War Cartoon Roundup, part 2
Plus: you must, you must, you must read this week's Onion

First, cartoons I like...

On death and taxes: Wouldn't it be nice if more tax dollars went to universal healthcare, education, and other public services than went to, say, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin? See: Jeff Danziger.

On Bush's fairy-tale vision of an easy war: see Ben Sargent. (And to those who deny Bush ever said the war would be quick and easy, maybe this can jog your memory.)

On those lucrative rebuilding contracts: see Ann Telnaes.

On sacrifice: see David Horsey. (As a random sidenote, I'd just like to say that this man can really draw! I'm jealous).

On war and religion: see B. Deutsch

Next, cartoons I can't stand...

Cartoons that take cheap shots at Michael Moore's looks: see Bill DeOre, and Glenn McCoy. (As a counterpoint, see R.J. Matson, who awards Moore the "Best Dissent" Oscar)

Cartoons that imply peace protestors are a bunch of idiots who want to deny Iraqis freedom: see Michael Ramirez.

Finally, please read this week's Onion...

... especially "Bush Bravely Leads Third Infantry Into Battle" and the Point/Counterpoint, "This War Will Destabilize The Entire Mideast Region And Set Off A Global Shockwave Of Anti-Americanism"/"No It Won't".

New Cartoon! Practical Uses for Sodomy Laws

Made timely by a Texas case before the U.S. Supreme Court today. For more information on sodomy laws (and how to fight them), see www.sodomylaws.org.

Operation Dick Cheney's Fat Wallet aka Operation Halliburton Financial Freedom
Plus: Iraqi children killed for oil

I can't understand how anyone can imagine that Bush and Cheney are in Iraq out of the goodness of their hearts. While hundreds of Americans and Iraqis die in needless fighting and destruction, Bush and Blair are already busy dividing up the spoils today, arguing over those lucrative rebuilding contracts. First in line: Dick Cheney's beloved Halliburton, of course.

Meanwhile, no one knows how many Iraqi civilians have already died. From the AP ("Civilian death numbers in Iraq unknown"):

March 25, 2003  |  IRAQ-JORDAN BORDER (AP) -- Bombed-out cars on highways. Mothers weeping over dead children. A small boy seemingly asleep, the back of his head blown off.

Evidence of civilian casualties is not hard to find in Iraq, but as fierce fighting rages in the south and Baghdad is battered by bombs, nobody can count them.

The Iraqi government reports 194 civilian dead. The Red Cross says it can vouch for 14, but there could be many more. A Web site that compiles Western news media reports says between 199 and 278 are reported dead.

I can only agree with Michael Moore: "Shame on you, Mr. Bush."

Portland police assault trans woman at anti-war sit-in

Apologies for the delay--the woman was assaulted on Friday but I just came across the story. From the Portland IndyMedia Center: "Transgendered female verbally and physically abused by police, sheriff's office".

Copyright-free posters for peace

Graphic design legend Milton Glaser is perhaps best known for his Bob Dylan poster and I Love NY (and I Love NY More Than Ever) logoes. The above image by Glaser is part of the Another Poster for Peace project, a downloadable & printable online collection of "copy-right free art for public use."

While you're at it, get some copies of the Deception Dollar (below). This crappy web image really doesn't do it justice--you need to look at a two-sided print copy (handed out at the Manhattan peace march this weekend) with a magnifying glass to see all the tiny oil wells and Enron and Halliburton symbols.

And for anti-war songs and videos (among other things), see the Artist's Network of Refuse and Resist.

More on Michael Moore at the Oscars

So I wasn't at all suprised, but I definitely was annoyed, to see some anti-Michael-Moore cartoons this morning. There were of course the usual "well if it weren't for soldiers dying in wars Michael Moore wouldn't have the freedom to speak out so why doesn't he just keep his mouth shut" cartoons. This argument always confuses me, because it (1) sidesteps the issue of whether this particular war is justified; (2) implies that even though people have the right to speak out against the war, it's both cowardly?! and evil?! of them to use it. Most ridiculously of all, Doug Marlette compared Moore to Saddam Hussein. Yes, it all makes sense now: speaking out for peace is the same thing as being a brutal dictator!

And in another ridiculous Marlette cartoon comparison, he draws George W. Bush and Tony Blair as the Twin Towers.

As for the obnoxious Oscars attendees who booed Mr. Moore, my boyfriend Yves had this to say:

it's a really weird and self-indulgent group of people who would boo Michael Moore for what he said about Bush and the war and then give a standing ovation to Roman Polanski when he won the Best Director Oscar (which he couldn't receive in person because he fled to France decades ago to avoid conviction for the drugging and rape of a 13-year-old girl).

Yeah, what he said.

For further reading on the Oscars thing, please see "Michael Moore stars at Academy Awards." And while you're at the InTheseTimes website, check out Kurt Vonnegut's advice column, you'll be glad you did.

For cartoons that aren't stupid, see today's offerings from Carol Lay and Signe Wilkinson (who, incidentally, was the first woman to win the Pulitzer for editorial cartooning, the second, and most recent being Ann Telnaes).

The "liberation" of Iraq: Cartoon Roundup

On the "we had no choice thing": Yeah, right, says Tom Tomorrow.

On the "liberation" thing: Joel Pett notes the irony of the Bush administration talking about economic inequality in Iraq... (which ISN'T to say that the way that Hussein has treated the people of Iraq is OK, but that Tax-Cuts-for-the-Rich Dubya is a pretty crappy economic role model). Clay Bennett and Steve Sack have some further thoughts.

On the regime change thing: Scott Bateman wonders where this is all heading...

On the oil thing: see Lalo Alcaraz, Rob Rogers and Chip Bok.

On the democray and diplomacy thing: see Kirk Anderson.

On the rebuilding thing: Ted Rall and Mike Luckovich remind us of what a lovely job we did with that in Afghanistan. See also: Stephanie McMillan.

On the "what about the economy thing?": see Jeff Danziger, Matt Wuerker, Drew Sheneman and R.J. Matson.

And sometimes I really wish I had a TV...

I just heard second-hand that Michael Moore won a Best Documentary Oscar for Bowling for Columbine, made a great speech about how horrrible Bush was, and then got booed. Anyway, Bowling for Columbine REALLY deserved that damn Oscar, and Michael Moore rocks, so there, or something. If you haven't seen Bowling for Columbine, at the very least I hope you've seen TV Nation or The Awful Truth or read Downsize This or Stupid White Men... really, you'll be glad you did.

Sometimes I'm glad don't have a TV...

... and this is one of those times. My dad tells me every TV station is covering the war like it's a sporting event; my grandmother says she's sickened by the way broadcasters have gone after the families of the first soliders killed; the little I've seen of CNN at work was too much.

I keep getting frustrated with NPR's war coverage (in disgust at their attempts to "balance" coverage with pro-war and official points of view), and turning it on and off. Pacifica won't tune in on my radio, but I've been able to get it online, and it makes me feel a little more sane (as did the march in Manhattan today).

But I just keep thinking: the people of Baghdad don't have the option of switching the war off and curling up with a good book. I feel so... embarassed? guilty? helpless? Last night I dreamt that I borrowed my dad's car and drove to Baghdad (yes, I understand this is technically impossible, but it was a dream, OK?) to apologize to every Iraqi civilian I could find for George W. Bush's behavior. I just keep wondering if this could all have been prevented if only the Supreme Court hadn't seen fit to appoint him president... sigh.

Wartime Reading
Sane voices in an insane world

Salon has a very timely piece on the question of Iraqi civilian casualties... As always, Alternet and The Nation have a host of good articles. And Bob Herbert, unsurprisingly, has something important to say:

Now that U.S. strikes against Iraq have begun, we should get rid of one canard immediately, and that's the notion that criticism of the Bush administration and opposition to this invasion imply in some sense a lack of support or concern for the men and women who are under arms... (read more)

Hear, hear.

Also, I always think of Daschle as a wishy-washy apologist for the GOP, but he makes a few comments that suggest he's not behind Bush 100 percent and conservatives make it out like he's working directly for Baghdad... So let me just say: being anti-war is NOT the same thing as being pro-Hussein. Also, being critical of Bush is not the same thing as being anti-American. Period.

Oh, and I almost forgot--you really have to read Atrios, ok?

New Cartoon! Preparing for the Harsh Realities of War...

I got the idea from this cartoon from my boyfriend, who overheard someone worrying that American Idol might be preempted by war coverage... horrors!

war war war war war

... he's going to have his war no matter what, and it doesn't look like anything can stop him. sigh...

Mitt puts style before substance, as usual

I've said it before and I'm sure I'll say it again: Mitt Romney seems to think that no matter how many horrible budget cuts he makes, everything will be OK if he just does enough photo shoots and publicity stunts. For example: his latest bit of symbolism is making personal phone calls to state workers. From today's Globe ("Governor enjoys getting personal to salute workers"):

Since he took office, Romney has introduced a range of proposals that don't make state employees happy: he has floated plans to privatize their pensions; force them to pay more for health insurance; and lay off thousands of workers.

But he also has spent a half-hour or two every week making thank-you calls to state workers and appointees. Aides say he'll sometimes decide, with little warning, to pop into his constituent service office, to chat with the letter-readers and phone answerers. Or he'll walk down the hall to the offices of the staff budget writers, to the surprise of the state troopers who guard him.

Wow, a whole half-hour of personal phone calls? Boy, that REALLY makes up for all those job cuts! Unsurprisingly, this comes from Romney's business background:

The idea, Romney said, came from an advice-for-managers book, penned years ago by consulting firm gurus. It preached the theory of ''management by walking around,'' Romney said: When the boss comes by with praise, the troops tend to feel good.

In other words: he seems to imagine that no matter how badly he treats state workers, he can make it all OK with one of his Ken-doll smiles? Fat chance:

State workers' morale could surely use a boost, in these weeks of belt-tightening and bad economic news. Union leaders are fuming over Romney's proposed 2004 budget. John Templeton, president of Service Employees International Union Local 509, one of the largest public employees' unions, said his members' morale is the lowest he's seen in 30 years.

And no amount of personal messages left on answering machines is going to change that.

Supreme Court grants last-minute execution stay!
So maybe they aren't always a bunch of jerks

I got home from work dreading the worst--that I would hear Delma Banks, Jr. had become the 300th man to be executed in the state of Texas since 1976. But instead, I heard this (from the AP):

The Supreme Court on Wednesday stopped Texas from executing its 300th inmate since capital punishment resumed in the United States in 1977, granting a dramatic last-minute stay to condemned killer Delma Banks.

Banks' claims that he was wrongly convicted of a murder 23 years ago were backed by three former federal judges.

His lawyers told justices that he was poorly represented at trial, that prosecutors improperly kept blacks off the jury, and that testimony from two prosecution witnesses was shaky. Banks is black, his victim was white and the jury was all-white.

The court issued the stay, without comment, about 10 minutes before the 44-year-old was to be put to death for the 1980 murder of 16-year-old Richard Wayne Whitehead, a co-worker at a restaurant.

It's a stay, of course, and not a pardon. But the important thing at the moment is that Delma Banks, Jr. is still alive... and still has a chance.

Oh, and if anyone's wondering why the below blog post on Delma Banks, Jr. disappeared today, that was a mistake of the blogging software, I didn't take it down on purpose!

Innocent man to be murdered by state of Texas today
... please, send a letter, make a phone call, do SOMETHING to try and stop this.

I would do a cartoon about this, but it wouldn't be published until Delma, Banks Jr.'s body was long cold. So in case you didn't read Bob Herbert's column yesterday ("Countdown to Execution No. 300"):

The war trumps all other issues, so insufficient attention will be paid to the planned demise of Delma Banks Jr., a 43-year-old man who is scheduled in about 48 hours to become the 300th person executed in Texas since the resumption of capital punishment in 1982.

Mr. Banks, a man with no prior criminal record, is most likely innocent of the charge that put him on death row. Fearing a tragic miscarriage of justice, three former federal judges (including William Sessions, a former director of the F.B.I.) have urged the U.S. Supreme Court to block Wednesday's execution.

So far, no one seems to be listening.

"The prosecutors in this case concealed important impeachment material from the defense," said Mr. Sessions and the other former judges, John J. Gibbons and Timothy K. Lewis, in an extraordinary friend-of-the court brief.

They said the questions raised by the Banks case "directly implicate the integrity of the administration of the death penalty in this country."

Most reasonable people would be highly disturbed to have the execution of a possibly innocent man on their conscience or their record. But this is Texas we're talking about, a state that prefers to shoot first and ask no questions at all. Fairness and justice have never found a comfortable niche in the Texas criminal justice system, and the fact that the accused might be innocent is not considered sufficient reason to call off his execution.

Now, I am completely against the death penalty in all cases, guilty or no. But I particularly cannot understand how those who are pro-death-penalty justify the murder of possibly innocent men--isn't their whole argument that murder is so serious a crime, it deserves serious punishment? Oh, and if you guessed racism was involved in this case, you were right. Mr. Herbert again:

Delma Banks was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of 16-year-old Richard Whitehead, who was shot to death in 1980 in a town called Nash, not far from Texarkana. There was little chance that this would have been a capital case if both the accused and the victim had been of the same race. Or if the accused had been white and the victim black.

But Mr. Banks is black and Mr. Whitehead was white, and that's the jackpot combination when it comes to the death penalty. Blacks convicted of killing whites are the ones most likely to end up in the execution chamber. In Texas this principle has been reinforced for years by the ruthless exclusion of jurors who are black.

Just two weeks ago the Supreme Court handed down a ruling that criticized courts in Texas for ignoring evidence of racial bias in a death penalty case. Lawyers in the case noted that up until the mid-1970's prosecutors in Dallas actually had a manual that said, "Do not take Jews, Negroes, Dagos, Mexicans or a member of any minority race on a jury, no matter how rich or well-educated."

The significant evidence against Mr. Banks was the testimony of two hard-core drug addicts. One was a paid informant. The other was a career felon facing a long prison term who was told that a pending arson charge would be dismissed if he performed "well" while testifying against Mr. Banks.

The prosecution deliberately suppressed information about its arrangements with these witnesses — information that it was obliged by law to turn over to the defense.

And prosecutors made sure that all the jurors at Mr. Banks's trial were white. That was routine. Lawyers handling Mr. Banks's appeal have shown that from 1975 through 1980 prosecutors in Bowie County, where Mr. Banks was tried, accepted more than 80 percent of qualified white jurors in felony cases, while peremptorily removing more than 90 percent of qualified black jurors.

The strongest evidence pointing to Mr. Banks's innocence was physical. He was in Dallas, more than three hours away from Texarkana, when Mr. Whitehead was killed, according to the best estimates of the time of death, based on the autopsy results.

Prosecutorial misconduct. Racial bias. Drug-addicted informants. "This is one-stop shopping for what's wrong with the administration of the death penalty," said George Kendall, a lawyer with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund who is handling Mr. Banks's appeal.

If, despite all that is known about this case, the authorities walk Mr. Banks into the execution chamber on Wednesday, and strap him to a gurney, and inject the lethal poison into his veins, we will be taking another Texas-sized step away from a reasonably fair and just society, and back toward the state-sanctioned barbarism we should be trying to flee.

So what can you do about this? The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty suggests you e-mail, phone, or fax the Governor of Texas and the Board of Pardons and Paroles (at this point, regular mail would arrive too late)

Governor Rick Perry
Office of the Governor
PO Box 12428
Austin, TX 787112418
Phone: (512) 463 2000
Fax: (512) 463 1849
Email: http://www.governor.state.tx.us/contact

Board of Pardons and Paroles
Attn: Gerald Garret
Executive Clemency Section
PO Box 13401, Capitol Station
Austin, TX 78711
Phone: (512) 406 5852
Fax: (512) 467 0945 
Email:bpp-pio@tdcj.state.tx.us

The Nation also has a Death Row Roll Call set up on their website, where you can automatically send an email (suggested text provided) about Delma Banks, Jr. to the Board of Pardons and Paroles.

Romney proposes to entrust teacher retirement plans to... the stock market!
Or, yet more proof that the Governor of Massachusetts is a total jerk

Until I started my internship at the Wall Street Journal last week, I didn't know much about the stock market except that it was a really bad place to put your money right now. But after I got the chance to design some stock charts for the paper last week, I realized it was a REALLY REALLY BAD place to put your money right now.

Not that Romney wants to give teachers any say over where their retirement money goes. From today's Boston Globe ("Teachers balk at pension proposal") :

Teachers and union officials yesterday strongly criticized a Romney administration proposal to introduce a 401(k)-style pension plan for state employees, claiming the plan would jeopardize workers' pensions and dissuade talented people from public service.

The plan would make Massachusetts one of only a handful of states that require their workers to be in contributory pension plans that could be invested in stocks or bonds, which would be subject to the ups and downs of the markets. ''One of the appeals of these jobs even though salaries are relatively low is the security,'' said Susan Jhirad, 60, an English professor at North Shore Community College in Lynn. ''If you remove that element, why would people go into it at all?''

Romney's proposal, to be announced in detail this spring, would eliminate the current pension system for more than 166,000 state workers and teachers, which is based on salary and years of service, and replace it with a system used widely in the private sector.

Yeah, like the private sector is doing so damn well right now? I won't even get started on how sick I am of attempts to make the public sector more "efficient" and "successful" by privatizing everything--you know, like those companies who try to run for-profit public schools. Or like the Governor of Massachusetts, who seems to imagine he can just "restructure" and "downsize" anything he wants.

Of course, Romney isn't a total idiot. It's not that he doesn't know that entrusting teacher retirement to the stock market is a really bad idea for teachers. He just doesn't care:

Romney administration officials say the plan would encourage private-sector workers to bring their expertise to public service for a few years, instead of requiring them to work in state government for a decade or more before they become eligible.

Again, this is bullshit. I'm not sure who came up with the idea that knowing how to run a board meeting is the same thing as knowing how to teach 35 hyperactive first-graders how to read, write and think creatively, but I suspect it was the same guy who decided knowing how to save the Olympics money was the same thing as being the governor of the state of Massachusetts. But this has nothing to do with Romney's proposal anyway. All he cares about is squeezing more money out of an already squeezed educational system:

The proposal would also help alleviate the burden of the state's pension system on the state's finances. The current value of future retirement benefits the state is obligated to pay has risen from $4.8 billion to $12 billion in the last three years, according to the Public Employee Retirement Administration Commission.

But critics with an eye to the poor performance of the stock market in recent years say the market is no place for the retirement savings of government workers who are not very well paid to begin with. ''Anyone on a 401(k) plan in the last few years probably lost all of their money,'' said Ralph White, president of the Massachusetts Retired State, County and Municipal Employees Association.

White said the current pension plan for state workers, which guarantees a certain level of benefits during retirement, is one of the main attractions for people who come to work for the state.

Now, one of the things businessmen like Romney seem to like talking about is "incentives." But after Romney's through, will there really be any incentive to become a teacher? Teaching is a low-paying, exhausting and extraordinarily difficult job that never ends when school lets out (I say this as the child of two Massachusetts public school teachers).

It's also one of the most important jobs there is. Yet Romney seems to expect teachers to teach just for the love of it--with no job security, no guarantee of retirement, and no appreciation. (No one asks doctors to do their job just for the love of it.)

Add that to his plans to jack up tuition at the state colleges that train so many teachers, and the ever-expanding role of the MCAS, and you have to wonder where the next generation of Massachusetts teachers is going to come from...

My first actual public comic appearance kinda thing
Mark your calendars for the fabulous Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art Second Annual Art Festival, June 22, 2003

If you went to last year's Festival, then you know how much fun it was. If you missed out, this is your chance to meet and buy stuff from Howard Cruse (whose website appears to be down at the moment), Megan Kelso, Keith Knight, Peter Kuper, Jason Little, Ted Rall, David Rees, and, um, Mikhaela Reid, among many many others.

The Supreme Court is up to their usual nasty tricks
That same bunch of... jerks who appointed Bush president now upholds the three-strikes law

From today's Washington Post ("California's '3-Strikes' Law Upheld") :

The Supreme Court upheld California's authority to implement the nation's toughest "three strikes and you're out" law yesterday, ruling that a shoplifter's sentence of decades in prison does not necessarily violate the constitutional prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

In ruling 5 to 4 that Gary Ewing's sentence of 25 years to life for stealing three golf clubs was a defensible exercise of California's right to fight crime, the court instructed opponents of the increasingly controversial law to seek change in the state legislature, not through the courts.

"To be sure, Ewing's sentence is a long one," Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote. "But it reflects a rational legislative judgment, entitled to deference, that offenders who have committed serious or violent felonies and who continue to commit felonies must be incapacitated."

I'm sorry, how is it rational to sentence a man to 25 years to life for stealing a few sticks of wood?

Too bad there's no mandatory sentence for subjecting this country and the rest of the world to the whims of George W... Sigh.

Willard (aka Mitt) Romney, sleazy budget salesman
As usual, Mitt lies

The day after the depressing midterm election results, I took a walk around Harvard Square to try to calm down, and chanced upon a comforting xeroxed message stapled to a telephone pole: "MITT LIES."

And does he ever. One of his more preposterous campaign claims was that he could find a billion dollars of waste in the state budget--so there would be no need to raise taxes to deal with the budget crisis. As I pointed out in "Dr. Mitt's Budget Revolution," it depends on your definition of "waste"--in businessman Mitt's case, that includes teachers, firefighters, reasonable state college tuition, and so on.

Anyway, in his Globe column today (The Return of Slick Willard, Scott Lehigh looks at a newer version of this lie:

Last week, when the governor went on prime time TV again to offer the broad contours of his budget-cutting plans, it was the Slickster, and not Mittster, who updated citizens on the administration's efforts to reform government.

''First, waste and inefficiency,'' he said. ''When I ran for office, I said I'd find $1 billion. I was wrong. I'm proud to report that our team has found $2 billion.''

That claim occasioned a polite protest from House Speaker Thomas Finneran, who noted that no credible expert had suggested there was that much waste in the budget.

And once again, Romney beat a retreat.

''I'm not telling you that there's $2 billion in waste and inefficiency that I've found,'' he said two days later. Well, maybe mild-mannered Mitt hadn't. But Slick Willard had certainly left that very distinct impression.

Queried further about his claim on Monday, Romney said that in his speech he had offered a ''broad definition of waste and inefficiency.'' But a definition broad enough that it plunks raising fees together with cutting waste is so expansive it loses any categorical meaning.

You've got that right. But the key thing is that the general public got the 2 billion dollar version on stage, and the retreat was a lot quieter. Again from Lehigh:

Now, it may just be that Romney, through poor staff work or inept word-smithing, has made a couple of misstatements, then backed off the inaccuracies when they were brought to his attention.

And yet -- a skeptic might argue that what the new governor is really doing is indulging in dodgy, dishonest rhetoric when addressing a wide TV audience and conceding the truth only when the cameras are off. That tactic lets him use the airwaves to frame the fiscal fight in a way that maximizes populist pressures on lawmakers while acknowledging the truth only to the smaller audience that follows the details of state fiscal issues in the newspapers.

Let's just say I'm a skeptic.

This is STILL no time to cheer over high-stakes test results
Plenty of (black and Hispanic and poor and disabled and limited-English) children still being left behind

The headline in today's Globe sounded like good news: "90% of seniors pass MCAS: Underperformers gain on final try." In other words, 10% of Massachusetts high school seniors lost all hope of gaining a diploma on time. That is, 10% on average... but the numbers are much more dismal when you compare wealthy towns and poor towns or whites and minorities.

Buoyant state officials yesterday heralded the results from a December retest that winnowed the number of seniors who failed MCAS from 10,500, or 19 percent, to 6,058, or 10 percent. The scores, they said, proved that a decade of state education reform is paying off and that when faced with tougher standards students and schools respond.

I'm sorry, that's just bullshit. As the daughter of two Massachusetts public school teachers, I can tell you the two-week-long test and the restrictive curriculum that goes with it do nothing but waste precious classroom time and discourage creativity and actual... learning. Teachers whose classes underperform on the test can be punished, and principals whose schools underperform... you get the idea. Everything becomes about the test. There are MCAS conferences, MCAS meetings, MCAS scoring sessions... MCAS MCAS MCAS MCAS MCAS MCAS MCAS MCAS.... ahhh! (scream!)

And then there are the vicious inequalities. Again from the Globe:

Groups that have traditionally underperformed on MCAS posted their greatest gains this time around -- the fourth and last chance for seniors to pass in time to graduate with their peers in June. But despite the upward trend, Hispanics, African Americans, students with disabilities, and those with limited English still lagged behind -- fueling criticism that the graduation requirement is unfair to minorities and other special populations.

For example, 1 in 4 black students will not receive a diploma, and nearly 1 in 3 Hispanics won't graduate compared with just 6 percent of whites. Although passing rates among students with limited English jumped from 35 percent to 67 percent, that still leaves 1 in 3 without a diploma. And among special education students, nearly 1 in 3 won't graduate.

Somehow, I just don't feel like dancing.

And I don't feel particularly hopeful that things will improve any time soon, not with Romney butchering local aid (which the less wealthy towns and cities DEPEND on to fund education and other essentials), jacking up the price of state college tuition (and privatizing some colleges) and so on and so forth.

High-stakes testing isn't a Massachusetts-specific issue, of course: the MCAS is perfectly in line with Bush's version of "leaving no child behind." In fact, Bush has praised the Massachusetts testing programs as a model that should be adopted by the rest of the country. See the Christian Science Monitor's recent article One cautionary tale about school reform: Massachusetts, singled out by Bush as a national leader, shows the ups and downs of an accountability plan." (The CS Monitor is, of course, Clay Bennett's paper, so go read his cartoons while you're at it.)

If you're interested, check out my earlier complaints about the MCAS and educational inequality for quotes and links to more articles on the subject: my old cartoon "Elimination Game", "Cambridge defies high-stakes testing," "Is the Class Half Empty or Half Full?", a cartoon with the same title, and "More MCAS fun."

New Cartoon! "A tax by any other name..."
Brought to you by the Bleeding-Heart Conservative Players...

More on the Florida victory for a transgender dad

If you hadn't noticed, I'm not exactly the most optimistic person (in my defense, it's pretty difficult with guys like George W. and Mitt running things). My cartoon in the Phoenix is called the Boiling Point because that's generally how I decide to do a cartoon--something makes me so so so so so mad that I just can't bear it and have to say/draw something. So when I tried to do a cartoon about the court victory giving transgender dad Michael Kantaras custody of his children, I was at a total loss: what the hell to say about something, well, good?

Anyway, this is my long-winded way of suggesting you read Deb Price's very optimistic column about the Kantaras case. Someone's got to look on the bright side, and she does, ending her piece by saying: "Fortunately, as society's understanding grows, we can expect to see many more rulings that respect the legal rights of transgendered men and women." Which is certainly true to an extent--in the past few years, dozens and dozens of cities (and some states) have extended anti-discrimination laws to cover gender identity. But I'm not going to get complacent yet, and I'm not sure how much I trust courts (especially not the Supreme Court) to make everything OK. Problem is, even with laws in place, on a practical everyday level, they often don't change much.

Well, have a great day, everyone. I'm off to my first day at work, so wish me luck.

On cartoons and info design, part two
Scott Bateman charts, measures, graphs, plots and cartoons in his fabulous new graphic-novel-type book thingie Scan

It occurred to me after writing the post about Ted Rall and Ruben Bolling's use of pictograms that I said I'd review political cartoonist Scott Bateman's book Scan here and never actually did. Now seems as good a time as any, as I'm about to embark on my own information graphics adventure as an intern at the Wall Street Journal.

But my guess is the stock charts I'll be making won't resemble anything in Scott's book. Rather than narrate or draw the action, he filters the story of mysteriously appearing SCAN graffiti through popularity ratings, sales figures, bulleted lists, grade point averages, MRI scans, lie detector test results, and body odor indexes. I find the whole effect hard to describe in words, which is, perhaps, part of the point--I doubt anyone could achieve the same effect through conventional words or pictures alone. You can read more about the book in this review or at Scott's website (and while you're there, you should check out his hilarious sketchbook, and, of course, his blog).

The "bleeding heart conservative"?
or Mitt Romney makes me nauseous

You've probably noticed that I despise Mitt Romney, the photogenic new governor of Massachusetts. His latest exercise in ridiculousness was staging a huge photo opportunity with a non-Republican family that supposedly called him to thank him for his "no-new-taxes" plan. From today's Globe ("Family finds itself in midst of a Romney whirlwind")

From the vantage point of her living room couch, Heather Newton, 17, watched with wide eyes yesterday morning as her house became the site of a gubernatorial event.

Her parents had called Governor Mitt Romney's office, urging him to stick to his no-new-taxes budget plan. The governor's office wanted to spread the news. So for an hour or so, the Newtons became a symbolic state family, with all of the attendant chaos.

State workers with clipboards hurried through the living room. Reporters paced the floorboards and photographers snapped. The children, sprung from school, sat through it all and stared.

And a few feet away, Jean and Edward Newton sat at their kitchen table with the governor himself, fingering mismatched coffee mugs and talking about the family, the Bible, and the budget.

When Romney presented his 2004 budget in the State House this week, those on Beacon Hill gave him decidedly mixed reviews. Municipal leaders insisted his cuts were deeper than he claimed. Democratic lawmakers stood at podiums and vowed to fight.

Now, Romney is launching the next stage of the battle: taking his message directly to the public, and trying to demonstrate he has a statewide mandate to balance the budget without raising taxes.

''This is symbolic and it's also substantial,'' he said toward the end of his hour-long Westborough visit, standing in shirtsleeves on the Newtons' front porch. ''Adding hundreds of dollars in state taxes is just not the way to go.''

Substantial? I can't help but be reminded of all those "work days" ads he put out during his campaign showing him spending a day serving hot dogs or collecting garbage--in order to camouflage policies that will do nothing but gut services in Massachusetts for real garbage collectors, for example. The man is a rightwing Ken Doll.

But to return to the article--this was hardly a spontaneous gesture on the Newtons' part, registered independents or no, as they've been ardent Romney supporters.

Jean Newton said she supported Romney's gubernatorial bid before he announced he was running; she made phone calls for his campaign. The couple attended the Romney inaugural festivites, and have a Romney-Healey sticker on their van. An employee in Romney's external affairs knew of their support, and recommended them for symbolic duty this week.

Not that this family has even really thought about what Romney's refusal to raise state income taxes will do to education and state services... not to mention local taxes:

Edward Newton conceded that he isn't familiar with all the details of Romney's budget, and wasn't sure if cuts in local aid might translate into higher local property taxes.

''We haven't looked at the budget in depth,'' he said. But he has been pleased with what he's seen of Romney's performance: ''The one thing that I do appreciate: He's solution-oriented.''

"Solution-oriented" is of course meaningless jargon. But even more meaningless was Romney's comment to reporters that they could call him a "bleeding-heart conservative," which is, I suppose, another way of saying "compassionate conservative."

The man said no-new-taxes, not no-new-fees...

But whoever his heart is bleeding for, it isn't stopping him from slashing education and healthcare funding... and it isn't stopping him from closing a shelter for homeless veterans... or imposing all sorts of new "fees." From Friday's Globe ("ROMNEY PROPOSALS ON FEES DRAW FIRE"):

He vowed not to raise taxes. But Governor Mitt Romney never made any promises about fees. The governor's proposed 2004 budget includes about $60 million in fee increases, on everything from daily fees at state golf courses to a new fee on individuals who file complaints with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination. Fees are different from taxes, Romney said yesterday, because they affect narrow groups of people, and pay for specific services that are "generally considered relatively voluntary."

That's brilliant, charging people fees to file anti-discrimination complaints.

Critics say such fees, while politically convenient, often disproportionately affect the poor, because they are not graduated to account for income. For example, a middle-class couple refinancing their two-bedroom home pays the same flat fee of $200 to the state as a millionaire refinancing a palatial mansion.

So I ask again--who is Romney's heart bleeding for?

"In the event of dissent over tax cuts..."
On cartoons and pictograms

Every time I look at one of Ruben Bolling's cartoons, I find myself stunned into silence or laughter. The man is a mad genius. Anyway, you need to see his cartoon this week, a parody of those informational posters that warn you about safety hazards. But instead of "In the event of CHOKING," it's "In the event of DEMONSTRATIONS AGAINST WAR."

It brought to mind another of my favorite cartoons, Ted Rall's pictorial guide to "Arrival in the United States" ("Do you have dark skin? If so, you may be detained and questioned"). I particularly enjoyed that one, as it came out last summer while I was creating pictograms for an information design class.