Ted Rall for March 01, 2010

This one should have a certain troll riled up!

when you die, your’e dead…read ECCLEASTIES

I do not need to read Ecclesiastes to know that once one dies, he is dead.

I dunno, is this one supposed to be funny? Are we laughing yet?

Is Ted a wee bit misogynistic? A vapid dish, served with a drizzle of homogenized goo for thought.

I’m not with religious zealots of any kind, but I do believe in something aftr death; reincarnation.

It restarts over and over and over again, it’s called samsara.

So be nice, or you existece (eternity, that’s longer than life!) may sound like a broken record.

Killing someone is supposed to be funny?

Could Ted be saying something about the Second Amendment?

Or is he saying something about his own attitude to the world?

I’m not religious either, but I do believe in some kind of afterlife, because otherwise, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al have gotten away with murder and other crimes against humanity. (But I believed that even before Bush came into office.)

Reincarnation works for me.

Yes, anna, you believe in an afterlife because the worst offenders in the history of humanity deserve to be punished. Those worst offenders in the history of humanity being Yang Xinhai, Pope Alexander VI, and oh, that Bush Administration!

Now you know , and knowing’s half the battle .

I’d say true faith expects nothing but it is content to hope that that great mystery simplistically called G-d, after all, truly “is”, asking no other thing in return. Otherwise the magnificence of existence would be tragically devoid of all that we find good and meaningful and which we all seek after: beauty, love and truth. A tragedy made bearable, ironically, only by that eternal and dark silence called death.

Erm, guys, why do you type “God” with a hyphen?

Some faiths, do not allow the name God to be spelled out. They believe the name is special and not to be used in print.

I’m not too sure what Ted Rall was trying to say in this strip.

You that look pale and tremble at this chance, That are but mutes or audience to this act, Had I but time–as this fell sergeant, death, Is strict in his arrest–O, I could tell you– But let it be. Horatio, I am dead. … The rest is silence.

It has long been my opinion that Hamlet, particularly with his repeated earlier use of the phrase “I am dead”, is somehow speaking ex cathedra in his final utterance; not as a traveller returned from the Undiscovered Country, but as one who’s close enough to its bourne to give accurate reportage.

Either that, or he’s defining a musical term…

I’m not sure what Ted’s trying to say, but what I do know is that his subconscious mind is telling us that the blond lady surely is a Tea Party member.

Reincarnation works for me- if you think about it- every little bit of DNA you pass on is also a bit of “immortality”-

Past life regression has been declared by many as fraud, but there are instances where you have to ask yourself. ESP is real, and spooky.

The thought of transferring to some cloud in the sky? nope.

I don’t know if anyone else would agree, but I find this cartoon somewhat disturbing. I don’t like the casual violence that seems to be acceptable in popular art forms – movies, computer games, and now comic strips. I am not calling for censorship, but I do think it’s worth a critique.

I do agree, and I think that’s what Ted is driving at – the cavalier, nonchalant attitude of many in this country that the gun is a simple, quick-fix solution to any and all problems, even the most internal and spiritual ones. It’s the modern equivalent of Alexander slicing through the Gordian Knot with his sword because he couldn’t take the trouble to untie it, i.e., to understand the ancient wisdom that had been painstakingly inscribed in the runes woven into its strands.

Ted’s never been squeamish about showing anybody take a bullet to the brain (or the chest, or the gut, or…), so I didn’t really imagine that there was anything significant about one woman shooting another in this strip. Still don’t.

I don’t think the strip is about guns at all, but I could be mistaken. I think it’s just a comment on how “spiritual malaise” is an insufficient excuse for not getting off your butt and fixing your life. (Or your economy, or whatever.) I think the meaning which lies closest to the surface is exactly the meaning we’re intended to take from the cartoon.

It bugs you that you don’t know what happens after you die? Neither does anybody else. Deal with it. The only way to find out what happens when you die is to die. “If you really want to KNOW so badly, I’ll give you the only help that anybody can.” BANG! Problem solved.

If there’s any parallel to the Gordian Knot here, Rall is on the side of Alexander. It IS time to cut, rather than make another painstaking (and futile) attempt to “understand and unravel the problem.” It wasn’t only Alexander that couldn’t untie the Knot, NOBODY could. When have you EVER known Rall to take a stand AGAINST decisive action?

As a commentary on America’s loss of direction, it’s too oblique. As commentary on desensitization to violence, or the dangers of impatience, it’s out of character for Rall. As a call to stop whining for things you’re never going have, it is as blunt as only a Rall cartoon can be.

Quest for meaning: Finito!

The Knot wasn’t meant to be untied. Ever. It was a sort of holy of holies. Alexander represented modern (for the time), secular thought, as in “The Knot is dead, history is bunk,” and so on.

Whoa! This one’s pretty rough.

Did Jehovahs come round again and piss you off?

Funny.

If the Knot was never meant to be untied, then of course it helps the “mystery” by saying that it was impossible to untie. If it was indeed impossible to untie, then of course it would be futile to even attempt it.

If there is a problem that needs to be resolved, there comes a point where “further study” is counterproductive.

Hamlet, again:

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all, And thus the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought, And enterprises of great pitch and moment With this regard their currents turn awry And lose the name of action.

There is a time for careful deliberation, and there is a time for forthright action. Again, if you believe that Rall is now or has ever been opposed to strenuous, vigorous, and immediate ACTION towards a purpose, you can’t have read many of his cartoons. This is a guy who has basically called for summary execution of Bush and Cheney, and has hardly been more charitable towards Obama for his perceived lack of initiative.

To be precise, the Gordian Knot was “solved” by Alexander’s cutting it, which meant he ruled the world, but died young.

I don’t like this toon very much. It shows that liberal minds can be as narrow as the minds of the “be christian (our kind of christians) or go to Hell” righties.

Ye, not all people with a spiritual life are right-wing, not all people with a spiritual live want to impose it on others, not all people with a spiritual life are christian.

That’s one of the many objections I have against the Richard Dawkins of this world who say all spirituality is crap. Religion is the source of a lot of evil in the world, sure, but not all of it. Is there a regime more hostile to religion than Communist China? That didn’t stop Pol Pot, the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution and the Occupation of Tibet. They even kidnapped the reincarnation of the Panchen Lama (check that out on Wiki) and replaced it with their own dummy.

Whoa, Ted, having a bad day? Shouldn’t act like a conservative just because you’re angry about something, ya know.

^^ How come his documentary is named “The Root of all Evil”?

Still a brilliant scientist, though, but lacks nuance.

I didn’t read it either… i’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.

@zekedog55

Re: Misogyny

By using women, I think Ted is being proactive to save us from a long, winding diatribe from scottfreitas about how men are now women because they think about life after death, and then he will couple it with his own dogmatic point of view on life after death taken wholesale from his birth-assigned religion, without noticing the irony,

These are the estrogen laden, doubt filled conversations women are supposed to have, and misogyny has never bothered scottfreitas.

Whoops I just rang the bell didn’t I? Troll out.

@ Corrosive Frog

I’m worried you are conflating spirituality and religion.

IMO, Religion is the largest threat to spirituality.

After I found Baruch Spinoza’s philosophy on God, I realized I had some decent company, like Einstein.