SILK ROAD Ships to Stores!

SILK ROAD TO RUIN: IS CENTRAL ASIA THE NEW MIDDLE EAST?, my blockbuster essay/graphic novel look at the Stans and my trips thereto, began arriving in stores this week. Check with your local bookseller or order online; depending on how fast the boxes get opened you could have one in your hands by later this week or the next.

Vice President Elect

It’s official! The votes have been counted, and the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists–the only organization to which I belong–has elected me its Vice President. I love the AAEC and its function as an advocate for the editorial cartooning profession, and am thrilled that my fellow cartoonists have confidence in me. It should be noted that I am the first alternative cartoonist to hold a high-ranking position in the organization.

Order Signed Copies of SILK ROAD TO RUIN

Once again I am offering, for a limited time, copies of SILK ROAD TO RUIN: IS CENTRAL ASIA THE NEW MIDDLE EAST? signed to your specifications. Cost is $30 per copy (includes packaging and shipping within the U.S.).

Here’s how you do it:

1. Calculate Cost:

$30 x (number of copies) = $_____

Email me at chet@rall.com if you live outside the United States for the rate including international shipping

2. Payment by Mail:

Send check or money order for above amount to:

Ted Rall
PO Box 1134
New York NY 10027

Be sure to include YOUR MAILING ADDRESS and TO WHOM/HOW you’d like each book signed

3. Payment by PayPal:

Payment is available by PayPal. Email me at chet@rall.com for details.

4. SPECIAL OFFER: Free sketch (of whatever I feel like) with orders of 10 copies of more!

There’s a Q&A on the 10th anniversary of my syndication with Universal Press Syndicate here.

But Will I Play in Boise?

Find out on September 16. I’ll be speaking about my book SILK ROAD TO RUIN (due out in stores any second!) at The Egyptian Theater that night.

What’s Up in Boise?

Let’s say a cartoonist were to find himself in Boise for a weekend in late summer, maybe in the course of promoting his book and giving a talk. What should said cartoonist do that would be fun, but that the hotel concierge might not know about? What great restaurants and bars and CD stores and book stores and museums and outdoory things should he check out?

chet@rall.com

Now He IS a Sore Loserman

I got your Joementum right here, Mr. Accessory to Mass Murder.

Yesterday’s primary defeat of DINO Joe Lieberman was great news for the voters of Connecticut, the United States and the Democratic Party, which has finally begun the process of being reclaimed by the ordinary hard-working Americans it abandoned beginning with the rise of proto-DLC centist guv Jimmy Carter and culminating with the pro-war votes of innumerable elected Democrats in recent years.

Anyone who doubts that Lieberman was a Democrat need only consider his decision to run as an independent despite his defeat. So desperate to maintain his position and serve the monied interests of the Bushite Republicans is he that he’s willing to split the Democratic vote and risk electing a Republican instead. His career may be in ruins–his reputation certainly is, for casting vote after GOP vote–but this tack may bring down the party system once and for all.

Funny, I don’t remember liberals weighing in on which candidates Republicans ought to elect in their primaries. Yet Republican-aligned pundits have oh so helpfully suggested that a move left by the party spells defeat in November. Somehow, I doubt that. The Democratic Party lost its soul a while back. Finding it can only help with the electorate.

As for Joe Lieberman, one hopes that he will use the spare time, not to further undermine the Democratic Party that foolishly supported him all these years, but to prepare for the trial for mass murder that will someday confront every politician who voted for two illegal wars against Afghanistan and Iraq, if there is a God.

Mail Bag

Paul writes about yesterday’s cartoon:

You really, really don’t get it. Take your number 2 [pencil], darken Olmert’s skin. Give him nappy hair and thick lips while you’re at it. Change antisemite to niggerlover. Is the strip still funny?
 
But the Germans, of all people, can better explain this to you. Go here: http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,429982,00.html
 
I still think you’re saveable and (usually) love your work.

And it’s good to be loved. Seriously:

Antisemitism is real. To wit: Mel Gibson. (Sorry, but non-antisemites don’t spout antisemitic bullshit when they get drunk.)

The point of my cartoon is that, while some critics of Israel do so because they are antisemites, criticizing Israel does not inherently make one antisemitic. I have serious issues with Israeli foreign policy, yet I admire Israel and despise antisemitism. (Sort of how I hate American foreign policy, yet love America.)

In the analogy that you make, a cartoon called “The Anatomy of Racism” would only work if there were some black-dominated nation whose critics were routinely and automatically accused of racism merely because of that country’s demographics. No one has ever suggested, at least not seriously, that critics of [Zimbabwean President] Robert Mugabe are motivated solely or even partly by racism.

My interview with KFI Radio Los Angeles morning host Bill Handel, will take place:

10:30 am
Monday
in Southern California, listen at 640 AM
Online at kfi640.com (yes, it’s livestreamed)

I’ll be discussing my new book SILK ROAD TO RUIN, about Central Asia. If you thought Iraq was a son of a bitch, wait until the US invasion of Uzbekistan!

Factchecking Israeli Demographics

Today’s cartoon references the percentage of Israelis who are Jewish. Some correspondents, claiming that Jews account for more than 70 percent of Israelis, take issue with my claim that the split is roughly 50-50. For the record, I relied on this quote from a professor at the University of Haifa for this cartoon:

Today, there are 5 million Jews and 5 million non-Jews. The latter figure is composed of 4.5 million Arabs and the remainder non-Jewish immigrants, mainly from the former Soviet Union, and foreign workers,” he told the Jerusalem Post.

I have read similar statements elsewhere; thus my cartoon.

SILK ROAD TO RUIN Book Tour

Ernie asks:

Hi Ted. I pre-ordered your book and look forward to reading it. I assume you won’t be at the big Con in Chicago this weekend?  Any chance you will be coming through Chicago this fall  to sign our books? Thanks.

I have confirmed bookstore appearances in New York and am working on setting up dates on the West Coast at this time. There are, however, no current plans for any appearances in Chicago. If a store, college organization or other group would be interested in having me travel to Chicago (or anywhere else!) to speak about and/or sign copies of SILK ROAD TO RUIN, please contact me at chet@rall.com.