Since I Know About Media Pile-ons…

Count me out of the Bruce “Mallard Fillmore” Tinsley DUI pile-on. It’s icky.

I’ve only had one interaction with the cartoonist, and it was a singularly pleasant one. I invited him to be interviewed for one of my ATTITUDE anthologies. Why? Well, he draws in a different style, he’s political and he takes unorthodox positions. In other words, he’s a subversive (conservative) cartoonist. “Mallard Fillmore” ain’t no “Doonesbury” (what is?), but it’s much better than people–liberal people–say. Mallard detractors mostly despise his politics, but rather than simply say that they insult the strip’s execution. Well, if it’s bullshit when it happens to me, it’s bullshit when it happens to him.

Unfortunately I was unable to secure, despite Tinsley’s sincere attempts, the rights to reprint his strips. This sucks, because I really wanted to have some conservative artists in the book.

As for the DUI, well, that could happen to anyone who knocks back three or four beers in an hour or two in a city without decent mass transit, i.e., most people reading this. Speculation that he’s an alcoholic is just that. If Tinsley has issues, he ought to be allowed the privacy to seek help without being ridiculed by a Standard Issue American Media Pile-on. If not, one presumes he’ll choose a designated driver next time.

The hypocrisy issue has come up. After all, Tinsley often mocks Ted Kennedy for alleged drunkenness in his strip. It’s a valid criticism, for sure, but the above stuff is why I would urge people to lay off. Being liberal, after all, means being understanding–even to those who aren’t understanding themselves. Besides, mocking TK’s supposed drinkyness (sic) isn’t exactly on par with the hypocrisy of those who dodged the draft sending other people’s children to war. Tinsley’s sins are of taste, not life or death.

Cut the dude some slack, and let him figure out his life.

Ted Rall on Animated Cartoons in Newsweek

There’s a short piece about the decision of some editorial cartoonists to animate their work in this week’s Newsweek. I’ve got a quote in there.

I too would like to follow innovators like Mark Fiore (see image above) by attempting to make the move to moving images, but simply don’t have the time to learn and do all that Flash animation myself. I suspect that time constraints will be responsible for keeping many cartoonists from animating their work. This could change were companies interested in partnering with cartoonists, as some talked about doing at the height of the dot-com boom, but so far that just hasn’t happened. For the foreseeable future, therefore, look for American political cartooning to remain static, and the overall number of cartoonists to continue to decline as newspapers continue to eliminate them.

The Cassandra Chronicles Revisted

Now that only 9% of Americans believe the war in Iraq can be won, it’s easy to forget how bad things got for those of us who were against it from the beginning. As the Great Northern Plains blog reminds us, those of us who stood up against this idiotic war against Iraq were getting trashed by the radical right while the moderates and liberals quivered in fearful silence. Paul Krugman referenced this typical Weekly Standard piece in his normally excellent New York Times column, but fumbled by focussing on elected officials trashed by the radical right rather than on the journalists and other citizens who actually paid a price for being correct.

Here’s the section about Yours Truly:

Did you know that your average Iraqi fellow would much rather watch his relatives be raped or eaten by dogs than have to shake hands with an American Marine on the sidewalk?

“Regardless of their political affiliations, patriotic Iraqis prefer to bear the yoke of Saddam’s brutal and corrupt dictatorship than to suffer the humiliation of living in a conquered nation. . . . The thought of infidel troops marching through their cities, past their mosques, patting them down, ordering them around, disgusts them even more than Saddam’s torture chambers.”

–Cartoonist and conspiracy-theory book author Ted Rall, April 2, 2003

I assume that the “conspiracy theory” book they’re referring to was GAS WAR, which detailed the development of the Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline project, a project neoconservative Republicans like Brendan Nyhan said was pure fiction. Now, of course, the pipeline is under construction even as Afghanistan collapses into worse chaos. As for my quote, well, looks like I called that one right. As usual.

Now that my politics have been vindicated, will the publications that censored my cartoons because of my politics between 2001 and 2005 apologize to their readers and pick them back up again? Don’t hold your breath. After all, being the Week In Review editor of the New York Times means never having to say you’re sorry.

Need iPod, Will Sell Originals Cheap!

A few years ago I made this deal to finance an iPod–buy three originals, which usually go for at least $300 each, for $500 total. I even threw in a couple of signed books. Now my iPod is history, a victim of the faulty disc error that plagues the device. Since I was too cheap to spring for Apple Care, I’m not covered by the warranty. But I desperately need another iPod, so I’m offering the deal again:

$500 gets you 3 originals (provided, of course, that I still have them), plus a couple of signed books. Email me at chet@rall.com for payment details; this is a first come, first serve kind of deal.

This time I’m buying AppleCare. And please, no emails about how cool non-iPod MP3 players are–I’m sure they are, but I don’t have time to transfer all 12,000 songs from the Apple-friendly format to MP3s.

Critical Raves for SILK ROAD TO RUIN

Reviews are starting to come in, and so far they’re unanimously positive. I don’t know whether they’ll translate to sales, but consider that “Taliban,” the 2000 book by Ahmed Rashid (who wrote my introduction), sold a few thousand copies before 9/11 and over 5 million after 9/11. Of course, 9/11 might never have happened had 5 million Americans bought “Taliban” BEFORE 9/11.

Anyway, here are the latest reviews:

School Library Journal, naming “Silk Road to Ruin” one of its Best Adult Books for High School Students of 2006:

“Cartoon journalist Rall explored the former USSR states up close and with daring personal encounters. His narrative report is incisive, insightful, and complete with graphic novella asides.”

The San Diego Union-Tribune/Copley News Service:

“‘Silk Road to Ruin’ is a crash course on Central Asia, essential for anyone who’s at all interested in what the U.S. is up to (see: oil, projection of power) in the region, and what’s likely in store for us (see: blowback). Although at one border Rall’s American passport was the first the guards had ever seen, mostly he wasn’t treading fresh ground: American bootprints are all over Central Asia, as he documents thoroughly and, through some odd alchemy, delightfully.”

The Boston Globe:

“‘Silk Road to Ruin’ is the kind of history you wish schools taught. Stuffed with information, characterized by courage, it slams Central Asia, which contains the world’s largest reserves of oil and natural gas, even as it celebrates it.”

NYC Book Signing

I’ll be signing books tomorrow, Sunday, December 3, from 11 am to 5 pm at New York’s Small Press Book Fair, Look for me at the NBM table. It’s a very cool chance to pick up some cool books from independent publishers in a unique building, so you should check it out. The address is 20 West 44th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues.

Bush: “No Graceful Exit” from Iraq

Yesterday brought another classic Bush quote:

“I know there’s a lot of speculation that these reports in Washington mean there’s going to be some kind of graceful exit from Iraq. This business about a graceful exit just simply has no realism to it whatsoever.”

Unlike his assurances of Rumsfeld’s job security a week before he canned him, this one rings true. Our exit from Iraq will be anything but graceful.

P.S. What does he mean by “these reports in Washington”? He LIVES in D.C., and has lived there for six years, yet he pretends he lives outside the Beltway? Talk about self-deluded!

Buy a Signed Copy of AMERICA GONE WILD

Just in time for the holidays, it’s the Ted Rall Signed Book Offer. Here’s the deal:

Send me $22 and I’ll send you, via Priority Mail, a copy of AMERICA GONE WILD: CARTOONS BY TED RALL. If you ask me to sign it, I will. Just include a note with your payment indicating to whom and how you’d like it signed. And don’t forget to include your shipping address! You can’t imagine how many people forget to do that. Sorry, but unlike the NSA I don’t know where you live.

Payment may be made in the real world to:

Ted Rall
PO Box 1134
New York NY 10027

Or you can email me at chet@rall.com for information on how to pay via PayPal.

All Hail the Prophet Zarathustra! (FYI the Zoroastrian celebration of the divine spirit Vohu Manah, creator and protector of animals, is coming up soon. Vohu Manah is one of seven male and female divine emanations of the deity Ahura Mazda. Ted Rall products make a fine addition to any Vohu Manah celebration.)

A 9/11 Every Week

A thought occured to me on the subway this morning: the media is being unfair to the Iraqi puppet government. Yes, really.

Consider what happened to the United States after 9/11: we went crazy. We trashed our Constitution, allowed elections to be stolen, went to war against two countries that had never posed a threat to us, killed more than half a million people, legalized torture and domestic spying, built concentration camps, kidnapped thousands of innocent people and “disappeared” them, bankrupted the treasury. And that was only 3000 deaths.

For the last three years, Iraqis have suffered the equivalent of a 9/11 every week. Every week about 3,000 Iraqis have died violent, painful deaths at the hands of the U.S. and the militias freed to do their worst by our invasion.

Imagine what would have happened here had there been two or three 9/11s, much less more than a hundred, as has happened to the Iraqis: The United States would have collapsed. States would have peeled away. Anarchy would rule the streets. The economy would be trashed. We would be a failed state, like Afghanistan during the early 1990s. Warlords and militias? We’d have those, too. In fact, it’s safe to say, there’s no way the United States would be doing as well as Iraq is doing now.

Now, if you need more proof that we’re a bunch of pussies, consider this: Iraq has one-tenth the population of the U.S. If you choose to examine the comparison on a per-capita basis, they’ve actually suffered a thousand 9/11s.

Bloomberg News Raves About “Silk Road to Ruin”

Bloomberg News Service has published a rave review of SILK ROAD TO RUIN.

An excerpt:

For decades in the 19th century, the world’s superpowers competed in Central Asia in what became known as the Great Game, an epic scramble for influence and resources that still is being played today. Despite the high stakes — including what may be the planet’s largest reserves of oil and natural gas — the competition for the exotic lands between the Himalayas and Russia’s southern border has had remarkably few chroniclers.

With “Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East?” Ted Rall fills that void with a book that combines fascination with Asian exoticism and the punchy distancing of cartoons and pop-culture irony.

Rall is a former investment banker and expert in the harsh but potentially wealthy region known as “the Stans.” His book is an unconventional, provocative and bitterly funny mix of travel diary, tour guide and graphic novel based on the author’s voyages, from Beijing to Turkmenistan through China’s remote Xinjiang region and the oil-rich steppes of Kazakhstan.