Coming out of a tradition that’s been around since the Vietnam War, this small table in the dining area is always set, but never occupied. The empty space is a symbol of Americans who are missing, and its presence is a reminder that they are with us here in spirit.
Every ceremony’s a little different. Here’s how I remembered it back home.
The table is round, to show that our concern for them is enduring.
The tablecloth on the table is white, to show the purity of their intent in responding to our country’s call to arms.
Inside the vase, the single red rose is a symbol of the life that belongs to each of the missing and signifies the blood that many have shed in sacrifice to ensure freedom for all of us. The red ribbon around it represents their love for our country, which inspired them to answer her call.
The Bible is a symbol of the faith in a higher power and the pledge to our country.
The black napkin is a symbol of the emptiness left by those missing in the hearts of families and friends.
The upturned wine glass is a reminder that those missing can no longer share a toast with us here today.
The slices of lemon on the plate is a reminder of the bitterness of their fate.
The salt on the plate represents the tears endured by those who are missing, and their families who seek closure.
A yellow ribbon is tied around the candle holder. It, and the yellow candle, symbolizes an everlasting hope. It represents hope that someday the missing will return to us.
For now, the chair is empty, to show that they are not here.
This ceremony is solemn. It always is, and it should be treated with the dignity it deserves. But as you take a moment to reflect and honor those who are missing, I would like to ask you to do one more thing.
Consider why these brave men and women answered the call in the first place.
Consider why they served, and what this means for you.
Do not render their sacrifice meaningless by wasting your life. Remember, but more importantly, live.
(FYI, dear readers. I’m American. Like, been here for like generations. xD)
This, sent in by one of our readers, sums up how hilarious our political climate has become.
我想先贴个读者给我发来的截屏。你们现在看得还不乐吗？美国政治就是这样了。
For our Chinese readers, Nate Silver is the writer of FiveThirtyEight, a popular political commentary site. Stuff like this is probably why a small but growing segment of people have problems believing that media’s fair and impartial. The echo chamber exists in both the left and the right, of course, and believe me, I’ve lurked about in plenty of places trying to get a sense for how people are thinking about the issues.
There’s a very simple trend I’m noticing. There’s a huge disconnect between what the media’s putting out there, and what the people are finding out on their own. I don’t know how significant this actually is, but from what I can see online and offline, people are asking questions. Increasingly I’ve noticed comment sections being shut down or much more aggressive policing of speech everywhere, and to me, this only means one thing.
People are onto something, and whoever they (the ones deleting comments) are, they don’t want stuff to be talked about. Don’t get me wrong. The comment sections are oftentimes some of the nastiest parts of the internet. Plenty of views you encounter there are going to be disagreeable. More often than not people are wrong about many, many things.
But no amount of wrong can cover up the fact that beneath the vitriol and the anger, there are ideas being expressed. I don’t think anyone arguing in those places are really going to be persuading one another, but you know what they’re doing? They might be able to convince other folks. Casual readers. Folks like you, or maybe me, who’s approaching an issue as it is. An issue.
See what I’m getting at? What I’m saying is that if you believe in the inherent “rightness” of your viewpoints, there’s no reason whatsoever that you should be against discussion. Let the unwashed heathen masses break against your oh-so-logically-obvious viewpoints. Let them challenge – and fail, if you are so right. Prove it to the rest of us plebians. If your viewpoint is so right, it should easily stand up to scrutiny. Why hide?
Don’t give me that bullshit about people can’t understand or people don’t know any better. I’m training as a medical doctor. At a school of our caliber, we are taught that if we cannot explain our medicine to a five year old or a ninety-five year old, we’re doing something wrong and needs to do better. Several of my close friends are PhD. candidates training in the natural sciences, and it’s the same thing for them. Explain science to the public, and if you can’t do it accurately and concisely, you’re failing as a scientist.
Why shouldn’t we apply these principles to contemporary issues? What exactly is so bad/good about wanting to limit immigration, or increase minimum wage, or healthcare or any number of issues? Why are we so quick to dismiss any viewpoints that we disagree with?
If we believe something to be right, but we can’t explain it well, then we’re ignorant and stupid. We should get better.
如果我们认为我们的观点是正确的，但我们不能好好的解释这观点，那我们是无知的傻逼。我们应该做的更好。
If we believe something to be right, but can’t be damned to take the time to explain it well to other people, then we’re not only ignorant, but we’re also arrogant and disrespectful. That’s actually worse.
如果我们认为我们观点是正确的，但我们却懒的解释，我们不但是无知的逗逼，我们是狗眼看人低。
Unfortunately, what I’ve noticed is that our media are increasingly doing just those two things. It’s one thing to do those, but when you add active censorship like Facebook filtering out conservative sites to the mix, it’s downright Orwellian. It’s why I find the dynamics of this election to be so fascinating. This is maybe the first time where we’ve seen the people push back and have something to show for our efforts. This is absolutely, positively exciting, and we’re definitely going to follow it all the way to the end.
Believe it or not, we’ve been working on this as soon as Indiana’s results came in. The only thing new we added are the uh, things on the windowsill. One’s the state fruit of West Virginia. The other? Well, it’s this brand of milk right here. Someone may or not be buried under there. I’m not saying anything.
A special comment from our artist, since Sima went to art school in France and is classically trained: Weavy has to keep windows open for this kinda thing. The smell of oil paints are horrid, and while it’s nothing like the extremely dangerous conditions that miners have to go through, it really isn’t easy. Oil painting really aren’t for light-weights.
We thought it was quite apt, given the political circumstances. It’s a little hard to make out what the other fairy’s holding in his hands, so all I’m going to say is one hint: google 7000-51.
In this little world, the spirit of cooperation is alive and well.
在这个小世界里，合作精神活得好好的。
For the fairies, it’s just another cook-off. No politics. We’re all friends here.
对于精灵们来讲啊，这不过就是一场厨艺的比赛。没有政治哦。我们都是好朋友。
Are you ready for a whole lot of crab?
诸君，准备好胃了吗？
Unfortunately, our little world where these little ones and their friends exist in isn’t the real world. And here? Here, the battle for the presidency rage ever-on.
可惜的是, 我们美舰本的世界,不是现实生活中世界。在我们的世界里，初选的战火仍然焚烧着。
The election is coming.
选举要来啦。
It’s pretty clear that from the GOP perspective, Trump has capitalized on his great victory in New York. His victory was a clean sweep for the five mid-Atlantic states, and it is now that the never-Trump folks that has been dealt a clear blow. They seem to be throwing everything they have against the guy, and nothing, I repeat, nothing seems to be working so far.
(Note: Both this image and the Democratic one below comes from the New York Times)
Cruz and Kasich announced an alliance initially, but that … might have fallen apart really quickly. A casual glance at our usual fans (mostly native East Asian folks) have raised the gossip of the Trump campaign resembling that of Oda Nobunaga, a legendary Japanese daimyo (warlord) who managed to break many such alliances arranged against him.
Right now, on the eve of Indiana, Trump has secured the endorsement of legendary basketball coach Bobby Knight. The polls look good, and is looking better day by day. Arrayed against him is a Cruz buoyed by Mike Pence, governor of Indiana. It’s about the most lukewarm endorsement that I’ve ever seen, since he’s actually sorta-kinda endorsing both.
I again find it highly ironic that Cruz is now the establishment candidate. Strange times makes for very strange bedfellows.
还是啊，吐槽下。克鲁斯怎么成了共和党大佬的候选人呢？果然病急乱投医啊。
Kasich has been more or less relegated to the sidelines in our pieces at this point. Even Ohioans want him to drop out, and Trump’s nickname for him, 1-in-38, while mean, is nonetheless completely accurate.
Unfortunately we’ll not have time to illustrate Indiana’s primary. Not if we want to make California/New Jersey and try to get it out on time. But be assured that I’ll be watching.
A number of Bernie supporters have messaged me telling me that I have been fooled by the MSM narrative and isn’t fair to Bernie at all. I uh, am not entirely sure how to answer that.
我可不是说希拉里赢这个是理所当然的。网络水军Correct the Record不说，我只是很开心我们没大到需要她来给我们惹麻烦的成都。然而，纽约确实有点不对劲。有些资料说有几十万选民以及选票遗失或者出问题。其他地方我也看到了很多各种报道说可能会有不公平。
I have seen nothing but condescension, derision, and casual dismissal from the other camp. Seriously. Voter fraud and voter suppression is a big deal. Maybe it deserves a second look, or at least a serious effort to address what might be problematic?
What’s far more interesting to me is how the primary atmosphere has changed. The Sanders subreddit where I used to go for a lot of pro-Bernie sources seem to be dying. I used to see posts with thousands and thousands of upvotes, but now the responses are a lot more muted. I’m glad he’s not dropping out just yet, because he’s awfully fun to draw and provides a nice contrast, but I can tell that something’s disappeared from that site.
For Madam Secretary, I literally just need to go to any major news network and head to the politics section. It’s incredibly easy to find pieces – more or less toeing the party line – on her, and so I feel like I have a pretty easy way to figure out how we want to depict her in our pieces.
For Trump? Again, it’s so easy for me to find pieces that attack the guy, all I have to do is go on my feed or again, go to any politics section and you will find a yuuuuge amount of pieces decrying that Trump is this and that and this and that.
特朗普啊？找他的反面信息特别容易。去社会媒体或者政治区基本上都是喷他的。这个很简单。
But what I have noticed is a surging trend, mostly on social media, that’s beginning to show signs of change. As usual, go to the news and you’ll find how TERRIBLE and IGNORANT and STUPID and you get the idea it is on anything Trump brings up. But as an American, I think I’ve got the right to judge for myself about how good or bad a candidate is, no?
For all the controversies the man brings, there are some very concrete issues pertaining to our country that he’s dragged out screaming and kicking into the light for everyone to see. I’ll be honest, as a medical student, I can tell you that we much prefer the operation – no matter how hard it is – than to the post-mortem analysis to the family. I think the same applies to America. Look at his foreign policy statement, for instance. Tell me if that’s not stuff we need to seriously think about, because I know I’m not.
Plus, my family’s always told me. If you know someone’s gonna lose, why are you telling them?
最后，我家里人总告诉我，如果你敢肯定你对手要输的话，为啥告诉他们呢？
Right, a few bits on the picture. I’m gonna say that we thought a lot about things, and yes, a crab bake/party is what we ended up using to represent the mid-Atlantic primaries. The crabs are rather symbolic, yes, but as always, I’m going to let you read into it and decide how you’d like to interpret our art instead.
There is one new historical figure (fairy, rather) displayed rather prominently. The hint I’m gonna give you is the cape. It’s a well-known nickname of a rather interesting individual, and I’m going to leave it there.
This is mostly for our non-American readers, since I really, really doubt anyone wouldn’t know the two particular types of spices are. We brought Louisiana in because we didn’t have time to draw her primary (though a careful look and you’ll find her buried in Super Tuesday’s art), but also because of a recent development in the endorsement game. Yeah. I should note that it take upwards of hundreds of hours for each of these pictures, and let’s just say I was pleasantly surprised and shocked by the development.
You’ve already met Pennsy in an earlier piece. Here, we’ve got both Mary (Maryland) and Weavy (West Virginia). I’ve received a lot of questions about what exactly our shipgirls are. The answer to that question is that they aren’t mechanical anthropomorphism of warships. Not quite. I would describe them as empowered young women (empowered in the literal sense, since these girls have to fight giant sea monsters often at melee range) whose pasts and experiences are intricately linked to the heroic traditions of many USN warships. However, just as our girls are not steel and iron, their character traits are often connected directly to a lot of other things, from their home states to adopted homes (in-story or historical) to historical events.
Cal (the blonde with sunglasses and a bikini top), for instance, is preppy, energetic, and a bit of a valley girl. She’s designed in such a way so that when someone looks at her, they can go, oh, yeah, I can totally see her as someone from California. Of course, it becomes a matter of semantics among our more esoteric fans about just what a “shipgirl” means or what it means. In sum, it’s perfectly okay to me if see them as anthropomorphisms of states or warships. I think any creative work should naturally allow the reader to make any interpretations as they’d like. To me, however, they’ll always be just as they are. Our girls.
In other cases, of course, such as Tasha and O’bannon, we just like those two characters and put them in. They’ve got nothing to do with the primary whatsoever. Actually, if you look at it in the context of the picture, they’re just (along with Cal, who loves free food) here to share a few crabs.
