As the furor over the Muhammad cartoons caused rioting in Europe, local comic strip creator Tom Batiuk moved forward with a controversial story of his own. Batiuk is the Medina-based writer and artist behind Funky Winkerbean, as well as co-creator of Crankshaft.

Last week in Funky, Wally Winkerbean, who fought in Afghanistan after 9/11, discovered he must return to active duty in Iraq because he has a few days left in his enlistment obligation. Over the course of the week, Wally and his wife discussed the unfairness of the situation — after all, he was MIA for awhile in Afghanistan, and was lucky to escape with his cartoon life the first time.

Predictably, conservative readers were not happy.

“There’s a group out there chastising me, saying Wally signed up, it’s his obligation to finish out his tour,” says Batiuk. “They say he has nothing to complain about.”

Even before the Muhammad fury, papers have been less than supportive of comic strips that verge into timely political debate. Plain Dealer reader liaison Ted Diadiun has said he believes comics are only there to make people laugh. All he needs is a couple more angry Republican letters to show around the office.

“What they’re doing is treating comics as a genre rather than a medium,” says Batiuk. “But it is a medium. And as such, it can carry the weight of more substantial ideas than these readers want to see.”

Batiuk has no plans of slowing down anytime soon. Upcoming storylines are so controversial, King Features, which syndicates the strip, has called special meetings to discuss damage control. He declined to elaborate.

So far, King Features has supported him. No editor has asked him to pull back. Hopefully his local daily will continue to do the same. Because if all we’re left with is Garfield and Family Circus, the real rioting will begin. — James Renner

IS OUR POLITICIANS LEARNING?

The most prominent Democratic contender for Congressman Ted Strickland’s vacant Sixth District seat apparently needs to find staffers who can count to 50.

Charles A. Wilson, who had every intention of getting on the May primary ballot with two other Democrats, submitted 96 signatures to the Columbiana County Board of Elections. The golden number is 50. But the board, finding only 48 valid John Hancocks, had no choice but to throw out Wilson’s petition.

“We made a mistake you don’t make,” Wilson told a radio news reporter. That mistake was getting some signatures from his state senate district, parts of which, alas, don’t exactly correspond with the congressional district. Rothenberg Political Report called it “one of the dumber mistakes in recent memory.”

So Wilson is now gearing up for a write-in campaign. The party favorite plans vigorous grassroots work to educate voters. Let’s hope that includes remedial math and, just to be safe, how to spell Wilson’s name. — Charu Gupta

SPEAKING OF LOSERS

Unfortunately, Wilson’s not the only intellectually challenged Democratic candidate running in the Sixth. The following is from the Athens NEWS:

“These people think I’m a nobody,” [Bob] Carr, 58, of Wellsville in Columbiana County, told The Athens NEWS Monday, as he headed to a meeting with state party officials to bid for their support. “But I’m one of the superstars, I hope they understand.”

Carr talks a mile a minute, and the tale he readily pours out about his life is sprinkled with bizarre events and not always the easiest narrative to follow. It even includes a jumbled childhood memory of being kidnapped, and spending time in jail with his mother.

“My life is full of irony,” he said. “I’ve lived in over 20 foster homes.”

Based on Carr’s account, the reason for his living in foster homes from 9 months old to age 14 had something to do with his mother being placed in a sanitarium, and his father changing Bob’s registered birth date, so as somehow not to embarrass former presidential candidate Thomas Dewey, who was apparently the family’s neighbor.

“I don’t know why he thought he had to do it, but he thought he had to do it,” Carr said, adding in a superb understatement, “I know it’s confusing.”

(Normally, this sort of thing wouldn’t figure as a major part of a candidate’s bio in a news story. It’s pertinent, however, to Carr’s having at some point changed his last name, which in turn is pertinent to accusations that he’s been passing himself off as [a former Michigan congressman] named Bob Carr.)

DEMS ON PARADE

If someone wanted to wipe out a significant portion of the Northeast Ohio Democratic party (and there are those who think it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to start over from scratch), they would’ve just needed to call in an airstrike on Tizzano’s Party Center in Euclid last Saturday morning.

More than 500 local activists, politicians
and candidates helped Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones kick off her reelection campaign. She faces no primary competition in May and only an obscure Republican named Lindsey String in November, so the event was as much a tribute to the ebullient congresswoman as a “rally the troops for battle” event.

Following an emotive rendition of “God Bless America” by Ohio’s own singing politician State Rep. Lance Mason, Jones asked all the officeholders and those running for office to step forward and be introduced — and quite a parade it was. The introductions ran on so long that County Commissioner Jimmy Dimora was forced to use his stentorian voice to shush the crowd several times.

Among those in the room were candidates Barbara Sykes (state auditor), Hugh Quill (treasurer) and Subodh Chandra (attorney general); several mayors (including Cleveland’s Frank Jackson, who told the crowd that he was a man of few words and proved it by uttering less than a few dozen); councilpersons from Cleveland and numerous suburbs; and a horde of judges and judicial candidates, working the room with their pencils and emery boards. There were even a few Republicans, like Judge Kathleen Ann Sutula. And making a fashionably late entrance were Congressman Dennis Kucinich and his wife Elizabeth. — Anastasia Pantsios

WAIT, OHIO ISN’T THE PROMISED LAND?

The latest moral issue bothering Ohio’s uber-evangelist Rod Parsley is … Israel.

Parsley, pastor of central Ohio-based World Harvest Church and head of a growing multi-media Christian empire, has signed on with Christians United for Israel (CUFI), which launched last month.

Its mission is to foster “Christian Zionism,” and to support Israel in securing all the land it wants, according to televangelist and CUFI leader John Hagee. Oh, and the Christian pastors promise not to try to convert Jews along the way. (The non-compete clause was conditional to joining, reports the Jerusalem Post. But once Jerry Falwell became a believer, when he saw “the mounting threat of a nuclear Iran,” other Christian righties fell into lockstep.)

Pat Robertson is also a CUFI supporter. The over-under on his saying something really stupid about the whole thing on his TV show is three days. — Charu Gupta

LET’S HEAR IT FOR LaBOY

Last week we told you about Jesus LaBoy’s surprising success in getting Congressman (and gubernatorial candidate) Ted Strickland to apologize for voting for the Border Protection, Antiterrorism and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005 (“Lost in Translation,” City Chatter, March 1). The act calls for branding undocumented immigrants and those who help them as criminals, and building a security fence along the U.S.-Mexico border.

The bill now awaits a vote in the Senate. LaBoy, a Puerto Rican pastor who leads a Latino-heavy congregation at Elim Church in Cleveland’s Clark-Fulton neighborhood, has been keeping up the pressure. He invited Latino church leaders from throughout Northeast Ohio to a meeting in late February. Though only 24 pastors showed up, they were joined by more than 300 supporters.

Then LaBoy’s Coalition of Latino Pastors started talks with the Cleveland Councilman Matt Zone about a resolution against the bill. Zone was all ears. His ward includes LaBoy’s church, and Zone’s brother-in-law, Lee Fisher, is Strickland’s running mate.

Next LaBoy and allies approached the Cuyahoga County Commissioners. Cleveland City Council was about to take a stand against harsh immigration measures, they said. The commissioners should too.

Last week, resolutions with similar wording were passed unanimously by both the Cleveland City Council and Cuyahoga County Commissioners, and will be delivered to Ohio’s U.S. Senators.

Momentum is building. Veronica Dahlberg, editor of HOLA Journal, has been in contact with Latino groups in Toledo, Lorain, Youngstown and Columbus. On Monday, she left for a three-day trip to Washington, D.C. to visit Sen. Mike DeWine, a member of the Senate’s judiciary committee, which is debating the act.

On the homefront, Pastor LaBoy keeps working the phone. He’s now trying to organize meetings with Ohio’s Democratic and Republican parties and Governor Bob Taft.

“It’s hard that it’s so late,” LaBoy says, but “we’re trying to do everything we can.” Soon he plans to connect with pastors outside Ohio as well. He’s promoting a rally in Washington D.C., slated to occur two days before the Senate committee’s final vote. He plans to read the names of Latino soldiers who have died in the Iraq war, some of whom were not citizens.

For more information, call Pastor Jesus LaBoy at 216.509.9297 or e-mail him at pastorlaboy@hotmail.com. — Charu Gupta

RIGHT, LEFT AND IN BETWEEN

A few weeks ago, Ohio Congressman John Boehner gained national attention as the underdog who won the post of House majority leader. According to National Journal’s annual ranking of senators and representatives, Boehner also wins the title of most conservative Ohio Republican.

The Journal used 2005 voting records on economic, social and foreign-policy issues to determine where politicians fell on the conservative-to-liberal ideological spectrum.

Congressman Sherrod Brown, who jumped in the Senate race late last fall, is pegged as one of the most liberal guys on Capitol Hill, second in Ohio only to Dennis Kucinich. Brown’s opponent, Mike DeWine, lands squarely in the middle of the Senate — and among the “most moderate,” right alongside Sen. George Voinovich.

Bob Ney, the congressman who’s been climbing in the charts as the friend-of-Abramoff-who-won’t-admit-it, came in on the moderate side too. So did Congressman Steve LaTourette.

The other famous Ohio Congressman Ted Strickland — now the Democratic nominee for governor— ranked up there with all the liberals in the House, but second-to-last among Ohio lefties, just before Tim Ryan.

And who can forget poor Jean Schmidt. She didn’t get a ranking since she wasn’t around for much of 2005. We hope that bodes well for 2006. — Charu Gupta

chatter@freetimes.com

Rust Belt Report

Staffer for Jim Petro’s campaign accidentally sends sarcastic e-mail to a local newspaper. ‘

“My frat buddy sent me a link to this video called Empire Brokeback, where C-3PO and R2D2 are homo lovers. It totally made me laugh so I sent it out to everyone I knew. Delta Phi rules!”

Case Western physics professor calls for “no confidence” vote on President Edward Hundert.

Claims Hundert is really just a theory at this point.

81-year-old Cleveland man mistakenly declared dead by the Social Security Administration.

“At least I can still vote Republican,” he says.

Huron County foster mother Sharen Gravelle claims children requested their cages.

“Hey, no fair! Billy’s cell is bigger than mine! And Mary’s has more chicken wire!”

Local farmers supplying a secret “white market” of unpasteurized milk.

Got salmonella?

Cleveland City Council finds X-rated peep shows are complying with new laws requiring cameras in booths.

Cams can be viewed for a subscription fee at www.councilmenbeatingoff.com.

Time capsule from 1915 found in rubble of old Cleveland hospital.

Letter inside reads, “I’m going to build an airport on the lakefront and there’s nothing you can do to stop me. Screw you, Future Cleveland! Sincerely, Mr. Burke.”