April 29, 2009

"A Scary Thing Happened" — FEMA has a nice coloring book for you.

Come on, kids. Let the government help you cope with your fears:


Is there a coloring book for people who are afraid of bad drawings? Because I need some help with that, please, government.

ADDED: That drawing makes a good what's-wrong-with-this-picture exercise for kids. Outside the window, in real life, the second plane is about to hit the WTC, and that was carried live on TV, but it should not also appear in the magazine the woman is holding.

IN THE COMMENTS: Chip Ahoy points us to the government coloring book he made:



(Read the whole thing.)

47 comments:

Awesome said...

Even worse than the bad drawing is the Comic Sans font! Outrageous!

Mr. Forward said...

Do not panic and call a cop,
It's only the President on a Photo OP.

Peter V. Bella said...

Nice waste of tax dollars.

Bissage said...

Agency's web site yanks coloring book depicting 9/11 terror attack.

The problem wasn’t so much the coloring book.

It was more that Crayola came out with a crayon it called Dirty-Rotten-No-Good-Stinking-Islamic-Terrorist-Brown.

We can’t have that.

rhhardin said...

We need an economics coloring book for the current children.

Anonymous said...

The accelerating pace of modern life: Yesterday it took only nine minutes for "eurotard" to go from a word repeated by a blogger who'd voted for Obama to being the Shame of the Right. Today, a photo of a terrorist attack can appear on the inside pages of a tabloid as it's happening.

Unknown said...

Aw, I can't be too harsh about this. Have y'all checked out the link? A 68-year-old grandmother among others put it together for her local volunteer crisis response team. I doubt the original authors made a dime over it. It looks like an amateur effort, sure, but that's because it is.

The Dude said...

I thought this was about when Obama stole the election - that was truly frightening.

Meade said...

"Crayola came out with a crayon"

Color me glow-in-the-dark-laughing-out-loud!

The Drill SGT said...

Janet N is a chauvinist.

you need a tag for man-caused disasters

there is no longer any terrorism

The Dude said...

Does it strike anyone as odd that the woman is reading about the terrorist attack while watching it on television, but she could look out her window and see it in real time? What planet does she live on?

TMink said...

I do a lot of trauma work with kids. All in all, the thought behind the book is good. The drawings are not good, but the thought is pretty good and would offer some limited help.

Trey

Sofa King said...

What planet does she live on?

Planet Spaceball.

Synova said...

Just after 9-11 one of my friends was concerned because his son was building towers of blocks and crashing toy planes into them.

I told him not to worry, but that this was a way for children to feel in control of an out of control world. (Which is also why kids often role play the "bad guy".)

A coloring book would likely help so long as coloring it was optional so that children it didn't help didn't have to wallow in it.

paul a'barge said...

when did they put four dials on an Etch-a-Sketch?

bearbee said...
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bearbee said...

Other than the art work, why the FEMA criticism?

I second rhhardin's economics coloring book for the current children.

There must be a dollar or two left over in the 'stimulus' package to pick up the cost.

hdhouse said...

paul a'barge said...
when did they put four dials on an Etch-a-Sketch?"

How many on yours paul?

Chris said...

Hard to stay inside the lines...

Leland said...

NKVD, look again. The plane in the tabloid is already at the second building. It's a bit further out on the TV, but the plane is even a little further out in the window. So the tabloid isn't just real time, it's ahead of time. I suspect Lewis Lapham wrote the tabloid.

hdhouse said...

Or course none or few of you looked at the entire book via the link finding, if you did, 1/20th of the tableaus dealing with 9-11 and the copyright on the material from some 6 years ago...

or did you all miss that?

and what was the deal with this Ann? Maybe, like TMink and Synova observed...it may help.

Unknown said...

Holy crap am I in agreement with hdhouse? Looks like I picked the wrong day to stop sniffing glue.

hdhouse said...

mcg..think of it as being in good company.

Ann Althouse said...

I read the whole book.

And I didn't blame Obama.

essaybee said...

Economics comic books for children: http://www.newyorkfed.org/publications/result.cfm?comics=1

Smilin' Jack said...

Is there a coloring book for people who are afraid of bad drawings? Because I need some help with that, please, government.

As always, government has the solution to your problem. Just check out anything supported by the National Endowment for the Arts. After that, FEMA's drawings will look like Rembrandt.

hdhouse said...

Smilin' Jack said...
"As always, government has the solution to your problem. Just check out anything supported by the National Endowment for the Arts. After that, FEMA's drawings will look like Rembrandt."

Well, Jack, you like some others on this blog are terribly afraid of what you don't understand which is a shame.

First you take a swipe at the NEA which supports (probably unlike you) Live from Lincoln Center, American Masters, Great Performances and a number of individual projects. I suggest you turn of Spike TV sometime and take a look.

Second, these aren't FEMA's drawings and you would know that if you read the links and opened your eyes instead of just finding a place to be a smart ass.

Third (yes there's more) read your last sentence.

"After that, FEMA's drawings will look like Rembrandt."

In your haste and error in the aforementioned FEMA reference, the object of the drawings was a template for a coloring book..they aren't finished drawings and to a 5 year old they are plausible but more than that, they "AREN'T REMBRANDT". I know you knew that but didn't you mean "...look like Rembrandt's"??? but the way you constructed the sentence..well you get the idea.

I know. Picky picky and I make errors too but when you take a rightwing swipe at the NEA, the gloves come off.

bearbee said...

Economics comic books for children:....

Hmmmm....nice, but appear far too advanced for Congress Critters plus the crayons are essential to aid the learning process.

J. Cricket said...

That drawing makes a good what's-wrong-with-this-picture exercise for kids. Outside the window, in real life, the second plane is about to hit the WTC, and that was carried live on TV, but it should not also appear in the magazine the woman is holding.Riiiiiight. Cuz God knows that magazines never print pictures that have been shown on television.

And for those who think this is ridiculous waste of money--do you think this was proposed and created in the last 100 days?! Nope. You undoubtedly have W. to blame for this foolishness.

Leland said...

HDHouse, how about an apology to Ann and the rest of us. One person mentioned Obama before you, and a second joked about the recent photo op. Otherwise, most statements were about how bad the drawing are or the general waste of taxpayer dollars. Nice wide brush you have there... try staying in the lines. This drawing may be to difficult for you.

Rohan said...

Riiiiiight. Cuz God knows that magazines never print pictures that have been shown on television.It's generally hard for a magazine to be printed with pictures of an event before that event has happened.

Not impossible though. The picture in the magazine could be a mockup of a potential event, a prediction which then came true. Or possibly time travel is involved.

Unknown said...

Well, that didn't last long. Glad to be back in a proper position of thinking that hdhouse is on the wrong side of things.

First you take a swipe at the NEA which supports (probably unlike you) Live from Lincoln Center, American Masters, Great Performances and a number of individual projects.

Yes. So? That's not automatically an argument that the government ought to fund it. A lot of great art is funded without the government's help.

And not everything the NEA funds is so "great", as well all know. Of course, nor is everything on TV. But I'm not forced to pay for SpikeTV. (no, I don't have cable or satellite) like I am the NEA.

In fact, your little "unlike you" swipe is factually incorrect, unless you've established that Smilin' Jack pays no taxes.

TMink said...

HDH and I agree regularly. What about every other month pal? But I enjoy it when we do. Heck I enjoy it when he gets me with a zinger.

And the one page where the towers were everywhere is actually pretty respectful of a survivor of awful trauma, they see it everywhere.

But I do like the economics coloring book!

Trey

AllenS said...

Does anybody remember Gary Larson and his cartoons called the Far Side? Probably around the early 80's. Well, I think the woman that is pictured with the coloring book is Gladys.

Chip Ahoy said...

Come on, kids. Let the government help you cope with your fears >Is it all right if I let the government be the source of my satire?

New NAFTA coloring book for children of all ages, except for adhouse who doesn't play well with others. No apologies for sketchiness, I can't be arsked to tidy it up.

Smilin' Jack said...

hdhouse said...

In your haste and error in the aforementioned FEMA reference, the object of the drawings was a template for a coloring book..


Anyone who writes word salad like that should not be criticizing the writing of others.

...didn't you mean "...look like Rembrandt's"???

No, I did not. In judging acceptable usage, linguists now commonly use Google as a convenient corpus of the language. So, in Google hits:

"look like Rembrandt's": 112

"look like Rembrandt": 716

In this usage, the implied completion of the sentence is not "...look like Rembrandt's drawings" but rather "look like Rembrandt drew them."

Chip Ahoy said...

D'oh! Did I say NAFTA? Should be FEMA.

Kirk Parker said...

The FEMA coloring book is amazingly lame considering their prior masterpiece.

Penny said...

So FEMA pulled the coloring book because there were complaints?

Why is it that I never seem to be able to get the government's attention when I complain about their big boot print on my back and on my wallet?

Clearly I must be hanging with the wrong special interest group.

hdhouse said...

Smilin' Jack said...
hdhouse said...
In this usage, the implied completion of the sentence is not "...look like Rembrandt's drawings" but rather "look like Rembrandt drew them."

ohhh really..how interesting. yawn.

Penny said...

Chip, I can't put my toys away. I need them to read and comment about how funny that first drawing was!

CharlesVegas said...

That's not a magazine she's holding! It's an Islamic calendar.

Gorganzo said...
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Gorganzo said...

You sons of a bitch, how could you use 9/11 in a damn coloring book?! I am deeply offended

Tibore said...

Someone please tell me this is a joke perpetrated on TheSmokingGun.com.

Please.

Unknown said...

Geez, come on, Tibore. Look at the whole book. You can tell it is amateurish but serious. Nobody's going to put that kind of effort into a 25-page coloring book just to raise eyebrows with one page about 9/11.

Henry said...

Chip, you're a genius.