Tea Party

I have semi kept up with the "Tea Party" national convention this weekend. Started as a backlash against what they see as wasteful government spending (oddly enough it only started AFTER Obama took over and continued Bush actions. Weird.), the "Tea Party" movement has since become a forum for the right. The FAR right. Former GOP House representative from Colorado Tom Tancredo delivered a "rousing" speech to kick off the convention. The first part of today's cartoon is an excerpt from that speech...



Yes, and in addition to this little he gem, he advocates a "civics literacy" test before being "allowed" to vote in this country. At best this speech was a horrifying echo of Strom Thurmond in the '40's and at worst (if he took a tiny little step to the right) it is a new rallying call for racists in this country. Perhaps the former representative needs a refresher course on civics himself.

(I know I've been a little 'toon heavy these days, but I've got another painting on the way. I promise.)

I Guess it's NOT So Obvious

I was perusing my various news websites this weekend when I came across several articles about the same topic: texting while driving.

Now Lady Paintmonkey and I do not "text". (I put that in quotes because "text" first and foremost, IS NOT A VERB!) As a general rule, if we want to talk to you we will call you. Or email you. Or we just don't worry about it. Whichever. I am just now becoming semi proficient as a typist for emails and putting thoughts to this site (Thank you Mrs. Herndon. I really only took your class in high school because I thought it was an easy elective. Who knew back in the Dark Ages known as "the 80's" that typing would REALLY be useful one day?). So I certainly am not interested in learning to either type using a non-"QWERTY" keyboard on an overpriced Googlypod phone or the more archaic (by today's standards) typing using the numbered keypad of a phone. I consider it the death of language and I refuse to learn all of these ridiculous acronyms and shortenings of words. Don't even get me started on emoticons.

That being said, I move on to the topic of texting while driving. Being free of the constraints of endlessly waiting on my phone to jiggle and alert me that someone has sent me a message I get to watch people with their technology obsession. I really wish there were more open manholes in this country. I wonder if that would wise people up to paying attention to where they are going. And that is while they are walking. They do the exact same thing while they are driving. Ta-da! Seems a no-brainer to me. Don't do it. You will die and take people out with you.

So of course the articles I read this weekend are nothing like that. On CNN, it was reported that studies show that states who made it illegal to text and drive didn't show any difference in accidents. No mention of whether or not people were still doing it. Just that there is no real difference in statistics. And my favorite was that the Georgia legislature needed to see more studies done on this topic before they made a decision. Which is what led me to this:



At one point when I was laboring over the wording, I thought about just having the first kid say "I didn't get your last text...". I personally think this made for a funnier cartoon but it didn't get across my main point which was that the Georgia legislators are a bunch of indecisive weenies who ignore what seems to me to be a fairly obvious decision. DO NOT LET PEOPLE TEXT AND DRIVE! They are not paying attention and they will kill you! Or maybe we just need to leave more manhole covers open.