Reprint Heaven: Oh; So That's What They Call That

(This, from January Of 2010. Hard to believe what's happened in the two and a half years since, isn't it?)

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In order to make decisions, human beings need information -- as clear, reliable, and precise as we can get; in other words, the Truth. Without it, complex decisions involving a consensus, or even something as simple as meeting someone for a movie, is almost impossible.

Nearly a year ago (on the day of Barack Obama's Inauguration as the 44th President of the United States, in fact), Clive Thompson of Wired Magazine posted an article about the work of Robert Proctor, a Historian of Science at Stanford University.


Cover Of Wired, January, 2009 (Photo: Wired Magazine)

Proctor has said that, ordinarily, the more information we have about a subject, the clearer it becomes. However, when contentious subjects are involved, our usual relationship to information is reversed -- ignorance increases.

As Proctor argues [notes Thompson], when society doesn’t know something, it’s often because special interests work hard to create confusion. Anti-Obama groups likely spent millions insisting he’s a Muslim; church groups have shelled out even more pushing creationism. The oil and auto industries carefully seed doubt about the causes of global warming. And when the dust settles, society knows less than it did before.

“People always assume that if someone doesn’t know something, it’s because they haven’t paid attention or haven’t yet figured it out,” Proctor says. “But ignorance also comes from people literally suppressing truth—or drowning it out—or trying to make it so confusing that people stop caring about what’s true and what’s not.” (emphasis added)

Proctor has also coined a term to describe this condition -- Agnotology: Culturally constructed ignorance, purposefully created by special interest groups working hard to create confusion and suppress the truth. Proctor coined it from the Greek, agnōsis, "not knowing"; the condition where more knowledge of a subject leaves one more uncertain than before.

Daily, second by second, we take in millions of bits of information about the world around us. Matrix-like, that shifting curtain of input shapes our sense of consciousness about that world -- and while most of it has to do with events happening to us, personally, what we listen to, see and read through culturally-designated sources for information is also part of that input.


United Press' Newsroom, In New York City, 1960's (Photo: UPI)

The job of a news reporter, on network television or in the pages of newspaper, was once to determine facts -- Who, What, Where, When, and Why; the Truth -- about events, and no matter where the chips fell, to accurately inform viewers and readers. Even the opportunistic, abrasive, nosy reporter (a character in our culture from plays and movies like The Front Page in the 30's, to All The President's Men in the 70's) was driven by a search for those facts, and the truth.

News and issues reported in the mainstream media, years ago, were certainly being spun on occasion by special interests, or the government. But those were exceptional interventions rather than the rule -- America's Media consisted of journalists who considered themselves professionals, and their level of success in their work was based on their accuracy. Their tradition really did believe in reporting fact, not cant. And (with some exceptions; Hearst's and McCormick's newspapers in the 30's are a good example), so did their editors.


Hoffman as Carl Bernstein and Redford as Bob Woodward In
All The President's Men (1976): For A Little Longer, American
Journalism's Primary Role Would Be Accurate, Reliable News

Whether we picked it up on the radio, in the New York Times or on the 'The CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite', information our Press provided to us and the rest of the 'Free' world was trusted as accurate and uncensored. We believed, as the journalists did, that the Media had an obligation to report the truth, independent of the government, the interests of a specific class on Left or Right, or the interests of business. These were American traditions; so we were told.

But the "news industry", and journalists, in the 21st Century aren't like that now, and haven't been for at least twenty years. The three major networks, ABC (owned by Disney), CBS (owned by Westinghouse), and NBC / MSNBC (about to be bought by Comcast from General Electric); cable news channels like CNN (excepting Fox, which is an unabashed propaganda channel); even PBS, through The News Hour -- and even with various Net sites and Blogs, teevee is now the primary venue for disseminating what passes for news in the United States.


Shields And Brooks On PBS' News Hour With Jim Lehrer:
Two Points Of View, And Both Are Just As Accurate...

In 2010, we believe the immediacy of an image in the same way that people once listened to and trusted what they heard on radio. Our belief in the accuracy of what we watch on television is a basic assumption that our Media wouldn't lie to us -- Christ; this is America, not some Banana Republic!

News and information are now commodities; just points of view, packaged and presented using the same tools 'n tricks of network episodic television. It's fast food, not a meal -- like Cafe Mocchas, or 'flame-broiled' hamburgers. News is less and less about any commitment to accuracy and real impartiality.


Fox: No News, Please; Just Insults And Screaming
(If, Instead Of O'Reilly's Usual Behavior With Guests,
["Shut Up! Shut Up! Shut Up!], He'd Ask Barney Frank
Why His House Banking Committee's Position On Regulation Has
Favored The Banksters At Our Expense, I Might Watch Him)

The format in providing information about the "contentious issues" Proctor mentions is always the same -- two or more advocates for sides of an issue answer questions put to them by a journalist, who isn't there to uncover basic truths about the issue; they're only a moderator. When solid facts are presented by any side, they're treated as points of contention rather than the truth, and lost in the adversarial nature of the process.

Viewers are left to decide who "won" what amounts to a debate between the Talking Heads. We're left feeling that no one is right; no one is wrong; gosh, reality is just a point of view, isn't it? Small wonder many people watching might fall back on emotional, rather than reasoning, responses to an issue (unless people are watching Fox, whose programming is slanted to evoke such emotional, and one-sided, responses).

Whatever either side claims is given equal weight in this format. If one advocate spouts an obvious lie, the journalist's job isn't to point that out, or emphasize the facts to show they're wrong. They simply nod, and toss softball questions so that "all sides of the topic is covered for viewers" (PBS' News Hour is famous for this kind of pap). And, the 'news' program can't be accused of biased reporting by either side, can they?


The 1984 Film Version Of Orwell's Book, 1984: Don't Expect This
Soon; But Radicals Always Seize Radio And Teevee Stations, First

We may not know the exact nature of the World we find ourselves in; there is more in heaven and earth that are dreamt of in all your philosophies, Horatio. But, misdirection and manipulation of news information is a common feature of the dictatorships and Failed States, and Banana Republics of the world -- so we've been told -- and not part of life in These United States.

So we've been told.

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Aber Natürlich

It Is Exactly What You Thought It Was

On February 16th of this year, Ari Berman published an article at Alternet, "How a Filthy Rich 196 People Will Buy Our Election". It described with enough detail what the state of American politics is, and who it is that Romney and the Rethugs represent in this election -- and Berman wrote it before Romney was the chosen, empty-suit, expensive-haircut Rethug front-runner.

(Also, Too, see Lawrence Lessig, "Big Campaign Spending: Government By The 1%", The Atlantic Monthly Online, July 10, 2012.

Here's what we must come to see: America has lost the capacity to govern. On a wide range of critical issues -- from global warming to tax reform, from effective financial regulation to real health-care change, from the deficit to defense spending -- we have lost the capacity to do anything other than suffer through a miserable status quo. If there is a ship of state, its rudder has been lost. We are drifting. We can't change course. And eventually, and with absolute certainty, in waters such as these, a drifting ship will sink.

The cause of this drift is clear, and it is not "polarization." Polarization -- of the political class at least -- is real. In Congress, it is worse than at any time since the Civil War...

... because of the way we fund the campaigns that determine our elections, we give the tiniest fraction of America the power to veto any meaningful policy change... the tiniest fraction of the one percent have the effective power to block reform desired by the 99-plus percent.

Yet by "the tiniest fraction of the one percent" I don't necessarily mean the rich. I mean instead the fraction of Americans who are willing to spend their money to influence congressional campaigns for their own interest.)

The best 'Democracy' money can buy. Not that there was ever any doubt, really; it's only more so, now. The rich are willing to make themselves visible, allow the Peasantry to see their tiny little red eyes and long tails, their viciousness and ruthless arrogance, as they line up to shove money at Mitzy. They've become visible as a warning -- We run this circus; don't get in our way -- and then, they'll disappear again.

The facts behind Berman's article should be enough to make everyone in the United States think soberly about whether we are as "free", whether America is an "open and democratic" Republic, as we tout to the rest of the world. Whether the structure and assumptions our culture rests upon are just a carnival barker's come-on.

Today, Barry Ritholtz at The Big Picture has his own commentary, "Defective Government By Design"; I'm quoting a portion of it with the links he included intact:

We live in an era of defective government.

This corruption is not an accident. It is the product of years of very patient work. It has been brought about through expensive lobbying, relentless propaganda, agnotology. You can see it in this election cycle, where 196 Americans — 0.000063% of the population — have given more than 80% of Super PAC dollars.

Is it democracy or plutocracy when less than 200 people drive election spending in a nation of 300 million?

Previously, we have pointed out how brazen the lobbying has been to actually cut the SEC enforcement budget. This has created an agency that is defective by design. Take a guess who loses in the battle between you, the individual taxpayer versus the corporation.

Wall Street has taken advantage of the crisis and morphed into a cartel. The tragedy is the only entity that is large and powerful enough to offset their wealth and power are national governments. Yet where ever we look, we see that government has been corrupted and rendered neutered by corporations...

There's more, and you can read it. You can get angry -- get as angry as you like, but it won't matter a damn, because in the system as we know it, Money Talks.

I don't know who will win in November. But I do know that Romney is treating this election in the same manner he ran Bain Capital, and the United States Of America is just another acquisition.

He'll buy it with money from his principally unknown and invisible investors, and offshore this part, sell that; finally, when there's nothing left to bust or break or sell, he'll walk away.

That's what the 196 people who are buying him, and the election, are paying for.

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I Dunno; Whadda You Wanna Do Tonight?

Ernest Borgnine (1917 - 2012)

The Legendary Drew and Josh Alan Friedman's Any Resemblance

To Persons Living Or Dead, 1986 (Fantagraphics)

Ernest Borgnine, born Ermes Effron Borgnino, passed away earlier this week. In case no one noticed.

It would have been different if Borgnine believed himself to be a towering talent, his career frustrated by lesser mortals (god knows there are plenty of card-carrying SAG and AFTRA members today who think that's true for them) -- but Borgnine was more realistic than that, about himself and his career.

Borgnine with a copy of Josh Alan Friedman's 2011

Autobiographical "Black Cracker" (Borgnine)

It's not easy to play a heavy; ask the actors who've made a living doing it. But in the Best Picture Oscar-winner for 1953, From Here To Eternity, Borgnine made Master Sargent "Fatso" Judson, the brutal stockade NCO (he beats Frank Sinatra to death in the third reel) into a believable figure -- the sort of man you hope you never find yourself at the mercy of.

And he made you suspend your disbelief enough that when he loses that knife fight in a Honolulu alley to Montgomery Cliff, you watch the narrow, sadistic character Borgnine created roll over, and lie still, and find yourself thinking Good; that asshole had it coming.

Judson Brandishes His Knife: Borgnine's First Career Move

In Fred Zinneman's From Here To Eternity (1953);

George Reeves Of Teevee 'Superman' Fame In Background

He followed Eternity up by playing in the sword-and-sandals 1954 costume drama, "Demetrius and The Gladiators", but his portrayal of Judson led director John Sturgis to cast Borgnine as another supporting heavy in the 1955 Bad Day At Black Rock. His Coley Trimble is another sadistic bully, one of three men in a tiny desert town who murdered a local Japanese man after Pearl Harbor -- but unlike Fatso Judson, this character is deeply disturbed, barely held together by bad dreams and manic laughter.

Little More Hot Sauce For Your Coffee; Borgnine And

Spencer Tracy In Bad Day At Black Rock (1954)

In 1953, Playwright Paddy Chayefsky's television screenplay, Marty, was broadcast with a rising star, Rod Steiger (later of The Pawnbroker), in the title role as a blue-collar butcher and lonely bachelor in Yonkers, battling his own self-image and family ties to break through to happiness, and a stronger sense of himself. When casting was being done for a film version in 1955, Borgnine was chosen for the title role, and it led to his being awarded the Oscar for Best Actor in 1956.

Borgnine As The Neighborhood Butcher, Marty Piletti (Marty, 1955)

Any actor will tell you that the Craft is also a Job, and if you're not making a paycheck it doesn't matter how talented you think you are. Borgnine worked steadily in film and television in the next fifty-six years following his only Oscar (when he died, he was the voice of Mermaid Man on Spongebob Square Pants), and it was steady work -- I remember him in Flight Of The Phoenix; The Poseidon Adventure; The Dirty Dozen; The Wild Bunch; Escape From New York, among others. As a character actor, he was a fixture.

And naturally, I remember him from McHale's Navy (1963 -1967) -- his real signature role, much as Andy Griffith (who died a few days before Borgnine) will always be known as the television sheriff of Mayberry.

Cartoon Tribute To Borgnine (1995)

Borgnine did not have a wide range, but he was a decent actor. The proof was in his portrayals of Fatso Judson and Coley Trimble -- evil, but not completely two-dimensional characters whom we recognized -- and distinct opposites from Ernest Borgnine the man, who from all reports was kind, engaging and genuine.

Borgnine the actor persuaded us to accept the likes of Judson and Trimble. You wouldn't cast him as Thomas Moore in 'A Man For All Seasons'; you wouldn't find him in a play by Stoppard or Beckett or O'Neill, but he might have done justice to Willy Loman. He would have been a decent Coach Bob in Hotel New Hampshire, and Borgnine definitely could have played Don Ciccio, the Sicilian mafioso who kills the father of the young Don Corleone, in The Godfather, Part II.

He was a perfect choice to play Chayefsky's Marty because the character could have been Borgnine's next-door neighbor, back in the day. He knew Marty's neighborhood, because he had grown up in one almost identical to it, leaving it during WW2 as a seaman and returning to it after VJ Day. But for different life choices, Borgnine might have gone on to become a regular in that neighborhood much like Marty, and he probably knew it.

Where life did take him were places nearly everyone he grew up with in his old neighborhood had never gone and could never go; he knew he'd been lucky, and never pretended otherwise -- in the 1980's, he made a film, Borgnine On The Bus, about driving across America in a Winnebago; no matter how painful it may be to more sophisticated tastes to watch, it was Borgnine's celebration at being alive, and he gently mocked his own 'stardom' in the process.

It's easy to be cynical; believe me, I know -- but Ernie was a Mensch, and a class act.

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Natur

What I'm Missing


Thunderstorm Over Berlin, June 29 (Pawel Kopczynski / Reuters)
Click On Image To Expand: Einfach und Spaß!

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Elusive Higgs Boson Found, Maybe

Fifty-Year Hunt Comes To Quiet End On A Quiet Street

While you slept, a team of investigators in Switzerland announced that after nearly fifty years, they may have apprehended Higgs Boson, described as "one of the heaviest" and most elusive of figures in the universal underworld.


Higgs Boson In Custody In Geneva; The Unique Fingerprint Which
May Confirm His Identity (Photo: Interpol)

The move was carried out by Switzerland's Criminal Elimination of Robbery and Narcotics unit, or CERN, which had conducted sporadic raids at various locations world-wide for the past decade, seeking information about Boson's whereabouts.

According to CERN chief investigator Rolf-Dieter Heuer, after developing promising leads several years ago the unit had reduced Boson's possible hiding places "down to a narrow range", predominantly in Switzerland, though unconfirmed sightings of Boson had recently occurred in the United States.


Swiss Tactical Polizei Taking Boson Into Custody
(Photo: Neue Züricher Unterwäsche Tagliche Zeitung)

Acting on tips from multiple informants, CERN's investigators determined that Boson was livinging in a specific Geneva address, between numbers 100 and 135 Genvieve-Victoriastrasse. In a pre-dawn raid of the entire street, Boson was found hiding in a bathroom at number 125 Ge-Vc.

"He was sitting on the toilet, drinking coffee and reading a copy of Hello magazine," Heuer said. "He was very calm, very polite. While he would not positively admit to his identity, we're fairly certain -- this is Higgs Boson."

It was further reported that when apprehended, Boson's copy of 'Hello' magazine was open to an article on the recent appearance of talented British classical-pop crossover singer Katherine Jenkins at the recent Epsom Downs Derby Day celebrations.


Alleged Photo Of Boson, 1980; British Mezzo-Soprano
Katherine Jenkins: Did An Obsession With Singer Lead
To Boson's Capture? (Photo: South Wales Evening Post)

Higgs Boson came to the attention of investigators worldwide after a late-night discussion following an Interpol conference in London the early 1960's. "Was there a controlling figure behind other activities we were reporting?" asked T.W.B. Kibble, a retired investigator who attended the meeting. "Some force which had to be considered, causing other parts of the dark universe that lives around us to do as they directed?"


"The Activities Of Higgs Boson Touch Each Of Us At
Our Most Fundamental Level", Say CERN Investigators

The small group of detectives agreed to look in their own areas for evidence of such a figure. "Eventually we had to admit -- such a controlling presence was undeniable", recalled investigator Robert Bout, who also remembered that there was evidence to support their belief, "but whoever this was, their influence was brief, instantaneous. As quickly as they showed up, they disappeared."

Boson apparently began to come to the attention of The London Metropolitan Police with the rise and disappearance of Doug and Dinsdale, the infamous Piranha Brothers. Met Detectives knew "a more sophisticated hand had been put into the glove what was the Piranha Brothers," said retired Met Detective Chief Murdoch Bagman Inspecting Constable Reginald Prouthee.


Was Higgs Boson The Terrible Force Behind Britian's
Infamous Piranha Brothers? (Photo: Maxine Piranha)

"I mean, you don't walk into a grocier's and threaten to use a tactical nuclear weapon just to get the poor bugger to buy a fruit machine," Prouthee recalled. "That's a bit of overkill, that is, and we all agreed down the Met -- Dougie and Dinsdale weren't that sophisticated and some other bugger's what's behind it all. And that's when we started looking at this Boson chap."


Rare Surveillance Photo Of Younger Boson On London
Street, 1980's (London Met / Rebecca Brooks Division)

Higgs Boson resided primarily in London, "but could have been from anywhere, really," said Gerald Guralnik, another of the early group trying to determine Boson's existence and activities. "All we knew was, he seemed to have his hand in everything, worldwide. He was a pervasive influence."

"If he wants to," Heuer added, "He affects people's kids. He affects their wives, their parents, then he goes after their parent's friends, their businesses. He gets into everything they need or own, or ever will -- and then, like that -- he's gone, like he was never there."

Boson was, they came to believe, more powerful than any Narco-baron. "We're convinced he killed Kaiser Söze," Rolf-Dieter Heuer told reporters in Geneva. "Personally shoved him into a tree-mulcher, feet first. Boson is worse than any Russian mafioso, more heartless than any hedge fund manager or central banker."


Kaiser Söze, Feared Underworld Leader Who Disappeared
Into A Tree Mulcher In The Late 1990's. Did His Interest
In Singer Jenkins Lead To His End? (Photo: Examiner)

Boson's interests, say CERN investigators, run the entire spectrum of activity in the known world. "We have to ask ourselves; what wasn't Higgs Boson involved in?" said Heuer. However, despite his ability to manipulate so much, Boson lived modestly and traveled almost constantly, not usually noticed but accepted at the highest levels of society.


Photo Which Investigators Say Was Emailed Anonymously
To Singer Jenkins: Was Boson Behind The Breakup With
Gethin Jones? (Photo: Rex Features / UK Telegraph)

While the Swiss team is not 100% certain that whom they hold in custody is Higgs Boson, they are confident they will be able to confirm his identity. "It's all a matter of time," says CERN's Heuer. "He hasn't even requested an attorney, yet. All he's asked for is a copy of Hello magazine with Katherine Jenkins' picture in it."

"That's why I think we've got him," Heuer says. "Time will tell."


Why Is Higgs Boson Focused On A British Singer?
Or, Are The Answers To That Question Too Obvious?

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Fish And Mouse

Echoes Of The Air Pirates

(Cartoon: Mr Fish, June 18, 2012)

"Mr Fish" is possibly the most acerbic and sharp-eyed, brook-no-bullshit editorial cartoonist / artist to appear in the past thirty years. Recently, Da Fish published a panel showing Dumbo, beloved character of the film by the same name, bemoaning his being confused with the symbol of the Republican Party -- which is now a racist, troglodyte political church.

They are the 'party' of hostility to women, minorities, and the poor. The 'ideas' this collective mutant freakshow represents are repression, exploitation, and simple, rapacious greed. They are political surrogates of the rich.

They are, in short, an abomination that should be scraped from the surface of the earth -- and they feel pretty much the same about America's Left and Progressive Dogs like myself.



If I were Dumbo, I'd be unhappy, too. The only group which could be less happy than the Elephant are his owners, the Walt Disney Company, which the character in The Fish cartoon describes as a

multi-national, multi-gazillion-dollar corporation that promotes sexist and racist and ethnocentric stereotypes, unhealthy body image, unrealistic notions of moral and immoral behavior... the myth that everybody is a hero and that success and happiness happen in direct correlation with the effort a person exerts towards realizing his or her dreams...

Now that Herr Fisch has published the cartoon (and it's a good cartoon), he may be waiting for the arrival of The Letter From Counsel For The Mouse. And at that point, I'm sure another thing will happen.

Because, Da Mouse got no sense of humor when it comes to 'creative license' with its loveable characters, and there's a bit of history which precedes Mr Fish's action which he's probably aware of. You may not be -- but, luckily, you and three other people and the Parakeet reading this blog also know a talking Dog with a long memory.

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Artist Dan O'Neill, Holding Original 'Air Pirates' Art At Comic-Con 

(Photo © Gruntzooki [Cory Doctorow])

Underground Comics in America began in the mid-1960's, as prominent a fixture in popular art as the concert and music posters being created by Alton Kelly, his occasional collaborator Stanley Mouse, Vic Moscoso, Rick Griffin and Wes Wilson. Since 1954, comic books in the United States had been reviewed and approved by the Comics Code Authority, the industry's version of self-censorship which refused to publish depictions of violence, sexuality, drug use and socially relevant content in comics.

In other words, it was perfectly correct to depict American soldiers killing Our Enemies in generic War Against The Reds Comics (whatever they were actually called). It was fine to depict America's teenagers frolicking cleanly in Archie and Jughead. It was acceptable because Badness never wins, and Goodness, American-style, always triumphs in the Land Of The Free.

Approved Comic Images: Manly Heroism, Dead Reds, Homemakers

(Click On Photo For Larger Image; It's Easy And Fun!)

It was not correct or acceptable to introduce America's Youth to reefers, or to suggest sexual behavior between The Next Generation Of Americans. It was not correct to use profane language, or depict The American Way as ethically ambiguous or, at times, Wrong, or to show crimes committed which did not eventually lead to punishment.

There were Occupy protestors Al-Qaeda Unions Commies in that world long ago, sworn to subvert our American Way Of Life -- and organizations like the Comics Code Authority or the Catholic Legion Of Decency or the Hays Commission or the House Un-American Activities Committee were there to protect us -- from ourselves. For our own good.

Gilbert Shelton, Little Orphan Amphetamine; "Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers" 

Comix, 1969.  Clearly, Not 'DC Comics Code' Material.

(Click On Photo For Larger Image; Easy And Fun!)

So much of our history, since the turn of the last century, has been wrapped up in the dichotomy between official "truth", and Reality. This disparity has always been true, but with the Civil Rights movement, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 and the escalation of war in Southeast Asia less than a year later, more people felt that sense of cognitive dissonance in life; the worm at the heart of the rose.

Some people did something about it; some were musicians, writers and artists: So, a "counterculture". In 'Popular' art there was a literal explosion of 'alternative' cartoons and comics between 1967 and into the Seventies -- it was as if Jules Feiffer and the Free Speech Movement and the Village Voice begat the Berkeley Barb and the L.A Express and, ultimately, Zap Comix.

Issues of comics like Zap, Yellow Dog Comix; Arcade; Bijou Funnies; Wimmens Comix; Mister Natural; Motor City Comix, Junkwaffel and others were risky to print or distribute. Their content made them adults-only publications, and like cigarettes, or liquor (or what was referred to in my child-time as Beaver Magazines), sales to minors were prohibited by law; anyone ignoring that fact could face fines, revocation of a business license, or even jail time.

From the perspective of the early 21st century, the contents of "Comix" from the Sixties seems tame. How could anyone get pushed out of shape by most of this stuff? There is demonstrably worse language, skin and 'deviant behavior' on Cable teevee. Well, you kinda had to be there. . And in order for all that to seem tame, someone had to push the limits of what's considered publicly acceptable artistic expression.

Air Pirates Funnies, Issue No. 1, 1971

In 1971, a group of cartoonists who had been active for several years creating their own individual work produced two issues of an underground comic called Air Pirates Funnies. Founded by Dan O'Neill (who had a syndicated newspaper comic strip, "Odds Bodkins"), the group included Shary Flenniken, Bobby London ("Dirty Duck"), Gary Hallgren, and Ted Richards. Together, in San Francisco, they constituted the Air Pirates Collective.

An Original London's Dirty Duck: Part Groucho, Part Herriman

(Click On Photo For Larger Image; It's Easy! Okay, It's Fun Too!)

© Bobby London

Not The Creature Made In Burbank: O'Neill's Mouse

The Air Pirates intended to push the boundaries of what was considered "fair use" in creating parody in art, and freely used Disney's flagship characters, Mickey and Minnie Mouse; according to Wikipedia, "O'Neill insisted it would dilute the parody to change the names of the characters, so his adventurous mouse ... was called "Mickey". Ted Richards took on the Big Bad Wolf and the Three Little Pigs, opening up a second wave of parody attacking Disney's grab of contemporary American and European folklore."

(Publishing a counterculture parody using Disney's characters didn't originate with The Air Pirates; In 1967, Lee Krassner's conspiracy-theorist magazine, The Realist, published a cartoon, "The Disneyland Memorial Orgy". The Disney organization was not amused.)

The Air Pirates Collective published a number of works besides the Air Pirates Funnies -- O'Neill released a Comics and Stories issue, a collection of Bobby London' "Dirty Duck" (which began appearing in National Lampoon magazine), among other titles. A Trots and Bonnie issue by Shary Flenniken was announced, but never appeared; Flenniken's work joined London's as a contributor to the Lampoon's comics pages.

Shary Flenniken's Trots And Bonnie, © Shary Flenniken

(Click On Photo For... You Know The Drill.)

By drawing their flagship character as a dope-smoking, profanity-using mouse who literally begs for sex and gets involved in complicated situations, Dan O'Neill knew he was shaking a rag at the Disney Company bull. In fact, he appeared to be spoiling for a First Amendment fight: Again according to Wikipedia, O'Neill arranged for copies of "Air Pirates Funnies" (which had gone through two issues, and a third being readied) to be smuggled into a meeting of the Disney Co. board of directors in mid-1971.

By October of that year, "Disney filed a lawsuit alleging, among other things, copyright infringement, trademark infringement and unfair competition" against O'Neill, London and other members of the Air Pirates collective. Counsel for The Pirates claimed that the Funnies were parody, and legally permitted under the doctrine of fair use.

Accurately telling the story of Disney's lawsuit against the Air Pirates is difficult, due to the conflicting memories of the litigants; however, it is fair to say that all through the lawsuit, O'Neill was defiant.

The initial decision by Judge Wollenberg in the California District Court, delivered on July 7, 1972, went against the Air Pirates... During the legal proceedings and in violation of [a] temporary restraining order, the Air Pirates published some of the material intended for the third issue... [which led to 10,000 copies of a comic, "The Tortoise and the Hare" to be] confiscated... In 1975, Disney won a $200,000 preliminary judgement and another restraining order, which O'Neill defied by continuing to draw Disney parodies.

In 1978, the Federal Ninth Circuit Court Of Appeals in San Francisco ruled 3 - 0 against the Air Pirates for copyright infringement, and the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a further, last appeal.

During all this, O'Neill continued drawing The Mouse in violation of the original 1971 restraining order, publishing a new Mickey Mouse story in publisher Stewart Brand's magazine, CoEvolution Quarterly in 1979. Disney demanded O'Neill be held in contempt of court and jailed, along with Brand.

O'Neill delivered [the new Mouse story] in person to the Disney studios, where he posed drawing Mickey Mouse at an animation table and allegedly smoked a joint in the late Walt Disney's office.

In 1980, weighing the unrecoverable $190,000 in damages and $2,000,000 in legal fees against O'Neill's continuing disregard for the court's decisions, the Walt Disney Company settled the case, dropping the contempt charges and promising not to enforce the judgment as long as the Pirates no longer infringed Disney's copyrights.

ONeill abided by this agreement and no further Mickey Mouse stories appeared in print.

The opinion over O'Neill's colorful defiance is split: On one side, advocates of free speech, pushing the envelope of artistic expression and sticking it to the Man because "No one can tell me I can't draw a mouse!". On the other are those who believe the lawsuit handed a victory to Disney that set back future attempts to define and expand the limits of parody and fair use.

Peter Griffin Shows His Inner Mickey -- You Don't

See Disney Suing Fox Over This, Do You?

However, and this is just one Dog's opinion, other artists have expanded on the Air Pirates' parody of Mickey as an opportunity to keep pushing the limits of what constitutes infringement and fair use -- for example, in an episode of "Family Guy" that aired on a local teevee channel this evening ("A Hero Next Door"), Peter walks past his new paraplegic police officer neighbor, looking like a recognizable cartoon character.

Chris Ware; Original Art For Quimby The Mouse

(Click On Photo For Larger Image. We Beg You.)

But, I'm really reminded of Chris Ware's character, Quimby The Mouse. The idea of using a mouse in a cartoon isn't copyrighted... but in looking at Ware's drawing, it's hard not to see the iconic shadow of our collective childhood at work -- and the history of the Air Pirates' work.

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The Air Pirates are still with us. O'Neill is still drawing. So is Shary Flenniken, and Bobby London, Ted Richards and Gary Hallgren. O'Neill is still kicking ass and taking names, in the artistic sense.

I met O'Neill briefly in the early 90's when he was involved in attempting to open a club for politically-motivated standup comedy in San Francisco's North Beach (another local artist set up the meeting to discuss my doing posters promoting the effort). O'Neill and I played a few games of pool; I was impressed by his gentle sense of humor, bracketed by a sharp spirit that brooked no bullshit.

We didn't discuss the Air Pirates or the suit with Disney at that or any other subsequent meetings. Even though O'Neill is one of America's principal comic illustrators of the counterculture era, I never pumped him for reminisinces or details about hanging out and working with the likes of Crumb, London, Flenniken, Green, Shelton, et al. If you ran into Manet, you wouldn't monopolize having a conversation with him by focusing on the controversy around Déjeuner Sur L'herbe.

Mr Fish, in my opinion, is another artist who brooks no bullshit in a similar way. He tells the truth, he pushes the limits of "what is considered acceptable content" in parody or humor. Recently, in Truthdig, he published an article, "Obscenity", recounting a moment in his childhood when certain things about the freedom of expression became clear [paragraphing added for emphasis]:

The idea to save the world by writing FUCK YOUR ASS on 100 pieces of paper, folding them into airplanes and floating them out my bedroom window like dandelion spores came to me over Memorial Day weekend about 15 minutes after I started horsing around with my older brother Jeff in the back seat of my mother’s station wagon...

Jeff was trying to wrestle me into a headlock so that he could spit an ice cube down the back of my shirt... when I accidentally kicked him so hard in the nuts that I swear he blacked out for a full 30 seconds.

Ten minutes later I ... explained to my stepfather how I, without provocation, had kicked him in the balls.

“Testicles,” corrected my stepfather, narrowing his eyes like a marine biologist who had just pointed out someone’s misclassification of a dolphin as a porpoise...

“They’re testicles, not balls.”

“Well, aren’t they the same thing?”

“Yeah,” said my stepfather, “of course they are, but just call them testicles. Saying balls upsets your mother.”

...To suddenly realize at age 7 that balls and testicles referred to the same thing was a real eye-opener for me. It meant that the obscenity of the word balls was not intrinsic to the thing that it referred to, but rather to the word itself -- to the physicality of the word, to how it looked and sounded.

How else to explain the acceptability of the word testicles, which referred to the same thing that the word balls did and was not obscene? ...

The debate about the obscenity of words seemed no different to me from the civil rights era debates about what freedom and justice and equality should look like... It was time to demand equal rights for all speech because all speech was connected to all ideas, which were connected to all deeds, which were connected to all acts, which were connected to all hopes and dreams, both realized and not.

I have a feeling that O'Neill would agree with that. And, when he sees the cartoon of Dumbo sitting at the bar (something tells me he has), I believe he'll smile: One reason we can laugh at that Disney-character parody is due, in part, to The Air Pirates having already explored that territory, first.

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What Dog Is Thinking

Slow News Day


My Cousin Ed, In Southern California, Contemplating Dining
Al Fresco (Don't Worry; Ed's Not Like That. The Kid's Fine)

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Little Johnny's Tree House

Not Worth The Spittle

Today, Little Johnny's Tree House Gang showed us some of the special, super-fun projects they've been working on. Johnny smiled a lot.

"Fat Tony" Scalia and Sammy The Weasel showed us a sign they made, that says Va Fun Kulo Amurika. Johnny smiled some more.

Then Johnny and all his super friends -- Tony, Sammy, Oreo and Billy -- all sang a fun song about how great it was to be king, not a thing that they'd rather be than king, ring-a-ding-ding, and corporations are people, too; so Up With Exceptionally Rich People!

Johnny laughed, and went wee-wee-wee-wee all the way home, where he had roast beef.

The alleged pinnacle of what was once a model of jurisprudence has, again, been turned into an ideological cesspool.

Ashamed to be an American, today. I'll be even more ashamed later in the week.

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MEHR: Well, I'm surprised, and not so ashamed: Johnny joined with Justices Ginsburg, Soltero, Kagan and Breyer in upholding the core of the act. Perhaps he felt he had to, given that he and his Tree House Buddies already gave away the store on Citizens United.

Fat Tony, Sammy The Weasel, Billy, and Oreo cried and hurled their minority opinion at the American People, along with some of their own feces.

Well, it was somebody's victory about something, I guess. What happens next? Dunno.

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Legal Closure

Sandusky Convicted On 45 Counts

Yesterday evening, Jerry Sandusky was convicted on the vast majority of 48 counts in the indictment brought against him for child molestation, sodomy, and rape.

I had a much longer version of this post up earlier; there wasn't anything in it, legally or morally, that should make me edit it, since it focused on the investigators and Center County DA's office congratulating themselves on a successful prosecution -- something they should absolutely do. But I went on too long, and overlooked the people whom Sandusky happened to. Which was the whole point of the indictment: There were victims.

For victims of crimes of personal violence, the case isn't over. It will never completely be over. The worst aspect of the trauma which humans inflict upon each other is that it can be triggered and relived, over and over. Events -- whether they're two months or fifty years old -- intrude into present time without warning. That re-experience affects current relationships in their lives; it can stunt a person's ability to experience a life with real safety, trust, or joy, and (particularly for abused children) not being able to shake the sense that bad things happened to them because they deserved it.

That's what Sandusky did to his victims. One way or another, to a greater or lesser degree, they will have to live with the memory of that... individual. And there isn't enough time left in his life for him to suffer as (in my opinion) he should; an effective life sentence isn't serious enough punishment, but I understand that a case where The Punishment Fits The Crime is a rare occurrence. And, that's just me talking.

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Let's All Get Up And Dance To A Tune

The EU's Gonna Play All The Hits

Via TPM today:

Angela Merkel is poised to allow the eurozone’s €750bn bailout fund to buy up the bonds of crisis-hit governments in a desperate effort to drive down borrowing costs for Spain and Italy and prevent the single currency from imploding.

Germany has long opposed allowing the eurozone’s rescue fund... But Merkel has come under intense pressure as financial markets have pushed up borrowing costs for Spain to levels that many analysts see as unsustainable.

Analysts are likely to see the decision as the first step towards sharing the burden of troubled countries’ debts across the single currency’s 17 members, though it falls short of the “eurobonds” proposed by the European commission president José Manuel Barroso.

The proposal was discussed on the margins of the two-day G20 summit in Los Cabos, Mexico, which has been dominated by the depressing impact of the eurozone crisis on the world economy.

...The [British Chancellor Of The Exchequer], George Osborne, hinted at the possible deal saying the eurozone was inching towards solutions. He said: “I think there are signs that the eurozone are moving towards richer countries standing behind their banks and standing behind the weaker countries.

“There is no doubt that they [the eurozone] realise that individual measures taken in individual countries - like recapitalising Spanish banks and getting a Greek government that is in favour of staying in the euro - are not by themselves enough”

The G20 communique due to be issued later mentions “steps towards greater fiscal and economic integration that lead to sustainable borrowing costs”.

British officials are pleased that the lengthy passage on the eurozone makes specific forward-looking references to improving the functioning of financial markets and breaking the feedback loop between sovereigns and banks.

It also speaks of the need for a more integrated financial architecture encompassing banking supervision and recapitalisation and deposit insurance.

And soothing treats for Europe's Banksters, and a partridge in a pear tree.

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