox in a park. They aren’t paying any attention to each other. The girl is just sort of making a pile of sand; the boy is experimentally biting on the handle of the little plastic shovel (and seems to be enjoying it). In the background, two adults are watching the kids and talking to each other, a red-headed man (who I’ll call “Dad”) and a blonde woman.

DAD: Look at Lucy, flirting and making eyes at him!

WOMAN: Look at him, showing off for her!

PANEL 2

We seem to be outside a school building or daycare; the building is made of red bricks, and we can see paper cut-out hearts taped to the large windows. In front of the building, near a hopscotch game chalked onto the pavement, is Lucy (two or three years older, but we can recognize her by the similar shade of pink and the blonde hair) and another boy. The boy is yanking on Lucy’s pony tail, and Lucy looks annoyed. In the foreground, two adults – including the redheaded dad from panel 1 – are watching, looking amused. (The other adult is a woman, but not the same woman as the woman in panel 1).

DAD: I think Lucy has a boyfriend!

WOMAN: It’ll be so cute if they marry each other someday!

PANEL 3

We are in a shop with fancy, bright-colored dresses and costume jewelry and stuff. The redheaded man, now maybe a bit fuller around the waist, is chatting to a shopgirl while gesturing towards a burgundy outfit on a mannequin. The outfit is very fancy, and has two pieces, a band shirt and a short skirt, leaving the mannequin’s waist bare. Lucy, now looking a few years older, is looking up at the outfit expressionlessly.

MAN: I just couldn’t wait to get Lucy on the pageant circuit! Lucy, let’s try this one on you!

PANEL 4

Some years later, Lucy – now looking like a young teen – and her dad (now quite a bit chubbier, and his hairline is beginning to recede) are sitting at home, dad in a comfortable looking armchair, while Lucy sits at a table in the background doing homework. Lucy is looking up at her dad, and a “!” has appeared next to her head. Dad is speaking and gesturing angrily at something on his smartphone.

DAD: Just look at this! Diagnosing children as “trans”… Prescribing “puberty blockers”… What kind of people sexualize children?

SMALL KICKER PANEL BELOW THE BOTTOM OF THE CARTOON

Barry the cartoonist is speaking to the redheaded dad. The redheaded dad – apparently older, as his hairline has receded further – is turning away from Barry the cartoonist.

BARRY: Trans children’s healthcare isn’t about “sex.” It’s about identity, comfort, and—

DAD: Can’t talk — Lucy and I need to practice our purity ball dance.

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Transsexual and Transgender related issues | 5 Comments

Cartoon: A Trans Man Walks Into The City Clerk’s Office…

Posted on December 27, 2020 by Ampersand

This cartoon is a collaboration with Becky Hawkins.

Please support these cartoons on Patreon!

Some cartoons come about because I hear a friend complain about something I’d never thought about, and then I see another person online complaining about the same thing, and then another. It’s a sign of privilege, of course; I don’t notice these things because I don’t have to. But once it’s pointed out to me it turns out it’s all over the place.

And then I think, “is there a cartoon in this”?

In this case, what I hadn’t known about was the heavy and often unnecessary bureaucracy involved in being trans. For trans people who need or want to update official papers and records, the paperwork and hurdles are daunting, and often pointless. And it’s not just the government; some of my friends have found they have to slog through bureaucracy again and again, with their bank, with their school (or their children’s school), with their mortgage company, and on and on. It can feel endless, and endlessly frustrating.

I first wrote this cartoon years ago, but I couldn’t solve the problem of the first panel.

The first panel, you see, needs to explain the situation to readers who (like me) were unaware of the issue. My first draft had the protagonist say something like “I need to change my sex” to the city clerk (I’ve lost the exact wording), but a trans friend I showed the cartoon to said that was an incredibly unlikely way for a trans character to put it, and suggested “switch my gender marker” as a more realistic alternative.

The problem with that, however, is that most cis readers won’t know what “switch my gender marker” means. (I didn’t know until my friend told me). I tried putting in a caption to explain the terminology, but that seemed clumsy, and anyway a lot of readers would skim or skip the caption, unless it was at the top of the panel. But putting it at the top would mean putting the explanation before the dialog it’s explaining, and that seemed odd.

So, without a first panel I was happy with, it went into the “unfinished cartoon” file and stayed there a few years. Every once in a while I’d take it out and fiddle with it, but I didn’t feel I’d solved the problem.

Then I showed it to Becky, and she was interested in drawing it. After Becky and I kicked around some ideas for fixing the first panel (with a lot of help from Becky’s very awesome girlfriend Naomi – hi Naomi!), I thought of using the clerk’s dialog to get the necessary exposition across in panel one, hence “Oh, so you’re trans.” With that line, I finally felt that cis readers would be able to understand the cartoon (or at least understand it enough), no caption necessary.

Admittedly, it’s a clumsy and tactless thing for the clerk to say – but cis people often are clumsy and tactless, so I could live with that. (Some readers may disagree, of course.)

In any case, it’s the best I could do. Cartoon writing is often like this; it’s a series of little puzzles that have to be solved. “How can I do X in just one panel and less than 20 words?” Probably there’s a better solution than the one I used, that I just wasn’t clever enough to come up with.

(Why no more than 20 words? Because somewhere around 20-30 words, readers start to skim. That’s fine for panels 2 and 3 of this cartoon – as long as the readers get a sense of the complexity and extent of the bureaucracy, it won’t hurt the cartoon if they skim the details – but if people skim panel 1, they might not get the cartoon at all).

Look at the architecture in panel 1! It just screams “city clerk’s window in town hall building.” That’s one of the things I love about collaborating with Becky – her ability to get across specific environments so well. I also love the perspective of that line of people waiting for help.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

There are four panels, plus an additional small “kicker” panel under the cartoon.

PANEL 1

Inside a mustard-yellow government building – an old one with arched ceilings – people wait on line to talk to a woman in one of those windows embedded in an internal wall, for government workers to talk to people without being in the same room as them.

What are those windows called? I have no idea.

Next to the window, a sign on the wall says “Office of the City Clerk.”

On the public side of the window, a young man wearing a blue shirt, and carrying a brown document bag slung over a shoulder, is talking to a blonde woman on the other side of the window. The woman has short hair with spiky bangs, pink cats eye glasses, and is wearing a purple shirt with sleeves that end about halfway down her forearm. We’ll call him “BLUE” and her “CLERK.”

BLUE: Hi! I need to change my name and switch my gender marker to “M.”

CLERK: Oh, so you’re trans? Okay!

PANEL 2

A closer shot of the two of them. She’s handing a document to him as she talks cheerfully. His back is to us, so we can’t see his face.

CLERK: First, you’ll need to pay to have your name change announced in a newspaper. You’ll need an appointment for a court hearing… That can take months. Meanwhile, hire a notary to watch someone you know sign this affidavit.

PANEL 3

The “camera” has moved to a position from which we can see both characters’ faces. She is handing him a HUGE stack of papers. His eyes are wide and he looks shocked as he eyes the stack.

CLERK: When you go to court, bring money for court fees and a letter from your therapist. And that’s just for your driver’s license. There’s lots more for your social security and birth certificate. Here are some of the forms you’ll need.

CLERK: Next!

PANEL 4

Blue has left, and now a young woman with long brown hair is standing at the window, showing the Clerk a piece of paper. The clerk is smiling and making a thumbs up gesture.

WOMAN: Hi! I’m a bride, and I need to change my name. Here’s my marriage license.

CLERK: Done! Have a nice day.

SMALL KICKER PANEL UNDER THE BOTTOM OF THE CARTOON

Barry the cartoonist is talking to the clerk.

BARRY: Is this the state rewarding people for being gender normative?

CLERK: I can tell you for a fee.

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Transsexual and Transgender related issues | 7 Comments

Cancel Culture, Mimi, Jimmy, and Cowards At The University of Tennessee

Posted on December 27, 2020 by Ampersand

This story is dispiriting and ugly. (Alternate link).

When she was in the ninth grade, Mimi (who is white) sent a friend a three-second video in which Mimi used the N-word.

Ms. Groves had originally sent the video, in which she looked into the camera and said, “I can drive,” followed by the slur, to a friend on Snapchat in 2016, when she was a freshman and had just gotten her learner’s permit. It later circulated among some students at Heritage High School, which she and Mr. Galligan attended, but did not cause much of a stir.

I don’t think we can understand this story without knowing what the environment was like at Heritage High. Mimi’s use of the n-word was not unusual there – even teachers allegedly used racial slurs. And it was harmful. Some students of color felt “despair” in that environment.

In interviews, current and former students of color described an environment rife with racial insensitivity, including casual uses of slurs.

A report commissioned last year by the school district documented a pattern of school leaders ignoring the widespread use of racial slurs by both students and teachers, fostering a “growing sense of despair” among students of color, some of whom faced disproportionate disciplinary measures compared with white students.

“It is shocking the extent to which students report the use of the N-word as the prevailing concern,” the report said. School system employees also had a “low level of racial consciousness and racial literacy,” while a lack of repercussions for hurtful language forced students into a “hostile learning environment,” it said.

Mimi’s classmate Jimmy (who is Black) ~~saved a copy of the video for years~~had a copy of the video, and released it after Mimi (who is very serious about cheerleading) was admitted to the University of Tennessee, which has one of the best cheerleading programs in the country. After social media backlash – although it’s not clear to me how much, the example linked by the Times is to an account with all of 30 followers – the University of Tennessee threatened Mimi with having her admission revoked, unless Mimi withdrew her application, which Mimi did.

A few points.

1) I’ve always said our society should forgive bad things done by young people (with exceptions for some extraordinary circumstances, none of which apply here). It was wrong for Mimi to use the n-word in the ninth grade, but that was years ago, in an environment where even some grown-ups used racial slurs; it’s not surprising she didn’t know better back then. She wasn’t using it to attack anyone, and at least one Black friend of hers has said Mimi apologized to her for using the word (before the scandal broke out). Mimi shouldn’t be punished for her ninth grade screw-up now, either by social media or by the University of Tennessee.

2) Forgiving young people, and not wanting them tarried with bad acts forever, isn’t just for Mimi. Jimmy deserves that, too. But you’d never know that from reading Mimi’s defenders. Jimmy is currently being reviled by name by what we would call a “social media mob” if the mobbers were on the left.

Rod Dreher, in The American Conservative, wrote:

This Times story will follow Jimmy Galligan everywhere too. If that kid applied for a job at my firm, I would never hire him. If he were my co-worker, I would stay away from him, lest I offend him and get the Little- Anthony-from-The-Twilight-Zone treatment. He has shown the kind of person he is: a hateful progressive who takes pleasure in causing others unnecessary pain and suffering for the sake of virtue. He wants to terrorize others. Everybody who goes to college with him now, and who crosses his path, should consider themselves forewarned.

In the very next paragraph Dreher, with no apparent awareness of his hypocrisy, writes “But it is a monstrous society that doesn’t offer a way for people to turn from their sins and failings.” I agree, Rod – and you’re being an eager contributor to that monstrous society.

Dreher isn’t alone in wishing the worse for this teenager. People on twitter – some with few followers, some with thousands – have been reviling Jimmy, gloating over his (they hope) future unemployability, and calling for revenge.

3) Both Mimi and Jimmy’s acts seem like products of the toxic racial atmosphere at Heritage High. Mimi, hearing the N-word used casually all around her, used the N-word casually. And Jimmy, growing up in that poisonous environment, tried to find a way to make people pay attention, to have at least one white person feel regret. (Or that’s my guess, obviously I can’t know either of their minds for sure.)

4) The University of Tennessee should be ashamed of themselves. They should have ignored the entire story and let it blow over, instead of making the story, and both these young people, national news by kicking Mimi out. More than anyone else, the cowards at the University of Tennessee should be held responsible for this entire mess.

5) Almost no one outside of Tennessee would have heard of this story if the Times hadn’t decided to cover it. If, years from now, this story still turns up on the front page when people search Mimi or Jimmy’s names, that’s the fault of the Times.

6) After writing the above, I saw that Mansa Kieta on twitter has a very good take on this.

Posted in Media criticism, norms of discourse, Racism, Society & Culture | 45 Comments

Cartoon: Elves United!

Posted on December 25, 2020 by Ampersand

If you like these cartoons, help me make more by supporting my patreon!

Merry Christmas to all of you who celebrate it! And to those of you that don’t celebrate it but do enjoy saying “merry Christmas!”

I love doing pro-union cartoons, and I’m proud that my cartoons have appeared in various union newsletters over the years.

It’s not a subject I see often enough in political cartoons. And not only are unions essential in and of themselves, they’re also a powerful force for progressive politics – or they can be.

The idea for this cartoon is pretty basic: Elves at the North Pole try to form a union, and management (Santa) tries to stop them using anti-union arguments and techniques corporations use in the real world. It’s an easy-to-understand premise that can support a lot of gags.

The nice thing about a cartoon like this one is that doing a gag per panel gives me several bites at the funny apple. Joke in one panel doesn’t strike you as funny? Well, then, go try the next one. And the one after that. Surely at least one of these will amuse you!

This one took a while to draw, primarily because there are 20 different figures (or partial figures) visible in the cartoon, and they all had to fit in smaller-than-usual panels with quite a lot of dialog. (And then Frank Young had to color all those figures. Sorry, Frank!)

Santa was very easy to draw. Rudolph took more effort, but it was totally worth it. I don’t know why, but that’s the panel in this cartoon that makes me laugh.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has six panels. Each panel has a large caption at the top, in a big friendly font that’s colored black, red, and green.

PANEL 1

CAPTION: How Bosses Try To Beat The Union

The panel shows seven angry-looking elves who are either demonstrating or on strike. Behind them is a large banner that says “Elves United Cannot Be Defeated.” One elf holds up a sign which says “No Justice No Toys!,” and another holds up a sign which says “Santa Unfair!”

PANEL 2

CAPTION: Playing the Family Card

This panel shows Santa, with a big smile and arms stretched out like he’s about to hug someone, talking to a skeptical-looking elf with crossed arms. Santa is wearing the traditional Santa red pants and black boots, and suspenders and a white tee shirt.

SANTA: I’ve always thought of us as family, not as boss and workers.

ELF: What’s my name?

SANTA: um… Elfie? Elfo?

PANEL 3

CAPTION: Predicting Catastrophe

In the background, we see Santa standing at a lectern, making a speech and looking stern. In the foreground, one elf cheerfully whispers to the elf next to them.

SANTA: If the elves form a union, that will be the end of Christmas forever!

ELF: Don’t worry. Hannukah would hire us in a second!

PANEL 4

CAPTION: Divide and Conquer

Santa, grinning big, is talking to Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, raising a finger to make a point. Rudolph, looking a little angry, talks back.

SANTA: Get the elves back to work, and you’ll lead the sleigh every year, fog or no fog!

RUDOLPH: No deal, Santa! Rudolph ain’t playing your reindeer games!

PANEL 5

CAPTION: Manufacturing Dissent

Santa is sitting on the floor, wearing the full Santa outfit, plus a fake long nose and fake pointy ears, in a pathetically bad attempt to disguise himself as an elf. He’s talking to two elves, one of whom is slapping their forehead in a “I don’t believe this” gesture, while the other is grinning (almost laughing) and talking to Santa.

SANTA: Speaking as an ordinary elf, I don’t trust these unionizers! No sir!

ELF: Seriously?

PANEL 6

CAPTION: But Eventually…

In the background, we see two children, looking happy, next to a Christmas Tree. They have packages on the floor around them, and one of the kids is holding an open box, and looking at a slip of paper he presumably just pulled out of the box.

In the foreground, Santa, wearing the full traditional Santa outfit and with a big bag slung over one shoulder, is walking away from the kids, but he turns his head back and speaks, looking grumpy.

CHILD 1: It says “Proudly manufactured by union elves.”

CHILD 2: Cool!

SANTA: Ah, shuddup!

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Union Issues | 8 Comments

Open Thread and Link Farm, Plague Doctors Edition

Posted on December 22, 2020 by Ampersand

The Constitution Drafting Project – National Constitution Center
“The National Constitution Center’s Constitution Drafting project brings together three teams of leading constitutional scholars—team libertarian, team progressive, and team conservative—to draft and present their ideal constitutions.” Interestingly, the progressive and conservative constitutions both got rid of lifetime tenure for Supreme Court justices.
Vaccine allocation, age, and race – Noahpinion
If we value Black and white lives equally, then on average Black people will get the vaccine sooner.
(1) LORN – ANVIL [Official Music Video] – YouTube
Odd little science fiction three-minute animated video. A bit heavy metal like (i.e., for no particular reason the main character is a woman with large boobs in a skintight outfit), but fascinating and lovely visuals, all in black and white line drawings. ETA: Content warning for suicide.
I wrote a Twitter thread on censorship in America today – not meaning “Kirkus didn’t review my book,” but meaning “government agents pounding on the door at 6:30am.” (Alternative link.)
Visa and Mastercard are Trying to Dictate What You Can Watch on Pornhub | Electronic Frontier Foundation
“The truth is, navigating speech policies in a way that won’t shut down huge swaths of legitimate and worthy speech is hard. And it’s wrong that Visa and Mastercard have the power to—however clumsily—police speech online.”
Dorf on Law: Justice Alito’s Sense of Grievance Distorts His Views of Free Speech
“Justice Alito is, not to put too fine a point on it, acting like a snowflake. Being called a bigot might be hurtful, but it is not censorship. It is counter-speech.”
Why Are These Sea Urchins Sporting Cowboy and Viking Hats? There’s Science to Their Hot Looks
Report Finds Bail Reform in Chicago Reduced Pretrial Incarceration Without Hurting Public Safety – The Appeal
Digging Into the Messy History of “Latinx” Helped Me Embrace My Complex Identity – Mother Jones
Free Speech Activists Are Trying to Get Me Fired Because They Didn’t Like a Joke I Made – The Stage Mirror
A Surreal New Bookstore Has Just Opened in China | Architectural Digest
The photos are jaw-dropping.
I left a long response in the comments to Shadi Hamid’s plea for Democrats to act in a bipartisan manner. Basically, I think we need to order from the options that are actually on the menu in front of us, not the options we WISH were on the menu.
The dreamlike fungi that thrive in nature’s damp cornersGorgeous photos of mushrooms from the Netherlands.
No-kill, lab-grown meat to go on sale for first time | Meat industry | The Guardian”
The “chicken bites”, produced by the US company Eat Just, have passed a safety review by the Singapore Food Agency and the approval could open the door to a future when all meat is produced without the killing of livestock, the company said.”
Should the government pay Americans to get COVID vaccine? | Miami Herald
Yes, we should.
Fat Lady Attempts to Get Health Care: An Oral History – McSweeney’s Internet Tendency
This is a harsh satire about how shitty doctors treat fat women… so please be cautious about clicking through.
Freeze Peach Revisited
“Free speech is your right to speak free of government interference. This is democratic bedrock. This is also your right to run a blog that nobody reads, print a book that nobody buys, and hold a protest that nobody cares about. Freeze peach is your ability to speak and be heard — for your testimony to be credited, your expertise accepted, for your opinions and preferences to matter in public discussion.”
The photos in this post are by Kuma Kum.

Posted in Link farms | 25 Comments

Cartoon: You Look Great!

Posted on December 17, 2020 by Ampersand

Another collaboration with the wonderful Becky Hawkins!

If you like these cartoons, please support them on Patreon! A small pledge makes a big difference.

I’ve read many fat people’s accounts of losing weight due to illness and having their friends be seemingly thrilled by the weight loss. I’ve had a vague intention of doing a cartoon about it someday. But what actually galvanized me to write this cartoon was a tweet from “Uninhibited Seagull“:

OMG this. I was very ill through last Winter. I lost about 50 lbs through being too sick to be active and at times even too sick to eat. Returning to my workplace after going through that, most reactions appreciated my weight loss more than my health.

Becky said she’d be eager to draw it, and I was glad. This is a perfect cartoon for Becky to draw, because it involves so many specific environments that have to be instantly understood by readers, and Becky is fabulous at drawing environments. (She told me she was particularly pleased with the dull and depressing hospital hallway in panel 3.)

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels, plus a small additional “kicker” panel underneath the cartoon.

PANEL 1

We see a woman seated in a doctor’s office, facing the doctor’s desk. The woman has cat’s-eye glasses and purple hair, and is quite fat. She’s holding her hands in front of her mouth, looking afraid. We’ll call her GLASSES.

On the other side of the desk, the doctor is seated, talking to Glasses. She’s displaying a plastic model showing the anatomy of the head and neck.

DOCTOR: Your cancer is treatable. But it’s going to be a hard road.

PANEL 2

A caption at the top of the panel says ONE MONTH LATER.

Glasses is lying in a hospital bed, which has it’s head side partly raised. She’s lying on her side, facing away from her visitor, looking limp, her eyes mostly shut.

In the other side of the bed, a visitor, a balding middle-aged man wearing a green tee shirt, is holding a spoon in one hand and a container (jello, maybe?) in the other. He looks very worried.

VISITOR: Please eat something…

GLASSES: I… I don’t think I can.

PANEL 3

A caption at the top of the panel says THREE MONTHS LATER.

Glasses, wearing a hospital gown and slippers, is walking in a dreary hospital corridor. She’s using a walker, and with one hand she’s holding a cell phone by her face, talking to someone. She looks cheerful. She’s much thinner than she was in panel 1, with bags under her eyes and her cheekbones standing out.

GLASSES: I’m not completely out of the woods yet. But they say I can go home.

PANEL 4

A caption at the top of the panel says THE NEXT DAY.

Glasses, dressed in a blue blouse and white pants, is on the front yard of a nice-looking adobe bungalow house with a tiled roof, approaching the front door. We can see that this house is one of a row of similar houses on this block. Other than the clothes, she looks a lot like she did in panel three, and is again using a walker.

A friend is standing in the doorway, greeting her cheerfully. Glasses’ mouth is open, but she’s not speaking; she doesn’t know what to say.

FRIEND: Wow, you lost so much weight! You look great!

SMALL KICKER PANEL UNDER THE COMIC

The same friend is talking to Glasses; glasses still looks surprised.

FRIEND: Man, I wish I could get cancer!

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Fat, fat and more fat | 7 Comments

Open Thread and Link Farm, Oh Fishy Fishy Fishy Fish Edition

Posted on November 10, 2020 by Ampersand

Treasury Secretary Warren? Progressives Line Up to Press Their Agenda on Biden – The New York Times. And an alternate link.
“But as they adjust to the possible new reality of divided government, many progressive groups and leaders are focusing their attention on Mr. Biden’s executive branch appointments with intense urgency, viewing these positions as gatekeepers, in effect, for vast numbers of policy.”
Why Trump and Republicans Are Undermining Democracy
My Son is No Sex Offender – Persuasion
“But like hundreds of thousands, he is unjustly trapped on the registry.”
Arthur Conan Doyle’s estate sues Netflix for giving Sherlock Holmes too many feelings – The Passive Voice
Their theory is that, although the Sherlock character is public domain, Doyle didn’t develop Sherlock’s emotions until the later stories, which are not yet in the public domain; therefore a Sherlock with emotions is a violation of their copyright. (Although, needless to say, they have created nothing.)
The real reason we have an Electoral College: to protect slave states – Vox
The Only Time The Oscars Ended Early
Turns out that ending early is a mistake. But also a great story.
Is Plastic Recycling A Lie?
The Curse of Monster Island: an experiment in unmoderated free speech – The Skeptic
The horrible people you attract might be even more horrible than you’re imagining.
People’s Savings Are Down To $0 Because Of The Pandemic
“Even people who built rainy day funds over years are watching their savings run down to zero, with no relief from the government in sight.”
A short essay about Xander from Buffy, the episode “The Zeppo,” and trans masculinity.
“The Zeppo” is one of my favorite episodes, and I’ve seen it many times, so I love reading some thoughts on it that I haven’t even considered. (Probably because I’m cis.)
How to address police “testilying.”
Police routinely lie and never face consequences. And it’s unclear how to change that.
All U.S. Residents Deserve to Vote, Not Just Citizens
Including immigrants, documented or not.
Was Nazi Germany Everyone’s Fault? – Pacific Standard
I’ve heard many arguments that the Nazis were widely supported by ordinary Germans, so reading a counter-argument is interesting.
5 Ways Weight Stigma Harms Fat People’s Health | The Mighty
The magical thinking of guys who love logic | The Outline
” Calling your opinions and feelings ‘rational,’ as opposed to the ‘irrational’ opinions and feelings of others, is a shortcut to boosting your self-esteem. And it’s certainly not as though this tendency is unique to reactionaries; I think we’re all prone to this sometimes.”
When YouTube Red-Pills the Love of Your Life
This article is referenced in the above article, but the reference isn’t totally accurate. I wonder how common these relationships are. That some redpilled guys have produced “guides” to converting girlfriends and wives to redpill ideology is disturbing.
G.O.P.-Appointed Judges Threaten Democracy, Liberals Seeking Court Expansion Say – The New York Times. And an alternate link.
“Republican appointees interpreted the law in a way that impeded ballot access 80 percent of the time, versus 37 percent for Democratic ones. The numbers were even more stark when limited to judges appointed by President Trump, who has had tremendous success at rapidly reshaping the judiciary. Of 60 rulings in election-related cases, 85 percent were “anti-democracy” according to the analysis.”
‘We’re like athletes’: the secret lives of giant-vegetable growers | Vegetables | The Guardian
I think, but I’m not sure, that I have Mandolin to thank for this link.
A bunch of people over the years have asked why on earth Democrats oppose Voter ID. Here’s a succinct explanation (including references) on Twitter, and in case the Twitter copy doesn’t persist, here’s another copy.
Donald Trump Didn’t Really Win 52% of White Women in 2016 | Time
“…the percentage of white women who voted for Trump was actually 47%, compared to 45% for Clinton. That’s still a plurality… But it’s essentially a tie, which makes for a very different story than a 9-point margin for Trump.”
What happened to that ‘blue wave’? – The Washington Post. And an alternative link.
” Republican presidents going back to Eisenhower have systematically invested in their party’s organizational capacities at the national, state and local levels: funding local party-building initiatives, assiduously recruiting activists, volunteers, and candidates, teaching campaign techniques, and launching fundraising systems. Democratic presidents, in contrast, have repeatedly emphasized enacting policies over party-building.”
Why the First Monument of Real Women in Central Park Matters—and Why It’s Controversial | Smithsonian Magazine
The process of making the statue – which depicts Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton fourteen feet high – was interesting. Originally it was just Anthony and Stanton depicted; after objections to the whiteness, Truth was added in, and after further objections, Truth was made to be active rather than just listening. I favor all that, but some (not all) of the objections remaining – like that the three of them probably never literally planned together atthe same table – seem silly to me.
I adore this AP photo of the sculptor working on the statue.
Here’s a double-page fight scene from issue three of the current “Black Widow” comic. Art by Elena Casagrande, colors by Jordie Bellaire. And here’s a twitter thread where I discuss why I like this spread so much. (The reproduction of the art in the twitter thread is low-res and some important details are lost, which is why I included a separate link to the art).

Posted in Link farms | 27 Comments

Aunt Linda and Uncle Frank were playing on easy mode back in 1966

Posted on November 5, 2020 by Guest Writer

Photo by Alex Blăjan on Unsplash

Guest post by Brendan Wright

I just found another scintillating read– the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Expenditures 2019. There’s some very interesting take-aways. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that think I understand why many well-meaning baby boomers think (wrongly) that young people could afford homes if we just cut back on luxuries a little bit. It’s become a bit of a trope that your boomer relatives think that you could own a home if you just cut back on the avocado toast and Lulu Lemon pants. Aunt Linda probably thinks that way because she and Uncle Frank made similar sacrifices, and it landed them in a nice split-level ranch!

Food expenses– both dining and at home– take up 15.46% of contemporary household income. Let’s call it 15.5% to make things easy. Apparel and Services take up about 2% of household income. Healthcare takes up yet another 6% of our income. The median price of a new home in 2019 was $320,700, according to money-zine.com— Approximately 3.9 times the annual household income reported by the Bureau of Labor statistics.

I busted out another thriller– “A Century of Family Budgets in the United States”, also by those raconteurs at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Table 4, “Historical Shares of Family Consumption” shows some interesting data for 1966– when Aunt Linda and Uncle and Uncle Frank were bright-eyed young things hoping to buy their first home. It lacks certain categories that the contemporary budgets have– like personal care. It appears to be a suggested budget, rather than what people were doing in the wild, but it’s based on actual income and expense data available to the BLS at the time. The BLS thinks that Uncle Frank and and Linda were spending 29.2% of their income on food, 10.3% on Clothing, and 6.4% on Healthcare. More importantly, the average household income in 1966 was $7400 (per Census.gov) and the average cost of a home was $14,200 (Doyouremember.com). That’s only 1.9 times average household income in their day.

If Aunt Linda and Uncle Frank were saving for 10% down on a home, they’d only have to save an amount equivalent to 19% of their annual income. If they managed to temporarily reduce the household food and clothing budgets by half– let’s say by thrift shopping, sewing their own, and eating less expensive foods– then they could free up 19.75% of their annual budget. In about a year of thrift, they could be walking into the bank and asking for a mortgage in one of America’s new suburban developments.

If a millennial wants to buy an average house right now with 10% down, they’re looking at saving about 39% of their annual income. (I didn’t factor closing costs into this, since I couldn’t find historical average closing cost estimates– but they aren’t cheap.) A frugal millennial who manages to spend half of the normal amount on food and the apparel/services category can expect to save up 8.75% of their annual income over the course of the year. In other words– they’re having to save about 4.5 times as long as Uncle Frank and Aunt Linda did. Emergencies can easily wipe out down payment savings before a would-be home buyer can use them to stabilize their housing situation. If your landlord decides to suddenly jack up your rent– common in many major cities these days– you might have to dip into those funds to pay for a deposit and moving van. Four and a half years is a much longer time to have to go without an incident.

I focused on food and clothing expenses because they’re usually the easiest for people to control. Costs decreasing in those areas mean that there’s less wiggle-room in millennial budgets. The big expenses tend to be harder to control– like housing or healthcare. Nobody asks their ambulance driver which hospital has the best prices on emergency appendectomies– they just care about getting to a place that can save their life. Housing is the big one for many young people, and there just aren’t a lot of good options in many areas. Many millennials dream of minimalist options like van life, but there are barriers– financial, social, legal, and otherwise– to get into tiny homes, van living, houseboats and many other off-beat alternatives. They’re not impossible, but they also aren’t easy and still have considerable costs.

Bottom line: Aunt Linda and Uncle Frank were playing on easy mode back in 1966.

Posted in Economics and the like | 31 Comments

Cartoon: The Post Office Is Dying!

Posted on October 27, 2020 by Ampersand

If you like these cartoons, please help me make more by supporting my Patreon! A $1 or $2 pledge really helps (plus, just as a matter of philosophy, I love the idea of earning a living through small donations from many donors.)

The post office is one of the most well-liked and successful government agencies. Its services are essential to many people – people who live in remote areas, people with small businesses that require affordable small-scale shipping, people who rely on the post to get them their medications, and – most crucially of all – people who buy self-published comics through the mail. Why does nobody think of them?

Naturally, Republicans – more specifically, the GOP-controlled Congress under the second president Bush – have put the postal service into intensive care. The Post Office faces many problems, but arguably the largest – and certainly the most avoidable – is a law called The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA). PAEA requires the Post Office – and only the Post Office – to prepay their expected retiree health care costs for over fifty years. Jeff Spross wrote an article about this in The Week:

Consider your average 30-year mortgage. What if you had to set aside a few hundred thousand dollars right now, enough to pay the whole thing, even if you were still going to make payments over 30 years? No one would ever take out a mortgage. That’s the whole point: the costs only come in over time, and the income you use to pay them comes in over time as well. It works exactly the same for retiree pensions and benefit funds. Which is why, as economist Dean Baker pointed out to Congress, pretty much no one else does what the PAEA demanded of the Postal Service.

Meeting Congress’ arbitrary mandate required putting away an extra $5.6 billion per year. “It is equivalent to imposing a tax of 8 percent on the Postal Service’s revenue,” Baker said. “There are few businesses that would be able to survive if they were suddenly required to pay an 8 percent tax from which their competitors were exempted.”

In my original conception of this cartoon, “The Post Office” was going to be represented by someone in a post office uniform. I’m so glad I rethought that. Figuring out how to make a mailbox animated and give it expressions, while still keeping it a recognizable iconic mailbox, was an exciting challenge for me. I’m happy with how it came out (Frank Young did a bang-up job coloring it), and that fantastical element makes the strip a lot more fun for readers. (Or I hope it makes it more fun, anyway).

To save time, I used a specialized Photoshop brush to draw the “whiz lines” in panel 3. And when I say “to save time,” what I mean is that I spent an hour and a half searching for and trying out different brushes in Photoshop until I found one that worked. (Drawing it by hand would have taken me half the time.) But I am happy with how the whiz lines look.

I’m not as happy with the “WHAM!” lettering, which I drew by hand rather than using a font, but after a certain amount of time drawing and redrawing I decided that I had to live with it and move on. Hopefully I’ll do a better job of it next time a sound effect like that comes up.

My single favorite thing is the envelopes flying out of the mailboxes “mouth” in panel 3.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels. Each panel shows the same two characters: A businessman-looking character in a pinstripe suit, and an anthropomorphic blue mailbox – one of the big metal ones, found on street corners, that you can drop your mail into for postal workers to pick up. The recessed slot where mail is inserted is drawn to be the mailbox’s mouth, and it lifts one of its four legs to gesture with it like a human making a hand gesture.

All four panels take place in the same location, a sidewalk in a city or town. There’s some litter and pebbles scattered across the sidewalk, and also some fallen leaves from a tree. Across the street we can see another sidewalk and a building; a sign on the corner of the building says “back ground detail.”

PANEL 1

Pinstripes walks into the panel, holding his hand out towards Mailbox. Mailbox is grinning and gesturing towards itself.

PINSTRIPES: Post Office! I heard you’re nearly dead!

MAILBOX: No, no! I’ve had my ups and downs, adjusting to the digital age, but I’m still here! Honestly, I can last for decades! Or forever!

PANEL 2

Pinstripes rubs a hand over his chin thoughtfully. Mailbox leans back and laughs.

PINSTRIPES: What if I pass a law weighing you down by making you pay retiree health care costs over fifty years in advance?

MAILBOX: Ha-ha! That would be ridiculous! No corporation or public agency has ever been required to-

PANEL 3

A gigantic, heavy sack – bigger than either character – drops out of the sky, slamming Mailbox to the ground with a big “WHAM!” sound effect. Maibox is literally crushed under the weight, although its “head” is in the clear. Mailbox’s mouth is open in an expression of surprise and pain, and several envelopes come shooting out of its mouth. Meanwhile, Pinstripes watches with arms folded, looking satisfied.

PANEL 4

Smirking, Pinstripes puts a hand by his mouth to shout out, the other hand pointing at Mailbox on the ground. Mailbox, still trapped under the enormous weight, looks stunned.

PINSTRIPES: On no! The Post Office is dying! Now we have to privatize it!

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Conservative zaniness, right-wingers, etc., In the news | 4 Comments

Cartoon: We can’t do THAT! It’s MEAN!

Posted on October 26, 2020 by Ampersand

Please support these cartoons on my Patreon! A $1 or $2 pledge really helps.

I actually wrote this cartoon months ago, during the Democratic primary, out of frustration that so many Democratic Senators refuse to consider steps like ending the filibuster (fun fact: named after Buster Filly, an 1840s senator/drunkard who was famous for snoring so loudly in the Senate chambers that no work could be done), making D.C. a state, and (of course) expanding the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, the GOP seems to have few or no limits. And that becomes yet another structural disadvantage for Democrats; not only are Democrats often unable to win even with a majority of votes, due to gerrymandering (fun fact: named after Jerry Manders, who is famous for playing the title character on the TV show Leave It To Beaver) and the electoral college, but even when Democrats do manage to be a majority of elected officials, they are made unable to appoint judges or pass laws.

I’m particularly frightened by the prospect, brought up in this cartoon, of Republicans using their control of the Supreme Court to make it easier and easier for Republicans to suppress Democratic voters. (I’m still not over Bush v Gore, to be honest.)

But a few months ago, the cartoon seemed to me to lack focus, and I put it aside.

But now, with the sad passing of Justice Ginsberg, it took very little rewriting to give the cartoon focus.

One interesting thing about this cartoon, for me, is that it has the potential to be outdated very soon – Senate Democrats definitely seem more open to ideas like increasing seats on the Supreme Court. At last night’s astoundingly terrible presidential debate, Joe Biden declined to rule out either increasing seats on the court, or getting rid of the filibuster.

So we’ll see what happens. If this cartoon becomes moot, I will be delighted.

TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON

This cartoon has four panels.

PANEL 1

A large caption at the top of the panel says “REPUBLICANS.”

We see several people, most or all of whom seem to be white men, standing in some sort of business or office space. One man is speaking to the others: He is bald on top, and wearing an open suit vest over a shirt and striped necktie. He is grinning and gesturing as he speaks.

VEST: When Obama nominates for the Supreme Court, we just won’t allow a hearing.

VEST: We’ll make up some excuse, like, uh… We can’t confirm a new Supreme Court Justice close to a presidential election.

PANEL 2

A close up of Vest, who has steepled his fingers a bit below his chin, and is looking up a bit, perhaps staring at the beautiful future his imagination is conjuring.

VEST: Once we own the Supreme Court, we’ll step up on policies making voting harder for Democratic-leaning groups like Blacks and students!

VEST: Gerrymandering, closing polling places, and harsh voter ID laws are just a start! With the Supreme Court on our side, we can do anything!

PANEL 3

One of the other white men in the room has stepped forward, looking anxious as he asks a question. Vest just throws up his hands and grins.

ANXIOUS GUY: But what if there’s an open Supreme Court seat close to a Presidential election when a Republican is president?

VEST: Screw it, we’ll confirm ’em anyway!

PANEL 4

A large caption at the top of this panel says DEMOCRATS.

The panel shows a tablet being held in someone’s lap. On the tablet, we can see three people, a woman and two men, talking in a Zoom-like program. The woman looks determined, shaking a fist; the first man looks a bit afraid; and the second man is holding his hands on either side of his face and gasping in horror.

WOMAN: If we get the White House and congress, we should add seats to the Supreme Court.

A BIT AFRAID: We can’t do that! It’s mean!

GASPING MAN: Gasp!

Posted in Cartooning & comics, Elections and politics | 42 Comments