From Carl Barks and the Disney Comic Book: Unmasking the Myth of Modernity, by Thom Andrae…

In the 1940s and early 1950s, Barks had worked relatively free of editorial control. He had not received a list of specific taboos, but seven years of training at the Disney Studio and a habit of being “tooth chatteringly careful” about what he wrote gave him an idea of the limits within which he could work. However, more censorship occurred during the 1950s than in any other period: three of Barks’s complete stories were banned, and others were significantly altered. The new mood of restrictiveness surfaced with a vengence when “The Golden Apples”, a ten page Donald Duck story that was to appear in September 1952, was scrapped. Although the art for the story has vanished, Barks remembered it being a modern version of the myth of Atlanta and the golden apples. Barks explained, “I can only recall that I had Daisy quite angry with Donald because he was trying to win the hand, I guess, of this queen of the apples festival. Daisy was so jealous that she was throwing things at Donald and was not acting lady-like. The was the only excuse they ever gave me for cutting it.” Since Barks cast her as a volatile termagant, Daisy had often before acted unladylike, throwing things at Donald in fits of rage, but the idealogy of domesticity imposed on women in the 1950s demanded a more sedate image.

Anything with a hint of sexuality, however arcane, was taboo. In the “The Golden Fleecing” (US #12, 1956), Scrooge searches for the legendary golden fleece but is kidnapped by two Arab-looking traders who turn out to be Harpies in disguise. “I almost had to eat those 32 pages of drawing,” Barks complained. “It seems that Harpy or Harpie is an obscure nickname for a streetwalker. I managed to save the story by renaming the old girls “LARKIES.” […]

The more timorous atmosphere of the 1950s made a return to earlier motifs difficult. When he attempted to recapture some of the Gothic aura of earlier stories in “Trick or Treat” (1952), Barks again experienced censorship problems. Likewise, Barks’s return to stories featuring clashes between Donald and the nephews that had been de rigueur in the 1940s were now considered impermissible. In February 1955 he recycled a plot from the preceeding decade involving rivalry between Donald and his nephews. When he wrote a conflict plog for the the third time in the July 1956 issue, Barks’s editor, Alice Cobb, sent him a letter from a mother “which we feel is fair criticism”. In addition, “we usually use ‘quiet’instead of ‘shut up!'” Barks sent back a vitrolic reply.

[Long angry and sarcastic letter, key paragraph being:]

From now on you will see changed stories coming from this former breeding place of vice. You will see stories that will cause Ruth Downing to write another letter to say that she just lvoes the Donald Ducks. For every time she reads one to her little nose-picking crybaby, he goes to sleep in the middle of the second page.

At a bus stop near a Fred Meyers, I note the following scrawled to the bench:

“It’s All About God People”.

My reaction is something to the effect of “There are God People running around? How scary!”

In a public restroom I advise you to stay away from unless you really need it near this graffiti, I note this graffiti conversation:

“God is not Dead People.”

AND: “Of course God is not Zombies, Dummy.”

I have not and probably will not check to see whether the “God People” and the “Dead People” are in the same handwriting. They’re probably in the process of being scrubbed away anyways.

Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has disputed media accounts that said he hid in a closet to avoid anti-Republican protesters during a visit to Pittsburgh last week.

Bush said it was actually a boiler room.

Maybe Jeb Bush hid in a closet, maybe he hid in a boiler room. If he did indeed hide in a boiler room, this is a case of what happens when a phrase becomes a well-known euphemism for something that would offend a large part of your base — “in the closet” as per “secretly gay”.

This is Newsmax, a publication that once published an account of a Subway sign that said “THINK OUTSIDE THE UN” and recorded it as perhaps a political statement by those Subway franchisers.

Jimmy Carter, during his presidency, once found himself making some diplomatic dealings with an unsavory world leader — as per the normal course of events — (perhaps the Soviet Union, perhaps an oil rich nation — I don’t remember). It was raining. He was forbidden from opening an umbrella, which is a practical thing to do in such circumstances. But the umbrella is the symbol for Neville Chamberlain, thus… Jimmy Carter had to get all wet in the rain.
………

Upset by the war in Iraq, Julia Wilson vented her frustrations with President Bush last spring on her MySpace.com page.

The 14-year-old freshman at Sacramento’s McClatchy High School was taken out of class Wednesday and questioned for about 15 minutes by two Secret Service agents. The incident has upset her parents, who said the agents should have included them when they questioned their daughter.

I threatened Bill Clinton — kind of sort of but not really — for about 3 hours on my website. (see here, re “On the Death of Paul deParrie). But that’s a small part of that story.

The problem with this advice

“BUSH CAN SUCK MY FUCKING DICK!!”
See, you angsty teenaged fucks? That’s how you go about doing it. You can tell him to suck your dick, or eat shit, or to sniff your arsehole. You generate the same emotional effect as you would by threatening to kill him, but without the FBI agents knocking on your door.

is that the perpetrator is a girl. I suppose she can still do it, suggesting a “chick with dick” and thus doubling the humor in a sort of esoteric manner, but I think that would be too obscure and confusing. Would “Bush can lick my vagina” work? I do not know. It’s worth a try, I suppose.

It’s long after dark outside the Giant Food supermarket at the Dorsey’s Search Village Center in Howard County, and Kevin Zeese is in the parking lot looking for votes.

Zeese calls it “midnight campaigning” — late-night visits to businesses and workplaces, when he says customers and workers have more time to talk and listen. It’s one way the 51-year-old attorney and activist is trying to build support for a historic challenge to the two-party grip on Maryland politics.

Once upon a time, I did my grocery shopping at 1 or thereabouts in the morning, on a regular bi-weekly schedule. My reasons were largely to avoid a number of things — and I’m thinking that avoiding a third party candidate for high office grabbing you and soliciting me for a vote would be high up on the list, even if I were not aware of the possibility at the time of my late night shopping. Probably the same if it were a D or an R, come to think of it.

The key line from there is this:

Zeese is believed to be the first candidate anywhere in the country to win the endorsements of both the Green Party and the Libertarian Party (he also has the support of the Maryland’s small Populist Party).

A break-down for these three parties:

Zeese is registered to the Green Party, which has 8,023 members in Maryland. He’s a member of the Libertarian Party, which has 4,059 members here, and the Populist party, which has 90.

I guess the Populist Party is the weak link in the chain here. But how you square the ideology of the Green Party with the ideology of the Libertarian Party, I do not know. I suppose it makes as much sense as a fusion between the Libertarians and either the Republican or the Democratic Party. (I note for the record that polls show self-described “Libertarians” drifting from the Republican to the Democratic Party, these being soft-core Libertarians who are willing to tread about in the realm of electoral politics. Not the Party itself, which, apparently, can go ahead and support Green Party candidates.)

From what I’ve gathered, the Republican National Committee and Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee has essentially conceded the Senate races states of Pennsylvania, Montana, and Rhode Island — or at least left those incumbent Senators to fend for themselves — and is throwing the bulk of its resources behind the Tennessee, Missouri, Ohio, and — the Senate seats where the natural Republican to Democratic advantage should make a partisan appeal sans Bush work. It is “salvage the wreckage” time

The irony that I pick up here is that the RNC and RSCC had already thrown huge resources behind Lincoln Chafee’s primary campaign to try to save that seat. Which means that they now believe they just wasted a bunch of money during the Summer. Go figure.

CNN Transcript: George W Bush: Before I take your questions, I’d like to discuss a couple subjects.

First, I want to briefly mention that today we’ve released the actual budget numbers for the fiscal year that ended on September the 30th. These numbers show that we have now achieved our goal of cutting the federal budget deficit in half, and we’ve done it three years ahead of schedule.

………………..
I can’t locate a stray sentence I recall that I wish to quote right here and now. I’m thinking this comes from The Trials of Lenny Bruce or the oral history of Lord Buckley Dig Infinity! One other possibility may actually be a Comics Journal interview of some underground cartoonist, fame garnered in the 1960s.

It is not much of a reference, and indeed is slight. Basically the sentence has it that a group of 1950s outcasts, that there “counter-culture”, amused themselves a bit by comparing published newspaper accounts and transcripts of President Dwight D Eisenhower with the grammer-infused speaking that Eisenhower actually made. I think the term “egghead” may be directly attributed to the shape of Adlai Stevenson’s head, the supposedly more erudite and intellectual Democratic opponent who gave insults in Eisenhower’s direction such as “he can’t speak out of a paper bag” and “If I talk over people’s heads, Eisenhower talks under their feet.”

The latest issue of The Weekly Standard, by way of assuring the neconservative reader of such a magagazine, features an article on the troubles all the presidents have had at their sixth year. In the past the glib response to charges of Bush’s creative use of the English language, and other apparent signs of mental difficulty, has been to nod and throw out Eisenhower and Reagan — the psuedo-intellectual liberal elites underestimated those two, and mocked them, and the public loved them — look how out of touch you are! This worked well when Bush had high approval ratings. Today, the comparison that The Weekly Standard has shifted to is to Truman and Reagan — mostly because it benefits their military stance. Eisenhower’s 1958 Recession and various administrative scandals are an after-thought in American history. Reagan is white-washed, as one may expect it to be.

At any rate, unlike CNN — and here it is perhaps because the video is immediately at a user’s disposal on the website itself, the White House website actually has the correct words Bush used, [sic] citation in hand:

This morning my administration released the budget numbers for fiscal 2006. These budget numbers are not just estimates; these are the actual results for the fiscal year that ended February the 30th.* [sic]
……………………………

Actually this entire blog entry is patently dishonest. You will note that the CNN transcript and the whitehouse transcript are two different events. North Korea dominates, thus the second event’s transcript is available at CNN.com.

I remember once seeing an error of this like first corrected at whitehouse.gov , then later corrected back to the error… public outcry forced that change, I suppose.

So, Bush has a new technique at White House Press Conferences. When nobody gives you the question that you have a prepared answer to, just ask it yourself. Then ask yourself the imaginary follow-up answer to this question, to which nobody in the press asked.:

I thought you were going to ask the question, following up on Sanger, how come you don’t use military action now. You kind of hinted it, you didn’t say it. And some wonder that. As a matter of fact, I’m asked questions around the country, just go ahead and use the military. And my answer is that I believe the Commander-in-Chief must try all diplomatic measures before we commit our military. And I believe the diplomacy is — we’re making progress when we’ve got others at the table.

I’ll ask myself a follow-up. If that’s the case, why did you use military action in Iraq? And the reason why is because we tried the diplomacy. Matter of fact, we tried resolution after resolution after resolution. All these situations are — each of them different and require a different response, a different effort to try to solve this peacefully. And we’ll continue to do so.

Without digging into the press conference together (because, really, what could President Bush possibly have to say about any matter that has any relevance), I presume the You kind of hinted it refers to a question with a general gist that is slightly more complex and nuanced question… The answer regarding Iraq is patently dishonest, but that is par for the course and why I’m not reading the entire thing, and simply dug to what someone alerted to me as an awkward moment.

North Korea’s U.N. ambassador, Pak Kil-yon, said Monday that the council should “congratulate” his country’s scientists and researchers on their achievement, instead of issuing what he called “notorious, useless and reckless resolutions.”

Asked if North Korea planned further tests, Pak told reporters, “That will be enough, you don’t think so?”

Hm.

Congratulations to the North Korean government for spending 80 percent of their GDP to detonate a couple of stink bombs underground, reminding me of the antics of Josh who sat a couple of rows behind me in 6th grade and was the kind of kid who might send off a stink bomb now and again.

Japan said it had detected no seismic waves in North Korea on Wednesday between 5:00 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. (2000 GMT-2330 GMT Tuesday).

There was a quake of magnitude 6.0 by Japan measurement standards at 8:58 a.m. (2358 GMT) in the ocean northeast of Tokyo, the Japanese Meteorological Agency said.

Looking around under various rocks, bemusing myself. I followed a link and then leafed down the blog to this entry.

Observation #1: Wow! I know precisely where this locale is! This is the entire highway roadside of Eastern Washington, folded in on itself into a small space. I’m amazed someone figured out how to do that. It saves space, I suppose.

Observation #2: The account described here a common election year happenstance. More commonly it’s just the swiping away of campaign lawn-signs, but defacing such as this occurs as well. I always wonder what the point is, as whatever gain one can possibly make from it evaporates on impact and is not worth the effort, even if one is of mind to do such a thing.

Observation #3: It’s a stupid one. See, Mike McGavick disclosed that he has a DUI in his past. I doubt the defacer of this sign would care if Maria Cantwell had the same offense in her past. Nonetheless, half following this race — as I’ve half followed all the semi – close Senate races (and this one really is only a “semi-close” race, ie: it’s been a forgone conclusion that Cantwell will win the thing), the stupidest moment of this campaign was Elizabeth Dole applauding the disclosure as one of the most noble things she’s ever seen in politics. Laughter emitted from my mouth.

Observation #4: The question “Arent Liberals Just So Cuddly and Nice?” is an obnoxious and patrnonizing one, though I suppose designed to be so. To see how jarring this question is, insert any category of people other than “liberal” and see how it works. Aren’t bowlers just so cuddly and nice? Aren’t truck drivers just so cuddly and nice? Aren’t Dog Enthusiasts just so cuddly and nice? Etc. Etc. Blah Blah Blah.

Say you are sitting in a cafeteria — vintage high school, only because that’s the only real cafeteria I’ve ever been party to and it fits the immaturity level of this scenario. You throw your soup across a couple of tables, and shout “FOOD FIGHT!” The person from another table throws their plate of spaghetti at you. “Hey! Aren’t you supposed to be cuddly and nice?” It is strange.

This has been advertised in the Oregonian for the past couple of months now, the “GET MOTIVATED SEMINAR” conference of a collection of motivational speakers, held yesterday. It’s an inexpensive way for corporate managers to provides something that evokes a break for their employees, while keeping them from straying outside their corporate culture Yuppie Fundo.

It’s “The Superbowl” of such things, apparently. Zig Ziglar, whoever the hell he is — I guess a professional motivational speaker who can spout out the name of Jesus Christ for everyone, since one can trace the whole structure to Evangelical Tent Meetings it’s just as well. And look… Robert Schuller is speaking! Why wouldn’t we want to hear him? Beyond them — a cast of big names from the world of Football and vaguely Republican ledgers.

Rudolph Giuliani will teach you how to lead in difficult times! Or maybe he can just fine-tune his 2008 campaign stump speech. Or maybe just rehash his RNC 2004 Convention speech — creepy politce state reference to words from the police at the DNC Boston Convention helping some delegates (the “serve” of “serve and protect”) before saying “You’d better vote for Bush”. Leave that in tact somehow.

Colin Powell — legendary soldier-statesman, who will teach you the skills of “take-charge” leadership. — may retrace himself to his political peak in 1996 — when he commanded huge leads in hypothetical races against Clinton or against Clinton and Dole… due specifically to his refusal to make any type of concrete or real stance on any issue, combined with a solid military background a sure path to commanding respect amongst the political center. This background should make him a solid motivational speaker — vague uplifting rhetoric stitched together with war metaphors. But if he really wants to be bold, Powell could talk about how to overcome selling your soul — it can be billed as “Regaining Your Integrity” or “Retaining some semblance of Self-Respect”– by alluding that day he has called “the worst day of my life” full of “intentionally misleading” words. This could inspire the audience, as they scratch their personal history and figure out how to move on from similar soul-selling moments.

Steve Forbes is there just to allow people to slowly wander in late. Don Shula can just spout out football metaphors, and remind everyone of watching football games in the 1980s — the melding of sales work and leisure.

Altogether, an exercise in futility. May it spring your business’s line-graphs slightly upward, I suppose.