Monthly Archives: June 2004

I’m not saying that this means anything, but it is interesting

Many readers will be tempted to scroll down to the bottom of this post, but there is a lot of interesting historical information along the way.

GEORGE WASHINGTON was the first President to write to a Synagogue. In 1790 he addressed separate letters to the Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, and to Mikve Israel Congregation in Savannah, Georgia, and a joint letter to Congregation Beth Shalom, Richmond, Virginia, Mikve Israel, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Beth Elohim Synagogue, Charleston, South Carolina and to Shearith Israel, New York. His letters are an eloquent expression and hope for religious harmony and endure as indelible statements of the most fundamental tenets of American democracy. Don’t forget Hyaim Solomon who helped finance the Revolutionary War These letters are available, on the net, and are worth reading.

THOMAS JEFFERSON was the first President to appoint a Jew to a Federal post. In 1801 he named Reuben Getting of Baltimore as US Marshall for Maryland. Jefferson’s views on the wall between Church and State are a significant reason why Jews have prospered in the United States.

JAMES MADISON was the first President to appoint a Jew to a diplomatic post. He sent Mordecai M. Noah to Tunis from 1813 to 1816.

MARTIN VAN BUREN was the first President to order an American Consul to intervene on behalf of Jews abroad. In 1840 he instructed the U.S. Consul in Alexandria, Egypt to use his good offices to protect the Jews of Damascus, Syria, who were under attack because of a false blood ritual accusation.

JOHN TYLER was the first President to nominate a U.S. Consul to Palestine. Warder Cresson, a Quaker convert to Judaism, who established a pioneer Zionist colony, received the appointment in 1844.

FRANKLIN PIERCE was the first and probably the only President whose name appears on the charter of a Synagogue. Pierce signed the Act of Congress in 1857 that amended the laws of the District of Columbia to enable the incorporation of the city’s first Synagogue, the Washington Hebrew Congregation.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN was the first President to make it possible for Rabbis to serve as military chaplains. He did this by signing the 1862 Act of Congress which changed the law that had previously barred all but Christian clergymen from the chaplaincy. Lincoln was also the first, and happily the only President who was called upon to revoke an official act of Anti-Semitism by the U.S. Government. It was Lincoln who cancelled General Ulysses S. Grant’s “Order No. 11” expelling all Jews from Tennessee from the District controlled by his armies during the Civil War. Grant always denied personal responsibility for this act attributing it to his subordinate.

ULYSSES S. GRANT was the first President to attend a Synagogue service while in office. When Adas Israel Congregation in Washington D.C. was dedicated in 1876, Grant and all members of his Cabinet were present.

RUTHERFORD B. HAYES was the first President to designate a Jewish Ambassador for the stated purpose of fighting Anti-Semitism. In 1870, he named Benjamin Peyote Consul-General to Rumania. Hays also was the first President to assure a civil service employee her right to work for the Federal Government and yet observe the Sabbath. He ordered the employment of a Jewish woman who had been denied a position in the Department of the Interior because of her refusal to work on Saturday.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT was the first President to appoint a Jew to a presidential cabinet. In 1906 he named Oscar S. Straus Secretary of Commerce and Labor. Theodore Roosevelt was also the first President to contribute his own funds to a Jewish cause. In 1919, when he received the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts while President to settle the Russo-Japanese War, Roosevelt contributed part of his prize to the National Jewish Welfare Board.

WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT was the first President to attend a Seder while in office. In 1912, when he visited Providence, Rhode Island, he participated in the family Seder of Colonel Harry Cutler, first president of the National Jewish Welfare Board, in the Cutler home on Glenham Street.

WOODROW WILSON was the first President to nominate a Jew, Louis Dembitz Brandeis, to the United States Supreme Court. Standing firm against great pressure to withdraw the nomination, Wilson insisted that he knew no one better qualified by judicial temperament as well as legal and social understanding. Confirmation was finally voted by the Senate on June 1, 1916. Wilson was also the first President to publicly endorse a national Jewish philanthropic campaign. In a letter to Jacob Schiff, on November 22, 1917, Wilson called for wide support of the United Jewish Relief Campaign which was raising funds for European War relief.

WARREN HARDING was the first President to sign a Joint Congressional Resolution endorsing the Balfour Declaration and the Palestine Mandate supporting the establishment in Palestine of a national Jewish home for the Jewish people. The resolution was signed on September 22, 1921.

CALVIN COOLIDGE was the first President to participate in the dedication of a Jewish community institution that was not a house of worship. On May 3, 1925, he helped dedicate the cornerstone of the Washington, D.C. Jewish Community Center.

FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT was the first President to be given a Torah as a gift. He received a miniature Torah from Young Israel and another that had been rescued from a burning Synagogue in Czechoslovakia. Both are now in the Roosevelt Memorial Library in Hyde Park. The Roosevelt administration’s failure to expand the existing refugee quota system ensured that large numbers of Jews would ultimately become some of the Holocaust’s six million victims. Fifty-six years after Roosevelt’s death, the arguments continue over Roosevelt’s response to the Holocaust.

HARRY S. TRUMAN, on May 14, 1948, just eleven minutes after Israel’s proclamation of independence, was the first Head of a Government to announce to the press that “the United Stated recognizes the provisional Government as the de facto authority of the new State of Israel.” Truman was also the first U.S. President to receive a President of Israel at the White House, Chaim Weisman, in 1948 and an Ambassador from Israel – Eliahu Elath in1948. With Israel staggering under the burdens of mass immigration in 1951-1952, President Truman obtained from Congress close to $140 million in loans and grants.

DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER was the first President to participate in a coast-to-coast TV program sponsored by a Jewish organization. It was a network show in 1954 celebrating the 300th anniversary of the American Jewish community. On this occasion he said that it was one of the enduring satisfactions of his life that he was privileged to lead the forces of the free world which finally crushed the brutal regime in Germany, freeing the remnant of Jews for a new life and hope in Israel.

JOHN F. KENNEDY named two Jews to his cabinet – Abraham Ribicoff as Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, and Arthur Goldberg as Secretary of Labor. Kennedy was the only President for whom a national Jewish Award was named. The annual peace award of the Synagogue Council of America was re-named the John F. Kennedy Peace Award after his assassination in 1963.

JIMMY CARTER, in a number of impassioned speeches, stated his concern or human rights and stressed the right of Russian Jews to emigrate. He is credited with being the person responsible for the Camp David Accords.

GEORGE H. W. BUSH in 1985, as Vice President, had played a personal role in “Operation Joshua,” the airlift which brought 10,000 Jews out of Ethiopia directly to resettlement in Israel. Then, again in 1991, when Bush was President, American help played a critical role in “Operation Solomon,” the escape of 14,000 more Ethiopian Jews. Most dramatically, Bush got the U.N. to revoke its 1975 “Zionism is Racism” resolution. Consider the last two officeholders:

BILL CLINTON appointed more Jews to his cabinet than all of the previous presidents put together.

GEORGE W. BUSH is the first President since Herbert Hoover who has no Jews in his cabinet at all.

I’m not saying that this means anything, but it is interesting

Many readers will be tempted to scroll down to the bottom of this post, but there is a lot of interesting historical information along the way.

GEORGE WASHINGTON was the first President to write to a Synagogue. In 1790 he addressed separate letters to the Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, and to Mikve Israel Congregation in Savannah, Georgia, and a joint letter to Congregation Beth Shalom, Richmond, Virginia, Mikve Israel, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Beth Elohim Synagogue, Charleston, South Carolina and to Shearith Israel, New York. His letters are an eloquent expression and hope for religious harmony and endure as indelible statements of the most fundamental tenets of American democracy. Don’t forget Hyaim Solomon who helped finance the Revolutionary War These letters are available, on the net, and are worth reading.

THOMAS JEFFERSON was the first President to appoint a Jew to a Federal post. In 1801 he named Reuben Getting of Baltimore as US Marshall for Maryland. Jefferson’s views on the wall between Church and State are a significant reason why Jews have prospered in the United States.

JAMES MADISON was the first President to appoint a Jew to a diplomatic post. He sent Mordecai M. Noah to Tunis from 1813 to 1816.

MARTIN VAN BUREN was the first President to order an American Consul to intervene on behalf of Jews abroad. In 1840 he instructed the U.S. Consul in Alexandria, Egypt to use his good offices to protect the Jews of Damascus, Syria, who were under attack because of a false blood ritual accusation.

JOHN TYLER was the first President to nominate a U.S. Consul to Palestine. Warder Cresson, a Quaker convert to Judaism, who established a pioneer Zionist colony, received the appointment in 1844.

FRANKLIN PIERCE was the first and probably the only President whose name appears on the charter of a Synagogue. Pierce signed the Act of Congress in 1857 that amended the laws of the District of Columbia to enable the incorporation of the city’s first Synagogue, the Washington Hebrew Congregation.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN was the first President to make it possible for Rabbis to serve as military chaplains. He did this by signing the 1862 Act of Congress which changed the law that had previously barred all but Christian clergymen from the chaplaincy. Lincoln was also the first, and happily the only President who was called upon to revoke an official act of Anti-Semitism by the U.S. Government. It was Lincoln who cancelled General Ulysses S. Grant’s “Order No. 11” expelling all Jews from Tennessee from the District controlled by his armies during the Civil War. Grant always denied personal responsibility for this act attributing it to his subordinate.

ULYSSES S. GRANT was the first President to attend a Synagogue service while in office. When Adas Israel Congregation in Washington D.C. was dedicated in 1876, Grant and all members of his Cabinet were present.

RUTHERFORD B. HAYES was the first President to designate a Jewish Ambassador for the stated purpose of fighting Anti-Semitism. In 1870, he named Benjamin Peyote Consul-General to Rumania. Hays also was the first President to assure a civil service employee her right to work for the Federal Government and yet observe the Sabbath. He ordered the employment of a Jewish woman who had been denied a position in the Department of the Interior because of her refusal to work on Saturday.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT was the first President to appoint a Jew to a presidential cabinet. In 1906 he named Oscar S. Straus Secretary of Commerce and Labor. Theodore Roosevelt was also the first President to contribute his own funds to a Jewish cause. In 1919, when he received the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts while President to settle the Russo-Japanese War, Roosevelt contributed part of his prize to the National Jewish Welfare Board.

WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT was the first President to attend a Seder while in office. In 1912, when he visited Providence, Rhode Island, he participated in the family Seder of Colonel Harry Cutler, first president of the National Jewish Welfare Board, in the Cutler home on Glenham Street.

WOODROW WILSON was the first President to nominate a Jew, Louis Dembitz Brandeis, to the United States Supreme Court. Standing firm against great pressure to withdraw the nomination, Wilson insisted that he knew no one better qualified by judicial temperament as well as legal and social understanding. Confirmation was finally voted by the Senate on June 1, 1916. Wilson was also the first President to publicly endorse a national Jewish philanthropic campaign. In a letter to Jacob Schiff, on November 22, 1917, Wilson called for wide support of the United Jewish Relief Campaign which was raising funds for European War relief.

WARREN HARDING was the first President to sign a Joint Congressional Resolution endorsing the Balfour Declaration and the Palestine Mandate supporting the establishment in Palestine of a national Jewish home for the Jewish people. The resolution was signed on September 22, 1921.

CALVIN COOLIDGE was the first President to participate in the dedication of a Jewish community institution that was not a house of worship. On May 3, 1925, he helped dedicate the cornerstone of the Washington, D.C. Jewish Community Center.

FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT was the first President to be given a Torah as a gift. He received a miniature Torah from Young Israel and another that had been rescued from a burning Synagogue in Czechoslovakia. Both are now in the Roosevelt Memorial Library in Hyde Park. The Roosevelt administration’s failure to expand the existing refugee quota system ensured that large numbers of Jews would ultimately become some of the Holocaust’s six million victims. Fifty-six years after Roosevelt’s death, the arguments continue over Roosevelt’s response to the Holocaust.

HARRY S. TRUMAN, on May 14, 1948, just eleven minutes after Israel’s proclamation of independence, was the first Head of a Government to announce to the press that “the United Stated recognizes the provisional Government as the de facto authority of the new State of Israel.” Truman was also the first U.S. President to receive a President of Israel at the White House, Chaim Weisman, in 1948 and an Ambassador from Israel – Eliahu Elath in1948. With Israel staggering under the burdens of mass immigration in 1951-1952, President Truman obtained from Congress close to $140 million in loans and grants.

DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER was the first President to participate in a coast-to-coast TV program sponsored by a Jewish organization. It was a network show in 1954 celebrating the 300th anniversary of the American Jewish community. On this occasion he said that it was one of the enduring satisfactions of his life that he was privileged to lead the forces of the free world which finally crushed the brutal regime in Germany, freeing the remnant of Jews for a new life and hope in Israel.

JOHN F. KENNEDY named two Jews to his cabinet – Abraham Ribicoff as Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, and Arthur Goldberg as Secretary of Labor. Kennedy was the only President for whom a national Jewish Award was named. The annual peace award of the Synagogue Council of America was re-named the John F. Kennedy Peace Award after his assassination in 1963.

JIMMY CARTER, in a number of impassioned speeches, stated his concern or human rights and stressed the right of Russian Jews to emigrate. He is credited with being the person responsible for the Camp David Accords.

GEORGE H. W. BUSH in 1985, as Vice President, had played a personal role in “Operation Joshua,” the airlift which brought 10,000 Jews out of Ethiopia directly to resettlement in Israel. Then, again in 1991, when Bush was President, American help played a critical role in “Operation Solomon,” the escape of 14,000 more Ethiopian Jews. Most dramatically, Bush got the U.N. to revoke its 1975 “Zionism is Racism” resolution. Consider the last two officeholders:

BILL CLINTON appointed more Jews to his cabinet than all of the previous presidents put together.

GEORGE W. BUSH is the first President since Herbert Hoover who has no Jews in his cabinet at all.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

JK Rowling has announced that that is the title for Book Six

She is not done with the book, and there is no estimated date of publication. She does say that the “Half Blood Prince” isn’t Harry or Voldemort.

(Half-blood almost has to refer to what derisively is called a “mudblood” or someone who is only half-wizard.)

I suspect it won’t be a minor character

For those who wish to start making guesses…JK Rowling has stated that she considered the title for the second book, but decided crucial bits of information were better revealed in book six. Suggesting we knew the HBP in the second book, we just didn’t know he was an HBP.

Here’s my analysis of the possibilities:

Students:
Neville – I think he is a possibility. We know his father was a wizard, and came from a long line of respected wizards. He now lives with his grandmother I believe. I’m not sure we know about his mother.
Weasleys – not a possibility, we know about both their parents.
Draco – not a possibility, we know about both his parents

Adults (almost all of them are possibilities)
Snape – interesting possibility since most of Slytherin hates ‘mudbloods’
Hagrid – definite possibility
Sirius – not introduced by book two, so unlikely
Dumbledore – possibility

Those are probably are the most likely guesses. And I would pick Neville if I were betting. Just because it appears he’s becoming more and more important as the books progress. (I even think it is possible, if Rowling is a brave woman, that Neville might end up being the one to kill Voldemort in the end, and not Harry. But legions of kids would probably hate her forever if she did that, which is why she’d have to be very brave. But if she turns him into a prince in book six, it might be more acceptable to the legions. These are just guesses. I know nothing.)

Introduction II: White Event

My freshman year in college, I believe, I was introduced to the work of Art Spiegelman. I was stunned by this literary retelling of a Survivor’s tale. The New York Times reviewer said it was a “remarkable feat of documentary detail and novelistic vividness.” The word, ‘novelistic,’ suggests they may have had some of the same prejudices I did. But the Washington Post reviewer said it was “impossible to achieve in any medium but comics.” I believe they are right. Comics are used best to elicit the raw emotions. Most often we associate it with laughter. But fans of political cartoon history know how easily it can generate tears as well. The day after the Challenger exploded Doug Marlette drew a simple cartoon. An American Bald Eagle with a tear dropping from its eye. The Charlotte Observer was flooded for requests for copies.

I can’t say my search for other graphic novels was very intense. After reading Maus I and II, I also picked up Joe Sacco’s Palestine: A Nation Occupied. No one should ever accuse me of not having an open mind. At some point I bought Kazuo Koike’s Journey to Freedom, but I don’t recall reading it. I think I now will. I remember reading Dean Koontz’s novel, Trapped. It was great. Horror is another one of those raw emotions. Due to my interest in Star Trek, I picked up Walter Koenig’s Raver books. I bought the Topps’ version of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, but for some unknown reason I never read them. The bags they came sealed in were never opened. I bought the #1 of 12 for Anne Rice’s Tale of a Body Thief, but that’s it. I no longer denigrated the comic book industry in my mind, but my entire comic book collection could be listed in one relatively short paragraph.

Then something happened.

The first stories I ever wrote were in third grade. I remember writing them, but I have been unable to find them in my boxes of saved materials from grade school on. I still have the poems I wrote in first grade, but not those short stories. It’s frustrating. I know they’re no good, but still, they’re lost. I’ve wanted to be a writer for a long time. I started writing a series of sci-fi/fantasy novels a couple years ago. The first novel in this series is centered around a group of sixteen year old kids; one of them develops mutant powers. They are all comic book readers. I knew I had to refererence the comic books they were reading. I convinced a friend of mine to lend me his collection of Marvel comics (10 long boxes). Several weeks of wonderful research ensued.

I became hooked on Marvel’s New Universe of the late 1980s.

It’s a group of titles that are favorites of fans to spit upon, I have learned. There are a handful of sites on the web by others, like me, who enjoyed the books. But very few. Though some of those who denigrate the universe admit Displaced Paranormals 7 had its good parts, and Justice was ok once Peter David took it over halfway. And if you press them on it, maybe they’d admit one or two of the other titles might have had its moments. Once I returned the boxes to my friend, I spent months on Ebay searching for the comics. I now have every title, complete, except for Starbrand, The Pitt, The Draft, and The War.

Recently, another friend, who heard about my growing interest in comics, and was a member of my writer’s group so had heard portions of my novel, discovered he had to move. He looked at his comic book collection, and realized how huge it was. Everything looks larger when you’re about to move.

He offered me a deal. In exchange for agreeing to build him a website, I got 12 long boxes. (He kept more than half of his collection) The twelfth box was empty, but my New Universe collection helped to fill it. Since I am told 300 comics can fit into a long box, this means I now have over 3000 comics.

Since most of these are at least 10 years old, I have begun purchasing new comics – to see what’s being written today. Fallen Angel, Robin, Mystique, Witches, Excalibur, and Firestorm are among the titles I have bought. Curiously, I haven’t bought any Spiderman comics. There’s a good amount of them in the long boxes I received from my friend though — I have some catching up to do.

F-9/11 breaks record

Not only is Fahrenheit 9/11 the first documentary to ever debut at #1 in box office sales, In its first weekend it has already surpassed the highest grossing documentary. (A record previously held by Moore’s Bowling for Columbine). It was a no-brainer that he would ultimately succeed in doing that, but it is surprising it happened in one weekend.

And I suspect I’m not the only one waiting for the July 4th weekend to see the movie.

Introduction: Poem and Essay

Childhood

Somehow I decided
at a very early age
comic books were for kids
unable to read
“real” books.

I even felt guilty
as I grew older
when I’d open the newspaper
to the funny pages.
It was something I should have outgrown.

Not until college
did I begin to realize
I might be wrong.
Somehow Spiegelman’s ‘Maus’
was brought to my attention.

Like all bigots
at first I propped up my beliefs
with the standard line:
“This is the exception.”

Soon I was collecting
all his artwork gracing
covers of the New Yorker
But I was educated enough
to realize
there might be other exceptions

I found an author
who’d written several novels
I couldn’t put down
had also penned the story lines
for Supergirl, The Hulk and Captain Marvel.

There are advantages
to getting hooked on comics
at thirty

for one thing,
you’ve got more money to buy them.

But it’s difficult
to explain to your friends
you were late for happy hour
because you were reading
the latest Wolverine.

Most of the above poem is true to some degree. It has been said that the art of fiction is to tell the truth using lies. And the art of the memoir is to tell lies by using the truth. Poets have “poetic license,” but I didn’t us much of that license in the above poem.

Occasionally I will tell people I didn’t start reading comics until I was thirty. Anyone who read the poem above sees the lie in that. Ever since I can remember, the first page of the newspaper I turn to is the comics. Present tense. I get most of my news on the internet, so when I pick up a paper, I turn to the comics.

As a kid I was addicted to one comic in particular. Spiderman. I read the Spiderman serial daily. I didn’t stop until I went off to college. (And only then because I didn’t subscribe. I could have read it in the library, but the effort involved was enough to break the habit. It was a habit I felt at the time I should break.) I also remember very well the Spiderman and His Amazing Friends cartoon from the 1980s. Firestorm and Iceman were my introduction to The XMen.

So this raises a very obvious question. Why the hell wasn’t I buying the Spiderman comic books? Looking back, I have to ask myself an embarrassing question. Did I know they existed?

My earliest recollection of comic books were the ones I received as prizes at Purim Carnivals for winning carnival type games (like throwing a ball through a basket). As you might imagine, these were Archie, Richie Rich, Disney, and other similar comics. So I knew those existed.

However, I was reading what are now known as Chapter Books in first grade. I was taught to be proud that I had “outgrown” picture books. There was a contest in first grade to see who could read the most books, and I read 1509 books that year, including such books as Charlotte’s Web, Stuart Little, and Little House in the Big Woods — all of which are generally considered at the 3rd grade level. (Though most of the 1509 were Dr. Seuss and the like.)

So while I was getting my daily comic fix in the newspaper, and watching endless hours of television, I wasn’t hanging out at the comic bookstore. I was hanging out at the local library. So unless someone had told me what I was missing, I wouldn’t have known.

This isn’t an essay about how I feel my parents ruined my life. It is not their fault. They weren’t intentionally depriving me of anything. They didn’t read comic books either. What happened happened.

So how did this change? How did I get introduced to comics? And how did I go from having almost none to a current collection of over 3000 in less time than it usually takes Spiderman to spin his web? That I will explain in a later essay.

Earthquake? What Earthquake?

According to the AP there was an Earthquake last night:

CHICAGO (AP) — A brief earthquake struck the Midwest early Monday, rattling windows and awakening sleeping residents from Wisconsin south to Missouri and from Indiana west to Iowa.

No injuries were reported from the quake, which occurred about 1:11 a.m. CDT.

I slept right through it.

Politics and the Media

The “traditional” start of the campaign season begins Labor Day…the final two months prior to the election. However, many people are upset at Michael Moore for his movie and the ads for them claiming they’re poliitcal ads, and the movie is political propoganda, both supporting the candidacy of John Kerry.

Lets ignore the fact that John Kerry isn’t praised in the movie, and Michael Moore is on record for not being highly favorable towards either political party. He supported Nader in 2000. The movie is definitely anti-Bush, and in the minds of most Americans, this means Pro-Kerry. (We tend to think in Pro-Anti, Black-White, Left-Right modes. We can’t understand shades of grey and third parties)

By the time Labor Day rolls around however, Fahrenheit 9/11 will most likely be out of theaters. Maybe it will make a quick entry into video stores, maybe not. People will likely still talk about the issues it raises. Which hopefully everyone agrees is good – talk is good.

But as Labor Day rolls around, it would be nice if there was another media event. Another famous “creator” putting something out politically-minded. Something that might create a sensation. I just discovered there will be. And it comes from an unexpected corner. A cartoonist.

He’s done graphic novels before, but historical and personal ones. He’s on record as saying he never wanted to be a political cartoonist. But 9/11 changed that. He’s been spending a long time just drawing covers for The New Yorker, but finally, Art Spiegelman has Returned. And this time, instead of narrating how his father survived the Holocaust, and how he survived his father, he is venting built up anger:

“I hadn’t anticipated that the hijackings of September 11 would themselves be hijacked by the Bush cabal that reduced it all to a war recruitment poster…When the government began to move into full dystopian Big Brother mode and hurtle America into a colonialist adventure in Iraq — while doing very little to make America genuinely safer beyond confiscating nail clippers at airports — all the rage I’d suppressed after the 2000 election, all the paranoia I’d barely managed to squelch immediately after 9/11, returned with a vengeance.”

In the Shadow of No Towers has been appearing serially in The Forward, the only newspaper in the America that would carry it. But now the collected comics will hit your local bookstore in September.

Pantheon is planning a major marketing push for In the Shadow of No Towers including an eight-city author tour, and a national advertising campaign in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the New Yorker, and key alternative newspapers.

Much of America doesn’t choose to read, but graphic novels have pictures. And his last graphic novels – Maus and Maus II were bestsellers. I can’t wait.

Basic Math and Moorelies.com

A conservative friend of mine told me I had to check out moorelies.com
so I did.

Here’s a quote:

…debunking the Fahrenheit 9/11 claim that President Bush spent 42% of his first year in office on vacation.

It’s obvious that these “vacation days” include weekends…Okay, 42% is a lot of vacation, but weekends account for 29% of our time. I’m sure that a lot of this “vacation” time is just Bush going to Camp David for the weekend. Can we really fault the President for going to Camp David on weekends? If you take out weekends, you get 42%-29%, or 13% of the time that Bush was on vacation.

Excuse me? 42%-29% = 13%? Where did this guy go to school?

First lets get a rough estimate the easy way:
10% of 42% = 4.2%. (You just move the decimal over one)
30% would be 12.6%

so subtracting 29% of 42% from 42% would result in about 30%

Now get out your calculator:
42 * 0.29 = 12.18
42-12.18 = 29.82

So if we subtract weekends, that’s 29.82%, not 13%.

But Presidents don’t get to subtract weekends. You can tell the person who came up with this has a five-day a week 8 hour a day job. People at the executive level of any company don’t. There are many people in America who work 60-80 hour weeks. They’re lucky to get 1 day off a week.

I realize a 7-day a week schedule is hard, but Presidents get paid a nice hefty annual salary the rest of their lives.

Update
From Tom Tomorrow’s blog:: This statistic, incidentally, overrates Bush’s vacation time, since many of these are partial days, and he does occasionally do some official work in Crawford or at Camp David. However, it doesn’t include the time Bush spends campaigning and fundraising, largely at taxpayer expense (think Air Force One costs, for example), which has nothing to do with actually running the country. As of late March, Bush had taken well over 400 campaign trips by now, the number is surely approaching 500. So the amount of time Bush has spent not being our president is easily upwards of 40 percent.