Fresh Air

My heartfelt condolences to the friends and family of Eric Garner. I hope the memories of the man
outweigh the injustice.

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I apologize for the use of photos in today's Raging Pencils as it took a LONG time to decide how to approach the murder of Mr. Garner at the hands of New York's finest. Chances are good that I'll redo the photos as line art when time permits but, for now, they're fine. I just hope I have enough ink to accurately render Mr. Stalin's gloriously manly mustache.

I'm tardy today because, apart from having to deal with a couple of holiday associated deadlines, I simply had too many ideas to describe this horrific event that were, well, just wrong, including an Academy Award ceremony scene showing Sacheen Littlefeather defecating on the award for "best body cam showing a policeman getting away with murder."

Ms. Littlefeather aside, that idea's not really so absurd. The video from police body cams are public property so it's only a matter of time before we have a very popular Youtube channel devoted entirely to constabulary mayhem, most of it accompanied by "Yakety Sax". (God damn you, Benny Hill!) At some point it'll become its own genre as the police begin filming assaults from unique camera angles instead of all-POV, all-the-time.

Body cams are not the answer, folks, they're just another variable in the equation of info-edu-violence. If we really want to curb the "police" in "police state" let's all be as law-abiding as possible for about ten years. That way, when the crime rate drops to near zero, we can defund the militarized monstrosity, reducing it to a mere handful of officers, mostly handling meter-reading or stray animals.

Then we can all go back to killing and cheating each other.

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Note: And, of course, no extra cartoon today. Go figure.

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A little Xmas treat for you. Part 1 of Glenn Mitchell's Xmas Blockbuster, a Dallas tradition since 1975.



=Lefty=