Q Toon: Driven to Distraction

I was halfway through inking last week's cartoon when I came up with this idea, which is not how things generally work inside this old noggin. I liked this idea better, so I held onto it and hoped that the Trumpian firehose of outrageous fuckery this week would not include something I couldn't possibly not draw about.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, his pet legislature, and Transportation Secretary Sean "Road Rules Real World" Duffy have all been on a tear this year destroying rainbow crosswalks and anything else painted on pavement that doesn't celebrate heterosexual cisgender white Christian males. They assure us that it has nothing whatsoever to do with discriminating against LGBTQ POC DEI FAFABs; oh, my heavens, no.

Rather, it's a matter of roadway safety. How are drivers supposed to keep their eyes on the road when they come across a blinding splash of color or a reminder that Black Lives Matter?

So over the course of several weeks in September, the Florida Department of Transportation came in the middle of the night, again and again, to sandblast painted pavement, tear up colored bricks, and leave municipalities with unsightly messes where public art once graced the roads. The state further threatened to withhold funding from any municipality that dared to repair those defaced rainbow crosswalks.

The rainbow designs may be gone, but Equality Florida sees a pattern, "This isn’t about safety. It’s a cowardly abuse of power and the latest in his campaign to ban books, whitewash history, and attack LGBTQ people."

Anyway, have yourself a happy little holiday, whatever distractions bedazzle you along your travels.

But please, unlike the drivers in today's cartoon, do try to stay on the correct side of the road.

Q Toon: Driven to Destruction

Pete Buttigieg's successor as U.S. Secretary of Transportation is a former reality show celebutante and congresscritter from Wisconsin, Sean Duffy.

It's not the same Transportation Department now.

In a development that could impact all 50 states and the District of Columbia, U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy on July 1 announced a “nationwide roadway safety initiative” that political observers say could be used to require cities and states to remove LGBTQ supportive rainbow-colored street crosswalks. ... 

A July 1 statement released by the U.S. Department of Transportation says Duffy sent a letter that same day to the governors of all 50 states that followed an earlier letter sent to D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser informing them of the department’s “Safe Arterials for Everyone” initiative to be carried out by the Federal Highway Administration. ...

“Secretary Duffy also noted in his letter that intersections and crosswalks need to be kept free from distractions,” the statement continues. “This includes political messages of any nature, artwork, or anything else that distracts from the core mission of driver and pedestrian safety,” the DOT statement says.

Although the DOT statement and Duffy’s letter to the governors do not specifically mention rainbow crosswalks, the [South Florida] Sun Sentinel reports that Duffy stated in a July 1 social media post that “Taxpayers expect their dollars to fund safe streets, not rainbow crosswalks.”

One could just as easily argue that rainbow crosswalks enhance roadway safety, becoming more visible than the everyday white-only versions. Certainly they are no more distracting to motorists than, say, Christmas decorations or Chamber of Commerce banners displayed from light poles.

But erasing LGBTQ+ and minority presence from the public eye has been a sacred mission to Republican leaders, such as Florida's rabidly homophobic Gov. Ron DeSantis. If Sean Duffy has only insinuated intention to paint over rainbow crosswalks, DeSantis has explicitly demanded their removal.

A number of Florida cities have already complied with a new anti-rainbow crosswalk law; other communities are fighting it. A grass-roots coalition in Orlando hopes to save the rainbow crosswalk created as a memorial to the 49 victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting in 2016. (The nightclub itself is due to be demolished.) Key West city council planned to discuss a resolution to protect its rainbow crosswalk at Duval and Pretonia this week.

If Key West is successful, someone can compare and contrast its accident rate with Pensacola’s.

This Week's Sneak Peek

I had a letter to put in the mail today, so I went looking for my postage stamps.

They used to be in the second drawer from the top on the right side of my rolltop desk, but I don't have that desk any more, and they haven't found a home in the desk housing my computer and scanner. This desk has only three drawers and a couple of shelves, none of which were empty to begin with. So for now, stamps and address labels are among a bunch of other stuff in a box in the basement.

I found half a sheet of Black Heritage stamps featuring Ella Fitzgerald, and was about to use one of them when I noticed that they were not Forever Stamps.

Issued in 2006, they were 39 cents — exactly half the present rate for a standard envelope.

Hardly seems like 2006 was that long ago, does it?

Then again, when I was 19 years old, postal rates had almost quadrupled since the day I was born.