Bent Corner

I would encourage anyone that has ever donated money to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF) to look into just how efficient they have been at spending your money. Remember, most of the money they spend every year comes to them in the form of tax-free donations from people like you and me.

Comic book nerds that don’t want our right to read comic books to be trampled upon by those that want to censor what we read.

A good place to start would be the GuideStar website. GuideStar gathers and publicizes information about tax exempt nonprofit organizations such as the CBLDF.

The CBLDF has 501(c)(3) status. That means the CBLDF is recognized by the Federal Government as being organized for the public benefit. Because of this, the CBLDF has been given tax-exempt status. Though they are exempt from actually paying taxes to the IRS, they are required to submit to a Form 990 detailing their finances. From these yearly IRS Form 990’s you can look into just how efficient the CBLDF is at spending the money.

The Better Business Bureau (BBB) has attempted to define a set of standards for charitable organizations. This is from the BBB’s Give.org website:

The BBB Wise Giving Alliance Standards for Charity Accountability were developed to assist donors in making sound giving decisions and to foster public confidence in charitable organizations. The standards seek to encourage fair and honest solicitation practices, to promote ethical conduct by charitable organizations and to advance support of philanthropy.

In measuring effectiveness of finances, the BBB recommends that charitable organizations spend at least 65% of total expenses on program activities. To discover what this amount is, take the amount located on Line 13 of the IRS Form 990 and divide it by the amount located on Line 17 of the same form. The result is the percentage of total expenses spent of program activities.

(Line 13 / Line 17) x 100 = the actual % spent on programing

CBLDF Program Activities

• 2005 - 52.4%
• 2004 - 39.7%
• 2003 - 40.6%
• 2002 - 53.5%
• 2001 - 47.3%

By looking at these figures, it appears that the CBLDF has not been very close to achieving this before mentioned 65% benchmark. Not to say that they have a legal requirement to actually spend a certain percentage of their money on what they proclaim to do. In this case, the preservation of First Amendment rights for the comic book community. Evidently unless it’s the First Amendment rights of Gary Groth or comic book publisher Fantagraphics, but I digress.

If the CBLDF isn’t spending the money on defending the First Amendment rights of the comic book community, where is the money going? The BBB suggests that no more than 35% of related contributions be spent on fundraising.

(Line 15 / Line 1a + Line 3) x 100 = the actual % of contributions spent on fundraising

CBLDF Fundraising

• 2005 - 27.3%
• 2004 - 32.0%
• 2003 - 44.9%
• 2002 - 20.0%
• 2001 - 17.3%

CBLDF spends a good amount of money on fundraising. By looking at the individual IRS Form 990’s (Line 44 Column D) much of this is due to the costs associated with travel and attending comic book conventions. When I have donated my money to the CBLDF in the past it has been at a comic book convention.

So what does all this mean? Hell if I know. Take from this what you will. Don’t take my word on any of the numbers presented here. Though I have attempted to be totally accurate in the numbers and figures presented, I am no mathematician. I may have screwed up some of the numbers. I don’t think I have, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I have. I would encourage anyone interested in this to go and look at the information for yourself.

It is after all very easily obtainable. I am not telling anyone not to donate to the CBLDF. I am only advising anyone that has donated to the CBLDF in the past or plans to donate to the CBLDF in the future to educate themselves about the CBLDF and what they really do with the money. Don’t rely on the same old CBLDF generated press release republished on all of the various comic book news websites and magazines to give you the entire picture. Those press releases are written to promote donations, not to convey all the facts.

Get the facts.

Update (24 July) - One of the formulas I used was wrong. I didn’t create the formula. I found it on a charity evaluation website that incorrectly showed how to calculate the fundraising numbers the Better Business Bureau (BBB) recommends. Because of this, the fundraising percentages I originally posted were in fact too high. I’ve since corrected the formula and the numbers here have been corrected too.

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Cindy Sheehan is back. Her retirement evidently is over after only five short weeks. When she announced her “retirement” from the anti-war movement, she chose to make the announcement on Memorial Day. She chose to announce that she was resuming her duties as self-described Peace Mom on Independence Day. This lady certainly likes to get dramatic on patriotic holidays.

I’m only surprised she was able to keep herself out of the limelight this long. Oh well. Maybe she should have just announced last Memorial Day that she was taking a vacation.

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“I don’t believe my role is to replace the verdict of a jury with my own.”

George W. Bush explaining why he signed death warrants
for 152 inmates while governor of Texas.

Today is Independence Day. The day we Americans celebrate the supposed birth of our country. It’s the day our ancestors declared their independence from Great Britain.

As though that is something actually worth celebrating. I can think of worse things then being a British citizen.

I sometimes wonder how different my life would be if Maryland was still a colony of Great Britain. How different would my life be if I was a British citizen? Do I as an American enjoy any rights or privileges that I would not enjoy if I was British?

I don’t think so.

I’m not overly convinced that my life would be all that bad if our nation’s forefathers hadn’t declared their independence from England. If they had simply paid their taxes and not caused a ruckus. For guys that supposedly loved freedom so much, they certainly had a funny way of showing it. The phrase, “All men are created equal” was probably written with ink and paper fetched by a slave.

I’ve been to England. It’s a nice place. It’s not the type of place that makes me want to celebrate because I am independent from it. I can think of at least 12 countries off the top of my head that I would be thankful not to be part of. England is not one of those countries. In fact if I had to choose a country to live in other then the United States, my list would start and end with England.

In fact, I would choose to live in England even over many of the states in my own country. Have you ever been to Texas? How about Montana? I’d take England in a heartbeat.

Can you really blame me? Look at what Great Britain has given us. The Beatles and Elton John. Alan Moore and the Rolling Stones. The Who and Harry Potter. The Lord of the Rings and Led Zeppelin. The Clash and Ricky Gervase. Doctor Who and William Shakespeare. Monty Python and James Bond. Rich Johnson and Mary Poppins. David Bowie and Neil Gaiman. The list is really quite endless.

Have you ever eaten a scone? They are really very delicious. Have you tried putting malt vinegar on your fries? Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.

In London, you are allowed to openly drink a beer while riding in the underground subway system. A beer that actually tastes good I might add. In nearby Washington D.C., you can be arrested for simply chewing a piece of candy.

Don’t get me wrong. There are many things I love about this country. For all of the things wrong with it, there are many good things too. I just don’t see why we have to make such a big deal celebrating our independence from England. To actually set off fireworks and throw festive get-togethers with friends and family. To eat potato salad, watermelon, and burnt hot dogs like there is no tomorrow. If I was from the England I think I would be a little offended at our level of jubilation. It strikes me as being more then just a little rude, Then again, maybe the English are just thankful that so many of our fellow Americans are not longer contaminating their gene pool.

Martha Stewart lied when being questioned about insider stock trading. Scooter Libby lied when being questioned about leaking the identity of a covert CIA agent.

Martha Stewart is famous for baking cookies and making the perfect table arraignment. Scooter Libby is famous for being both the Chief-of-Staff and national security adviser to Vice-President Dick Cheney.

Martha Stewart ended up serving a five-month prison term. Scooter Libby ended up serving no time in prison.

Why is Scooter Libby exempt from serving even a day in prison when Martha Stewart did the same exact thing yet had to spend 5 months in prison?

President Bush commuted the sentence of former White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby on Monday, sparing him from a 2 1/2-year prison term that Bush said was excessive.Bush’s move came hours after a federal appeals panel ruled Libby could not delay his prison term in the CIA leak case.

That meant Libby was likely to have to report to prison soon and put new pressure on the president, who had been sidestepping calls by Libby’s allies to pardon the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney.

“I respect the jury’s verdict,” Bush said in a statement. “But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby’s sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison.”

Bush left intact a $250,000 fine and two years probation for Libby, and Bush said his action still “leaves in place a harsh punishment for Mr. Libby.”

I’m almost speechless. Does this mean Bush will now be reviewing every convicted felon’s sentence to ascertain if it’s too excessive or is this something he will reserve only for his buddies? A pardon would have looked better. By commuting the sentence, he’s admitting there was a crime committed, but that Libby should for some reason be exempt from actually really being punished for it.

If he did this because he truly thought the 2 1/2-year prison sentence was excessive, why didn’t he just shorten it down to something smaller? Because it wasn’t that he felt 30 months in prison was excessive, but that he was to go to prison at all is what Bush thought was excessive.

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