As noted and/or anticipated yesterday, most of the Mandatory Mandela Cartoons have been at least predictable if not entirely lame. But I certainly like Matt Davies’ contribution, which demands some honesty, integrity and sincerity that we know we’re not ever gonna get.The bulk of statements on Mandela’s death were almost certainly ghosted by aides and […]
Matt Davies on the launch of Al Jazeera America.And he’s right, of course, in that the network is facing an almost impossible set of challenges: Getting past the Islamophobia of the past several decades, and getting past the expectations that a “good” news network is one that reinforces your prejudices, whichever end of the spectrum […]
I feel bad for my landlords, who were told by their insurance company that it wouldn’t cover the house unless they upgraded its ancient wiring. (They’re in the main section, I have the apartment at the back.)Obviously, I feel better about the new wiring, because I’ve made a few trips to the basement to reset circuit […]
The factory disaster in Bangladesh is showing up in political cartoons. I particularly like Matt Davies’ piece, tying it into the brutal sweatshops of our own history.But I sure don’t have much of a prescription, beyond the obvious, unlikely and unhelpful.Yes, don’t buy clothes from sweatshops. So … where then? Because affordable clothes come from […]
I’ve said that I approach each morning as a blank slate, waiting to see what topic the day’s cartoons will prompt me to riff on, but I’ll admit I have been hoping for a good “Papal retirement” cartoon, and with some increasing impatience.Apparently, judging from the cartoons, there appears to have been some sort of […]
The Big Lie Theory of Government is alive and well. Matt Davies does a nice job of wedding the embarrassing Clint Eastwood appearance with what should be an even more embarrassing speech by VP Candidate Paul Ryan, a presentation so full of non-operative statements that even a Fox News analyst called him out on it: (T)o anyone […]
Matt Davies notes the irony of American criticism of Egyptian attempts at free elections.Now, from the start, it’s important to note that you don’t have to be perfect in order to criticize someone else. It is possible, for instance, to say, “For god’s sake, you don’t want to wind up like us!”But I haven’t discerned […]
Jeff Danziger covers the coverage.I am so glad to be out of the newsroom.I used to come into the briefing every day with at least two stories already working, just to avoid being assigned something stupid. When that didn’t work, I’d try to talk the editor into an angle for the assignment that wasn’t, well, […]
The droll, understated style of Wiley Miller makes him probably the best cartoonist to address this issue. Given deadlines, this would be quite a buzzer-beater if he had drawn it after Limbaugh’s attack, though there are times when the first cartoon of the next set can be more timely than usual. But I’m assuming he just picked […]
I’m currently working on a series for kids about Theodore Roosevelt and conservation, and, as part of that, was going through political cartoons of the era.This two page spread by Puck cartoonist L.M. Glackens ran in that publication in 1906, when William Randolph Hearst was a candidate for governor of New York (click on it […]
I’m not sure what happened in Connecticut that spurred Matt Davies to draw this cartoon, but I’m not going to Google for it because it really doesn’t matter. My understanding is that most states, and the FBI, are in a situation where their labs are simply not equipped to handle the flow of evidence. Procedures […]