Happy
Anniversary!
One death is a tragedy. A million deaths
is a statistic."
- Josef Stalin
 I somehow
neglected to notice something semi-important last week as
January 18, 2009 marked the one-year anniversary of the debut
of
the
thrice-weekly Raging Pencils comic.
When
I began
the strip
back in 2006 it was an every-now-and-then enterprise but I'm happy to report
that it's now appeared for one full year without having missed
a single
day.
That is, of course, peanuts to, say, Peanuts, but whattaya want for nuthin'?
Most of all I just want to say "Thank you!" to each and every one
of you little people out there who have taken a moment out of their busy
day to peruse my little artistic atrocity. Without you I
am nothing
and with you I am slightly more than nothing... or something like that.
See you in the funny papers.
-------
 In light of recent
information revealing that the Bush administration was basically
keeping detainees at Guantanimo just for the pleasure of torturing them comes
this cogent reaction by reader SG at talkingpointsmemo:
"Am I the only one who is simply flabbergasted
that any Republican, much less a member of the Bush Administration
like Karl Rove, thinks the closing of Gitmo will be a campaign
issue that favors the GOP? I listen to these people lecture us
about the difficulty Obama will face in relocating the prisoners
and one word keeps repeating itself in my mind: chutzpah! Of the
highest order! It's as if they built a poorly designed nuclear
plant, let it melt down on their watch, did nothing to clean it
up, and then upon leaving office said: "Good luck with that
nuclear plant! We'll be watching and ready to pounce when you haven't
got that sucker under control in a year!"
---------
 And
this from the Japanese AP:
TOKYO (AP) — Aspiring English speakers in Japan have made President Barack
Obama's book of speeches and accompanying CD a national best-seller.
In Aichi, central Japan, a Buddhist monk has reportedly been playing the president's
speeches during his temple service. And dozens of students in an English-language
class in Tokyo have been memorizing his 2004 Democratic Convention speech to
improve their understanding and pronunciation.
"Tonight is a particular honor for me because, let's face it, my presence
on this stage is pretty unlikely," the students at Kaplan Japan school recited
together Friday.
"The Speeches of Barack Obama" has sold 420,000 copies since its release
on Nov. 20 — an "unprecedented huge hit" for an English-language
text, according to publisher Asahi Press.
Any book that sells more than 100,000 copies in Japan, which has a population
of 128 million, is considered a success, and foreign-language publication sales
rarely exceed 20,000, the publisher said.
=mike=
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