A Gallup poll shows former President Bush’s ratings have improved. 
Category: society
NSA and metadata
Where to start? It seems like new developments about domestic spying are coming every hour. Before we get ahead of ourselves, here’s a good AP piece which will give you some background about how we got to this point. Glenn Greenwald & Ewen MacAskill from The Guardian broke the story and revealed the identity of the whistleblower, Edward Snowden while Barton Gellman & Laura Poitrus of The Washington Post had the breaking story of the metadata mining program, “PRISM”. Here’s the link to my take on metadata gathering.
Six Chix sunday strips
In 2000, King Features launched Six Chix, a daily comic strip created by six women. I was one of the original “Chix” and my designated day was Thursday. The color Sunday strip was rotated between all the cartoonists. I was a bit ambivalent about the whole thing; while I enjoyed the opportunity to create cartoons which weren’t purely editorial, the gimmick of a strip by six women set my teeth on edge. There wasn’t a reason why any of the Six Chix contributors shouldn’t have been offered a strip on their own; can you imagine syndicates even approaching male cartoonists with this idea? 
Big month for SCOTUS
June is going to be a busy month for the Supreme Court of the United States. The justices will be issuing decisions on affirmative action, same-sex marriage, voting rights, and gene patents over the next few weeks. Be sure to regularly check SCOTUSblog; they’ll be live-blogging this morning on the affirmative action case, Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin.
*I’ll be doing live sketches for the Washington Post the week of the same-sex marriage decisions.
Veterans and suicide
According to a report by the Department of Veterans Affairs, 22 veterans commit suicide every day. In this article from the Huffington Post, more active-duty U.S. soldiers have died from suicide than from combat in 2012. Researchers at the National Center for Veterans Studies in Salt Lake City report that Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBIs) might be the cause of the increased suicide rates.
I remember back in the early days of the Iraq War how some members of the Bush Administration were positive the war would cost under 50 billion. Of course everyone knows we’ve exceeded that estimate but what we don’t know yet is how much needs to be spent on veterans and their injuries, especially from the unprecedented numbers of traumatic brain injuries during the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. 
The Cicadas are coming
There’s no particular reason for posting this sketch; was just watching Sen. Mitch McConnell on Meet the Press and thought he looked like a cicada.
Bob Mankoff, cartoon editor of The New Yorker
Look who wandered into Lexington, Virginia:
Actually, Bob Mankoff was in town to speak at Washington and Lee University about humor and cartooning. Brett Koth (creator of Diamond Lil) and I had talked to a W&L class earlier and then joined Bob and his host, Prof Julie Woodzincka, for lunch. Bob told some great stories about cartoons which never were printed in The New Yorker. I had just been talking about cartooning, censorship, and “drawing the line” with students in Julie’s class so it was interesting to hear what The New Yorker would and wouldn’t accept in a cartoon.
The issue about horse racing no one ever talks about
The Kentucky Derby is today and besides the various articles about the hats and specialty cocktails, some writers dig a little deeper and bring up the darker side of the sport. They’ll talk about the doping, the horses breaking down and euthanized during races but I rarely hear anything about the age of these animals. The fact is these horses start their careers at age two- way too early to be ridden, much less galloped at full speed down a racetrack. Horses shouldn’t be started under saddle before age three; some breeds mature late and are started at four. Their bodies haven’t fully developed so injuries are common and many of them end up as broken, unwanted horses on their way to the slaughterhouse. Wonder why they’re started so early? Because if the minimum age a horse could be raced was increased to four, that would mean more care and board cost for the owners and trainers. It’s pure greed.
Texas governor Perry attacks Ohman cartoon
Last week the Sacramento Bee published this Jack Ohman cartoon:
Governor Rick Perry, who obviously doesn’t understand the point of the cartoon, felt the need to write to the newspaper and demand an apology. Jack eloquently responded to the governor’s letter here.
Texas Lt. Governor Dewhurst added his thoughts on twitter:
A couple of colorful tweets from readers who don’t care for the cartoon:
Jack’s a big boy. He can handle criticism; it comes with the job. The sentiments above are not the problem. However, he has been receiving threats -which is not ok. I don’t care what people think the cartoon says or doesn’t say, everyone has the right to express an opinion without fearing for one’s life, editorial cartoonists included. If you’re angry or offended by a cartoon, you have every right to criticize it- write a letter to the editor, tweet your outrage, draw your own cartoon. What you don’t have the right to do is threaten or intimidate people for what they say or draw.
For those people people who are still confused I suggest taking a look at our First Amendment (it’s right before that Second one).
The George W Bush Library dedication ceremony today
Let the revisionism begin! The George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum opens today. Here’s a few cartoons from my archive; the Washington Post should have a slide show later with more. *Update: here’s the full slideshow.
What makes an editorial cartoon an editorial cartoon
It’s not news to anyone who follows editorial cartoons that the art form is going through some tough times here in the US. Because of newspaper closings and the fact that more people are getting their news online, editorial cartoonists are finding it hard to find jobs and decent pay for reprints. However, It’s also doesn’t help the profession when a cartoon syndicate starts offering the same editorial cartoon with two completely different viewpoints. 
This is a clear case of a cartoon syndicate trying to maximize profits by offering the same artwork but changing a few words to address both ideological sides of an issue. An editorial cartoon is supposed to have a clear point of view. Let me repeat that: an editorial cartoon is supposed to have a clear point of view; it should reflect the opinion of the creator. Otherwise, it’s not an editorial cartoon but just a cartoon. Distributing this kind of work demeans and devalues the profession.
Shame
The US Senate rejects gun background checks and the Americans they claim to represent.