Giving Thanks

Michael Yon brings us a tale of thanksgiving.
Nothing I can write would match his visual and literal eloquence.
Enjoy the holiday.

I’m alive and doing fine

I've been out of commission for a few days with a knee sprain. The Oxycodone manages the pain quite well, but does little to enhance my withering writing skills.

For no particular reason at all, other than it amuses me, this post takes a look at web comics. It seems to me the "funny pages" in the local newspaper are less funny than I recall from my Jurassic youth. Dick Tracy, L'il Abner, B.C., Nancy, Peanuts, Gasoline Alley, Pogo, Steve Canyon, and Prince Valiant were my favorites as a kid. By the 1970s and 80s, my attention was drawn (pun intended) to Broom-Hilda, Calvin & Hobbes, Bloom County, Garfield, For What It's Worth (much better than Mary Worth), Dilbert, and Doonesbury.

These days, the talented, creative cartoonists are found on the web.

Paul Taylor's Wapsi Square is a multilayered treat. On the surface, the storyline focuses on a group of cute young women trying to live their lives. Below the icing, some very surreal storytelling that will have you believing the End of Time is less than 1,900 days away. It is a sometimes convoluted plot that has been building since 2001.

Chris Muir's day by day strikes me as a modern day Doonesbury (from when that strip was less preachy) of the Right. I consider day by day one of my daily "must reads." This strip is running seven days a week.

Jeph Jacques' Questionable Content tells the stories of a group of young people who hang around a coffee shop. Beyond that, any resemblance to "Friends" is coincidental. The latest storyline, for example, involves a robotic boyfriend J. Jeph has just passed the 1,000 episode mark.

The very talented Danielle Corsetto has recently expanded her girls with slingshots to five days a week. Like Wapsi Square, the main characters are endowed with attractive and ample protection for their pectoral muscles. A touch of the surreal is provided by another major character, a talking (and mobile) cactus. Danielle is also the talent behind the The New Adventures of Bat Boy in the now defunct Weekly World News (okay, not entirely defunct, the print version is no longer a temptation at the grocery checkout, but is still published online.)

Starline X. Hodge (pronounced "Star Lean") offers us Candi, and it is deliciously funny. The title character is a college student dealing with all the drama and comedy that is college life. The drawing style reminds me a little of the old Archie comics from the 1960s.

A new comic I just discovered (thanks to a plug by Danielle Corsetto) and that I think has great potential is in genre of Magic Realism is kukuburi by Ramón Pérez. His is a once a week strip that is just now digging into a plot following weeks of character introduction and scene setting. The artwork is in a word, awesome.

So there you go, boys and girls. Take some time to back away from the blogs and fill your head with some visual entertainment.

Better never than late

Crap!
The first snow of the season is upon us here in the Allegheny Mountains of Pennsylvania. I shot this photo with my phone cam out my office window.
I can hardly wait for the breathless reportage tonight on the local news concerning the dangers posed by this strange white material from the sky.
On the plus side, one of the local weather companies predicts a generally mild winter around here until March. That I can handle.
Sucks for the skiers though.

Love thy neighbor

Independent journalist/photographer/blogger Michael Yon offers us what could become an iconic vision of our success in Iraq.

The blog world is filled with commentary about this image and what it means.

Glenn Reynolds offers commentary and links elsewhere.

The Anchoress provides a banquet for thought:

It's important, though, to get a sense of what is going on over there, where our people are serving, living and dying. It's important to realize that where there is danger and tragedy, there is also progress and hope. In the major media outlets, we get big servings of the first two and very niggardly helpings of the latter. We need a more balanced diet of information.

In truth, we know so little. So much of the information we get from Iraq is filtered and delivered from "safe" locations. So little of it is unfiltered and delivered from the Iraqi streets.
Yon is delivering Iraq to us from the streets.

Dr. Melissa adds to the Anchoress's commentary:

I'm naive and idealistic. My opinion has always been that the Iraqis are people, people like any other, who suffered under the thumb of tyrany, who only ever saw excessive force achieve ends, who ruled by domination, who wished for a peace they thought impossible, who saw family murdered and yearned for vengeance, who were disoriented once faced with choices again and needed time to learn to trust.

In a government governed by themselves, they'd have to learn to trust themselves to choose wisely and then they'd have to learn to trust those chosen. In short, they were people like you or I who needed time to let their wings dry and learn to fly.

Chris Muir's outstanding comic strip "day by day" pays homage to Yon's photo.

Michelle Malkin points out that this photo illustrates more than simply neighbors getting along:

Yes, Christian persecution remains rampant in the Muslim world and apostasy is still punishable by death. But there are glimmers of good news, and they won't be broadcast on the nightly news or the front page of the NYTimes. Thanks to the lens of Michael Yon, we can see a fuller, truer picture of Iraq than the "grim milestone"-driven legacy media lens allows us to see. That deserves thanks and praise, too.

Vicki at the Jawa Report:

A beautiful tribute to men and women of good will from all faiths, and to our heroes who have made it possible.

In World War II, the United States was attacked first. We did not set up a defensive perimeter and await invasions by the Japanese from the west and the Germans from the east. We took the war to them. Just so in this war against terrorist Islamofacists. In Afghanistan and Iraq, it is not so much a battle for territory, but a battle for the hearts and souls of an entire culture. Michale Yon's photo is evidence of the beginnings of success.

Michael Yon's work in Iraq is supported solely through donations. Consider dropping some coin into his tip jar.

True men of genius

The Anchoress offers a couple (as usual) thoughtful items and this:

For what its worth.

What hath Leo Rosenberg wrought?

The 2008 presidential election is one year away and already we've been subjected to 24/7 campaign coverage since this time a year ago.

It began innocently enough on November 2, 1920 on the roof of a Westinghouse Electric Company building in East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania when Leo Rosenburg began coverage of the 1920 presidential election returns on the world's first commercial radio station, KDKA. That first night of election coverage relied on information being relayed by telephone from a local newspaper, allowing about one thousand listeners to learn James Cox had lost to Warren Harding.

Since then radio (and later television) news organizations continued efforts to reduce the time between voters marking their ballots and learning the results; giving Election Day the appearance of a sporting event rather than something more substantive.

More importantly, and I fear to our detriment, this need for speed has ushered in the age of electronic voting. The aim is to make results known more quickly. The price is less accountability since the manufacturers have convinced our political leaders that a paper trail is not necessary. It really does not matter whether we learn the results of the election at 8:01 PM on election night, or a week later. What is important is that the votes are recorded and counted accurately. We need not return to pencil and paper for this; simply require that each electronic voting machine print an itemized receipt for the voter to review and then place into the ballot box. Ed Mierzwinski of the federation of state Public Interest Research Groups offers additional insight on the issue of receipts. Kim Zetter's blog at Wired has an article on the Federal Election Assistance Commission's effort to collect public input on e-voting security. And, an article in the Illinois Business Law Journal suggests e-voting machines be based on open source software as one way to mitigate the potential for fraud.

We cannot turn back time, but we can decide that getting it right is more important than getting it fast.

Applause for Bill Clinton & the definition of "poor"

If Gina Cobb's blog is not on your daily read list, you might want to pay a visit, particularly to read two recent posts.
First is a rare but well-deserved accolade for former President Bill Clinton, as he stood up to a "9/11 truther" nutjob.
The second is the beginning of a lengthy essay on a defense of capitalism and a argument against how the left defines poverty.

Onward to the weekend

Little posting of late, I've been tweaking the site.

As my little gift to you, here's a little earworm:



That was cruel.
Here's some ear bleach:


Have a great weekend!

Breaking the Presidential Race Embargo

I have avoided sullying this blog with commentary on the 2008 Presidential race. First, IT'S TOO DAMNED EARLY. And secondly, what passes for debate has been anything but.
However, Betsy's Page offers one of the best one-liners I've heard in awhile. One funny line that says so much.



I'm not sold on John McCain as our next President (although we could do worse, much worse;) however, his heroic service in Vietnam requires that we listen to and seriously consider what he has to say.

Under the weather

I've been fighting a standoff battle against some insidious microscopic critters. I'm going back to bed to rest up for the Steelers versus Broncos later tonight.
Meanwhile, some musically appropriate entertainment for you: