I recently used an Amazon.com gift certificate to pick up some old books on cartooning that I’d had my eye on. Most revolve around magazine-style gag cartoons, but I was still fascinated by the idea of these books. I’m not really sure why, but something about the idea of writing a how-to book on something that seems so chaotic – that being the process of coming up with a good idea – seemed just so…quaint? So…1950s? I’m not sure. But it seemed charming, and I picked up a few.

That excerpt above certainly fits my concept of a mentality from a time long gone…back when American Indians were just cute sources of punchlines. It’s from Jack Markow’s Cartoonist’s and Gag Writer’s Handbook (Writer’s Digest, 1967). If it’s not politically correct, at least his AP style is.

Adrian Smith, who apparently knows the Beatrice Fiddler uses typepad.

Third district congressman Adrian Smith just keeps making life more interesting.

A few days ago, I wrote about his lies on SCHIP – now, his official congressional website is blocking incoming links from blogger accounts!

The same Lisa Hannah of Smith Watch who did the hard work on the aforementioned entry posted this over at New Nebraska Network — her step-by-step attempt to solve the mystery of why Adrian Smith’s official congressional website wouldn’t load from the link on her blog.

Of particular note is the response from the Blogger.com technician. Again, these are the Blogger.com technician’s words, not Lisa’s:

The problem isn’t with your link. It’s with THEIR server. It’s rejecting (giving a 404) when the link comes from blogspot. What a douche this guy is. He’s blocking requests when it comes from bloggers.
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His Official Government Website, that WE pay for (well I’m guessing on that part), is throwing up a 404 when the referrer heading comes from blogspot.com. I tested from one of my test blogs and it doesn’t work either, also uploaded a test page to googlepages (a different domain) and it works. So it really is blogspot they are blocking via the referrer.
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Looks like you can get a new blog post out of this. Congressman Adrian Smith is afraid of Bloggers!

So to sum up, everything on your end is correct. It’s the dear congressman that is playing games. Notice how his taxpayer server is also configured to Identify itself as NOYB (none of your business). Nice guy. Nebraska huh? Without looking I’m going to guess he’s a Republican.
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Looking around, I don’t see many others but you linking to him from blogspot, so it must’ve been you that scared him. Great Work!!!

That’s just such a pathetic thing for them to do. I shouldn’t be surprised I suppose, but good god.

UPDATE!!! (11/05) You may notice in the comments that there is a post from GovTrends, who take responsibility as the “website vendor” for Smith.

Upon further investigation we discovered our servers were set by default to block all referring traffic from Blogspot due to the proliferation of spammers. So, in effect, this ‚Äòblocking‚Äô of Blogspot is affecting all of the websites on our server…To be clear, neither us nor our client were aware of the blocking being done prior to today (we have over 2000 different websites on our blacklist that we download from gotroot.com) and we apologize for any inconvenience this has caused Blogspot bloggers.

I was a little suspicious that such a large vendor with a client list such as theirs would be completely clueless about this, and fortunately for all of us, Lisa Hannah again does the legwork. She contacted GovTrends, who failed to give her any kind of satisfactory answer, so she put their words to the test:

He said, as you can see, their servers are set by default. He kept on wanting to tell me about some site on the internet that tells about the biggest spammers, and that blogspot.com was one of them…

So, we have Smith’s office continuing to refuse to comment on this, and a provider wanting us to take them at face value.

So let’s look at some of the clients that they serve, as noted on their site:

– JP Morgan
– NYC Health
– Sirius Satellite
– Snapple
– Godiva Chocolatier
– WebMD
– Wharton: University of Pennsylvania
– The Bahamas

So far, their own site and the ones I’ve tested that I can see they run have all been accessible through Blogspot.com.

GovTrends pleads ignorance regarding the blogger blocking, saying it was just automatic for all their clients due to apparent “spamming” from blogger.com (still not actually sure how incoming links from a blog can be spam, but anyway). Yet this threat posed by blogger.com is apparently so severe that none of their large clients – nor GovTrends themselves – have incoming blogger links blocked.

Adrian Smith, who is either a liar or a moron.

Nebraska’s three congressmen continue to spew the repeatedly-debunked Bush administration rhetoric against SCHIP, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. I’m careful to not say Republican Party rhetoric, because some of the bill’s most outspoken supporters have been Republican. In spite of several people’s claims that a bi-partisan bill is needed, this is a bipartisan effort.

In her New Nebraska Network post Rep. Smith Misleads Constituents Regarding SCHIP, Lisa Hannah of the extremely thorough SmithWatch blog has contributed a point-by-point response to Adrian Smith’s latest batch of claims. But her terminology is too generous – he’s simply lying. Based on his campaign statements and quotes in interviews (and third-person anecdotes), I have little respect for the intellectual capacity of our third district congressman. But I refuse to believe he’s so thick that he really has no understanding of the bill.

Here’s a taste:

CLAIM #1 – The current SCHIP bill would make it possible for illegal immigrants to receiving federal benefits.

FACT – Sec. 605 says, “Nothing in this Act allows Federal payment for individuals who are not legal residents.” Further, funds could be denied if this does occur at the state level.
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CLAIM #3 – The bill would not serve poor children first, and would allow states to cover families making $84,455 per year, even though it exceeds 300 percent of the federal poverty levels.

FACT – Sec. 114 specifically notes that no child can be covered in a family that makes over 300% above the poverty level ($61,950).

Currently, the only state covering families above 300% is New Jersey, at 350%. New York Governor Eliot Spitzer tried to get coverage for up to 400% ($82,600), but was denied.

The present bill would allow an exception for these two states, but this has to be approved by HHS. New requirements would be issued to keep higher guidelines, but after Oct. 1, 2010, if those requirements were not met, those states would not get federal funds for children above 300%. If they did meet requirements, their federal matching rate would still be reduced.

Overall, 70% of children covered would be in families that are at 200% of the poverty level or less ($41,300 per year). Currently, 31 states have their SCHIP levels set at 200% or less (Nebraska is at 185%).

Two of the comments by NNN reader ColumbiaDuck demonstrate even a further level of dishonesty on the part of the Bush administration and their mouthpieces:

I would like to make one minor correction – New Jersey is the only state that would be allowed to cover over 300% in the most recent bill. And, as you note, they can only do this if they show they are making a targeted effort to reach those under 200%. New York is not allowed to go over 300% (and would need a waiver to go over 200%).

Another reason this is a disingenuous argument for Republicans to make – BUSH’s HHS approved the Jersey waiver. So he was for covering up to 350% until he was against it (ie until he could use it as a political weapon).
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If New York’s petition earlier this year had been approved, then they too could have gone above the 300% threshold. However, it wasn’t.

Ironically, it was the Bush people who rejected New York’s application. So they absolutely know that the 400% number (82,000) is total b*llsh*t, yet they say it again and again and again. The only way that number could have been real was WITH the approval of GWB.

For the Lee Terry fans, here Kyle Michaelis of NNN offers a response to the 2nd district congressman’s similar lack of honesty about the bills he votes on.

Chris Reed is a Union-Tribune columnist whose career aspirations seem to be little more than being the buffoon that eagerly carries out the paper’s constant smears against Mike Aguirre.

UT cartoonist Steve Breen, fighting the stereotype of cartoonists being geeky, overweight middle aged men.

In his latest blog entry, he does his best to bring more eyes to cartoonist Steve Breen’s best efforts to earn brownie points with his bosses.

The gist of this all is that city attorney Mike Aguirre suggested – in the midst of the wildfires heading rapidly toward San Diego with zero percent containment – that San Diego implement a city-wide evacuation plan. There has been some dispute and misunderstanding over whether or not Aguirre’s suggestion of “implementation” meant carrying out the planned evacuation or formally adopting an official plan.

In a bureaucratic environment, where things like plans and studies and whatnot have to be formally adopted, I read Aguirre’s suggestion of implementing a plan as “figuring out a definite plan and making sure that it is officially in place,” which is also how the San Diego Reader’s Don Bauder interpreted it:

In a memo of Oct. 22 that I will quote in full below, Aguirre recommended a voluntary evacuation PLAN. That is much different from a voluntary evacuation. He stressed the possibility of respiratory damage from smoke. He suggested officials contact nearby cities such as Yuma in the event that winds shifted and San Diegans would be in harm’s way. At the time of the memo, Highway 8 was open, and could have accommodated people leaving if lung damage became severe. He did not recommend a voluntary evacuation — just a PLAN for one. In the U-T’s story, the police chief, fire chief and mayor’s office falsely said Aguirre urged an exodus.

He goes on to reprint the memo in his entry. But folks like the Union-Tribune, the mayor and his staff, Aguirre’s other political enemies in San Diego government, and Voice of San Diego’s Scott Lewis all read it to mean “Aguirre says abandon the city now.”

Pat Flannery of Blog of San Diego had this:

I-15 was closed, I-5 was in imminent danger of being closed. There were fires on both sides of I-8. What if the high winds had continued through Tuesday? Even the military firefighting helicopters would not have been able to fly. And we were minutes away from losing SDG&E power. That was the situation on Monday morning.

In other words, the city was in danger of needing to be evacuated, and without an implemented plan, it would have been mass chaos. Mike Aguirre committed the apparently unforgivable sin of wanting to avoid mass chaos.

Well, in response to that memo, people have been using this as an opportunity to paint Aguirre as being some kind of emotionally unstable alarmist. I really, truly do not understand how someone could look at this situation and see this, but the same old people who want to pile on this guy and get him out of office are using everything at their disposal to do so.

Aguirre contacted Lewis again in an attempt to clarify his stance from the article linked above. Apparently Aguirre thought Lewis was talking about adopting an official plan, and Lewis thought Aguirre was talking about firing the starting pistol on the mass exodus. So in his follow-up, Lewis uses the opportunity to mock Aguirre, but does include this, which reinforces Aguirre’s assertion:

He said all he wanted was for the mayor and police and fire chief to design a plan to evacuate the entire city. He said the evacuations — and the shelters being set up — beginning Monday were occurring “willy-nilly.” He said he wanted the city to have a better plan and to set up shelters outside the city in El Centro, Yuma, Ariz. and other regional areas.

Not actually UT columnist Chris Reed; they made me take down his picture.

This all gets back to what it means to implement a plan.

But instead of talking about whether or not San Diego should have such a plan, how it should be structured, and other aspects that might accomplish silly things like saving people’s lives, the debate has successfully been recentered to whether or not Mike Aguirre is crazy and whether or not he’s telling lies and changing his story.

So anyway, I got away from my original point. Obviously, no politician or political figure should be above criticism. I mean, I make my living on the fact that I believe that. But seriously, it compromises the integrity of the whole world of political commentary and discourse when this is what it has come to – particularly when a paper brings their news department along with their editorial goals.

That is why I think it’s pretty darn pathetic that both Reed and Breen are using their platforms to point more fingers to encourage more people to laugh at Mike Aguirre for wanting to have a plan in place to evacuate the city in case 2.6 million people were going to be burned alive.

This is considered political satire, since Democrats apparently can’t get enough of blaming everything on George W. Bush.

Problem is, this is reality.

This is the first in what I hope will be a regular series of profiles on young cartoonists. Whether they’re in high school or early in their college cartooning days (at least prior to winning the Charles Schultz award) I hope to take a day every two weeks or so to shine a spotlight on a cartoonist early in their career.

The inaugural cartoonist in this series is Bob Al-Greene, an 18-year-old freshman at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln. Bob is one of three cartoonists at the Daily Nebraskan, the UN-L student newspaper. He earned a ranking of Superior at the Spring 2006 National JEA/NSPA convention in San Francisco. He has also won a few awards from Quill and Scroll, the National Federation of Press Women and he was the Nebraska High School Journalist of the Year last year.

NEAL OBERMEYER: When did you get your start in editorial cartooning? What made you decide to start?

click to view the full-size image and Bob’s thoughts on the cartoon

BOB AL-GREENE: I’ve been drawing my whole life, but I started doing cartoons during my sophomore year in high school for the school newspaper, the Central High Register. Central’s journalism department is one of the very best in the entire country, so I couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity, as far as turning my work in to competitions and things like that. My mom originally had urged me to start up a website and start putting up my cartoons, but I’m only getting around to that now.

The opportunity to express a clear and defined opinion solely through my art and a few choice words was, looking back, not something I was sure I could do, because I don’t consider my art to be in the same style as a lot of cartoonists, but it’s been working pretty well for me so far.

N: I would agree that your art is not in the same style as the “traditional” editorial cartoons – have you ever felt any pressure to conform – from yourself or others – or had people tell you “This isn’t what editorial cartoons are supposed to look like!”

B: I’ve tried a couple of times to simplify my drawings or stylize them even more, but instead my stuff just comes across looking childish, which is what I don’t want, so it doesn’t see print. I’m not sure I’ve found my artistic niche quite yet. I still have some evolving to do. I actually can’t remember anyone ever telling me, “This isn’t what editorial cartoons are supposed to look like!” or anything like that, and I’ll credit that to the fact that everyone has a different style and the truth is, cartoons are an extremely open genre and can be taken in any number of directions.

This summer a cartoonist was on “The News Hour” (one of my favorite programs to get ideas from) and he was talking about how cartoonists are having to make the switch to the Internet to keep their readership, and how they’re literally doing animated cartoons with voice-overs and impressions… That just turns the entire concept on its head. This is a very exciting time to be a young journalist. Continue reading →

There has been some really interesting material in the Lincoln Journal Star and the Omaha World-Herald these past few days regarding the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).

Here’s how the timeline played out:

SATURDAY: Jeff Koterba’s cartoon, declared by Kyle Michaelis of the New Nebraska Network as one of the worst editorial cartoons of all time, runs in the World-Herald. I used to work with Kyle, I occasionally write and comment on the NNN site, and he occasionally plugs my cartoons, but I had nothing to do with it!!

Kyle says:

Omaha World-Herald cartoonist Jeff Koterba had an absolutely appalling cartoon in Saturday’s edition. You really should see this one for yourself.

In it, a mother carries a sign reading “I’m Pro-SCHIP and I vote!!!” while her daughter says of the protesting parents “If they really cared about our future, wouldn’t they oppose the expansion of government?”

Koterba’s work is rarely very funny or insightful, but this is an embarrassment to editorial cartooning. How much do you have to distort an issue to suggest that children are better off with no medical care than with subsidized care?

SUNDAY: The Journal Star editorial board hits a home run with SCHIP needs Nebraska delegation, pointing out the bipartisan cooperation that has gotten the bill as far as it has, yet not quite far enough to withstand Bush’s veto. The editorial also does a great job of putting the hysterical critics of the bill in their proper place with a great quote from REPUBLICAN Charles Grassley:

The bill is not a government takeover of health care. The bill is not socialized medicine.

Screaming ‘socialized medicine’ during a health care debate is like shouting ‘fire’ in a crowded theater. It is intended to cause hysteria that diverts people from looking at the facts.

To those of you who make such outlandish accusations, I say, go shout ‘fire’ somewhere else. Serious people are trying to get real work done. Now’s the time to get this done.

They also point out the absurdity of one of the key points brought up by opponents:

The Bush administration has made the attention-grabbing claim that it would expand federal coverage to families earning $83,000 a year. That claim is about a single hair short of bogus. Its only factual basis is a request by New York to expand coverage to 400 percent of poverty. In Nebraska the current guideline is 185 percent of poverty. In reality the bill contains disincentives for states that raise the eligibility limit above the federal minimum and incentives for reaching eligible families who are not enrolled.

The ed also points out the hypocrisy of those who supported Bush’s prescription drug benefits and the similarities between the bills. It’s definitely worth a read.

MONDAY: Not surprisingly, Rep. Lee Terry shows up late to the debate, fully equipped with hollow talking points. In today’s Public Pulse in the Omaha World-Herald, Terry provides a condescending lesson to those who support SCHIP.

I was amused by Andy Siref’s Oct. 4 letter about the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. We share the same goal of helping uninsured children who are from lower-income families.

If that were the aim of the bill presented to Congress, I would have voted “yes” instead of “no.”

But the facts are that the bill I voted against would enable coverage for children and their parents when they may earn as much as $80,000 or more per year and may even already have health insurance.

The bill also would more than double the cost of this government-run program at a time when most Nebraskans want Congress to control spending…

Poor Lee. At this rate, Nebraska’s senior representative is making Adrian Smith look clever.

Related cartoons:

Back when I started cartooning in the fall of 1999, I was totally new to the Daily Nebraskan. It wasn’t long until I saw how much fun the illustrators were having, and Melanie Falk let me join her staff in the spring of 2000. I was still cartooning 5 days a week, so I only illustrated for one. For the most part, I illustrated opinion columns, but I occasionally illustrated a few arts columns and stories too.

It was during that stint that I really started learning how to do ink washes (Melanie and Delan Lonowski were very patient teachers) and that was also when I first got my hands on those neat Prismacolor gray markers.

Continue reading →

It’s become quite fashionable of late to attempt to label “liberals” – also known as “those people who think everyone should have equal rights” – as hypocrites, because we dare to disagree with those we disagree with. There seems to be some sense that tolerance equals endorsement, and furthermore, that being disagreed with is not unlike having some of your rights taken away.

How else could people honestly think that, by being challenged on their wishes to let their religion justify punishments, they are being discriminated against to the same degree as those who have rights and opportunities taken from them? Some people actually seem to think that being unable to marry the one you love, being unable to keep a job because of who you love and being unable to carry on your way of life because of who you love is no worse than having someone publicly disagree with you or draw a cartoon about you.

Here’s the latest example I’ve seen, in response to this cartoon, from Saturday’s Journal Star:

Hypocritical on tolerance

It’s time to end the faux holier-than-thou attitudes of Ernie Chambers and Neal Obermeyer. Both rail against discrimination toward homosexuals and minorities, yet they hypocritically display similar intolerance toward churchgoers specifically and repeatedly.

Believers sometimes betray their religion and object of worship through their oxymoronic actions, but to group all churchgoers with right-wing firebrands such as Fred Phelps and Pat Robertson is far too simplistic. And assigning the blame for such extremists to God is nothing short of blasphemy.

Certainly a cartoon depicting the prophet Muhammad acknowledging all his followers as terrorists and warmongers would never get printed, and for good reason.

However, trash like Obermeyer’s cartoon gets circulated frequently. And the attempt by Chambers to “sue” God for whatever purposes embarrasses this state. This is the real world, not fanciful television shows like “Ally McBeal” or “Boston Legal.”

Jesus said those without sin may cast the first stone in condemning others. Fortunately, no one — not churchgoers, religious extremists, nor Messrs. Chambers and Obermeyer — belongs to this category.

Jared Gibson, Lincoln

For one, I’m not sure where he gets off saying it’s a faux holier-than-thou attitude… but I really wonder how he thinks I’m displaying “…similar intolerance toward churchgoers specifically and repeatedly.”

In case you, dear reader, are as confused as Jared Gibson, I don’t think that any of you should have your rights to marry, be employed or worship your god be taken away. Sorry for the misunderstanding.