Originally published November 28, 1997, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1254
And now, digging into the But I Digress electronic mailbag, I’ve come upon this which was sent to me by Tom Galloway—the demented creation of one Mike Schiffer, who graciously gave permission for its reproduction in this column.
It needs absolutely no introduction.
As one of those bleeding heart liberals that you’ve heard tell about—-the type who buys into the whole global warming thing and wants to allow illegal aliens to overrun the borders so they can falsely vote for that un-American Muslim terrorist Obama—-I’ve found the GOP’s recent drive to protect the sacred voting system to be quite interesting. Why? Because it’s yet another example of just where their priorities are.
It’s worth noting that back in 1790, only white male property owners were able to vote. In 1855 and 1857, Connecticut and Massachusetts implemented literacy requirements for voting. On the surface, not an unreasonable notion: you should be able to read the name of whom you’re voting for. But the main reason was to limit the participation of Irish-Catholic immigrants. In 1890, Mississippi did the same thing in order to counter the voting rights of black slaves given the vote by the 15th Amendment. Since then (and until recently) there has been a relentless drive to widen, not narrow, the right to vote, culminating in a ban on literacy tests in 1975 from the Supreme Court, with Justice Hugo Black citing “the long history of the discriminatory use of literacy tests to disenfranchise voters on account of their race.” (The foregoing information courtesy of infoplease.com).
Yet interestingly there isn’t anything specific in the Constitution that actually guarantees a right to vote. Reasons as to why certain people can’t or at least shouldn’t be discriminated against, yes, but nothing that says flat out, “People have a right to vote.” It’s not enumerated as such. Instead that’s left in the respective hands of the states.
Continue Reading “Shooting off your mouth at the Right to Vote you don’t actually have”
Originally published November 21, 1997, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1253
We were speaking last week of how satisfying all fans, everywhere, is an impossibility. How fans can set such expectations for those whose careers they follow that meeting those expectations can become an insurmountable task.
It can become extremely frightening for those who are in the public eye. For every thousand fans who are decent, polite, caring folk (and there are thousands, tens of thousands out there) there’s the one or two who have their own agendas. Some of them deliberately target you for the purpose of building themselves up, or proving something by showing they can be tougher or smarter than “the pro,” or feel the need to show that they are not intimidated by you—even though intimidation was never your intention. (I can’t tell you the number of times fans have told me that they were afraid to come up to me; what did they think I was going to do, bite their heads off like a circus geek?)
And then there are the fans who are so obsessive, it gets… well… scary.
Bleeding Cool announced yesterday that Marvel is releasing a special edition through Walmart of “The Avengers” on Blu-Ray and DVD, packaged with an all new, original “Avengers” graphic novel. But who (they wondered), WHO could possibly have been involved with the creation of it?
Yeah, uh, that would be me. One hundred page original “Avengers” graphic novel. I’ll let you find out the artist(s) on your own, but the entire story is by yours truly.
You can find out more about the package here
PAD
Originally published November 14, 1997, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1252
It’s never enough.
No matter how much one does for the fan base, it is absolutely never enough. Because for every thousand or so fans that you manage to satisfy, there’s going to be a 1001st who is going to decide that you haven’t fulfilled whatever standards he or she has set for you. And, even more dangerously, there’s a 1002nd who is going to take it upon him or herself to try and make your life miserable—just because he can. Just because he thinks that there’s some sort of satisfaction in “standing up” to the pro, or showing the pro that he or she is “no better” than anyone else.
Several cases in point:
Remember when the right went bugnuts crazy on the Dixie Chicks because they dared say something critical of Bush?
Wasn’t that fun? I want to play, too!
I have never bought an album by Megadeth before, but now I never will! See why here!
(I wonder how many people will say this and mean it.)
PAD
Originally published November 7, 1997, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1251
You want stories to go a certain way.
I was thirteen years old, living in Verona, a jock town where my athletic ineptitude was one of the key ingredients in my inability to make any friends. I sorely missed my previous home in nearby Bloomfield, which might as well have been on another planet for all the opportunity I had to socialize with the friends of my younger days. Since my daily humiliation in school was insufficient, I also joined the local synagogue’s youth group, United Synagogue Youth. I figured that we would spend time discussing Judaism. Learning about our cultural history. Socializing.
Nope. USY’s activities centered around one thing and, apparently, one thing only: Basketball.
We had a basketball team which played the teams of other USYs. Naturally I was bottom-ranked on that as well. I was slow, I could dribble only adequately, and I couldn’t sink a basket. So I spent many a game watching the more athletic members—namely, anyone—charging up and down the court. Basketball. What a great game.
So there I was, having won the opportunity to go to a Knicks game and, at half time, shoot a foul shot in an endeavor to win some sort of further prizes.
• 
Recent Comments