Terrible news- 2 bombs exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon yesterday, killing 3 and injuring over 100 people. Events like this send the television media into overdrive, filling airtime with speculation rather than actual news and facts. Let’s hope the coverage doesn’t spiral into non-stop, emotionally driven, 24 hour reporting. I’m not hopeful, though.
Category: society
Republicans plan to filibuster gun bill
Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell is joining Senators Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio to prevent a vote on gun background checks. I guess “We the People” and polls showing 90% of the American public support background checks doesn’t matter with these guys.
Thomas Jefferson and the Separation of Church & State
C-Span opened its Washington Journal program this morning with the question “Should religion play a role in politics?”,which led me to think about Thomas Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists and the issue of Separation of Church and State. Several years ago I was fortunate to see at the original at the Library of Congress:
Very cool.
Historic week for gay marriage and equal rights
Crowds line up for gay marriage cases. Photo by David Lloyd
Today the Supreme Court of the United States will hear the first of two cases for same-sex marriage. Opponents will argue that legalizing these unions will destroy the traditional definition of marriage since marriage is about “responsible procreation and child-rearing” (tell that to couples who choose not to have children or the elderly couple who have found happiness again). This is a simple question of equal rights. Why shouldn’t gays, who pay taxes and participate in society just like anyone else, be able to marry? Churches will still be able to decide which couples can be married within the church; this will not impact them. It will be interesting to see which Justices support the Separation of Church and State and which ones are still living in the pre-Loving v. Virginia era.
Gay marriage cases before the Supreme Court
This week SCOTUS will hear two same-sex marriage cases this week; on Tuesday California’s Proposition 8 ban on gay marriages case and on Wednesday the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA).
10th anniversary of the Iraq War
The Washington Post has a slideshow of some of my print work leading up to and during the first couple of years of the Iraq War. Here’s a couple of them; you can see the full collection here.
White smoke, new pope
The wait (and excessive media coverage- but that’s another post) is over. Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina has been elected pope. This BBC profile of the new pope describes him as “orthodox on sexual matters but strong on social justice”. I see that as a big contradiction. Women’s economic status, especially in poor countries, is affected by the lack of access to contraceptives and their position in society.
No sequester pain for Congress
Washington Post: Congress won’t face pay cut in sequester.
Do I need to add anything more?
March 8th is International Women’s Day
Some good news after the Oscar booby show
Just wanted to offer a glimmer of hope after my last post about the Oscars. I recently returned from a visit to California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), where Ralph Eggleston and I did a presentation for the character animation program. During our question and answer segment it was mentioned that women made up 62.5% of student enrollment for the 2012-2013 school year. When I attended CalArts in the early 1980’s there were approximately 6-8 women in the entire program. Progress.
photo courtesy of Amanda Candler, one of the inspiring young women at CalArts. See more of her student work at her blog.
The Oscars and women
I considered just letting this go. There’s so much other important news happening and frankly I’d rather concentrate on my next animation. However, after listening and reading some of my regular morning news sources I felt I had to spend a few minutes to address last night’s Oscars. Yes, there were funny and memorable moments; I laughed out loud at the clever Christopher Plummer Von Trapp intro and cheered Shirley Bassey’s Goldfinger performance– but really, we’re still doing boob jokes? Yes, I know Seth MacFarlane was brought in to attract younger audiences but the obnoxious references to women’s body parts and female tendencies really set my teeth on edge. As some of you may know, MacFarlane’s fame comes from animation and since I began my career there, I wasn’t surprised at the sophomoric humor. But what was a surprise was that it hasn’t changed since the 1980’s.
But maybe I’m not reading the tea leaves here. Perhaps this is the way to look at the situation; let’s hope so.
More news coming out of the Vatican
More and more news about the Vatican has been appearing since the sudden resignation of Pope Benedict on Feb 11th. There’s a report which investigated the 2012 scandal over leaked Vatican documents , dysfunction within the Vatican, and criticism of Cardinal Mahony’s plans to participate in the choosing of the next pope. Speaking of Cardinals involved with the Church’s sexual abuse scandals, during next month’s gathering in Rome Cardinal Law (remember him?) will not be participating; he’s 81 and ineligible to vote in the conclave.