New Cartoon! Science Hour with Dr. Mitt

So I said I felt a cartoon coming on, and I meant it.

P.S. This is Dr. Mitt's second appearance, feel free to visit episode one.

Young unarmed black man fatally shot by white officer in Brooklyn

And he wasn't even reaching for his wallet. 19-year-old Timothy Stansbury, Jr's fatal mistake? Opening a door (that had two patrolling police officers behind it, see story). The question of course being: would the officer have reacted the same way had Timothy been white? It seems unlikely, to say the least. More on this later, I can't seem to find many articles or editorials on it yet.

Now, not that I like Mayor Bloomberg or anything, and not that any amount of condolences will bring this boy back, but I gotta say it's not a bad thing that he isn't Giuliani (who as you may recall, was fond of blaming unarmed shooting victims such as Patrick Dorismond for their own deaths). Sigh...

I feel a cartoon coming on...

From yesterday's Globe ("Romney seeks a bill to ban gay marriage"):

Aides to Governor Mitt Romney and House lawmakers are working out the details of a bill that defines marriage as a heterosexual institution based on child-raising and procreation, hoping that it will lead to a reversal of the Supreme Judicial Court's ruling that declared same sex marriages constitutional.

...The legislation is designed to offer SJC justices a clear, "rational basis" for establishing heterosexual marriage.

That Mitt Romney, he's such a man of logic and science. Apparently he also found it logical and scientific to reward companies headed by his Republican buddies with millions in tax credits ("Inspector General says tax breaks granted as 'favors'"):

Massachusetts Inspector General Gregory Sullivan is calling on the Department of Revenue to revoke $10.5 million in "questionable" tax credits that he says the state "handed out as favors" to Bay State companies, including an asset management firm whose top executives include Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey's husband and other top Republicans.

Fun, fun, fun.

For those of you who missed the State of the Union... (updated)

Ted Rall , Scott Bateman and Joel Pett all have pithy little summaries for you.

And speaking of Ted, the cartoon collection he so kindly included me in, Attitude 2, is now available for preorder on Amazon (hint, hint!). Me! In a Real! Book! With Alison Bechdel and Aaron McGruder and Keith Knight and David Rees and... How about that, huh?

New Cartoon! Race for a Cure

Our country is ill, and so is this voter. Inspired by my recent three-week bout with the flu and pneumonia.

Gratuitous Cat Pictures

Some of you may remember last year when my beloved cat Willow died. I actually put up that post a year ago today. Well, my home is no longer cat-free, as you can see from the above picture of the newest addition to my Brooklyn apartment, Mombi. The cat's name comes from an evil sorceress in the Marvelous Land of Oz, but she's really not all that evil, except maybe to mice and feather toys.

Strom Thurmond's daughter: a few good cartoons

(OK, I know I'm a bit behind on this, but bear with me, I had pneumonia). Most of the cartoons about the (gasp) revelation that segregationist Senator Strom was the father of a black daughter, Essie Mae Washington-Williams, said little more than Strom=hypocrite. Few journalists went near the r word (though the young black woman in question was 16 at the time and working as a maid in Thurmond's house)--but the Boondocks doesn't shy away. After all, this was a time in the South when black women had little to no protection from white male desire, while a black man who allegedly so much as glanced at a white woman could find himself hanging from the nearest tree branch--as Jeff Danziger so eloquently reminds us.