mostly to Ten Bears;
Not taking this personally, but: I do not read every link in every post every time. I do read at least one link from each post with a link, as soon as I get there. I admire that you can do that! And if you’re ready to quit, I don’t blame you. Do as you will, but you are not unappreciated, FWIW. 🖖 ☮ 🌞 I hope we still get to see ya around!
For me, baseball takes too long and also I’m a lifer Cubbies fan, but I remember really enjoying listening to my Opa’s Cardinals on the radio in the backyard when visiting in St. Louis, and I enjoyed getting an afternoon in the all-purpose room watching TV as the Mets won the World Series in 1969. Just now, I enjoyed this poem, and I hope everyone else does; it’s about baseball, yet more. Click through, and read a bit about this poem from the author.
==========================
my ancestors rose and cheered.
From their ancient graves,
pairs of arms rose to make the wave.
Every burial site, a stadium and,
for every one of his at-bats
Mayon Volcano spat a puff of smoke
visible for miles. Children in T-shirts
with the number 50, hand-scrawled by Sharpies
would run into the streets and clang
on metal pans calling all to feast
and when Benny’s cleats dug into the box,
the little cloud of dust rising from his spikes
would drift across continents, into the living room
of every Filipino, issuing a sneeze
which would be followed by a blessing.
The diaspora, a flood of blessings,
watching the orange, blue, and white uniforms
pixelated into millions of screens.
Tens of thousands of nurses held their breaths
when they looked up between shifts
and saw him rest the bat on his shoulder
staring down the pitcher. When Benny Agbayani
was a Met, whole families, once torn apart
by distance held each other close, wrapped
together tightly in the embrace of phone cords,
the web of telephone lines crisscrossing the nation.
Each long distance call the shimmering pulse of a wrist
bracing for the recoil of the bat making contact.
When Benny fielded fly balls we’d all look
into the sun for the speck of something—
something to ease us into the heartbeat
of Americana where it was always
summer and the lawn markings
formed grids visible from space.
When Benny Agbayani was a Met we thought
the organ’s roar was for us and the syncopated applause
put us into a rhythm in tune to our hearts.
When Benny Agbayani put his mitt to the ground
to stop a daisy cutter, millions of us put our ears
to the earth to hear the rumblings
of what we hoped would be thousands of footsteps,
following his path. But instead they were galloping
towards home. We’d raise the brim of our caps
and nod our chins at a cool breeze
or the smell of fryer oil. And when Shea
sang in one voice “B-B-B-Benny and the Mets”
we stood and put are hands to our hearts.
We rocked back and forth on our heels
watching the strike zone get smaller
and smaller. Watched as the sun made
our shadows grow and we waited until the roster
made room for us in the show, now and in the ever after.
Copyright © 2024 by Oliver de la Paz. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on October 29, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.
Decency Is On The Ballot Read on Substack
(Plus Kal El bonus at the bottom.-A)
In the last few decades, we have been witness to systematic failures in American life. Time and time again the guardrails we believed existed turned out to be illusions, or at best, guardrails without any teeth. The courts, the financial institutions, the legislators, and especially the media – entrusted as the watchdogs of democracy – have absolutely failed.
There is only one group that, more often than not, has been up to the task: The people. The people keep showing up and at the very least, voting to put people in charge to clean up the messes. Of course, once those people are in office they too often respond with timidity and reluctance and don’t go as far as necessary to exercise the mandate they have been given, but the people did their jobs.
In every presidential election since 1988, with the exception of 2004, a plurality or majority of the public voted for the Democratic candidate. That is a data point you rarely see repeated and I am quite certain that if it was Republicans with such a popular vote winning streak both the party and the media would never shut up about it. That is a triumph of decency. It would be easy for voters to be snowed under by the right’s avalanche of lies and hate, ably amplified by their buck-chasing friends in the press, but the voters keep seeing through it.
To be certain, there are structural barriers. Neither Al Gore nor Hillary Clinton became president even though the will of the American people said they should have been. And the presidencies of Bill Clinton, Obama, and Biden have had too many missed opportunities to push the ball forward, even though all three of these men had mandates to go quite far.
But what matters is that enough voters saw through the haze of absolute bullshit to send a message to do the right thing.
Here we are again. The Republican Party has always glowed bright with a hateful intensity, but Trump has allowed them to move that hate from Mitt Romney’s “quiet rooms” to spotlights like Madison Square Garden. The press and the oligarchs that own it at institutions like The New York Times, the Washington Post, the L.A. Times, CNN and others, are quite happy to make billions of dollars from GOP fueled hate, as long as they can make a buck. They just don’t care about the consequences.
Voters still care. It may be naïve or cringe, or corny, but they believe. Voters have shown us that a majority of them are opposed to hate, opposed to racism, opposed to misogyny, opposed to treating people as second class based on their orientation. And a majority of them are pro-decency.
Yes, most of the pro-decency vote has a liberal ideology but it is more than that. There are people who just don’t like being crude bigots that spend all of their time shoving the faces of the vulnerable into the dirt. There are more of us than there are of them, and they have to effectively cheat or rig the rules to overcome our numbers.
Decency is on the march, but we are at a breaking point, again. Election day or week is not a “fever break” moment. No matter the outcome, but especially if decency is victorious again, we cannot go to sleep. The bad boss at the end of the game has not been defeated. 2004 showed us that. 2008 showed us that. 2012. 2016. 2020. The forces of darkness and depravity do not respect the will of the people and if you retreat, expecting that everyone will finally accept the supremacy of decency – the other side will see that as an opening.
The decent people need to stand up for what they believe in and then keep standing, keep pushing back, until the other people are broken – and then decency most continue to advance and remain forever vigilant.
I voted for decency, and I always will. I know I’m not alone.
If you like this newsletter, please consider becoming a paying subscriber by clicking here to join. I won’t be putting any of my regular columns behind a paywall and they will always be free. Thanks to everyone who has subscribed so far!
— Oliver
Follow me, Oliver Willis, on Threads @owillis1977
Kal once again shows how excited he is to work by my side.
In the spirit of laughter being the very best medicine!
https://www.gocomics.com/arloandjanis/2024/10/29
https://www.gocomics.com/closetohome/2024/10/29
I hope to grow up to be this woman:
https://www.gocomics.com/freerange/2024/10/29
Not as funny, but …
https://www.gocomics.com/brian-mcfadden/2024/10/28
https://www.gocomics.com/wumo/2024/10/29
I’ll just wind it up with today’s Calvin fix:
“The Nib” still comes in email sometimes. This is an item that could be of interest, also not about very current US election news (though there could be a tad here and there. I mean this item; “The Nib” still has plenty political for right now.) Anyway, back to this; I keep thinking there are people reading here who don’t comment, and that maybe any of us is an artist interested in moving forward with their art, and this can help. -A
🤷
So, I can’t tell what’s showing and what isn’t. On the posting page, I can see the little block with the title, the hyperlink, and the tiny blurb. When I look at the preview, though, all I can see is “Home” as a hyperlink; it goes to Crucial Comix. So, below, is a snip from Crucial Comix’s “About” page. Check it out!
==========
Founded in 2024, we are a cartoonist-run small press that publishes narrative nonfiction comics and offers compelling classes on comics-making and practice.
We believe that comics are a powerful way to shape how we perceive ourselves and the world. Comics can capture emotional realities, offering a profound way express feelings and experiences that are impossible to depict in words alone. Comics connect with readers, drawing new eyes to stories about politics, history, and identity. Comics are made around the world by people who want to share their ideas and dreams. In short, comics are crucial.
As cartoonists face down book bans, political censorship, and financial difficulty in publishing boundary-pushing work, it’s more important than ever to build a community of artists that is rooted in mutual support and enthusiasm.
Crucial Comix is all about skill-sharing, accessibility, flexibility, and experimentation. We are a small press that aims to be always evolving so we can be a relevant and reliable resource for artists. Our pitches are always open. Our classes are all offered sliding-scale. Our comics are all free to read. Each season, we welcome a cohort of volunteer editors to guide up-and-coming artists through the process of making a nonfiction comic.
Are you looking to make comics based on real life? You take a class, submit or pitch a comic, or hire Crucial artists and writers to work on your project. You can also hire us to come teach classes or workshops at your school, library, or workplace.
Are you an artist or writer who wants to get involved in our community? You’re welcome to join our mailing list to find out about upcoming events and fun stuff. Everyone who completes a workshop or class with Crucial is invited to join our private Discord. If you’re interested in becoming an editor for Crucial someday, consider taking our editing class.
Want to ask us a question about your particular situation? Feel free to email us at editors@crucialcomix.com. If you’re looking to submit a comic, check out our submission guidelines.
Want to send us a copy of your zines? You can upload a zine to our submissions form or drop them in the snail mail: Crucial Comix, PO Box 17253, Portland, OR 97217
| October 29, 1940 The first national lottery for drafting young men (21-35) was held after passage of the first compulsory peacetime draft in United States. At the time the U.S. Army was smaller than that of Poland. What it was like Recommended: Washington Goes to War by David Brinkley |
| October 29, 1966 National Organization for Women (NOW) was founded in Washington, D.C. The 30 attendees at that first meeting elected Betty Friedan, author of The Feminine Mystique, as NOW’s first president. Read about NOW |
October 29, 1969 anti ROTC demoOne hundred demonstrators disrupted the University of Buffalo’s ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corps) with “nonviolent ridicule.” The urgency of opposition to the Vietnam War made many military-related activities targets of anti-war activity that had previously seemed otherwise legitimate. |
| October 29, 1969 U.S. Federal Judge Julius Hoffman ordered a defendant in the courtroom gagged and chained to a chair during his trial after he repeatedly asserted his right to an attorney of his own choosing or to defend himself. The defendant, Black Panther Party leader Bobby Seale, and seven others had been charged with conspiring to cross state lines  Bobby Seale“with the intent to incite, organize, promote, encourage, participate in, and carry out a riot” by organizing the anti-war demonstrations in Chicago during the 1968 Democratic National Convention.  Chicago 10 by Brett Morgen, an animated film about the trialwatch trailer The Chicago Eight included Seale, David Dellinger, Rennie Davis, Thomas Hayden, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Lee Weiner, and John Froines. |
| October 29, 1975 In “Alice Doesn’t Day,” tens of thousands of women in cities across the US took to the streets to demand equality. Defying mounted police, 50,000 marched down New York City’s 5th Avenue. Dutch women marched on the U.S. embassy in Amsterdam to show their support, while French feminists demonstrated at the Arc de Triomphe, carrying a banner that read: “More Unknown Than the Unknown Soldier: His Wife.”  More about Alice Doesn’t Day |
| October 29, 1983 Because the U.S. planned to site 48 nuclear-tipped cruise missiles in their country, over 500,000 Dutch took part in a rally in the Netherlands’ capital city, The Hague. The numbers at the protest were swelled by anger over the U.S. invasion of Grenada, a small Caribbean island, earlier in the week. |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryoctober.htm#october29
It’s kinda been a day so I’m just finishing off comics at 9:30 PM Sunday; I found this on the GoComics Non Sequitur page! So cool!
It’s fun to window shop-enjoy!
The same thing goes with humans really. by Jenny Lawson (thebloggess)
To be flawed is to be real. Read on Substack
Someone asked me why I draw flowers so often when I don’t really seem like a “pretty, floral kind of girl” and that’s a very fair question (and possibly a hidden insult?) so I made this in response:
The same thing goes for people, really. Our strangeness and flaws make us real.
Don’t be afraid to embrace yours, sweet friend.
Love,
Jenny
Scottie's Playtime 