French Edition of TO AFGHANISTAN AND BACK



The French edition of TO AFGHANISTAN AND BACK is called PASSAGE AFGHAN. It just came out in France, where I'll be doing appearances next month in order to promote it. There have been several reviews, mostly positive, in the French press. One appeared recently in Le Point magazine, another in a publication called Benzine.



, first cartoonist featured in the new "Attitude" series, is interviewed in this week's Newsarama. Scroll down to find ordering information on Amazon for the new book, and please buy it--sales of this volume will help determine whether we'll be able to publish full-length compilations of cartoons by other cartoonists from the two-volume set.



Aircraft Carrier to Fight Tsunami



An anonymous FOR writes:

Kind of like the 1950's horror movies, where a man made monster of environmental symbolism is solved by greater military spending. But it isn't strange at all for Bush. Indonesia is a muslim country rich in oil. It's reflex by now. Maybe it is part of the larger oil seizure plan we're paying for?

Mark Fiore, do you read this blog?



"Liberal Racism"



One Republican talking point--the idea that liberals, rather than the conservatives who fought tooth and nail against desegregation and affirmative action, are the real racists--seems to have longer legs than usual. Even though it hasn't picked up any traction in the black community, the rightists equate criticizing self-hating Uncle Tom types like Condi Rice to racism. The latest entry in this genre appears in a column by one Jeff Jacoby in The Boston Globe. [NOTE: CORRECT LINK IS HERE NOW.]



Is it gauche to point out that blacks who provide cover for and work against the interests of other blacks are despicable? Perhaps. But it's true.



Read the column. My favorite assertion, besides the race stuff, is that liberals have a monopoly on "poisonous" dialogue. What about the Republicans who called Tom Daschle a traitor for opposing Bush's permawar policy? What about Ronald Reagan, who accepted the endorsement of the Ku Klux Klan when he accepted his party's nomination in 1980--in the same town where the four freedom riders were infamously murdered in 1964? What about the hordes of Republican pundits like Alan Keyes, who suggested that I should be shot and/or jailed for opposing Bush's ersatz war on terror? When it comes to hate speech, I--like all Dems--are mere pikers. Our problem isn't that we're too mean. Our problem is that we're not mean enough to people who have it coming.