Note: There’s a slight spoiler in the review, and in the thread here on “Alas.” So if you’re allergic to spoiliers, don’t click through to the review, and don’t read the thread here!

This review came out the same day as the “Blog About Comics” review. On Broken Frontier, Eric Lindberg writes:

Hereville also has a distinctly left-of-center approach to fantasy that I found appealing. Mirka’s stepmother Fruma challenges the view of dragons as an evil force, likening their man-eating tendencies to any other predator in nature. [Slight spoiler deleted by Amp.] These are nice offbeat touches that contribute to the individualism of this comic and its voice.

The mixture of influences is not always a seamless transition however. The placement of fantasy elements in this setting makes it a bit difficult to pinpoint the rules of the world of Hereville. Electricity and alarm clocks co-exist with monsters out of European legend. Some characters speak of trolls as if they are commonplace, while others have never heard the term and consider them a goisch (gentile) concept of no concern. Do these people and creatures truly co-exist? Is it all in Mirka’s head? Presumably, future Hereville storyarcs will more firmly establish Mirka’s world and how it works.

Deutsch’s style of cartooning bridges the gap between old-fashioned and modern sensibilities. His elongated figures with their exaggerated puppet-like expressions brought to mind the work of E.C. Segar (creator of Popeye), adding a fun and loose sense of charm to the proceedings. The sepia tone coloring lends a timeless feel to the story while the panel layout and storytelling techniques are more contemporary. This combination is an appropriate choice for the subject manner, reflecting the mix of Old World and New in the characters’ culture.

There’s more — head over to B.F. to read the whole review.

My first reaction: Whoo-hooo, I got compared to E.C. Segar! The comparison flatters me more than I deserve, but I don’t care — because I love Segar! (I have a reproduction of a pre-Popeye “Thimble Theater” strip on my wall).

My squeeeee!!-ness aside, it was a good review — not because it was positive (although I’m of course happy for that), but because it went deeper than just thumbs up or down. Thanks, Eric.

This is amazing. Brownfemipower:

The thing is—I thought that those who were a part of a “feminist community” were held to the same sort of standards. That when a woman of color says that she will not be published thus the white women who are published need to spend more time than they feel comfortable talking about the needs of women of color—THEY WOULD DO IT. That they would say “It’s the least I can do” or “What else can I do” rather than JUST DO IT, JUST DO IT. Because we are all in a community together and we all are working to create something that challenges and dismantles gendered violence and inequality, right? And if it takes writing a book that does not assume all women are staying away from feminism because they are white and privileged and just don’t get it—well, ending gendered violence and inequality is worth it, right? Working together towards a common goal, right?

This?

It just took reading Hugo’s response for me to realize that I was fucked up wrong. That feminism’s goals and my goals are completly and totally opposite of each other. That in feminism’s eyes “dismantling” gendered violence= “shifting” gendered violence.

Well. To me, this looks like a really glaring fallacy. “Feminism” is not one thing, and I don’t accept the idea that one set of people (say, Hugo) has more right to the term than another (say, Sylvia), when both clearly are interested in ending patriarchy. Also, what Anxious Black Woman said:

I’m just reminding everyone that the “Feminist” label belongs to us, as women of color. We laid the foundations for feminist theory and practice. We are the bodies on which feminist theories are created. We are the “comparative” variable and the case study for why “life sucks for women.” It’s because of the combined effects of sexism, racism, imperialism, heterosexism, etc. why we’ve got it bad. And it’s because we “bleed at the intersections” why we, more than any other group of women, need feminist movement.

(By the way, that whole post is really amazing and informative and I recommend you read it.)

For me, it’s really problematic when BFP writes this:

“Feminists,” on the other hand, are not movement building, they are actively destroying women and blaming those women for the destruction. They are saying the point of feminism is “equality with men” without even thinking to acknowledge that “equality with women” is just as admirable of a goal and maybe even possibly the first step to achieving the goal of equality with men. They are saying, Just do it, just do it, JUST FUCKING DO IT.

BFP seems here to be defining feminists as people who subscribe to these behaviors. That ignores lots of women who don’t and who aren’t rejecting feminism. The fact that there *is* an argument in the feminist blogosphere indicates to me that there are feminists who believe as BFP is asking them to. Why write them off? Why are certain people more entitled to the label feminism?

I do fully understand that BFP is more educated than I am on these issues, and more articulate, and probably just plain smarter. But I find this part of her argument really frustrating.

When I stop to think “what am I missing here?”, I feel like what I’m missing is the real frustration and desperation and anger that accompanies these sentiments. I am truly missing them, and I do not wish to deny their legitimacy.

But at the same time when I think of my feminist influences — for instance Carolyn Martin Shaw, a black anthropology professor of mine who teaches on gender and sexuality and has organized women’s movements in Kenya — I… can’t really fathom ascribing to her the motives BFP professes belong to “feminists,” not can I fathom removing the label feminist from her because “feminism” — in BFP’s outline — means the (as far as I can tell) deliberate trampling of WOC. She’s a feminist.

I know, I know, if the shoe doesn’t fit, don’t wear it.

Still. The only way I can reconcile these thoughts is to assume that there’s a difference between feminists and “feminists,” the same way there’s a difference between nice guys and NiceGuysTM — but if that’s the case, why not say so? I’m not reading this as an accusation toward individuals, but toward the moral quality of the entire movement (which thus requires its rejection, instead of merely the renouncements of “feminists”).

Feminist, anti-racist comments only.

Duke at Migra Matters writes:

Each year approximately 2.8 million students graduate from US High Schools. Some will go on to college, join the military, or take other paths in life, hopefully all becoming productive members of society.

But for approximately 65,000 of them, these opportunities will never be available. Not because they lack motivation, or achievement, but because of the undocumented status passed on to them by their parents.

Lacking legal status and social security numbers, these students, raised and schooled in the US, cannot apply to college, get jobs other than those at the bottom of the economic ladder, or otherwise follow their dreams.

(There’s lots more in Duke’s post.)

From ADreamDeferred.org:

All three presidential hopefuls co-sponsored the federal DREAM Act, yet it has never been made law. The DREAM Act would enable states to grant in-state tuition to these hardworking immigrant students, making higher education (and eventually citizenship) a real possibility.

We need to put pressure on all three presidential candidates to commit to securing America’s future by enacting the federal DREAM Act in their first 100 days of office.

Sign the petition so that we can show our elected officials that the dreams of students must not be sacrificed to the anti-immigrant, anti-American status quo.

I know it’s almost a half-century old, and the woman is fictional, but still I find myself begging this woman to GET A FUCKING DIVORCE!!!!

Also, check out this article from a British paper: Marksman called in to kill Kingston’s pigeons. You can almost skip the article; I’m linking this for the comments, which are brilliant.

Finally, The New Yorker has a time-lapse video, taken from a building’s security cameras, of a man trapped alone in an elevator for 41 hours. Oddly compelling. (Curtsy: Boing Boing.)

At my favorite pro-Clinton¹ blog, Shakesville. Excellent.

1. Except for Jeff, who favors Obama. (back)

I’m definitely not saying there are only two issues that matter. There are hundreds of issues that matter.

But for most of those issues — including most of the issues I’m personally passionate about — it probably won’t make a difference if the nominee is Obama or Clinton.

Take health care. Clinton’s proposal is clearly, albeit marginally, better than Obama’s. But that’s not an important difference, because neither Obama or Clinton expect to have their exact proposals put into law. The law will be written in Congress and brought to the President to sign, based on what can be gotten through the Senate (which will not have enough Democratic votes to overcome a filibuster, so nothing will get passed without a handful of Republicans agreeing to it). Ron Wyden — who is the leading Democratic Senator on Health Care, and who has quietly gotten a handful of Republicans to sign on to his Health Care plan — will probably have more to do with the details of the eventual health care reform than either Clinton or Obama will.

I’m not saying that health care is unimportant — on the contrary, it’s essential, and an issue that effects me personally. What I’m saying is that the relatively minor differences between Clinton’s and Obama’s health care plans probably won’t matter much for what actually happens, because on domestic policy the President’s powers are severely constrained by politics. When push comes to shove, what will matter is getting enough Senators to sign on to a plan — and either Obama or Clinton will go with the plan that they can get through the Senate, not the plan they talked about during the primaries.

The President certainly has a broad effect on what policies pass, which is why the broad differences do matter. The broad differences between Clinton and McCain, say, or between Obama and McCain. But when it comes down to actual policy, the differences between Clinton and Obama are narrow and likely to be washed out completely in the give and take of negotiating actual legislation.

What’s true of Health Care is true of domestic issues generally; it just doesn’t matter much if Obama or Clinton is in the White House, because the relatively subtle differences in policy or language choice Obama and Clinton supporters argue about won’t translate into differences in real law and real policy. Look at another couple of examples:

1. Both of them will choose reliably pro-choice Supreme Court justices¹ ; neither of them will choose Supreme Court justices who will reverse the Court’s bias in favor of business over labor. Even if either of them secretly wants to appoint a real leftist to the Court, the Republicans would filibuster, so forget that.
2. Both of them are committed to trying to overturn DOMA — although Obama favors a full repeal, whereas Clinton favors a partial repeal (leaving a bit in as a hedge against an anti-gay constitutional amendment). It’s an interesting argument, from a wonky point of view, but in practice it’s doubtful 60 senators would agree to overturn DOMA in part or in whole.

These are issues I care a lot about — these are issues, in fact, of central importance to me. But they don’t provide a strong reason to vote for Clinton over Obama, or vice versa, because the outcome will be pretty much the same under either President.²

What about sending a message that bigotry is not acceptable in a Democratic Presidential candidate?

I have a great deal of sympathy for this argument, and I would never say that this is not an issue that matters. We’d all be better off if future Democratic candidates learned that appeals to racism, sexism, and homophobia are a sure route to losing a primary. Even if it meant losing the 2008 election, it might be worth it if a clear message could be sent.

Unfortunately, it isn’t possible to send a clear anti-bigotry message this election, because there’s no clean candidate to vote for. Barack Obama’s people have undeniably made appeals to sexism during this election, and arguably so has Obama himself. Moreover, Obama allowed a outspokenly homophobic gospel singer to headline multiple fundraisers.

But what’s the alternative? The Clinton campaign has consistently brought race into the campaign, from the unsubtle whites-are-oppressed complaints of Ferrarro to more subtle attempts to make Obama into a Scary Black Man, including Clinton herself struggling to keep the Jeremiah Wright story in the news.

We can’t send a “no bigotry, no way” message with a vote for either of these candidates. Both of them have dirty hands.

The Two Issues

So what are the two issues where the differences between Clinton and Obama are potentially important?

The first, most important issue is who can beat McCain in the general election, because either Clinton or Obama — bad as they are, from a leftist point of view — would be enormously better than McCain. McCain is another four to eight years of failed Bush policies; more needless, avoidable war, more wasted lives, and more economic mismanagement.

The trouble is, although both sides play with math semi-persuasively (”only large states count!” “No, only swings!” “No, only Reagan Democrats!” “look at the fundraising!” blah blah blah), there’s no way we can know or even reasonably guess who will beat McCain by the larger margin, because we don’t get to run the general election twice.

Furthermore, arguments based on “electability” don’t have a good track record; remember when all the smart number-crunchers said we had to support John Kerry because he was “electable”? But in practice, Kerry let the Republican machine walk all over him. Deciding between the two candidates on the basis of “electibility” is problematic at best, guesswork at worst. Plus, by some weird coincidence, Obama’s partisans all look at the math and find out that Obama has the best shot of beating McCain, while Clinton’s partisans find the exact opposite.

In the end, the most logical way to decide which candidate is most able to win a national election is to create some sort of mock national election (we can call it something else, like a “primaride”), in which both candidates have to fight for votes nationwide in a vicious campaign run according to arbitrary rules while a vapid media looks for any shallow, stupid story to report on. It’s not a perfect solution, but I can’t think of a better method of settling the “electability” question.

The second issue that matters is foreign policy. Unlike domestic policy, Presidents have a great deal of control over foreign policy, even down to fine details. The president controls the military, after all. And even in other areas, congress has long deferred to the President for the details of our foreign policy, and that deference is greater than ever after eight years of Bush.

Because of this Presidential control over small details, even the small differences between Obama and Clinton on foreign policy are much more likely to matter than small differences on domestic policies.

In my next post in this series, I’ll argue that Obama — who is no progressive — nonetheless has an approach to foreign policy that is significantly better than Clinton’s, from a progressive point of view.

1. I’ve heard more than one Clinton-supporter argue that we can’t rely on Obama to appoint pro-choice justices. That’s not true; even if Obama is secretly pro-life, and there’s no reason to think he is, it would be political suicide for him to attack the Democratic base by appointing an anti-choice justice. (back)
2. It’s also true that the President, through issuing rules, staffing choices, etc.., can make some domestic decisions without Congress’ say-so. But none of these are areas where I’ve seen evidence of a significant policy disparity between Clinton and Obama on any major issues, except perhaps “open government” issues. (back)

Getting a webcomic reviewed is more difficult than I would have imagined. I even made a preview website with the entire story, so reviewers could read the whole thing before making a judgement.

When I think about it, though, it makes sense that it’s hard: There are tens of thousands of webcomics out there, and precious few reviewers. I sent requests to a lot of reviewers asking them to consider critiquing “Hereville,” but until today, no dice. (I’m still hoping, though.)

Which brings me to some news: Deniselle of A Blog About Comics has posted a review of “Hereville” — the very first review of the complete “How Mirka Got Her Sword” story that’s ever been published. I’m feeling a bit gushy about that.

And it’s a positive review (phew!), fairly lengthy with some interesting analysis. Deniselle read a preview copy of the whole first story, so she’s read some stuff regular “Hereville” readers haven’t seen yet, but don’t worry, she was careful to avoid spoilers.

Mirka’s fixation with being a dragon-slayer is unexplained, which is interesting. It seems to arise from her personality, not be some fate cast upon her (Lord of the Rings style) nor a burden she has to come to terms with. She wants to be a dragon slayer because it’s who she is. Whether or not she’s meant to slay dragons is interestingly ambiguous.

Please head on over to Deniselle’s blog to read the whole thing. :-)

The current episode of PodCastle features “Run Of The Fiery Horse,” by Hilary Moon Murphy, read aloud by our own Mandolin. Plus, the intro is by science fiction and fantasy writer K. Tempest Bradford, who is probably better known to “Alas” readers for her blog “The Angry Black Woman.”

Check it out!

Tomorrow I will begin posting my arguments for voting for Barack Obama.

But first, some arguments I will not use. Because they’re sucky.

Top Ten Bad Pro-Obama Arguments

1) Clinton is just plain selfish for not dropping out of the race! It shows she has bad character.

2) Racism has benefited Clinton this election, totally unlike sexism benefiting Obama, which has never happened and if it ever did happen didn’t matter.

3) Clinton is eeeevviiiil.

4) Obama will run center but govern left.

5) Obama is the next JFK!

6) Obama is the messiah. Worship him, foolish mortals, or your very soul is lost.

7) Hilary is only where she is because of her husband.

8) Hillary is a horrible role model because she stayed with Bill after Monicagate.

9) Hilary has shrill laughter. She reminds me of my hectoring mother. She’s a woman, and woman things disturb me.

10) The math proves Hillary can’t win, so no one should vote for her.

(UPDATE: Thanks to Jackie in comments for providing an eleventh bad argument for Obama:)

11) “Clinton is playing the victim card, as if sexism, and not 1-8 above, is to blame for the fact that her inevitable nomination turned out not to be so inevitable. Even if she believes it’s true, how does whining and blaming spell empowerment?”

(How did I miss including that one the first time around?)

Yes, these are exaggerations of what some Obama supporters have said; but only just.

And yes, I think that Clinton supporters make some sucky arguments too (including some of the above arguments with the names reversed). But that’s not my focus right now.

My point is that people on both sides of this debate can and should strive to make the debate less stupid. A lot of my fellow Obama supporters have not managed to do this, unfortunately.

More tomorrow.

UPDATE: See also, Kate’s not-the-reasons she voted Clinton.

Glenn Greenwald, writing a week or two ago:

In the past two weeks, the following events transpired. A Department of Justice memo, authored by John Yoo, was released which authorized torture and presidential lawbreaking. It was revealed that the Bush administration declared the Fourth Amendment of the Bill of Rights to be inapplicable to “domestic military operations” within the U.S. The U.S. Attorney General appears to have fabricated a key event leading to the 9/11 attacks and made patently false statements about surveillance laws and related lawsuits. Barack Obama went bowling in Pennsylvania and had a low score.

Here are the number of times, according to NEXIS, that various topics have been mentioned in the media over the past thirty days:

“Yoo and torture” - 102

“Mukasey and 9/11″ — 73

“Yoo and Fourth Amendment” — 16

“Obama and bowling” — 1,043

“Obama and Wright” — More than 3,000 (too many to be counted)

“Obama and patriotism” - 1,607

“Clinton and Lewinsky” — 1,079

And as Eric Boehlert documents, even Iraq — that little five-year U.S. occupation with no end in sight — has been virtually written out of the media narrative in favor of mindless, stupid, vapid chatter of the type referenced above.

A few weeks ago I walked into my local supermarket to see that a 10 oz. bar of cheese was “on sale” for $5.39. I did a double take–maybe they meant two bars of cheese for $5.39. Generally, the sale on that brand of cheese is 2 for $4.00 or 2 for $5.00, but sure enough this was somehow supposed to be a sale. I’ve been complaining about this since last year–the cost of food is soaring. Last year, I could generally get out of the supermarket paying around $65-85.00 for two people, now I’m paying $90.00 or more. The higher prices seem to apply across the board–fresh produce, canned foods, flour/rice, and most dramatically dairy. Of course, I’m fortunate to be able to suck it up and pay the higher prices, but many lower income folks in this country and other wealthy countries are struggling, and in poorer countries, people are taking to the streets in protest because they are unable to feed their families.

A quick search of Google news indicates that we really are in a world wide food crisis. I’m not so sure that there is an actually shortage of food, but the crisis appears to be the cost. Some of the countries where people are struggling with soaring food prices, include–Afghanistan, Haiti, South Africa, Namibia, New Zealand, Ivory Coast, and numerous others. The situation is getting so serious that the United Nations (and the World Bank) weighed in last week :

The head of the UN World Food Programme has warned that the rise in basic food costs could continue until 2010.

Josette Sheeran blamed soaring energy and grain prices, the effects of climate change and demand for biofuels.

Ms Sheeran has already warned that the WFP is considering plans to ration food aid due to a shortage of funds.

Some food prices rose 40% last year, and the WFP fears the world’s poorest will buy less food, less nutritious food or be forced to rely on aid.

Speaking after briefing the European Parliament, Ms Sheeran said the agency needed an extra $375m (244m euros; £187m) for food projects this year and $125m (81m euros; £93m) to transport it.

She said she saw no quick solution to high food and fuel costs.

“The assessment is that we are facing high food prices at least for the next couple of years,” she said.

Ms Sheeran said global food reserves were at their lowest level in 30 years - with enough to cover the need for emergency deliveries for 53 days, compared with 169 days in 2007.

Several factors have been cited as causes for the food price crisis including: rising fuel cost, the shift towards biofuels (e.g. ethanol), population growth, the growth of capitalist economies, and weather patterns. The greatest criticism in the range of articles I read has been reserved for government subsidies for bio-fuels, specifically ethanol. Many feel that the shift to ethanol and bio-fuels is environmentally harmful, but now we can add soaring food prices and hunger to the list of arguments against bio-fuels1.

1. If you want more information of about the food crisis, these graphs from the BBC website have useful information about the food price crisis. The only additional point I would add is that (see the chart of trade balances) while some countries like the US will benefit in the area of trade, I don’t think that the average American is benefiting from this. A few corporate farmers may be getting rich, but the vast majority of people are hurting. We’re not hurting anywhere near as much as poor people in poor countries. (back)

State Representative Monique Davis, publicly attacking Rob Sherman, a local activist who she knew to be an atheist:

I don’t know what you have against God, but some of us don’t have much against him. We look forward to him and his blessings. And it’s really a tragedy — it’s tragic — when a person who is engaged in anything related to God, they want to fight. They want to fight prayer in school. […]

This is the Land of Lincoln where people believe in God, where people believe in protecting their children.… What you have to spew and spread is extremely dangerous […] And it’s dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists! Now you will go to court to fight kids to have the opportunity to be quiet for a minute. But damn if you’ll go to [court] to fight for them to keep guns out of their hands. I am fed up! Get out of that seat! [… ]You have no right to be here! We believe in something. You believe in destroying! You believe in destroying what this state was built upon.

Wow, what an asshat. (Via Friendly Atheist).

After a week of criticism, Davis phoned Rob Sherman, the man she attacked, and apologized. She still hasn’t apologized publicly (we only know of the apology because Davis reported accepting the apology). In my opinion, that’s not good enough. Rep Davis owes a public apology to all atheists — and a public recanting of the substance of her statements, as well.

Have I mentioned that Rep. Davis is Black? No? That’s because it’s not fucking relevant. What a shame that the atheist she attacked disagrees, and wrote:

Now that Negroes like Representative Monique Davis have political power, it seems that they have no problem at all with discrimination, just as long as it isn’t them who are being discriminated against.

Wow, what an asshat.

In the subsequent discussions, Sherman removed the word “negro” from his website, but also justified it like this:

[”Negroes” is] what the group was called when they were being discriminated against, but now that this same group has political power, discrimination is OK, as long as it’s not them that’s being discriminated against. That’s the reason for the use of the term.

Sherman later walked back even further. Oh, and did he mention that he has black friends?

I still thought, today, that Negro and Black were completely interchangeable with identical context, just as Caucasian and White, and automobile and car are. So, I called Jesse Jackson at his office at Rainbow/Push headquarters in Chicago to ask him about it. He and I have had several conversations over the years at VIP events […] Rev. Jackson wasn’t available when I called, today, so I then called one of my many Black friends to confirm the validity of my perspective. […] Clint told me that the only people, besides me, who still use Negro are racists who are trying to sound polite. Now I know. There was certainly no intent to act like a racist. I was mistaken when I thought that the words were fully interchangeable and have removed that word from this web site.

Did you catch that Rob has black friends? I think he wanted you to catch that point. And did he mention he knows black people?

A few points:

1) Rob’s backtracking makes no sense. If he specifically used the word “negro” because it is “what the group was called when they were being discriminated against,” then he clearly doesn’t think that “Negro and Black were completely interchangeable with identical context.” So that’s just bullshit.

2) Ridiculous, too, is his use of the phrase “when they were being discriminated against,” as if blacks don’t still face discrimination today.

3) Even if he had said “Now that African-Americans like Representative Monique Davis have political power, it seems that they have no problem at all with discrimination, just as long as it isn’t them who are being discriminated against,” that still would have been asshatish. Both because there’s no reason to bring up Davis’ race at all, and because Davis does not represent all black people.

4) Note that Sherman, unlike Davis, has refused to apologize.

I’d also recommend reading Mike Estes’ comments, quoted at Friendly Athiest.

(Curtsy to Doug and Ron, who discussed this issue briefly in an open thread.)

Via Kate at Shakesville (and pointed out to me by Bean):

The video is in two rough halves: the first half is a montage of anti-Clinton misogyny in the mainstream media (although you can find the same thing from some so-called progressives). The second half is a loving montage of Clinton pics (I love the black and white pic with striped pants) set to a really cool pop song.

The open misogyny displayed towards Clinton by media figures is, simply, disgusting. As Judith Hope said:

You know, no matter who your favorite candidate for president may be, can American women continue to look the other way while the national media spews such sexist contempt? If we learn nothing else from this long Democratic primary season, we now know this: It is still ‘open season’ on American women.

But there’s one element that keeps me from endorsing this video wholeheartedly; the videomaker includes Keith Olbermann bashing Clinton for not distancing herself from Geraldine Ferraro’s infamous comments. For all I know Olbermann is a sexist asshat (I don’t watch his show), but his Ferraro comments are anti-racist, not misogynist. Including anti-racism within a montage of vile misogynist crap, as if the two were interchangable or in any way comparable, is offensive.

P.S. Check out this recent Media Matters column reporting more misogyny on parade, this time from the delightfully fair and balanced, not at all biased people at Fox. curtsy: Chet at Shakesville.