Brain Rot: Up The River...

• [brian12]

  Why are the comics stealing the plots of my nightmares?

• [Brian Cain]

  Whenever I read these I always think that it’s the liberal version of “Fred Basset.”

  • [Quiche de Resistance]

    !!

  • [rrh]

    Fred Basset!? I would have thought Mallard Fillmore.

    • [C W]

      http://rubbercat.net/artduck/

• [Stonewalker]

  These comics make me sad.  Sad because I can’t disagree with most of the gritty content.

  It’s sort of like a less hopeful analogue to the Cuban Missile Crisis and The Watchmen, only without superheroes.

• [Mordicai]

  I don’t get it; wouldn’t it make more sense if it was the plain old regular police?  I mean, it seems like satire misses the mark when it goes after the underdog.

• [Stonewalker]

  We need another Bob Dylan.

  • [Charlie B]

    We need another Phil Ochs.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N93OCCBXGXc

    • [artaxerxes]

      Here’s to the State of Richard Nixon
      For underneath his borders the devil draws no line
      If you drag his muddy rivers nameless bodies you will find
      And the fat trees of the forest have hid a thousand crimes
      And the calender is lyin’ when it reads the present time

      Oh, here’s to the land you’ve torn out the heart of
      Richard Nixon find yourself another country to be part of

      And here’s to the schools Richard Nixon
      Where they’re teaching all the children they don’t have to care
      All the rudiments of hatred are present everywhere
      And every single classroom is a factory of despair
      Oh, there’s nobody learnin’ such as foreign word as fair

      Oh, here’s to the land you’ve torn out the heart of
      Richard Nixon find yourself another country to be part of

      And here’s to the laws Richard Nixon
      Where the wars are fought in secret, Pearl Harbor every day
      He punishes with income tax that he don’t have to pay
      And he’s tapping his own brother just to here what he would say
      But corruption can be classic in the Richard Nixon way

      Oh, here’s to the land you’ve torn out the heart of
      Richard Nixon find yourself another country to be part of

      And here’s to the churches Richard Nixon… and Billy Graham
      Where the cross, once made of silver, now is caked with rust
      And the Sunday mornin sermons pander to their lust
      All the fallen face of Jesus is chokin’ in the dust
      And Heaven only knows in which God they can trust

      Oh, here’s to the land you’ve torn out the heart of
      Richard Nixon find yourself another country to be part of

      And here’s to the government Richard Nixon
      In the swamp of their bureaucracy their always boggin’ down
      And criminals are posing as advisors to the crown
      And they hope that no one sees the sights and no one hears the sound
      And the speeches of the President are the ravings of a clown

      Oh, here’s to the land you’ve torn out the heart of
      Richard Nixon find yourself another country to be part of

      - Phil Ochs

• [miasm]

  It’s almost as if it’s being suggested that the police are no better at perceiving the subtleties of situations arising out of inflamed public opinion; than naive, be-suited vigilantes.

  • [VerySincerely]

    semicolons: that’s not how they work.

• [joeposts]

  heh, I figured we hadn’t seen the last of Phoenix Jones… but I didn’t expect him to come back in comic form. 

• [Charlie McHenry]

  About damn time. 

• [nehpetsE]

  OH NOS!!!! ITS CHILD PORN!!!  Time for a warrant-less raid on Boinboing.

• [Anna Beatty]

  I understand that this is supposed to be humorous, but it’s seriously minimizing the reality of sexual assault. Undoubtedly, there are some cases where police have overreacted to unfounded accusations; however, the majority of assault and rape cases are never reported. Maybe legitimate victims would be more willing to report sexual crimes if they weren’t so incessantly mocked in popular culture for overreacting or for inventing false accusations. BoingBoing, you’ve disappointed me. Citation: http://www.rainn.org/get-information/statistics/reporting-rates

  • [Mister44]

    I don’t think two kids playing doctor is anything near the realm of “sexual assault”, and thus I don’t see how it minimizes it or other sex crimes.

    Spejic shows a link to the story that inspired the cartoon. I believe it is more about society’s tendencies to over react and forgo any semblance of common sense than it is about marginalizing sex crimes.

  • [regeya]

    If anything, prosecuting “playing doctor”, or prosecuting the older of two consensual minors, and treating the incident as if it’s a sex crime minimizes the reality of sexual assault.

  • [artaxerxes]

    Currently, there’s a great debate raging over the inclusion on the sex registry of children playing doctor, 16 yr old. boys arrested at the behest of the vindictive parents of their 15 yr. old. girlfriends, and people who’ve no previous arrests who were caught urinating in public.

    Concern about the corruption of a system that treats “8 yr. old doctors” with 48 yr. old serial child molesters is shared by activists, including myself, working to change the worst aspects of rape culture: victim blaming and slut shaming (which both contribute to the dreadfully low number of reported sex crimes), the historic tendency of police to treat sex crimes victims callously or inadequately, the low number of sexual assaults that lead to conviction and appropriately stringent sentences, and the tendency of rapists/molesters to evade punishment through power, influence and money.

    I believe we agree that rape culture and societal response to sex crimes desperately needs to be challenged and made more effective. I feel a searing hatred for rapists, child molesters and those who commit sexual assault. But, as frequently occurs in democratic consensus society, what was intended to be an effective system to reduce sex crimes and better protect community members has evolved into an ineffective system too often meting out unfair convictions on those who are not sex offenders at all. Current legislation like Megan’s Law has done little to reduce the number of sexual crimes in this country.

    There’s a great deal of work to do to further improve society’s and police response to victims of sexual assault. You’re absolutely spot-on when you condemn the mockery, doubt and shaming faced by victims of sexual assault. We must raise awareness of the reality of sex offenses, ie. those who rape and assault or usually family members or friends in 90% of cases. We must reduce the sickening number of assaults that occur in this country with better studies, education and prevention programs. We must provide victims with far better support systems and treatment. Our country needs to fund these efforts in order to create the change we demand.

    We must educate parents to react with compassion and support if their child is assaulted instead of shaming them into silence. I was repeatedly assaulted at ages 15-16 by a man I had known and trusted, a teacher. However, my parents, abusive and alcoholic adherents of old-fashioned silence whose primary goal in life was to appear “normal”, were not a plausible source of support and protection. My case is far from unique.

    But punishing those who are not violent sex criminals makes a mockery of the system. It also makes it more difficult for the law and the community to protect against violent and repeat offenders by swamping the registry with teenagers engaging in consensual sex and kids playing doctor. California has 90,00 Sex Offenders including many kids, adolescents and public urinators. Police are so overwhelmed with the number of offenders they must monitor that they miss egregious, violent sex criminals like Phillip Garrido. Finally, creating a new group of victims further perpetrates injustice against the powerless.

    Our current laws and system is not preventing sexual violence and is not protecting our kids, our friends, our neighbors or ourselves. We have a long way to go and distracting ourselves with the punishment of the powerless is hardly contributing to a safer society, especially when the rich, powerful and connected can win their innocence through influence and money.

    Victims Must Have Pristine Records, Rapists Not So Much   http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/joan-smith/joan-smith-why-rape-victims-must-have-flawless-pasts-to-get-justice-2342566.html

    Thirteen Year Old Sex Offender for Life
    http://cfcamerica.org/news/teens/22-13-year-olds-marked-as-sex-offender-for-life

    Problems in Current Sex Offenders Laws
    http://cfcamerica.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2490:patty-wetterling-the-harm-in-sex-offender-laws-by-patty-wetterling&catid=3:news&Itemid=327

    Kids On Sex Offender Registry
    http://boingboing.net/2011/07/23/kids-on-the-sex-offe.html

    Effect on Teenager Wrongfully Accused
    http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/2011/09/30/the-sex-offender-down-the-street-is-my-son/

    Teenagers Engaging in Consensual Sex Convicted as Sex Offenders
    http://womensissues.about.com/od/datingandsex/a/Romeo_and_Julie.htm

    Too Many Offenders, Not Enough Cops
    http://www.huliq.com/6168/85863/californias-sex-offender-registry-has-major-problems

    Criminalization of Teen Sex
    http://oncefallen.com/CriminalizingTeenSex.html

    There is a great deal of literature available on line discussing the flaws in Megan’s Law which contribute to the corruption of a system designed to protect kids.

    BoingBoing has posted articles on this very topic. I am surprised that they did not provide links below the comic.

• [spejic]

  This comic is a reference to a real news story of a 6-year old playing doctor who was charged with sexual assault by the Madison, Wisconsin District Attorney.

  http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2011/11/18/Boy-6-accused-of-sexual-assault/UPI-44451321665489/

  So in reply to Mordicai, if it was real cops it wouldn’t be satire, it would accurately reporting actual events.

  • [IrishConfetti]

    Grant County – Not Madison. Read the article. Dateline Madison and counter suit filed in Madison, but the crazy assistant DA is in Grant County (Madison is in Dane County.)
    Also – The Moonies own UPI, pretty much removing them from the list of unbiased news sources (unless you’re a right-wing nut.)

  • [Sebastian Spinczyk]

    Sorry, but I cannot help but to go all Anti-American again:
    The fact alone that it’s possible to charge six-year olds with anything is fucking  disgusting. Seriously, putting children through the criminal justice system? What the fuck is wrong with you, America?

• [Spyro_Conspirator]

  This surely is missing another layer of satire.  As it looks to me currently, its satire is more a front for making a very blunt message.  If I’m misinterpreting it, and it’s actually a satire of blunt overtly-liberal comics, then I can see the humor in it.  But otherwise it’s just a blunt message, using “humor” and a comic format to excuse itself for not adding any real argumentative grounding to its viewpoint.  >= The obnoxiously “haha, it’s retro and bad, so it’s funny and satirical” artstyle adds another layer of poor attempts at satire (and it is genuinely bad; I’m a fan of that 50s comic style, and this really is just bad).  …I think that I could stomach it more easily, since I DO agree with the message, if it were actually making a joke beyond its message…  I actually really like boingboing, I’m not just a hatin’, and I do like some of the other ones–where there’s humor beyond the heavy message–but this one is a bad seed…

• [nox]

  So children playing doctor is sexual assault, but football hazing rituals involving UFIA (unsolicited finger in anus) are not.

  Got it.

  http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ufia

• [SomeGuyNamedMark]

  But what about the children!?  Wait a minute…

• [Melanie Cababat]

  what kind of a comic is this?
  this is not worth to read for those who are dirty minded., of course excluding me…
  hehehee

• [freshacconci]

  The air is thick with Concerners and Pedants today.