Doing Enough

Posted By: Peter DavidPosted On:

digresssmlOriginally published November 14, 1997, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1252

It’s never enough.

No matter how much one does for the fan base, it is absolutely never enough. Because for every thousand or so fans that you manage to satisfy, there’s going to be a 1001st who is going to decide that you haven’t fulfilled whatever standards he or she has set for you. And, even more dangerously, there’s a 1002nd who is going to take it upon him or herself to try and make your life miserable—just because he can. Just because he thinks that there’s some sort of satisfaction in “standing up” to the pro, or showing the pro that he or she is “no better” than anyone else.

Several cases in point:

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Ooo! I wanna play, too!

Posted By: Peter DavidPosted On:

Remember when the right went bugnuts crazy on the Dixie Chicks because they dared say something critical of Bush?

Wasn’t that fun? I want to play, too!

I have never bought an album by Megadeth before, but now I never will! See why here!

(I wonder how many people will say this and mean it.)

PAD

The Radio Contest, part 2

Posted By: Peter DavidPosted On:

digresssmlOriginally published November 7, 1997, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1251

You want stories to go a certain way.

I was thirteen years old, living in Verona, a jock town where my athletic ineptitude was one of the key ingredients in my inability to make any friends. I sorely missed my previous home in nearby Bloomfield, which might as well have been on another planet for all the opportunity I had to socialize with the friends of my younger days. Since my daily humiliation in school was insufficient, I also joined the local synagogue’s youth group, United Synagogue Youth. I figured that we would spend time discussing Judaism. Learning about our cultural history. Socializing.

Nope. USY’s activities centered around one thing and, apparently, one thing only: Basketball.

We had a basketball team which played the teams of other USYs. Naturally I was bottom-ranked on that as well. I was slow, I could dribble only adequately, and I couldn’t sink a basket. So I spent many a game watching the more athletic members—namely, anyone—charging up and down the court. Basketball. What a great game.

So there I was, having won the opportunity to go to a Knicks game and, at half time, shoot a foul shot in an endeavor to win some sort of further prizes.

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Is a class action suit against the GOP possible?

Posted By: Peter DavidPosted On:

There is little to no doubt that the GOP-driven endeavors to block voting for legitimate (and likely Democratic) voters in a number of states has nothing to do with voter fraud and everything to do with trying to tilt the odds in their favor for the next election.

So I, with my complete lack of education in the law, find myself wondering whether disenfranchised voters constitutes a class in and of themselves and they can actually sue the entirety of the Republican party in general and in specific the legislatures in the nine states that are complicit in this indisputably partisan endeavor? Of course, the whole point of this exercise is to target the poor and those least likely to have the resources to defend their rights, so it’s not likely to happen. But I still wonder if it’s possible?

PAD