Oh boy, rules!

Talking about elitism, here is a monstrous little editorial from some CBC jerk.

Basically, the author is expressing giddy glee that the new edition of House of Commons Procedure and Practice has been released. A book like this is very very exciting to the sort of elitist, educated-types I described in the previous post, because it gives them all sorts of new obscure rules to memorize and evoke as symbols of their authority and superiority over the rest of us.

The sentiment expressed in this piece also deftly summarizes why we will never have meaningful parliamentary reform in Canada. The media and political elites of this country are too hopelessly in love with the very sort of arcane, irrational protocols and procedures that are doing the legislature so much harm in the first place.

Obama’s bow and liberal elitism

People miss the point about Obama’s bow to the Japanese emperor. The story, as far as I see it, has nothing to do with Obama “genuflecting” or “showing subservience” before foreign leaders or whatever form of treason the right-wing punditocracy is characterizing it as. It’s not about foreign policy at all. It’s simply another manifestation of the liberal v. conservative “culture wars.” Or perhaps more specifically, class wars.

According to Japanese protocol, the sort of bow that Obama did, the so-called 90-degree bow, is the most reverential style of bow, reserved almost exclusively for members of the royal family. Obama knew this, because he, and his handlers, are members of an upper-crust, very educated class of people who have spent a lot of free time boning up on foreign cultures and political protocol. Being able to use such knowledge in real-world situations thus becomes the highest flaunting of one’s education and worldliness. Which are now liberal values.

There was a time when obsessive protocol-following was a domain of the right, specifically the old-timey, upper-class aristocratic right, who put great emphasis on upper-class manners and ceremony. But we don’t have much aristocracy today, or even a vibrant “old money” establishment. New money millionaires tend to be pretty liberal, and anyway, a great deal of the elitism that used to be associated solely with wealth has long since been transferred to anyone with sufficient education and political status — which again, tend to be liberal communities.

As educated, upper-class liberals continue to become — and see themselves — as society’s elite establishment, they are much more likely to embrace the pomp and ritual of the old elite. And as conservatism becomes a domain of the lower-classes and uneducated, hostility and resentment towards elite ceremony and protocol grows, as such things are increasingly seen as a symbols of the left.

I’ve seen lots of manifestations of this in my own life. The sorts of people that feel inclined to lecture me on how to properly stand or speak or smile when meeting someone important are usually liberals, as are the people who display the greatest enthusiasm towards dramatically addressing important bigwigs by their correct titles or honorifics. It’s deference, but it’s more about deference to a liberal-dominated establishment than deference to power per se. Calling the Premier “the honorable,” or whatever, is much more a way of saying “look at me, I obey the rules of the game, I am educated enough to follow your protocol, I belong here” than it is any sort of statement about how honorable or dishonorable you actually think the Premier is as a human being.

So, in short, when Obama bows before a king, he’s not really bowing to any monarch or state. He’s bowing to himself, and his own sense of superiority.

Look at me, I’m blogging

When my pal John re-designed Filibuster for me in late 2008, he was big on the idea that I should make the site more blog-like. I like writing, and in the past I had published a bunch of online articles in a bunch of different places, including two short-lived idiosyncratic blogs. John said that I should consolidate all of this stuff into a single network, and now it more-or-less is, on the revamped Filibuster “articles” page. He also gave me the ability to blog proper through Filibuster itself, though I never really made much use of that feature.

But I am hoping that will change now. I still like writing, and still have lots to say on a lot of different topics. And I’m vain enough to believe I need a forum. Filibuster cartoons may be dormant, but this site doesn’t have to be.

So henceforth I’ll post junk here. It might be slow and it might be random, but hopefully it can evolve into something of use.

And you can comment now, too!

Interview about the Supreme Court of Canada

I finally got around to doing a project I’ve always wanted to do— an interview with a smart person about the Supreme Court of Canada.

Check out my interview with noted Canadian lawyer and pundit Bob Tarantino, about the Supreme Court of Canada and why Canadians don’t know much about it. It’s everything you wanted to know but were afraid to ask. We talk about politics, the appointment process, the media, and how our court compares and contrasts with the better-known Supreme Court of the United States.

Just something quick

When I get back to Canada I have decided I will make some sort of book.

If you’d like to help me raise some money in the meantime, maybe you’d be interested in buying this poster I recently drew, of all the Mega Man bosses. Check it out here: All Mega Man bosses poster, by J.J., care of Shark Robot

The end, for now

It’s with a heavy heart that I have decided to put Filibuster on an indefinite hiatus.

My reasons are multiple, but the simplest explanation may also be the most blunt — the site is simply not popular enough.

I have been doing Filibuster for nearly eight years now, which is not an insignificant period of time by webcomic standards. I’ve produced almost 1,000 toons, and while my update schedule has obviously become far more loose over the course of the last year or so, overall, I’ve still held pretty firm to my self-imposed mandate of at least one toon a week, every week, since 2001.

Yet I don’t feel I have very much to show for it all. If Google Analytics is to be believed, I average an extraordinarily pathetic 2,000 visitors a day, a rate that has remained depressingly constant over the last few years, in spite of producing a number of very popular comics that have been cross-linked from some big-name blogs. In such situations I may get an enormous deluge of new visitors for a day or two, but it always trickles back into a wimpy stream soon enough. I likewise get very few emails from readers, and this site’s forum, though home to much intelligent and engaging dialogue, remains sparsely inhabited. It’s all very unsatisfying.

I don’t know exactly why Filibuster never “caught on.” Usually sheer longevity (coupled with a vaguely consistent standard of quality) is enough to drive up some sort of stable support base with just about any webcomic, but not so with mine.

I have my theories, of course. A leading one is that most people simply don’t like editorial cartoons, so I always faced an uphill battle. Editorial cartooning is a somewhat anachronistic art form with a subtlety that many people either don’t get, or actively dislike. Political cartoons, with their stock symbols and labels and visual metaphors and all the rest are formulaic, yes, but so is Manga and so are superhereo comics and so are online strips about video games and all the rest. But I’ve never quite understood why some folks get such a thrill out of eagerly denouncing and mocking the traditions (admittedly unimpressive and boring as they sometimes are) of political cartoons with a snobbish venom few other forms of cartooning ever have to face.

But editorial cartooning may be on the way out, anyway. According to Daryl Cagle, the prolific commentator on all things relating to editorial cartoons, as newspapers become less profitable in the internet age, editorial cartoons are often one of the first costs to cut. As a result, claims Cagle, there are now “only a few dozen editorial cartoonists left” in the United States “and they seem to be losing their jobs at a pace of about one per week.” So maybe I bet on the wrong horse.

Of course, this theory does not explain the tremendous success enjoyed by Cox and Forkum, another solely online editorial cartoon (now in hiatus too) whose popularity was enough to inspire tens of thousands of visitors, two books, reprints in newspapers across the United States and Canada, and all the accompanying rewards. Granted, Cox and Forkum was always an explicitly right-wing comic, which gave them a strong support base during the fanatic polarization of the Bush years. I’m not going to self-righteously suggest that I was somehow above crass partisanship myself when my pet issues were at play, but I was certainly less interested than most in making my comic openly pro or anti left or right. And that probably hurt me. Content wise, I was probably also too Canadian for my majority-American readership, and not Canadian (or perhaps not pro-Canadian) enough to get a strong Canadian base. But who knows, maybe I just should have updated more.

A webcomic can only be a labour of love for so long. In recent months Filibuster has become a bit of a chore, and its obligatory nature has often drawn my creative / artistic energy away from other projects that I am more interested in perusing. Living in Japan has likewise proven to be a much more difficult and unhappy experience than I anticipated, and the last thing I need when I’m in such a state is one more unpleasant chore to further lower my mood.

Lastly, I’m simply just not as into politics as I used to be, at least for now. I think President Obama deserves the benefit of the doubt for the time being, and I don’t wish him any particular ill in pursuing whatever agenda it is he’s pursuing. America voted for change, and he has a right to implement it. Politics in Canada, by contrast, has become so profoundly anti-change that I really have a hard time getting passionate about it anymore. Harper and Ignatieff are both decent men, I guess, but it’s going to be a long time before any effort is made to address Canada’s fundamental problems, which as a wise man once said, are never openly acknowledged, let alone solved.

Anyway, while one never wants to say never, especially when one is as fickle as I, I think this is going to be the end of Filibuster for a while. I’ve had a good run. Enjoy the archives, and if you are still interested in following my art, be sure to check out my Deviant Art page, which I will hopefully be updating more regularly in lieu of this site. When I do more writings or charts, I’ll also stick them on here, so updates will occur. I’m also planning on revamping my Canada Guide sometime in the future, so… don’t abandon Filibuster completely.

Thanks to everyone who has stuck with me this long. Though I may sound down, it has been a great experience for me overall, and I’ve learned a ton. Hopefully you’ve gained something, too.

Let’s stay in touch.

J.J. McCullough
April 2009, Saitama, Japan
jjmccullough@gmail.com

Comment in the forum

More Japan writings

I’ve added two new articles to my Writings From Japan page, from the month of February.

Writings from Japan

Howdy.

As my previous post confirms, I moved to Japan some time ago. Being the prolific little writer I am, I have so far composed a handful of Facebook notes on the matter, which I have now compiled into a section of this site so that more than just my intimate circle of 400 closest friends may read ‘em.

Please visit my brand new Things I Wrote in Japan page.

Movin’ time

Dear friends,

Tomorrow I am moving to Japan, and plan to stay there for at least a year. Like many young college grads, I got a job in that country teaching English to wealthy orphan-children. Or maybe just ordinary children, I am not sure yet.

I fully intend to continue Filibuster despite my change of scenery, though I hope you’ll understand if in the next few weeks the site falls into something of disarray as a result of my move.

I am planning to get a subscription to one of the Japanese English-language dailies once I get settled, which will will hopefully allow me to start cartooning on Japanese issues in substitution of my present Canada-focus (though homesickness will likely force me to keep up with Canadian affairs as well, especially in the wake of this particularly ill-timed political crisis).

If you have ever thought about donating to Filibuster, now is a time when I would really appreciate your generosity. Moving to Tokyo is not exactly the low-cost endeavor I had originally anticipated.

See you in the funny pages,

— J.J.
jjmccullough@gmail.com

2008 predictors

I’ve updated my presidential election predictors page, your one-stop-shop for all the superstitious nonsense that has nevertheless proven itself highly reliable in predicting who is going to win American presidential elections.