Weingarten on Doonesbury's perceived 'anti-Semitism', comic strip salaries and Ted Rall

Here's some bits from Weingarten's last two chats:

Chatological Humor: Grammatically Speaking; Late-Term Abortion (Updated 6.5.09)
aka Tuesdays With Moron
Gene Weingarten
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 2, 2009; 12:00 PM

Isn't this your guy, Gene?: From Illinois' State Journal-Register last Friday, 5/29:

"From health care to torture to the economy to war, Obama has reneged on pledges real and implied. So timid and so owned is he that he trembles in fear of offending, of all things, the government of Turkey. Obama has officially reneged on his campaign promise to acknowledge the Armenian genocide. When a president doesn't have the nerve to annoy the Turks, why does he bother to show up for work in the morning?

"Obama is useless. Worse than that, he's dangerous. Which is why, if he has any patriotism left after the thousands of meetings he has sat through with corporate contributors, blood-sucking lobbyists and corrupt politicians, he ought to step down now - before he drags us further into the abyss."

Rush Limbaugh? Nope. Dick Cheney? Nope. Bill Ayers? Nah. It's none other than Ted Rall, whose cartoon work and political insights you've always admired so much. Here's the whole column.

Enjoy.

Gene Weingarten: This is CLASSIC Ted Rall.

Rall often has good points to make, but then makes them with such wild overstatement that he undercuts himself. And occasionally has to apologize.

Here's a cartoon of his

after Antonin Scalia said he'd be in favor of slapping terrorist prisoners under certain circumstances.

Here's another one

that's self-explanatory.

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15th Street, D.C.: Gene- What do you think of Sunday's "Doonesbury"? Do you think it could have been perceived as a tad anti-semitic? I am not even close to being politically correct but thought Trudeau took an...interesting path to make a not funny or interesting point.

Best- A 31 married Jewish guy in D.C.

Gene Weingarten: I don't see any antisemitism here, and I think it was a very funny and interesting comic.

The joke is about the current economy, and what bankers have done to us.

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Chatological Humor: Insuring Your Weekly Quota of Yuks. And Yucks (UPDATED 5.29.09)
aka Tuesdays With Moron
Gene Weingarten
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 26, 2009; 12:00 PM

Westminster, Md.: Gene, I am curious about how cartoonists are paid. If a cartoonist is syndicated in 1,000 newspapers, as some are, and is paid a mere $5 by each paper, the cartoonist (and his distributor, agent, etc.) make $5,000 PER DAY for drawing a cartoon. But it seems equally unreasonable that a paper like The Post pays a mere $5 for something that may draw more eyes than the headline story on the Metro page. So what's up?

Gene Weingarten: As the old Yiddish expression goes, re wishing something stated were true: "From your mouth to God's ear."

Alas, no. The formula for comic strips is that the author and the syndicate split about $1,000 a YEAR for each newspaper that runs the strip. So, if a strip is in 1,000 newspapers (this is almost unheard of) the cartoonist would get $500,000 a year.

A typical, moderately successful strip might be in 100 papers. Do the math. It isn't pretty.