CSotD: Turkey drop
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One of the best reasons to visit Cartoon Movement is that foreign cartoonists don't do cartoons about Indians wondering if they should let Pilgrim refugees come to their country.
They are also apparently not required to draw cartoons contrasting the rejection of refugees with the story of the Holy Family seeking asylum in Egypt.
I have said in the past that I understand coincidence, but that, when a few days have gone by, drawing the same cartoon as someone else already did is just lazy.
Drawing the same cartoon as everyone else already did is just … wow.
You really need to pop your head up onto the Internet and look around a little.
"But it might influence what I do."
Yes, it might prevent you from making yourself look incredibly lame.
In any case, there's plenty more going on in the world, and even in that part of the world: Italian cartoonist Paolo Lombardi offers this take on Turkey's downing of a Russian jet, and I like the combination of "uh-oh" and the suggestion of an imbalance in the confrontation.
Meanwhile, not all Yanks are drawing Indians, Pilgrims and the Holy Family, and Bruce Plante offers this view of the incident.
I was going to post them as a "Juxtaposition of the Day," but they're really more of a "contrast of the day," because the "uh-oh" factor goes the other direction in Plante's than Lombardi's, though neither seems to suggest a major confrontation.
What I find most intriguing, however, is that both are based on "You probably shouldn't have done that," with Lombardi suggesting that Turkey was the little vandal while Plante puts the fault on Putin for prodding a hornet's nest.
For my part, I'm wondering if Putin even cares about subtlety or credibility outside his own borders?
The Russians have been denying that their plane was in Turkish airspace, and it's certainly not as if they'd flown over the middle of the country.
The incident happened at the southern tip of Turkey, and it's not hard to see how a pilot could stray over that bit of land.
On the other hand, given modern telemetry, it's a little hard to explain how it could happen if you were well-trained and paying attention.
There's a difference between a passenger jet wandering over Kamchatka in peace time, after all, and a military flight in a war zone going off into the wrong airspace.
The BBC has a good article on the incident, which includes this close-up of the area, based on information from the Turks, which matters since the town referenced is quite a bit further inland than the incursion shown here.
Turkey doesn't seem to be playing around with its credibility on this by exaggerating where the incursion happened.
Again, in peacetime, it might be excusable, with the result little more than a stern nastygram sent to Moscow and a dozen roses sent to Ankara.
But when your mission is to prop up a regime actively opposed by a neighboring power, blundering into that neighboring power's airspace is, as Plante's cartoon suggests, swatting the hornet's nest.
Does Putin care? Russia has already accidentally dropped missiles into Iran while attempting to attack Syrian targets from ships in the Caspian Sea, and this third graphic was actually attached to an article that discussed that incident but centered on the flyover of Iraqi airspace.
So the question is, does Putin not care who he pisses off, or is Russian technology simply incapable of avoiding these sorts of cock-ups?
And is anyone surprised that something like this happened?
In any case, claiming the jet never went into Turkish airspace is on a level with claiming that the guys walking around Ukraine in unmarked uniforms, speaking Russian and talking about being Russian were actually Ukranian rebels and not Russian soldiers.
I'm sure it plays well at home and it surely does sound credible to those worthy, independent-minded journalists at RT.com, but, to everyone else, it just makes Vlad sound like the head ref in this State Farm commercial.
Put your belt back on, pal: Your ass is hangin' out.
After reviewing the cartoon, the ruling on the blog has been reversed
Okay, not all the Pilgrim/Indian cartoons are lame. I just wish Owen Dunne had posted this in time to go with Monday's rant about revisionist experts, because they are all over FB.
Which makes today's Non Sequitur particularly apt.
Because it brings up this classic xkcd, and I hate when that happens.
By the way, Randall Munroe's got a new book out and, to mark the occasion, has posted one of his interactive toys today, so you should go play it, and let that be your moment of zen.
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