Ted Rall and Matt Bors, whose strips appear in many AAN papers, are releasing cartoons this week ridiculing Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert for returning to their TV shows without making a deal with the striking Writers Guild of America. "The stakes are too high, the issues too important, the hypocrisy too hypocritical for us to just put down our pens and tune in to their union-busting, albeit highly amusing, programs," Rall and Bors say in a joint statement. They both say they will not be available to appear on either The Daily Show or The Colbert Report while the strike remains in effect. "We'd rather fight in Bush's wars than cross a picket line," they say. The cartoons go live today at TedRall.com and MattBors.com.

Continue ReadingAlt-Weekly Cartoonists Declare Jihad on Comedy Central “Scabs”

"Hentoff began writing a regular media and civil rights column for the Voice on January 8, 1958, and is still going strong," according to a press release. To celebrate, the paper is running two special features on the columnist. In the first, Allen Barra remembers when, in the midst of "a typical internecine squabble" in the late '80s, he took a cheap shot at Hentoff via a letter to the editor. Hentoff's response was to give Barra a Pee Wee Russell album with a note saying: "Listen to this. It might clear your head out." Barra writes: "Instead of jumping into the argument with pettiness and personal acrimony, he sought to create a dialogue with reason, tolerance, and jazz. What can you do with a guy like that?" In a companion feature, the Voice is running nearly 6,000 words of "Nat Hentoff's Greatest Hits," excerpts from half a century of columns.

Continue ReadingNat Hentoff Celebrates 50 Years at the Village Voice