PMSimon.com

Did you see Sunday morning's "Pearls Before Swine" comic? If you didn't, click here while it's still available (about a month). Go ahead, read it. I'll wait.

Now that you've read it, a few comments are in order:

a) Wow.
b) Considering the general tenor of political discussion on the comics page, this one came out of left field.
c) It's hard to imagine anyone disagreeing with Pastis' obvious point...

...except that people are doing exactly that.

Check out the Usenet group rec.arts.comics.strips, where pros and fans talk about comic strips: click here for the thread about this particular strip. Among the comments:

"extremely one-sided."

What's the other side of targeting innocent children for murder? There is no other side. The moment you look for the other side, you plunge into the abyss of amorality. You can argue all night long about Palestinian self-determination and Israeli right to existence and military targets and terrorism and walls and rights of return and partitioning and settlements. When you get to deliberately murdering children, the argument's over.

"...a less "one-sided" response might include, for example,
'Israel responded to today's attack with a tank and rocket assault on a
suspected Hamas hideout, killing four Palestinians, leaving six families
homeless, and also by refortifying their walls to protect Jewish settlements
in Palestinian territory.'

"Hey, I'm just being fair here. Both sides do things to aggravate the other."

Deliberately targeting children vs. attacking terrorist strongholds- moral equivalence, anyone?

"If I want this rubbish (either side), I'll go read Ha'aretz or the Jewish
Forward or the editorial pages of the WSJ or other American papers, thanks.
My respect for this otherwise-funny strip just went in the gutter."

Hmm. I wonder what this guy's saying here, mentioning the "Jewish Forward." Let's see... could he be... anti-Se... nah, he's just against Israel. And the people who live there.

It's hard not to give up. We live in an age when ostensibly educated, civilized people bend over backwards to find justification for the murder of innocents, and criticize those who would dare to disapprove of said murder. I'd like to think that the vast majority of humans understand. I'd like to think that. I really would.

 Share

I'm tired. My teeth hurt. I'm cranky. Today was overcast and gray. I just want to go crawl into bed or something.

So I will. See you tomorrow.

 Share

Here's a handy tip for radio "personalities" in the audience: if you find yourself talking up a record by saying "Stevie Nicks! She's on the edge and she's on (name of station)!", kill yourself. It's the only fair thing to do.

Truly, if there's a good reason for the proliferation of voicetracking and syndication and other radio homogenization, it's because too many stations in every kind of market and format feature deep voices with nothing to say. I swear, I've heard so much inanity lately in the few seconds allotted for jocks to speak, I'd rather hear static.

You know what? I'm much more impressed with college radio. My preference for the untrained, stammering, addled college jocks over the slick professionals is well-documented in this column (I'm too lazy to link to it, but it's there if you search for it). I love every um and uh and ah and huh huh you hear on student radio- not the slick, professional, out-of-the-amateurs'-hands noncommercial radio of KCRW and WKCR and WXPN and WBEZ, but the kind of radio done by actual students in it for fun and maybe the occasional free concert ticket or CD and the recognition from a friend who says "I heard you mispronounce Fugazi last night." I love the kind of radio that sounds like someone's Mr. Microphone sprang a high-powered leak. What I can't stand is some deep-voiced guy thinking he's clever by putting words together that sound slick and witty but are instead moronic. Stevie Nicks, on the edge? What edge? She couldn't have been further from the edge if she was Phyllis Schlafly.

This is one reason I'm not programming anymore. If I were PD at that station, I would not have been able to yank that guy out of the studio fast enough. But I'm not a PD anymore, just a listener, and I couldn't change the station fast enough. I can't be the only one listening who did that.

 Share

I'm not much for New Year's Eve. Like birthdays, they're kinda irrelevant to me, celebrations of what might as well be randomly selected days on the calendar. That's why we tend to stay home, eat a nice meal, watch some TV, avoid parties. Besides, who wants to be on the road for Amateur Night? So we aren't.

2003 was not the worst year for us. It was, however, not the best, for various reasons I won't go into now (you'll just have to trust me on this). If there's an exception to make about celebrating the holiday, it would be to accept this as a fresh start, a chance to put last year aside and move forward. It doesn't really work like that, but what the hell, let's act like it does. And that sounds like as good an excuse as any to crack open a Newcastle Brown and celebrate, so that's what we'll do. Let's put 2003 to rest now. Happy New Year and all that.

 Share

January 1 and we're still here.

That counts for something, I suppose. It strikes me that with all the terror alerts and canceled flights and elite special forces running security at the portapotties on Colorado Boulevard for the parade today, we're still around, still doing whatever it is we do, and no amount of terrorism or rhetoric has managed to derail us.

TV was as inane as ever today. Millions of American men cursed the BCS and celebrated USC's "people's championship." Millions more watched large mechanized gizmos festooned with flowers and grain- decadence! Waste!- rumble around the corner from Orange Grove in front of the Norton Simon Museum the way they do every year. People bought frivolous items at large concrete malls. Hamburgers and pizzas were sold and consumed. A pudgy, gap-toothed Norwegian was anointed "World Idol," kids ran screaming with joy around the neighbors' backyard, a man walked an impossibly furry dog of indeterminate breed up the street, a drowsy writer pulled on a pair of Asics running shoes, plodded a few miles, decided he didn't really have it today, turned back, showered, and reclined on the couch, napping in front of the TV next to his similarly reposed wife.

Morning, and afternoon, and evening in America. Just like it always is, only with more security. They didn't take this away from us. They can't.

Yeah, I suppose it IS a happy new year.

 Share

...guesting via the magic of the telephone, on Cam Edwards' morning news show at KTOK Oklahoma City Friday morning (1/2), blathering about liberal talk or some such stuff.

Listen around 8:15 am CT (6:15 am Pacific!)- it's streaming at KTOK.com.

 Share

Rained all day, hard all morning and then a misty, annoying drizzle all afternoon. Hence, we did nothing again.

Two consecutive days of nothing. 2004 is off to a roaring start. But I could get used to this inaction.

 Share