At first glance, I read “Ghailiani” as “Guiliani”. That was really scary…
Ted Rall periodically Goes Too Far, but he has a genius for combining two or more of the latest political outrages to best storytelling effect.
(People will pay for content that’s worth paying for, and I have been subscribing to www.gocomics.com for six years now and counting. If only they could add ‘Get Fuzzy’ and ‘Jump Start’ to their roster, I’d have all my favorite funny pages in one place.)
Glocksman
IMHO, Rall goes ‘too far’ quite often.
That said, when he is on target, he’s got MOA accuracy.
Which is more than can be said for Bruce Tinsley.
ruemara
Rall, Jump Start, yes-Get Fuzzy, no. Try reading Dr. McNinja.
Sorry you’re up so early.
freelancer (itouch)
I agree. Which is why, although Marc Maron’s WTF pocast isn’t paywalled, I still find way too much value in his mon/thurs show, that I still donate $10 a month. Any fan of standup or those with an Annie Hall plague of overcompensating, self-analyzing neurosis would be well served to check it out.
http://wtfpod.libsyn.com/
Warren Terra
That cartoon’s great. I used to be a huge Ted Rall fan, and I’ve got a couple of his books (the Afghanistan one’s great), but at some point he was too much of a dick once too often for me. YMMV.
Comrade Kevin
Ted Rall is Shrill.
Warren Terra
I’m not one to do more than joke when this blog runs the Pam Ad or ads for the NRA or Ann Coulter. But yesterday there was a banner ad for Swoopo, and that’s not cool. They’re a nasty evil scam site.
Comrade Kevin
Rall appears to be one of those people who Responsible Liberals feel the need to say Goes Too Far, so that they can reinforce their bona fides as Responsible People.
Wile E. Quixote
<p@Comrade Kevin:
I don’t know if he goes too far. I mean he is a real dick sometimes, remember the “Terror Widows” cartoon? But he’s also brilliant. I thought that 2024 and My War With Brian were great, and this is a great cartoon. I’m tempted to done down the sarcasm a bit, edit the word balloons in the first and fourth panels and then forward it off to some of the conservatives I know who have put me on their fucking forwards for all of their conservative bullshit. Do it right and it would get these guys pissed off at Roberts, Kennedy, Scalia and Scalia’s two catamites, Scalito and Thomas for being activist judges.
Wile E. Quixote
@Glocksman:
Is Bruce Tinsley related to Dwaine B. “Chester the Molester” Tinsley of Hustler magazine fame?
MikeJ
$50 is just the expediting fee for next day service. It’s another uhm, $100 or so to actually file incorporation papers in DE. Still a bargain to get all those rights.
Nethead Jay
@Comrade Kevin: Exactly. Ted Rall is right in my wheelhouse. Goes too far, nothing. And this one is the best start of the day in a while (though that’s not too hard right now, after getting my lower right arm/wrist wrapped in plaster 2 days ago).
Glocksman
@Wile E. Quixote:
As far as I know, he’s not.
Bruce Tinsley is known for his ‘Mallard Fillmore’ syndicated cartoon strips.
He can be humorous, but like his counterpart who does the Day by Day strip, he ceased being entertaining and climbed the teabagger mountain in the last months of 2007.
Wile E. Quixote
@Glocksman:
For those who don’t recognize the name Bruce Tinsley is responsible for criminally unfunny Mallard Fillmore comic strip. Mallard Fillmore is a grim example of what humor under a totalitarian state would be like, the only way you can find this funny is if you are completely familiar with all of the shibboleths of right-wing talk radio. Reading it is like being in a room full of conservatives when another conservative walks in and says “Bear DNA”, “Climategate”, “ACORN”, “Vince Foster”, “WMD”, “Axis of Evil” and all of the conservatives then start monotonically laughing, in unison, “Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!” while you’re standing there thinking “what the fuck?”.
There’s a brilliant review of Mallard Fillmore at Topless Robot:
10 More Comic Strips That Need To @#$%ing End
Comrade Kevin
@Wile E. Quixote: I was responding to the weird thing that, every single time I see someone repost one of his cartoons, they feel the need to say that he “sometimes goes too far”, but that this particular cartoon is “spot on”, or whatever. Anne Laurie even capitalized it as he Goes Too Far, presumably as a “Joke”.
Liberals and people on the left need to stop apologizing for posting links to stuff like Rall; it’s really tedious, and plays into the hands of people who want to narrow the spectrum of acceptable political comment. I mean, the right suck up to Rush Limbaugh, and people are bitching about Ted Rall?
Wile E. Quixote
@Comrade Kevin:
I wasn’t apologizing and I don’t see how Anne Laurie was either. Rall is brilliant and sometimes he’s a dick, Terror Widows being a prime example. I don’t see that as an inaccurate description, I’ve worked with people who were really brilliant but sometimes could be real dicks, which made the dickishness all the more shocking than the dickishness of a stupid fuck like say, Rush Limbaugh. You expect assholes like Rush Limbaugh to be morons, you don’t expect this from smart people, especially when you admire their work.
MikeJ
@Comrade Kevin: I agree with you to a point. The other day when everyone was talking about Zinn it got old hearing about how he wrote a great but flawed book, and the speaker knew people who raved about how great it was but never discussed its problems.
When I’m enthusiastic about something, even something flawed, when I tell people about it I tell them about what I like about it and I don’t feel it necessary to constantly harp on every problem. Perhaps after they’ve expressed some interest in the topic and want more details, but I’m not going to lead off with, “I love this shitty book.”
The real problem is the assumption that admiration for a person’s body of work means complete approval of and agreement with everything that person has said or done, even those things outside of that person’s field. It should be obvious that when I talk about how much I admire the movie Chinatown that doesn’t mean I approval of drugging and raping children, and I shouldn’t have to say I don’t approve of drugging and raping children every time I mention any of Polanski’s work.
But of course if you don’t add the disclaimer, the very next comment will be “I hate kiddy rapers why don’t you?”
Cerberus
I used to read him all the time and he’s definitely a national treasure for providing on-the-nose political commentary of an actually unapologetically strong liberal bent.
I fell off following him though right around the time of Jena 6 though. Ironically enough not because “He Goes Too Far” but because he started going way too fucking short and accepting all of these right-wing tone-death frames for the Jena 6 case as well as a bunch of right-wing tone-death frames for some big feminist case that was going on around the same time (I think it might have been the Imus kerfuffle).
Basically I didn’t want to stick around and see a former hero devolve slowly into racism and sexism with age and the comfort of being part of the MSM machine.
I’m pleased to see he apparently recovered from that brain fart and I might give him another chance.
arguingwithsignposts
Ted Rall is NO BETTER than Bush! You BJ Rallbots are all the same /firebaggers
For an hour there, I forgot he was white. /tweety
just thought I’d get that out of the way early in this thread.
Platonicspoof
If you know someone who couldn’t see Obama’s Q & A yesterday (or someone who needs to see it), Olbermann says MSNBC will run their coverage with K.O., Maddow and Matthews analysis again at Noon EST on Saturday and Sunday.
Via DKos.
I haven’t been able to confirm this on my local cable’s MSNBC programming.
arguingwithsignposts
@Platonicspoof:
It’s all available on the msnbc.com web site as a stream, too.
Platonicspoof
@arguingwithsignposts:
Thanks, I can add that to an e-mail for spreading the word.
Personally, my hardware / connection / time limit that sort of thing, and I know people who normally listen to only one cable news channel.
Geoduck
The odd thing about Tinsley is that the man actually displays a functioning (if not exactly scintillating) sense of humor on those rare occasions where he does an entirely non-political joke.
Rall, too, does (or did) a one-page piece every month for Mad Magazine that is non-political. Sort of gives you whiplash when you read it. And while I’ve drifted away from his work in recent months, I second the recommendation about his Central-Asian travelogue book “Silk Road To Ruin”.
Linda Featheringill
Good morning, folks. You guys are at it bright and early this morning.
What’s the fuss about? We do live in the land of “One dollar, one vote”. Right?
robertdsc
I’ve forgotten how much I’ve paid for shareware over the years, especially after the transition to OS X. Good times.
Platonicspoof
@Linda Featheringill:
It’s probably a dollar a vote somewhere in all the possible combinations of candidates, officials, elections, legislation, legal contributions and bribes, but not enough if you’re thinking of running for U.S. president.
/It’s the internet – everything is at least a fuss, even “good morning”.
+ 2 (cups of tea).
DeepKarma
Hey Anne, you probably know this already, but comics.com will email the strips like Get Fuzzy and Pearls Before Swine to you gratis. The actual strips, not links. I get a daily e-mail containing Fuzzy, Pearls, Herman and Strange Brew. Perfect for a laugh or two when my workday starts to drag!
sparky
Goes Too Far > or = Not Serious >= shrill? discuss
smiley
Unless I’m missing something, you can get strip like Get Fuzzy at sites like this for free.
GregB
Bruce Tinsely was the model for his brother Dwayne’s comic, Chester the Molester.
I have no proof for that assertion but it is what I’m running with.
-G
fourmorewars
Actually, Rall is ‘being a dick’ right here in this strip.
Of all the occupations to pick for the guy to claim, he picks ‘taxi driver?’ And then picks out a ‘corporate name’ that implies he actually IS a terrorist, putting one over on us?
There were two ways he could’ve gone here, either implying a ‘bad guy’ is going free thanks to the Citizens ruling, or that an innocent is doing it. I dunno what corporate name you’d use in the latter case, and frankly you may lose the joke. ‘JihadsRus’ IS funny. But if Rall doesn’t see how using that particular occupation confuses the issue, he’s an idiot.
You don’t think that’s kind of an awkward example, there, Ted? Don’t see how it could attach itself in your audience’s mind to a rather celebrated case, one that was meant to point out, by extension, the pointless inhumanity of the Great Neocon Democracy Project? How long before some knuckledragging rightwing asshole comes along and points to that strip and says, ‘see the left doesn’t even believe its own ‘propaganda”?
aimai
I just wanted to come on and say that we finally got rid of Mallard Fillmore in the Boston Globe. Thank god. I hated that strip. It was like looking into the abyss. I even got a letter to the editor published, a few years ago, pointing out how it demonizes and insults basically *every kind of person* who is not the main character. The stupid duck’s perspective is that of a dead ender. He expresses mindless hatred of liberals, women, non whites, muslims, democrats–indeed, of everyone. As others have said it had descended into a kind of code, or secret handshake, referring smugly to facts and stereotypes that were almost entirely devoid of logic, certainly devoid of common humanity. Reading it reminded me of the time, when I was a little girl, that I saw a dirty, near senile old man furtively masturbating in public. When he saw me watching he began shouting at me “its natural! its natural!” The worst thing you can say about Bruce Tinsley is that all that anger, bitterness, spite and stupidity is put out there shamelessly. He thinks its natural.
aimai
jeff
Some Ted Rall concepts might be good. I think his goals of collectivist totalitarianism and being rude to people aren’t, though. Also draws like my cat.
Brien Jackson
Hey look, a firebagger borrowing right-wing tropes!
Because you know how them
JewsDemoRats are, always with their tax increases for no particular reason other than to destroy America.And good God, this isn’t that difficult; Rahm said they were going to do jobs and financial reforms because that’s what people say they want. It doesn’t actually mean HCR is going away, especially since that’s basically a shell game now anyway. Walk and chew gum people.
Brien Jackson
@fourmorewars:
Yeah pretty much. I don’t really ave a problem with Rall, but I’m not sure he’s that good anyway.
Chris Johnson
Ted Rall is notoriously a jerk to some other cartoonists- particularly noisy blowhard webcartoonists- but this one was awesome :)
rootless_e
@Brien Jackson:
I’m shocked, shocked I tell you.
Ogami Itto
Ever hear of a documentary called “Taxi Ride to the Dark Side?” Might have been an inspiration for the character’s occupation.
Maybe the fake terrorist has an ironic sense of humor?
Brien Jackson
@Ogami Itto:
Yeah, I’m sure that’s it.
aimai
Actually, I agree with Ogami Itto, that’s exactly the way I took it. I remember the documentary quite well. As for JihadRus I think the rather obvious point he’s making is that the supreme court’s love affair with corporations overrides any form of sane reflection on the actual goals and intentions of corporations. The point of the corporation name “jihadsrus” which the poor taxi driver manifestly didn’t choose, since he knows nothing about the incorporation, is that *even the blatant implication that this corporation doesn’t have america’s best interests at heart* are not sufficient to give the authorities the slightest pause. A defenseless human being is transformed, by the stroke of a pen, into an all powerful corporation. Both ends of the system are undemocratic and inhumane.
But arguing about the exact humor of a cartoon has to be one of the stupidest forms of political one upmanship going online.
aimai
Chad N Freude
@aimai: Thanks for this, but why must you always be so clear-headed and logical? I believe that’s a violation of the Grand BJ Traditions.
I think we have a blockbuster of a sitcom here.
R-Jud
I just use the Yahoo! comics page. This way I get my Doonesbury and my Pearls Before Swine and my extremely guilty pleasure, 9 Chickweed Lane.
eemom
@MikeJ:
this is a good point. Kind of reminds me of all the disclaimers about the FLAWED Senate HCR bill. Boy was that a winning strategy.
Linda Featheringill
To Platonicspoof:
Actually, the tea sounded like a good idea, so I made some for myself. Thanks.
jenniebee
If you don’t read Goats you are missing teh win: Republicans for Voldemort
cmorenc
I’m a huge Tom Tomorrow fan myself. Now there’s a strip that consistently nails not just wingers in hilariously hyperbolic, yet dead-accurate parody, but doesn’t shy away, where needed, from acid satirizations of progressives too full of their own B.S.
El Cid
It’s always dangerous to quote leftists who say crazy things from time to time. On the other hand, we all need to appreciate standard pundits who lie out of their asses all the time and even help propagandize us into war, ’cause there was this one time that they wrote this column we liked, or ’cause we know people — real people — who like them.
Bill H
@Platonicspoof:
The problem is that MSNBC’s coverage is heavily edited, using only the parts that Olbermann, Tweety and Maddow can have fun with, being all snarky about how fubared the Republicans are. The serious parts, where he really seriously does some good stuff, is left out in favor of giving them time to pontificate and do all of their laughing and giggling, and playing of thigh-slapping self congratulation on how they caught the Republicans in fuckup after fuckup.
fourmorewars
Um, for the person who asked if I’d ever heard of ‘Taxi to the Dark Side,’ that was my exact fucking point. The taxi driver in question was an innocent who was murdered in our custody. Maybe go back and read my post more carefully?
terry chay
Colbert riffed on the same thing a few days ago:
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/262612/january-27-2010/the-word—prece-don-t
Platonicspoof
@Bill H:
Thanks, I hadn’t heard that, and haven’t been able to download it.
Will have to google tv programming, since I know the transcripts leave out significant meaning.
BongCrosby
@aimai:
While I fortunately haven’t read the strip on a regular basis in quite some time, I seem to recall couple characters not treated in that fashion — for example, there’s Dave, the hard-working and noble Vietnamese immigrant whose politics are exactly the same as the Duck’s (thanks, Wiki!); there’s also Dave’s hard-working and noble son, Rush, who , who — and here’s the amazing coincidence — also shares the Duck’s politics
But your post is spot on as to how every character is treated who doesn’t march lockstep with the Duck.
What was that old cliche? Oh, yeah — “If it walks like a Duck, and talks like a Duck, it must really be unfunny.”