Stop lying about my candy!

I'm leading with Matt Davies' excellent commentary on the Affordable Care Act, but I have little to say about it that wouldn't echo what I've said before: The president's political opponents are making a very big deal about the failure of the rollout and then either (yeah, right) misunderstanding or (yes) lying about the actual law itself.

What I like about this piece is that he doesn't just target the lobbyists and politicians, but makes a more sweeping observation that brings in not just the purposeful disinformation campaign but also, at least by implication, the lazy complacency of the press and of political cartoonists who have thoughtlessly advanced this misinformation about a law that has impact on all Americans and is vital to the most vulnerable among us.

There is a point at which even incompetence in the newsroom becomes negligence, spared only from the label "criminal" by the First Amendment. And indifference to the quality of your work only makes it worse.

As for commentary, it may well be the job of the cartoonist to advance the views of his "side", but even then, responsible opinion-making, even when it is partisan, includes an ethical duty to be truthful.

And, dammit, you also have a duty to readers to be thoughtful. 

I suppose we all come up against deadline, at which point you fill the hole with a stupid joke about Amazon drones or the stunning, hither-to-unrevealed fact that there is a song about Colorado called "Rocky Mountain High" and by yompin' yiminy they just legalized marijuana out there (or should I do a joke about the munchies?).

Even if you really should suspect, as you pen it, that two dozen other cartoonists are making the same joke at the same time. It's lazy, it's uncreative, sure, but it's harmless.

However, when cartoonists and comedians reduce an important issue to a dumb joke (and this is hardly the only example), that's not just lazy. It's disloyal to readers, to the system and to the country.

We're now deeply entrenched in a chorus of "It's a failure!" based on (A) the fact that, yes, one part of it sure didn't work and (B) passing along disinformation unchallenged.

You don't have to pick up a bucket and help, but, in the words of Bob Dole, "Stop lying about my record."

 

Which is not to say I have no sense of humor

One of my morning stops is the DailyInk blog, which is often just promotional stuff about KFS features but frequently contains very interesting archival information. 

And today it was neither. Rather, it was about the Pez Visitor Center, with the tie-in being the number of KFS cartoon characters who have been licensed as Pez dispensers.

I did not know they made Pez in Connecticut. I thought they made it in Austria.

I also did not know they welcomed visitors. I rather thought they were a humorless operation. And I've thought that for 45 years.

And every time I've seen a story like the Starbucks beer escapade that flashed across the Internet this past week, I've thought of my friend Tommy and, of Pez.

Back at the Dawn of Time, O Best Beloved, and specifically in the fall of 1967, a fellow whom I had yet to meet wrote this piece for Scholastic Magazine, a weekly publication at Notre Dame that was otherwise involved in more serious matters.

(Really curious about how serious they otherwise were? Okay.)

 

Here's what he wrote. (Click for a more readable size.) 

 

And we all read it and chuckled and, when I did meet him later that year, I said to myself, "Oh, that's the guy who wrote that funny Pez piece."

Little did any of us know at the time that, the following autumn, Tommy would get to write another article about Pez for the Scholastic:

At least Starbucks was defending their trademark. Pez was only defending their right to Not Get It, and vigorously opposing any attempt by nostalgic fans to re-awaken interest in their moribund product.

I gather they've changed direction since then.

In case they haven't, I never actually knew Tom Henehan and have no idea whatever became of him.

Comments

[Dave from Phila]

Don't hold it against me - but I happen to be lawyer. Regarding the Starbucks letter ... I find lawyer letters to small Mom & Pop operations that used a logo (or whatever) that in some alternate universe created "confusion" utterly absurd. Truth be told, they piss me off. But, sadly there is a tiny kernel of legal truth to the letters. A valid action to defend/protect a trademark that truly has been infringed by a competitor can be defeated if the defendant can establish the plaintiff has not taken prior steps to protect its trademark. With the power of the web, it is nothing for a defendant's attorney to find puny operations in Saskatchewan and East Jesus and ... "You Honor, this baseless Complaint must be dismissed. The plaintiff completely and utterly did nothing with respect to these obvious infringements in utter disregard to its obligation to defend its trademark!"

[Mike Peterson]

Yeah, that was the "at least" part. I got a nastygram from the Clorox people once and the problem was that I was quoting someone. I suppose they would have liked me to put (brand chlorine bleach)within the quote, but, hey, they wrote their letter and we didn't act on it because we knew it was just evidence of their continued rigor.

I suppose, by the way, that your local bar association could send a similar letter to Woody Guthrie, but, at this late date, that would probably just be a Band-Aid brand adhesive bandage solution.
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