Jihads and Indians

Bizarro is brought to you today by Tortelli High Speed Piano Company.

I find our nation's relationship with American Indians (Native Americans, First Peoples, etc.) interesting. Before we open up the floor for discussion, here is a quick synopsis of my limited knowledge in this area:
1. Europeans steal continent and attempt to annihilate its inhabitants
2. The ones that escape death are driven into poverty
3. The descendants of these Europeans feel guilty
4. They give the descendants of these original inhabitants from whom the land was stolen the right to do something that is illegal for the rest of the population.

Step four is where it gets a bit strange. I'm not passing judgment on it, I just think it odd.

Moving on, I am all for legalizing gambling, prostitution and recreational drugs. Even though I'm not a fan of any of these leisure time activities, I think consenting adults should be allowed to do what they want as long as it doesn't hurt others. Which means you don't outlaw drinking, you outlaw drinking and driving. You don't outlaw drugs, you outlaw driving while tripping. You don't outlaw prostitution, you outlaw selling your wares without regular medical checkups, and leaving the house in hotpants that are clearly too small for your ample booty.

That being said, I don't much understand the fun of either gambling or prostitution. With gambling, I can't help seeing it as a hole in the ground that you throw your money into on the slim chance that the hole is not only not too deep to reach into and get your money back, but that there might be more money already down there. I've generally found money hard to come by in my life and giving it to someone else without much hope of any return doesn't seem fun.

Regarding prostitution, I don't understand having relations with someone who is only pretending to want to have relations with me. It makes me feel impolite, like I am inconveniencing someone else for my own selfish needs. To my mind, much of the fun of coital activity is that the other person is having a good time, too. I felt this same sort of shame when I took tennis lessons years ago – I loved playing tennis with friends, but hated hitting with a pro because I knew she was only doing it for the money and wasn't having any fun. A wealthy friend of mine once said of my views on this that I "just don't understand the master/slave relationship." Creepy. Maybe that's why he's wealthy and I'm not.

Still, I can't help but feel these things are illegal purely because of a combination of fear and religious notions. When communities do legalize these activities, they don't go up in flames any faster than the ones ruled by churchy notions. And when societies let religion dominate law, eventually all hell breaks loose.

I'd choose casinos over jihads any day. But then I'm just a fringe liberal.

(NOTE: These comments are not meant as a condemnation of personal faith but rather the practice of using religious ideas to govern.)

New Comic Days for the Holidays?

As usual, the holiday season plays havoc with the normal New Comic Wednesday dates. Based on UPS schedules and past experience, here's when I think that the new comic days will be for the next month-and-a-half:

Thursday, December 4, 2008
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Friday, January 2, 2009
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Can anyone confirm or deny these dates?

Update: According to retailer Brian Hibbs, new comics day for the first full week of January will be on Friday, January 9, 2009 (not Thursday).

Shouting Pick Up

Bizarro is brought to you today by Acme Hazardous Materials Storage Company.

This cartoon is a direct product of my venomous hatred of loud bars. Before you write me off as a person who is too old to appreciate loud music (602 months old next week), I felt just as strongly about this when I was 21 as I do now.

I can only think of two reasons for going to a bar: to meet friends and enjoy their company, or because you are out of booze at home, liquor stores are closed, and you need a drink so badly that you don't mind paying 300% of its retail value.

In the second case, it doesn't matter how loud the music is, the hooch is your main concern and you'll likely put up with anything to get it, even absurd prices and dangerous decibels. But if you're wanting to get together with friends, how does high-volume music help? If you're there primarily to dance, that's perfectly reasonable, but I've seen very little dancing in the bars I've visited. Most bars are places where people are jammed together screaming at each other, attempting conversation. This is difficult enough with someone you know, but meeting and getting to know a new person at the top of your lungs is comically difficult. Yet millions of people all across the world do this every weekend.

On the other hand, a quiet bar with reasonable prices is a rare and wonderful thing. Whether I'm playing pool or darts or just sitting at a table with friends, I almost always have a good time. On the other hand, I can count the number of times I've had a good time screaming over music at my friends on no hands. Give me a quiet, neighborhood pub any time.

Of course, my favorite place to drink is at home, alone in the dark, weeping in private.

Clarification

In response to some of the comments I got from the previous post, I'd like to clarify a few things.

I do not think that all religious faith is dangerous or stupid. As an atheist, I don't believe in spiritual beings or forces, but neither do I believe that all such beliefs are dangerous. The Noah's ark satire is aimed at people who blatantly ignore science in favor of ancient parables. In my opinion, people with this kind of mentality should not be in positions of power in our government. This description does not include all politicians who believe in a higher power, it does include people like Sarah Palin and Pat Robertson. Their brand of faith almost invariably ends in the abuse of people who do not share it, as the abuser believes he or she is doing god's will.

Many fundamentalists I have spoken with have ridiculed the way science changes and contradicts itself constantly, citing that the Bible has not changed in thousands of years. First, the Bible has, indeed, changed fairly dramatically over time and its various translations, but more importantly, the ever-changing landscape of science is precisely what is good about it. As we learn more, we alter our understanding to reflect the new evidence. Yes, one could say it takes a modicum of "faith" to believe certain aspects of scientific theory, but the difference between those theories and ancient texts is that scientific theories are based on evidence, while scriptures tend to be based on principles. That fact doesn't make the principles any less worthwhile (or more worthwhile, for that matter), but nor does it make the stories used to express those principles literally true.

Finally, the ark in the cartoon is not meant to be scientifically feasible or historically accurate. It's just a satire based on a commonly known Bible story.

My blog, my two cents worth. Thanks for reading and thanks for your comments!

Monkey Covers

Sunday is Monkey Covers day here at YACB. Because there's nothing better than a comic with a monkey on the cover!

Go-Go looks at a pretty butterfly on Colleen Coover's cover for Banana Sunday #2 (2005).

(Standard disclaimer about indestructible gorillas not really being monkeys applies.)


Image courtesy of the GCD. Click on the image for a larger version.

Ark Theory

(Click the cartoon to make it oh-so-huge)

I'm back from out of town and have time to write about this cartoon now. I'm glad so many people liked this one, I got some good comments and quite a few emails on it. It's one of my favorites in a long time and, to answer the cynical question in the comments section, I WROTE IT MYSELF! (As I do the vast majority of my cartoons.)

People's willingness to believe ancient, cockamamie fairy tales over science is a pet peeve of mine, and this is obviously aimed at that ilk. Even more disturbing is the inclination that so many American voters to vote for politicians who believe ancient, cockamamie fairy tales over science. These are politicians who would ostensibly lead us through the increasingly dangerous and technologically advanced world in which we live. Do we really want someone to be making decisions for us all who ignores the intellectual advancement of our enemies and depends instead on faith in an invisible super hero in the sky? We've had that for the past eight years and, well, here we are.

One would think that I don't really need to make this point, since the Bushies made it so convincingly for me. But if that were true, Obama/Biden would have beaten McCain/Palin by 90% instead of the relatively narrow margin they did.

Friday Night Fights: Hulk vs. The Thing

From Giant-Size Super-Stars #1 (1974). Art by Rich Buckler & Joe Sinnott. Letters by Artie Simek. Colors by P. Goldberg. Story by Gerry Conway. (click pic for larger)

Ka-Pow? WHAPO!