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LOS ANGELES TIMES CARTOON: Who Can You Tell?

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Ted Rall

Who Can You Tell?

 

I draw cartoons for The Los Angeles Times about issues related to California and the Southland (metro Los Angeles).

This week:

From a cartoonist’s standpoint, the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department is the gift that keeps on giving. From corruption to inmate abuse, you have to wonder whether the really bad guys are the ones inside the cells or the ones guarding them.

Responding to numerous credible reports of dirty dealings by sheriff’s deputies, the FBI arrested a number of sheriff’s officials in connection with a wide-ranging probe of alleged improprieties by a department charged with — remember? — upholding the law and protecting the public. Which includes inmates.

If the charges hold up, this will turn out to be one of the biggest corruption scandals in L.A. history. If these guys are guilty, they’re guilty of some serious whoppers. “In one case, prosecutors say, an Austrian consul official trying to visit an Austrian inmate was arrested and handcuffed even though she had committed no crime and would have been immune from prosecution, the indictment said.”

A century ago, Austria would have declared war over that sort of thing.

Among the charges are that, after deputies discovered that one of their prisoners was sending evidence about their activities behind bars to the FBI — a cellphone with recent calls to the feds turned up during a search — they “disappeared” him into the byzantine L.A. jail system, both in order to find out what the feds knew about them and to prevent him from talking

My initial idea was of an Escheresque box-within-a-box where it’s hard to distinguish the prisoners from the informants from the jailers. But I thought that would be too high-concept to follow. Also, too many political cartoons do Escher analogy toons.

As my mom says, simply simplify simplify, so I boiled it down to the disappeared prisoner with his interrogator, both men trapped in their own Kafka-like hells of wondering what happens next and who will be prevail as right in the legal and public arenas.

It’s weird, and that’s what my cartoon is about, but what I hope readers will take away is what’s really weird — that the public doesn’t seem to care enough about what happens to their friends, neighbors, brothers and sisters…because, after all, that’s who winds up in jail. Fellow Angelenos, fellow Californians, fellow Americans.

Maybe you someday.

SYNDICATED COLUMN: Why Don’t Kids Want to Study Engineering? Because Engineering Friggin’ Sucks.

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Ted Rall

http://mcstemcareers.pbworks.com/f/1300060168/STEM%20Logo.png

Sexing Up Science Won’t Solve a Dearth of STEM Majors

According to a survey, nearly 90% of 16- and 17-year-olds have no interest in a STEM (science/technology/engineering/math) career.

The climate is crashing, the NSA is tracking our porn, and the 99% haven’t gotten a raise in decades, but the party organ of America’s ruling class is truly, awfully worried about our imminent STEMlessness. A lot.

“The number of students who want to pursue engineering or computer science jobs is actually falling, precipitously, at just the moment when the need for those workers is soaring,” writes The Editorial Board of The New York Times, which is composed of editors no one has heard of, yet whose opinions we are all supposed to care about. “Within five years, there will be 2.4 million STEM job openings,” write The Editors.

Who, in the future, will program the great fleets of killer drones? Who will pilot them? It would suck to lose that business to the Chinese.

Whenever the question of Why No One Wants to Study Engineering comes up, the media always comes back with the same answer: conning convincing kids that STEM stuff isn’t boring.

“Most schools continue to teach math and science in an off-putting way that appeals only to the most fervent students,” the Times editors complain. Sex up the sciences — that’s the ticket!

Texas Instruments (they’re still around?) has hired neuroscientist/”Big Bang Theory” actress Mayim Bialik as a “STEM education brand ambassador” to sing the praises of partial differential equations using framing that the Kids of Today/Worker Bees of Tomorrow can relate to. “Who doesn’t know something about zombies or superheroes?” asks Bialik. “These cultural archetypes can do more than just entertain. Zombies, it turns out, can teach real science and mathematical concepts like exponential growth curves and the intricacies of human anatomy and anatomical degradation. Superheroes can prompt a variety of questions that draw on physics, such as: How does one actually travel faster than the speed of light?”

Is it me, or does this seem a little…forced?

Hey, I’m as geeky as they come. When an engineer who designed famous roller coasters gave a talk at my Ohio high school, I was enthralled. (My classmates, not so much.) But I still didn’t want to study engineering — and it wasn’t because science is boring.

I loved math, chemistry and physics in high school. I studied years ahead. I got perfect grades and tested so well that Columbia’s School of Engineering offered me a full scholarship and a well-paid teachers assistant job.

Still, I didn’t want to go. Not because math and science bored me — to the contrary. I dreaded it because I knew engineering school would probably be a sucky experience and that a career in the sciences would be depressing.

Not that my parents cared what I wanted. They bullied me into going anyway because (a) Columbia gave me the most financial aid of the schools I applied to, and (b) something “practical” like engineering guarantees a steady well-paid job after graduation. (Ha.) So off I went.

Guess what? Engineering school was a sucky experience.

My experience at Columbia highlights reasons — aside from the alleged tedium of math and science — that most young people aren’t interested in the STEM professions:

  • When you study math and science, your classmates are boring. At Columbia the engineering majors were politically disengaged, careerist, nose-to-the-grindstone types you’d never find working over the world’s problems at an overnight BS session — much less checking out a punk concert. They were academically smart and deadly dull. After graduation, people similar in personality to your fellow students become your colleagues. Engineering isn’t boring. Engineers are. Working with boring engineers is a bummer.
  • STEM majors get much lower grades than liberal arts majors. Tougher grading causes lower GPAs, so dropout and expulsion rates are also much higher: three out of four liberal art majors get a degree, only one out of four STEM majors. During freshman orientation, Columbia’s dean of students told us that 75% of us would drop out or get expelled. I wondered why I was there. (After three years, I was expelled with a 2.4 GPA. Which I worked hard for.) Why take out massive student loans for a one-in-four chance at a degree? Though some studies deny the difference, 60% of freshman engineering students are gone, dropped out or transferred to the liberal arts, by the end of their freshman year. These kids aren’t stupid or lazy — they were smart and studious enough to get admitted in the first place.
  • Low social status. Guys don’t make passes at girls who wear safety glasses; girls suddenly remember something they forgot in the ladies room when you tell them you’re an electrical engineer. Because (see above) engineers are boring. Also: in America’s anti-intellectual culture, it’s not cool or hip or prestigious to be a scientist.
  • STEM employment is sporadic (they say “cyclical”). What’s the point of playing it safe when it’s not, well, safe? The STEM major you pick as a freshman may easily be obsolete by the time you hit the senior year job fair. Even if not, it’s extremely unlikely your chosen scientific field will provide steady employment for years to come. Currently, as the Powers That Be say they need STEMmers, unemployment is sky high among STEM professionals. As of 2009, nearly 9% of electrical engineers were jobless. Oh, and it turns out that STEM majors actually don’t earn more than their liberal arts counterparts.

“Indeed, science and engineering careers in the U.S. appear to be relatively unattractive” compared with other career paths, Michael Teitelbaum of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in New York, which funds basic scientific, economic and civic research, testified to Congress in 2007.

High-school students know what’s up. They hear from older siblings how hard it is to graduate from engineering school. They watch their friends’ parents lose their jobs from supposedly “safe” STEM outfits. They’re not going to change their minds until reality improves.

Some fixes:

  • De-ghettoize STEM majors within colleges and universities. Require STEM majors to take lots of liberal arts classes — it’s not like a math major shouldn’t study Spanish literature — and require liberal arts majors to take more math and science. Mix up the student bodies. Think about someone like Steve Jobs, whose design sense came from his love of art and calligraphy. The divide between English and physics majors is artificial and outdated. Crosspollinate.
  • Put an end to the grading disparity between STEM majors and liberal arts. It’s unfair and it’s stupid. At Harvard, the average grade is an “A-“, and why not? The average Harvard student is intelligent and hardworking — and so is the average Columbia engineering student. Harvard’s softer grading regime hasn’t cost the school any reputation points.
  • If America wants STEM majors from America, it ought to stop importing them from overseas. “When the companies say they can’t hire anyone [for STEM jobs], they mean that they can’t hire anyone at the wage they want to pay,” Jennifer Hunt, a Rutgers University labor economist, said in 2012. So they outsource STEM jobs overseas and game the work visa program to import cheaper foreign scientists. “Tech companies that import temporary workers, mainly recent graduates from India, commonly discard more expensive, experienced employees in their late 30s or early 40s, often forcing them, as Ron Hira and other labor-force researchers note, to train their replacements as they exit,” reports the Columbia Journalism Review. Until STEM unemployment among Americans is 0%, Congress ought to get rid of the visa program.
  • Even cultural perceptions can be changed. If President Obama and other members of the political class are serious about promoting STEM careers, they could start featuring our best mathematicians and chemists at events like the State of the Union Address rather than the usual parade of military veterans. The Soviet Union pimped its scientific minds big time; kids who admired these intellectual heroes followed in their footsteps.

Math and science aren’t boring. But asking people to dedicate their lives to careers that won’t pay off is dumb.

(Support independent journalism and political commentary. Subscribe to Ted Rall at Beacon.)

COPYRIGHT 2013 TED RALL

Correction: Adbusters isn’t merchandising the Occupy Wall Street poster after all

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Ted Rall

Just got an email from the editorial people Adbusters magazine about my post yesterday. The exchange is below. I will keep you updated if and when I hear back from them. As for the scoundrels who really are merchandising that poster, well, they should be chastised and forced to go away somewhere cold and unpleasant.

From: darren fleet

Message Body:
Hi Ted, this is Darren Fleet, senior editor here at Adbusters.

The email you received inviting you to purchase the Adbusters OWS poster did not come from Adbusters Media Foundation. Rather it came from the group calling itself the “Occupy Solidarity Network.” They run the occupywallst.org web site. Please do not confuse them with us, and also please correct your article accordingly.

Like you, we here at Adbusters were also shocked when we received the poster sales pitch from this group. We sent them the following message via email this morning:

“Priscilla, Justine, Micah,

Are you all seriously doing this? Selling the Adbusters OWS poster? Really? Do you understand how much this undermines the entire message of the movement? Think about all the people who put their asses on the line, risked jail and police brutality, gave their time, energy and reputations … and you’re selling the poster? You’re turning the movement into a parody of itself and proving all of the critics right.

Please stop selling this poster!

Kalle, Darren and all of us here at
Adbusters”

My reply:

Hi, that is good to hear. My apologies for the confusion and I will correct my blog entry.

The people selling the poster used exactly the same greetings that communiqués by Adbusters, and they seem to have used your mailing list as well, so naturally I thought it came from you guys. I’m really glad to hear that you guys aren’t trying to merchandise the Occupy Wall Street poster.

I would, however, also like to hear your take about asking for spec work from workers, namely the request for free writing about people’s experiences with psychiatric treatment and trauma. As you know, workers are under siege. Writers are workers. Workers should always be paid, especially if the people hiring them are drawing a salary.

It’s one thing if an operation is run completely by volunteers and its suppliers provide all of the material for free. Is that the case for Adbusters? I would be very surprised to hear that office space, telephones, printing, and so on are donated, but if that is the case I will happily correct myself on that as well. If you can pay for printers, you should pay for writers.

I look forward to hearing from them.

Very truly yours,
Ted

Updated at 1:48 EST Dec. 11, 2013:

I received the following reply from Darren:

Thanks Ted,

That specific group has poached our language and style a couple of times now, so the initial confusion is understandable. For us here at Adbusters, that OWS poster is sacred . . . it’s the one thing that nobody should ever sell. It belongs to everyone, not just one group, the Occupy Solidarity Network, who now claims to speak on behalf of the entire Occupy movement.

Regarding unpaid writers, we appreciate your concern and questions. Indeed, people are becoming more and more traumatized throughout the world. Financial capitalism is taking a heavy toll. Our intention is not to capitalize on anyone’s misgivings, but rather to give their suffering a voice. But sometimes that means accepting unpaid work. We run on a shoestring budget here at Adbusters. We’re a small not-for-profit organization with less than ten paid staff (that includes art, office, editorial and distribution worldwide), operating out of the basement of a house in Vancouver. We also have a dedicated core of volunteers, interns, subscribers, and the occasional benevolent donor, without whom we wouldn’t be able to operate at all.

When we can pay we do. Though for the specific call for submissions you received, the one for short incisive insights into mental breakdown and recovery, we did not create a budget. When it comes to this specific subject, often recognition, and the chance to at long last have your voice heard, is enough of a reward. Most of the people who send in their stories are not professional writers, they just want to get something off their chests. Also the call went out through our Culture Jammer network, folks who are long time friends of the magazine, and perhaps more inclined than others to volunteer a submission and to have their ideas be part of a larger collaboration. That said, you’re right, we should have been more sensitive and especially in reply to your initial query.

To which I replied:

Hi Darren,

I’ve blogged the correction and also pushed it out through the same social networks where the original post went out. (A pet peeve of mine is people who broadcast something mistaken and then correct it smaller and with less distribution.)

That Occupy Solidarity Network is contemptible. Anything I can do to help get the word out about those assholes, let me know.

I strongly urge you to reconsider your policy about unpaid writing. I understand and am aware of shoestring budgets, especially on the Left and especially in print publishing. However, popular opinion is now moving against, and away from, any kind of unpaid labor for writing, whether it be internships, or spec work, or writing subject to kill fees, or writing for exposure, etc. Work is work and work should be paid for.

Not being able to afford to pay writers is not an excuse. I would love to have an editorial assistant for marketing and other tasks in my studio, and I have been offered the opportunity to “hire” unpaid interns who would receive academic credit for their labor, but I have always turned them down because I can’t afford them. I hope to one day earn enough to hire an assistant at a living wage — ironically, I would be able to do so if magazines like yours were willing to hire more writers and cartoonists like me.

I can’t afford a new car so I don’t buy one. The same rules should govern writers — if you can’t afford writing, you can’t afford to put out a magazine.

Also, as I know you know, “non-profit” is merely a tax status. It is entirely legal for non-profits to pay high salaries to their staffers, and many of them do.

It is easy to do the right thing when times are good and cash flow is strong, but times like these require no less of us.

Sorry to be preachy; it’s something I feel really strongly about, and a lot of progressives agree with me.

Best,
Ted

 

Here Is How Ted Rall Actually Draws Monkeys

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Ted Rall

I’ve been drawing Obama pretty much the same way since 2009. Interestingly, no one said boo until last week, when my usual cartoons about Obama’s lies — this one about his reneging on his pledge to pull all US troops out of Afghanistan by 2014 — hit a little too close to home for Daily Kos, a website run for the benefit of the Democratic Party.

A rabid subset of DNC Obamabots used Kos to spearhead a campaign smearing me as “racist” for drawing the president like a “monkey” or “gorilla” or “ape” or “simian.” Never mind that most people can’t see it because, after all, it isn’t true. They censored my cartoons anyway.

Fellow cartoonist Eric Millikin suggested that I find a drawing of how I actually draw monkeys so people could see for themselves that my Obama, though not pretty, is also no monkey.

This cartoon from 2009 is a riff on my MAD magazine comic strip Fantabulaman, which mocks the superhero format by positing a superhero who really does have no weaknesses — and is thus boring. MAD did an all-monkey issue, and this was my entry.

FantabulaMonkey

Note, the humans come off as less attractive than our simian cousins.

This should settle the matter once and for all — but I doubt it will. When haters wanna hate, they hate.

Poll: How Should I Draw Obama?

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Ted Rall

My new smiley-face version of Obama is leaving me with a sick feeling in my stomach. I’ve never given into censorship before, and I wonder if I’m making a mistake, even though it does make Obama look ridiculous — which he deserves. So I’m turning to you, my readers, to help me decide what to do.

How Should Ted Rall Draw President Obama?
  
pollcode.com free polls 

Adbusters Sells Out Occupy Wall Street

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Ted Rall

UPDATED: Turns out the email from “Adbusters” below was actually from another group. See my follow-up blog post for details.

So I got this email from Adbusters Magazine this morning:

What made this crass attempt to commercialize the crashed-and-burned OWS movement even ickier was that it recently followed this:

When I asked how much writers would be paid for their 50-300 word intimate confessions of their deepest, darkest psychic and psychological secrets, the answer came back: “nothing.”

Really.

Let’s sum up: Adbusters wants us to pay them money. While they pay workers — and writers are workers, especially when they’re working for a magazine that retails for $12 — nothing.

Please explain: What, exactly, is the difference between the Koch Brothers and Adbusters? Answer: The Koch Brothers don’t expect workers to work for free.

If the publishers and editors of Adbusters didn’t pay themselves anything, I might not bring this up. But that’s not the case. Which means they’re exploiting writers — emotionally fragile writers to boot! — for their own gain. There were divisions within the movement, but everyone would agree that this is NOT what Occupy Wall Street was/is about.

WTF?

Fuck Liberal Puritans: The Ted Rall Racism Trial

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Ted Rall

This essay by Plexico Gingrich (real name? I know not) about Liberal Puritans explains the motivations and tactics of the identitarian censors at Daily Kos incredibly well. It’s a long read, but well worth it. A sample:

If you’re a Puritan, you want lots of very clear, easy to follow rules so that you have a clear path to superiority. This also makes it very easy for you to characterize others as operating in breach of the rules, and therefore being morally inferior to you. You don’t need to concern yourself with complexities like whether that person does more to improve the lives of others than you do. If they break the rules, they are bad. You follow the rules so you are good.

So “thou shalt not be racist,” as applied by the Liberal Puritan, doesn’t have much connection to stuff like the suffering of people in the real world. It is a game of “I am not a racist. Now let’s go find/invent some people who are racists, so that we can brand them as our inferiors, demonstrating how good we are by comparison.”

The Liberal Puritans don’t care about changing the world. They don’t care about drone murders, or Gitmo, or homelessness or, for that matter, real racism in the world — in prison, in the workplace, etc. They’re into playing “gotcha” politics over PC verbiage in order to destroy down the left heretics who are able to convincingly argue that Obama and the Democrats are not what they pretend to be: left, liberal, progressive, good.

On Twitter yesterday morning I saw that people were trolling me over cartoons I did in the 1990s. Two decades ago! And they weren’t talking about the political topic of the cartoons. They were picking apart the language and accusing me of being insensitive. For example, I’ve been accused of homophobia because I used the word “fag” in a cartoon. Never mind that the character in the cartoon who says the word is a homophobe, and that the cartoon attacks homophobia. That’s how crazy these witchhunters are. They literally turn the point around 180 degrees. Incredibly, a lot of people are stupid enough to fall for it.

Check out, for example this thread at Daily Kos: “Ted Rall is a RACIST. Undeniable evidence (part1).” The evidence pretended in this thread, as well as its followup Racism has no place on the left: Ted Rall edition (part2), is anything but “undeniable.” In fact, by the author’s fourth installment I’ve figured out Daily Kos (part 4 lol), even the militant Obamabots are turning against him. Yet in numbers 1, 2 and 3, numerous long-time Kos commenters are shouting hallelujahs and praise.

Note how dissent is repeatedly stifled and crushed by the Liberal Puritans at Kos. Also note how disinterested they are by actual political policy. They want to mandate codes of behavior (by me and others; they don’t adhere to them themselves) about speaking respectfully, etc.

No doubt, they’re crazy motherfuckers — not everyone at Kos, but certainly most of the loudest commenters. And crazy motherfuckers be dangerous.

Daily Kos Censorship Machine Rolls On

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Ted Rall

DNC blog Daily Kos continuing its rabid campaign to censor critics of Obama. Check out this latest of perhaps 12 posts there. There’s more crazy illogic and smears in there than you’ll see all year. (I love how the “sample” of cartoons includes two by the same cartoonist. Wonder if the Kossacks can tell?)

P.S. I wouldn’t at all be surprised if this anonymous slime bucket were a white guy with an axe to grind…a certain serial identity thief, perhaps?

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