When Belly Stars Weren't In Style

Apparently, the Sneetches with stars upon thars were plotting against America.

Comments

[joe]

There's a book by a UMass prof. titled "Dr. Suess Goes to War" that contains Geisel's political cartoons in the 1930s. Some really great stuff, some not so much.

As for the cartoon that's linked, what struck me was not that such a racist image could get published, but how utterly mainstream the buck toothed, nearsighted, simian image of Japanese people was. You see similary imagery in Bugs Bunny cartoons - nobody batted an eye.

[PintofStout]

I believe that imagery in a Popeye propaganda cartoon also. Maybe there were regulations pertaining to the dipiction of "yellow" people.

[J]

Remember Mickey Rooney as Mr. Yunioshi in Breakfast At Tiffany's (1961)? I was always curious how much offense that role caused at the time, if any (not curious enough to do much looking into it though...). It certainly sticks out like a sore thumb today.

[Paul]

I agree with joe. The image isn't so shocking because it's Dr. Seuss (Geisel), but because of the fact that this was a mainstream view of the general American (read white/anglo) population. If this image is produced to produce a reaction against Dr. Seuss, it hasn't worked for me. When taken in the context of the time, it doesn't even really surprise.

Paul

[joe]

It's not just the Japanese characters' faces that are both offense and contemporaneously mainstream - the image of Asian hordes swarming all over the West Coast was fairly common, especially among the isolationists that Raimondo (follow the link from the cartoon) idolizes. Before anti-immigrant fervor in California was aimed at Mexicans, the Japanese were its target. The image of Japanese people as a Fifth Column was also entirely mainstream. Raimondo wants to present this filth as somehow uniquely characteristic of the era's Democrats, liberals, and war supporters, but that's a hard case to make.

Even Dr. Effing Seuss. It's just mindboggling how severe, how mainstream and how widespread, racial hatred was is this country.

[wellfellow]

I always thought Dr. Seuss was kind of a jack-ass. What's so great about a Grinch who gives back everything he stole anyway? Sounds to me like he broke even.

[wellfellow]

"It's just mindboggling how severe, how mainstream and how widespread, racial hatred was is this country. "

Ditto.

[cdunlea]

joe,

I remember the book--and the professor, Dick Minear (UMass/Amherst '89, History BA). I have to say that yeah, given our POV today, the cartoons look terrible, especially since Geisel is held to such a pious standard because of his later work in children's lit. But, in the context of the time, he's no worse than some Midwestern op-ed guy today writing about Pakistani cabbies.

Besides, the professor was basically an America-last dick in class...kept talking about how the Japanese were brutalized from Hiroshima/Nagasaki but never bringing up how they treated civilians; the rape of Nanking was the work of a few bad apples, the Korean sex slaves weren't treated badly, Tojo had a great "Asia for the Asians" vision...etc. I like looking at things from severals POVs but puh-leeeze.

[wellfellow]

"...Midwestern op-ed guy today writing about Pakistani cabbies"

Which is no worse than an anonymous blogger denigrating midwesterners as ignorant racists...

[Gary Gunnels]

Paul,

Well, presenting black people as buck-tooth savages in cartoons was acceptable at the time as well.

___________________________________________

As I recall, Disney & Warner Bros. also did wartime cartoon propaganda as well.

[Gary Gunnels]

cdunlea,

I guess the difference here would be that the folks pictured in the cartoon would be largely American citizens.

[smacky]

I remember seeing cartoons in the late 80's early 90's (I believe it was the cartoon version of Batman - not the more recent WB version, but reruns of the original cartoon) that depicted one of the regular characters as:

how utterly mainstream the buck toothed, nearsighted, simian image of Japanese people was.

...yeah, that. That's exactly how the character was depicted. That less than 20 years ago that they were airing cartoons like that regularly.

[Gary Gunnels]

smacky,

Check these out (I love the guy with the pipe): http://americanhistory.si.edu/victory/victory6.htm

[cdunlea]

wellfellow,

Before you play QuickDraw McGraw here, re-read the post. Nothing I wrote characterized all Midwesterners as racists, but given poll and election results, the War on Terror has a much stronger support in the Midwest and South, as opposed to the liberal Northeast or Left Coast. If you think that has nothing to do with preconceptions of "different" people, guess again.

And using my name hardly makes me anonymous.

[Gary Gunnels]

Nazi Propaganda: http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/albums/palbum/p03/a0177p3.html

[smacky]

Gary,

I liked the children in gas masks one, and the one with the tagline "Make Today A Safe Day". That's sooo the new National Security Alert System. The funny thing is, I always considered these sorts of propaganda posters a Nazi or Soviet thing. The US versions (at least up until now I thought) were just modern-day Tshirt and kitchen magnet mockeries of the 1950's society...

The average working woman, on the other hand, was often idealized as a fashion model in denim.

Ha ha. That's me!

[cdunlea]

GG,

You're absolutely right, and denying rights to citizens was a crying shame. But across the country our perceptions of Arabs and Muslims in general also have changed for the worse. I read last week that in many rural/suburban communities zoning boards are refusing or delaying permission for Islamic associations to build mosques or community centers on land they already own, while greenlighting new churches. Town hearings on the proposed usage included hysterical yokels claiming their neighbors were "planning something" and they don't want more of "those people" in the area.

Considering that the links between these people and terrorists/support groups are tenous at best in most cases, I saw that's on a par with WWII hysteria.

[Bonar Law]

Don't forget the Japanese characters in Chinese Kung Fu movies. The portrayal of most Japanese in these movies is so negative that it makes *Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo* look like *Snow Falling on Cedars.*

Why is it that some Chinese have such a negative view of the Japanese? It must be knee-jerk prejudice.

[Justin Raimondo]

To Joe: No one disputes that the Old Right was a paragon of contemporary political correctness: the isolationist Hiram Johnson, longtime Senator from California, was especially bad, and the congressional allies of the America First Committee were lax in opposing Roosevelt's road to war in the Pacific. That's precisely why what Charles Callan Tansill called the "back door to war" worked so well as a strategy for the President.

But the point of my little essay was that the ostensibly liberal Rooseveltians, and their Popular Front commie supporters, utilized precisely the same racist tropes against the antiwar cause and helped bring about the internment. I didn't make this point in my column, but Geisel penned several "anti-racist" cartoons that were always directed at ant-black and anti-Semitic attitudes. But racially-tinged venom spat at the "Japs" was okay, because, after all, we were priming ourselves to KILL these people. They therefore had to be dehumanized.

These attitudes persist to this day. Witness the dickwad above who justifies the incineration of hundreds of thousands of Japanese because ... oh, well, didn't THEY committ atrocities, too? This crazed argument would justify the incineration of American cities on account of Abu Ghraib, but I'm not sure "Joe" means to say that.

[Justin Raimondo]

Ooops. First sentence should read:

No one disputes that the Old Right wasn't a paragon

[cdunlea]

On topic, I did come across some materials in a similar class where the Japanese were in fact portayed far worse than the European Axis people; they were illustrated either as evil cunning little monkeys or vicious gorillas. The interesting thing was that after September 1945 the Japanese were still portayed as monkeys, but now tame ones on the shoulders of Uncle Sam; the implication that now we were going to help them become a responsible nation in the world community.

[Gary Gunnels]

Warner Bros. produced "Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips" in 1944. You can guess how the Japanese soldier is portrayed. Bugs also went up against Herman G?ring in "Herr Meets Hare" in 1945. There is also "The Ducktators" from 1941 - which features Hitler, Hirohito and Stalin!

In 1968, after UA gained the rights to most of Warner Bros.' cartoons, it created the "Censored 11," shorts it refused to allow to air, etc. Here's the original list:

"Hittin' the Trail to Hallelujah Land" (1931)
"Sunday Go to Meetin' Time" (1936)
"Clean Pastures" (1937)
"Uncle Tom's Bungalow" (1937)
"Jungle Jitters" (1938)
"The Isle Of Pingo Pongo" (1938)
"All This and Rabbit Stew" (1941)
"Coal Black and De Sebben Dwarfs" (1943)
"Tin Pan Alley Cats" (1943)
"Angel Puss" (1944)
"Goldilocks and the Jivin' Bears" (1944)

In 2001 there were some additions:

"Hiawatha's Rabbit Hunt" (1941)
"Any Bonds Today" (1942)
"What's Cookin' Doc" (1944)
"Herr Meets Hare" (1945)
"A Feather in his Hare" (1948)
"Mississippi Hare" (1949)
"Frigid Hare" (1949)
"Which is Witch?" (1949)
"Bushy Hare" (1950)
"Horse Hare" (1960)

Its quite possible that you may never be able to see these in any form.

[cdunlea]

"Witness the dickwad above who justifies the incineration of hundreds of thousands of Japanese because ... oh, well, didn't THEY committ atrocities, too? This crazed argument would justify the incineration of American cities on account of Abu Ghraib, but I'm not sure "Joe" means to say that"

I'm sure he doesn't. And no one else here is either. I thought you needed reading comprehension skills to maintain a blog, maybe I'm wrong.

[smacky]

Its quite possible that you may never be able to see these in any form.

Gary,

Have a little faith in the cinephiles. You may be right (what organization is UA, btw?) , but there are people that seek out, collect, restore, etc. strange rarities such as those cartoons to show in film houses or make documentaries about.....

[Jesse Walker]

But racially-tinged venom spat at the "Japs" was okay, because, after all, we were priming ourselves to KILL these people. They therefore had to be dehumanized.

Along those lines, I recommend checking out The House I Live In, a really horrible short film that was released right after World War II, in which Frank Sinatra teaches some kids about the virtues of tolerance. Sounds commendable, right? It would be, except that he does it by telling the story of a Jewish soldier who killed "the Japs" just as eagerly as his Christian colleagues.

(Then he sings "The House I Live In" and infamously leaves out a verse about "my neighbors black and white." Abel Meeropol, the Communist poet who wrote the song, complained bitterly -- and rightly -- about that excision, but as far as I can tell he didn't object to the "Japs" business.)

[Justin Raimondo]

You counterpose the bombing of Hiroshima to the rape of Nanking, and accuse some "America last" professor (whatever that may be) because he didn't put the mass murder of Japanese civilians in this context. If you didn't mean to justify Hiroshima and Nagasaki, then perhaps it isn't my reading comprehension that's the problem: learn to write, bud.

[Mo]

GG,
I thought the Ducktators portrayed Mussolini, not Stalin. Stalin was our pal, remember. Benito was the incompetent duck in that one.

I remember going to a talk by a former State employee that was stationed in Israel (no bias at all) and he tried to say that the racist Palestinian children's show were evidence of their depravity. I mention the old WWII era Bugs Bunny cartoons and he said "They weren't that racist were they?" Apparently, he only saw the post-sanitized versions. One of my favorite classes in college was "Images of the 20th century" It was all propaganda movies all the time. I even got to see the legendary "Duck and Cover" in case of nuclear attack video.

[Steve]

Bonar Law,

I think that, post-WWII, it's pretty understandable why the Chinese don't like the Japanese. That doesn't mean it's justifiable, because collective racial guilt is always wrong, but you can see why it's there.

[Gary Gunnels]

Justin Raimondo,

If we had not atom bombed them we would have just continued to incinerate them via napalm. General LeMay's campaigns did far more damage to Japan than the two atomic bombs put together.

[Steve]

It's too damn bad that we can't see the "Herr vs. Hare"-type stuff. It should always be acceptable to mock Nazis.

In fact, we should have this stuff today. I want to see a cartoon with SpongeBob making Osama look stupid.

[Jesse Walker]

I want to see a cartoon with SpongeBob making Osama look stupid.

You'll have to settle for Eric Cartman.

[Steve]

Oh, god, I hope this turns into a GG vs Raimondo slap-fight. GG would come out looking totally sane and even gentlemanly by comparison!

[Stevo Darkly]

I always thought Dr. Seuss was kind of a jack-ass.

I loved Dr. Seuss -- until, when I was an adult, I heard he just put out The Butter Battle. It was supposed to be a parable about the Cold War. Two groups went to war because of a difference of opinion about whether buttered bread should be eaten butter-side-up or butter-side-down. Even as a teenager, I hated that crap when people tried to trivialize the differences between the US and USSR and portray them as morally equivalent. The differences underlying the Cold War conflict were a bit more important than that.

I hope Doc's stint in purgatory included giving blowjobs to Stalin. Ass.

[Gary Gunnels]

smacky,

United Artists. Warner Bros. may have bought the rights back since though (which means that they are owned by Time-Warner).

Mo,

I might be wrong. Stalin or Mussolini. Same thing! 🙂

Justin Raimondo,

Or to be more blunt, note that by July 1945 LeMay was bitching about a lack of targets and having to re-bomb cities. Its not like LeMay would have given up; he would have the place back to the stoneage if he had to.

Steve,

Well, the basic problem with Japan (unlike Germany) has been its unwillingness to admit the crimes of past generations.

Jesse Walker,

Holy fuck. You are the only person I have ever met who has seen that film!

[Gary Gunnels]

Steve,

I am always sane and I am always a gentleman. 🙂

[Gary Gunnels]

LeMay is probably one of the biggest SOBs of WWII. A pure asshole in many ways. But I am glad he was on our side.

[anon]

OT, but I was kind of hoping that "Belly Stars" was referring to the Bellydance Superstars.

[Gary Gunnels]

anon,

*chuckle*

[cdunlea]

Justin, do you know the professor I am referring to? Did you attend that class? Obviously not, from your own admission. So how can you take issue with my first-hand opinion of his views? Do you make a habit of picking blog fights with strangers? Maybe you ought to read a book or cite something rather than bash people for their opinions if you have no handle on the facts.

All I am saying fer Chrissakes is that some professor I had spewed out 1980's anti-American propaganda without any kind of objectivity and tried to pass it off as facts--facts reviewable by graded essay. I didn't care for his opinions but respected his right to have them. I did not feel that way about his presentation, which I felt was a disservice, especially as I was taking the class to prepare for a career in teaching history. I prefer students to make up their own mind, thank you, and back it up with facts, not agenda.

"Dickwad", huh? If you use language like that to strangers on a converastion board I'm willing to bet you're no Voltaire either...bud.

[Eric the .5b]

As for the cartoon that's linked, what struck me was not that such a racist image could get published, but how utterly mainstream the buck toothed, nearsighted, simian image of Japanese people was. You see similary imagery in Bugs Bunny cartoons - nobody batted an eye.

It's startling stuff. But, aside from the casual racism and paranoia, what bothers me is a strange detail - why short-sighted-and-buck-toothed as the universal cartoon stereotype for the Japanese?

[Gary Gunnels]

cdunlea,

Painting the Japanese as the "victims" of WWII is pretty pathetic I would say. I can we can all admit that warfare is terrible and the like, but the Japanese reaped what they had sown.

[Gary Gunnels]

Eric the .5b,

It de-humanizes them of course.

[smacky]

But, aside from the casual racism and paranoia, what bothers me is a strange detail - why short-sighted-and-buck-toothed as the universal cartoon stereotype for the Japanese?

Eric,

My guess would be that the short-sightedness was a play on their typically slanty, almond-shaped eyes (nearsightedness would be a caricature of squintiness). As for the buck teeth, I would venture that that was added as a caricature mocking a Japanese/Asian pronunication of English as their second language. A sort of mockery of their obvious accent. Caricature is usually key in explaining these weird stereotypes. If you want to make someone sound funny in a cartoon, giving them buck teeth can justify their silly voice. (Buck teeth are a standard mockery of anyone in cartoon caricatures, btw.) I think the myopia, again, is used to exaggerate attention on their eyes.

[cdunlea]

GG, agreed. You can argue that Roosevelt tricked us into WWII on a par with GWB (I don't buy it, especially as the record shows that Hitler declared war on us, not us on him, first) but the bottom line is: Japan started the Pacific War, and we finished it.

[Jesse Walker]

Holy fuck. You are the only person I have ever met who has seen that film!

Strictly speaking, I don't think we've met...

It was screened here in Baltimore on a bill with Strange Fruit, a disappointing movie about Meeropol. (I'm willing to cut the guy a lot of slack for writing the lyrics to "Strange Fruit," one of the best songs of the century, but I'm sick of nostalgic leftist documentaries that prettify the Stalinist milieu he was a part of.)

[Shawn Smith]

Although I'm sure Gary Gunnels can correct me if I'm wrong (I'm no history major), but dropping the two nukes saved Japanese military and civilian lives because Emporer Hirohito agreed to the unconditional surrender only after Nagasaki and the Japanese loss to the Soviets on a couple of their northern islands. The shows I have seen have argued that there was an impression in the Japanese military that if they could just inflict enough damage on the Americans, that they would be able to stay in power by negotiating a surrender with the Americans. The plans were made as to how the invasion was going to happen, troops were getting shipped over to the west Pacific, and I've heard that a typhoon hit the area about the time the invasion was scheduled, for another "divine wind."

Were Hiroshima and Nagasaki human tragedies? I believe yes. Were they the worst human tragedies probable? I believe no. Because of Pearl Harbor, almost no American military leader would have accepted anything short of complete, unconditional, surrender. So, do you want to kill 500,000 Japanese civilians or do you want to kill 2,000,000 Japanese civilians plus 1,000,000 Japanese soldiers plus 1,000,000 American soldiers in the invasion of Japan? What other choices are there?

[Todd Fletcher]

Wow, I never realized until now why so many people say Justin Raimondo is a dickwad. Thanks for enlightening me about that, if for nothing else, Justin.

[Jesse Walker]

Because of Pearl Harbor, almost no American military leader would have accepted anything short of complete, unconditional, surrender. So, do you want to kill 500,000 Japanese civilians or do you want to kill 2,000,000 Japanese civilians plus 1,000,000 Japanese soldiers plus 1,000,000 American soldiers in the invasion of Japan? What other choices are there?

Not demanding unconditional surrender?

[Gary Gunnels]

Jesse Walker,

Strictly speaking, I don't think we've met...

You asking me out on a date Walker? 🙂

Shawn Smith,

Although I'm sure Gary Gunnels can correct me if I'm wrong (I'm no history major), but dropping the two nukes saved Japanese military and civilian lives because Emporer Hirohito agreed to the unconditional surrender only after Nagasaki and the Japanese loss to the Soviets on a couple of their northern islands.

I think that's a pretty fair assessment. Without the nukes there would have been continued conventional bombing and eventually a horrific invasion. To our modern eyes, which are jaded by fear of nuclear holocaust, we find the use of the nukes to be at times incomprehensible, but looking at the costs and benefits of their use its safe to say that the latter outweighs the former (though obviously reasonable people can disagree with that assessment).

The shows I have seen have argued that there was an impression in the Japanese military that if they could just inflict enough damage on the Americans, that they would be able to stay in power by negotiating a surrender with the Americans.

The Japanese military and political establishment were cut up into a number of factions, but clearly there were a group of fire eaters who would never surrender.

[Steve]

The reason Japan and Germany recovered so well from WWII was the complete, unconditional surrender of the fascists in both countries. Sure, not demanding that surrender was an option, but not a good one.

[Gary Gunnels]

Jesse Walker,

The "negotiated surrender" issue is a tricky one. I've never been convinced that the entirely mixed signals coming out of Japan - "direct" or via our interceptions of their transmissions - would have convinced me that the negotiated surrender route was feasible.

[Jesse Walker]

You asking me out on a date Walker?

Of course not -- everyone knows you're already dating Jean Bart.

[Shawn Smith]

Jesse Walker,

I firmly believe, although I have no data to back up that belief, that unconditional surrender was the only acceptable Japanese action for the U.S. military to accept. If someone is willing to point me to some evidence that I'm wrong here, I might take a look at it and modify my belief.

[D Anghelone]

Even earlier, Stalin, Hitler and Hirohito came in for some fairly extreme stereotyping in 1941's "The Ducktators."

Straight Dope. The other dope.

WARTIME CARTOONS ON FILM

[Jesse Walker]

Shawn: It's been a while since I did the reading that led me to believe otherwise -- and I'd rather not launch into an argument that enormous in a comment thread anyway -- but maybe I'll write something for the anniversary of the bombings later this year.

[Gary Gunnels]

Jesse Walker,

You might want to use this resource then: http://www.cia.gov/csi/monograph/4253605299/csi9810001.html#rtoc8

[Eric the .5b]

It de-humanizes them of course.

Right, but the question is "why THOSE traits". Gross caricatures of black people, say, vastly exaggerate differences in characteristics from white people - giant lips, for instance. I wasn't seeing how everyone drawing caricatures of Japanese arrived at buck-toothed-and-short-sighted, though Smacky suggests some plausible reasons.

[Shawn Smith]

Gary Gunnels,

The Japanese military and political establishment were cut up into a number of factions, but clearly there were a group of fire eaters who would never surrender.

I also saw a show on the History Channel (yes, probably dramatized, but interesting, nevertheless) about the last bombing mission over Japan, which demonstrated the factionalization of the military. The Emporer recorded his surrender message to the people on two tapes and hid them in the Palace. After the recordings were made, a group of fanatical army officers started a coup and took control of the Palace and started searching for the tapes. The bombing run took out a power station that cut the lights at the Imperial Palace, which gave the Imperial Guard (or maybe it was simply the loyalist army) time to retake the Palace before the tapes were found and destroyed.

[Shawn Smith]

Jesse Walker,

I look forward to your work on the anniversary of the bombings. Thanks in advance for any evidence you present.

[Fabius]

I don't know about the buck-toothed stereotype, but Japaneses were, on average, even shorter then than they are now and a lot of them did wear glasses (due to poor nutrition - Japan was still a fairly poor country in 1941).

Google an image of Hirohito or Tojo to see for yourself.

QFMC cos. V

[a]

GG:
"To our modern eyes, which are jaded by fear of nuclear holocaust, we find the use of the nukes to be at times incomprehensible"

So, you are saying targetting civilians is fair game , if need be?

Also, let's not forget that the possibility of using nukes isn't as taboo as we would like to think. If it was, the statement made by Rep. Sam Johnson about nuking Syria would have caused a political storm. Instead it is delegated to some obscure web sites.

[Trey]

Dr. Seuss fell in my eyes once I learned that "Cat in the Hat" was all about the sexual awakening of children.

"Thing No. 1" and "Thing No. 2"

Could it be any more obvious?

I'm surprised they're allowed to show it on TV!

[kevrob]

It didn't take nukes to make WWII a war that targeted civilians. The Japanese outrages against the Chinese have already been noted. The Germans took out Coventry, for which Dresden is often seen as retaliation-in-kind by the UK & US. The US firebombed Tokyo, in an era when that city's residences were typically made of flammable materials.

What the nukes did do was impress upon the Japanese that there was no hope of resisting the American industrial and technological juggernaut.

Oh, and to the extent that the Emperor's continued reign was negotiated, Nippon's surrender had a few conditions.

Kevin

[Sir Jasper]

It looks like something from a book Michelle Malkin would read to her kid as a bedtime story.

[kevrob]

A WWII-era Seuss cartoon archive, courtesy Richard H. Minear. A tip of the ol' Hatlo hat to CartoonBrew!

Kevin

[The Real Bill]

I'm surprised that so many readers of a libertarian site are so surprised at the racism of Americans 60+ years ago. That was freaking ages ago! Take a historical (and pre-historical) perspective and it's not so surprising. Sixty years from now people will be equally surprised at much accepted behavior of today. Jeez, we're just a bunch of big-brained, nearly-naked apes. It's amazing we do as well as we do! (The primary cares of the majority are still animal: sex, food, and comfort. Until most people are more concerned about science, philosophy, etc. than sex, food, play, etc., we shouldn't be surprised much by human behavior.)

[Solitudinarian]

Its quite possible that you may never be able to see [the Censored 11] in any form.

GG,

I have. All you have to do is marry your sister off to a cartoon archivist.

I just wish he'd make some DVD copies for me - "Coal Black and De Sebben Dwarfs" is breathtaking...

[poco]

Thanks for that link, kevrob. The "One Buck out of Every 10" with its demand for a 10% tithe to war bonds is interesting (was that a common exhortation? I've heard of "Buy War Bonds!" of course, but never the 1/10 figure). The "sneer" one is hard to look at, though.

GG, some cartoons in the second list are available on video, or so IMDB says -- mostly VHS, some possibly defunct. "Frigid Hare" is on one of the new DVD sets. The most offensive part to me is not the Inuit hunter (what I can remember of him) but the geographic inaccuracy of having an Inuit hunt penguins. Nor can I believe it's been that long since I've seen "Hiawotta". Am too young to have seen any of the first list but they sound interesting (Cab Calloway!). Cartoon Network/Boomerang aren't the only current sources of Warners 'toons, are they? Oh wait, maybe they are. Just have to wait until they're public domain, if ever they are, or find bootlegs on Usenet and the like. Maybe they're better not broadcast, but they should be available somehow to the non-sensitive historian/ WB enthusiast. It's not as if they'll affect our current racial perceptions for the worse, is it?

Fabius (almost wrote "Fabian"), how does malnutrition affect eyesight in an optically correctable way? I can imagine it leading to blindness, but not to mere myopia or astigmatism. Just curious.

I have a nisei friend with rabbity front teeth. Don't hit me -- just sayin'.

[Randolph Carter]

This is totally off topic, but I just called in with the Ron Insana show and learned that Joe Piscipo is seriously considering running for governer of NJ on the libertarian ticket.

[Gary Gunnels]

a,

So, you are saying targetting civilians is fair game, if need be?

Until quite recently in the history of warfare the targetting of civilians in warfare wasn't a major issue. Anyway, we didn't in the main target civilians in WWII. We lacked the technology to destroy the enemy's industrial capacity with pinpoint accuracy (note that there were some guided bombs in WWII, but the technology was rather rudimentary and not as effective as firebombing 35 sq. miles of Japan as we did in March of 1945).

___________________________________________

Remember the author of the Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum? This is what he had to say about the "Redskin":

The nobility of the Redskin is extinguished, and what few are ledt are a pack of whining curs who like the hand that smites them... The Whites, by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, are masters of the American continent and the best safety of the frontier settlements will be secured by the total annihilation of the few remaining Indians. Why not annihilation? Their glory has fled, their spirit broken, their manhood effaced; better that they should die than live like the miserable wretches that they are." - Koonz, The Nazi Conscience, pg. 7

These days we would call such an attitude genocidal.

If you were to watch the original Disney version of "Peter Pan" you would see portrayals of women, "Nativer Americans," etc. that likely offend most audiences today.

[Gary Gunnels]

...who lick the hand that smites them...

[Douglas Fletcher]

I love being better than my ancestors. What a bunch of morons they were.

[Sean Sirrine]

Hello, I am looking for future, present or past law school students to help create a blog to provide resources for law students. If anyone out there that would like to help, send me some mail or check out the beta: objectivejustice.blogspot.com