Comic Shift

This move is merely fostering inclusivity

If the past few installments to The Great Change have given you whiplash, you are not alone. I had been developing my overarching theme of climate solutions, moving from cool new technology to structural reform, when suddenly, much of what I was saying lost its urgency. As if correcting from a spin on icy roads, the blog veered from the wow factor of carbon engineering to the Teenage Ninja Muskrats. Well, at least I still have my job.

The U.S. federal government employs more than 2.3 million workers. Their total compensation makes up about 6.6 percent of the U.S. budget. If you wanted to trim one trillion dollars off the budget, you might start with some obvious pigs like the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter. After two decades of cost overruns topping two trillion and change (change for trillions being counted in tens of billions), we’ve discovered that the Chinese Air Force can defeat it with a low-tech drone swarm that can be mass-produced faster than smartphones.

Shuttering the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) returned to the Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE) an annual budget of $823 million, less what was spent in January. Lost to consumers were the billions of dollars gained by CFPB enforcement actions, restitution, and other measures. Similar effects were felt at every Department as DOGE moved through, firing Inspector Generals and entire auditing departments.

• Since mid-January, about 75,000 people have accepted the DOGE offer of “deferred resignation”

• The Internal Revenue Service is preparing to fire thousands of workers this month, just ahead of the April 15 deadline to file income taxes.

• Federal programs have stopped hiring seasonal firefighters and halted the removal of fire hazards such as dead wood from forests.

• The U.S. Forest Service is firing around 3,400 recent hires, while the National Park Service is terminating about 1,000.

• Some 9,500 workers at the Departments of Interior, Energy, Veterans Affairs, Agriculture and Health and Human Services had their employment terminated.

• Civil service protections for career employees have ended

• Treasury has frozen most U.S. foreign aid.

• U.S. Agency for International Development is closed.

• Hundreds of workers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health are being forced out.

• About 1,200 to 2,000 workers at the Department of Energy were laid off, including 325 from the National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees the nuclear stockpile.

• Banned words that have been removed from websites and publications and can get you fired include:

• activism

• activists

• advocacy

• advocate

• advocates

• barrier

• barriers

• biased

• biased toward

• biases

• biases towards

• BIPOC

• black and LatinX

• community diversity

• community equity

• cultural differences

• cultural heritage

• culturally responsive

• disabilities

• disability

• discriminated

• discrimination

• discriminatory

• diverse backgrounds

• diverse communities

• diverse community

• diverse group

• diverse groups

• diversified

• diversify

• diversifying

• diversity and inclusion

• diversity equity

• enhance the diversity

• enhancing diversity

• equal opportunity

• equality

• equitable

• equity

• ethnicity

• excluded

• female

• females

• fostering inclusivity

• gender

• gender diversity

• genders

• hate speech

• excluded

• female

• females

• fostering inclusivity

• gender

• gender diversity

• genders

• hate speech

• Hispanic minority

• historically

• implicit bias

• implicit biases

• inclusion

• inclusive

• inclusiveness

• inclusivity

• increase diversity

• increase the diversity

• Indigenous community

• inequalities

• inequality

• inequitable

• inequities

• institutional

• LGBT

• marginalize

• marginalized

• minorities

• minority

• multicultural

• polarization

• political

• prejudice

• privileges

• promoting diversity

• race and ethnicity

• racial

• racial diversity

• racial inequality

• racial justice

• racially

• racism

• sense of belonging

• sexual preferences

• social justice

• sociocultural

• socioeconomic

• status

• stereotypes

• systemic

• trauma

• under appreciated

• under-represented

• under-served

• underrepresentation

• underrepresented

• underserved

• undervalued

• victim

• women

• women and underrepresented

Well, I just used all of them.

So, rather than try to ignore what is going on lest we give it power, I have decided to satirize. Last week I experimented with a six-second fake Keystone Kops video. This week I have been experimenting with the comic book.

Regular readers may recall the parodies of Donald Trump as Oswald Cobbelpot (a.k.a. Batman’s nemesis, The Penguin) as the crime boss who was elected Mayor of Gotham City. That was during Trump's first election to the presidency. The analogy still fits, so I have been exploring AI cartooning engines, especially free platforms or those that offer generous trial periods.

I will show you some of my pages in future installments as they are made. Here is the latest cover art:

There may be copyright concerns since Batman is a commercial entity and protected intellectual property. I maintain that satire is fair use, but we shall see.

The software I used for this is a mix of Deep Seek (for the narration script), Dzine (for the panel design and face blends), Affinity Photo (to cure AI imperfections that Dzine is unable to), and Comic Life 3 (for layout and lettering). I confess that in doing this, I have been using AI to replace the skills of 3 or more different craftspeople. That approach is as potentially toxic to career graphic novelists as a self-driving Uber is to part-time drivers trying to pay student tuition. I don’t plan to make a career of it.

Last month I turned 78. I don’t notice any cognitive decline (would I be the one to notice that?) and you know, brain farts happen to teenagers too. But it doesn’t hurt to exercise, and that includes mental exercise. Both hemispheres experience gray matter loss and white matter degradation with age, leading to slower processing speeds and reduced connectivity. The left hemisphere is typically dominant for language processing. Aging can lead to slower word retrieval, reduced verbal fluency, and difficulties in complex sentence comprehension. I fight against that by being a voracious reader and prolific writer, by gaming, and by daily foreign language lessons.

The right hemisphere is crucial for spatial awareness and visual-motor skills. I have been active as an artist in diverse media my entire life, and so it is important for my right hemisphere that I keep that up. Individuals with higher cognitive reserve (through education, mental stimulation, and interactions) have greater neuroplasticity and a greater ability to reorganize and form new connections.

So, for readers who came here to get my latest distillation of research and analysis, please indulge me. I am exercising the other hemisphere this week.

In forthcoming posts, I will provide some page proofs from my new comic book, such as this one:

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Meanwhile, let’s end these wars. We support peace in the West Bank and Gaza and the efforts to cease the war immediately. Global Village Institute’s Peace Thru Permaculture initiative has sponsored the Green Kibbutz network in Israel and the Marda Permaculture Farm in the West Bank for over 30 years. It will continue to do so with your assistance. We aid Ukrainian families seeking refuge in ecovillages and permaculture farms along the Green Road and work to heal collective trauma everywhere through the Pocket Project. You can read all about it on the Global Village Institute website (GVIx.org). Thank you for your support.

Could you help me get my blog posted every week? All Patreon donations and Blogger, Substack and Medium subscriptions are needed and welcomed. You are how we make this happen. Your contributions can be made to Global Village Institute, a tax-deductible 501(c)(3) charity. PowerUp! Donors on Patreon get an autographed book off each first press run. Please help if you can.

#RestorationGeneration.

當人類被關在籠内，地球持續美好，所以，給我們的教訓是:
人類毫不重要，空氣，土壤，天空和流水没有你們依然美好。
所以當你們走出籠子的時候，請記得你們是地球的客人，不是主人。

When humans are locked in a cage, the Earth continues to be beautiful. Therefore, the lesson for us is that human beings are not necessary. The air, soil, sky and water are still beautiful without you. So, when you step out of the cage, please remember that you are guests of the Earth, not its hosts.

We have a complete solution. We can restore whales to the ocean and bison to the plains. We can recover all the tremendous old-growth forests. We possess the knowledge and tools to rebuild savannah and wetland ecosystems. It is not too late. All of these great works are recoverable. We can have a human population sized to harmonize, not destabilize. We can have an atmosphere that heats and cools just the right amount, is easy on our lungs and sweet to our nostrils with the scent of ten thousand flowers. All of that beckons. All of that is within reach.