Edit

This is stuff that only people who really, really like viewing those Drawn In 60 Seconds videos some cartoonists publish of their drawing process.

I draw with pen and ink and don't stop to take pictures of myself every half minute or so, so I don't make videos like that. (Whoops, just lost those videophiles!) But sometimes I post the pencil sketches as Sneak Peeks on Monday. This Monday, I posted instead an edit I drew to be pasted onto this week's cartoon.

After I closed up shop Sunday night and went to bed, I decided I didn't like the mammoths' dialogue in the cartoon I had just finished drawing:

It had no oomph, and before I fell asleep, I thought of something I liked a little better than "Sneaky!" Fortunately, I remembered it when I woke up.

Back in the olden days, I would have had to paint some white-out over the "Sneaky" balloon, wait for it to dry, then carefully draw over it. (White-out tends to break apart under a quill pen. India ink on white-out, moreover, tends to bead together somewhat before drying.)

Now, it's scan, copy, paste, erase the new layer where the old layer needs to show through, merge layers, and voilá! The hardest part was getting the border from one layer to line up with the border of the other.

And wouldn't video of that have been fascinating?

Beshear's Veto

A perennial complaint against editorial cartoonists is that we never have anything nice to say.

So I hope someone out there will appreciate my offering a reprieve from all the cartoons about bloody classrooms, Putin and Xi standing over dead Ukraine, banks crumbling, and David with his DeSantis hanging out.

I'm paraphrasing Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear in this week's cartoon before quoting him directly in the last half of the dialogue. After vetoing the Republican legislature's bill outlawing all gender-affirming therapy for minors regardless of parental and professional medical judgment, Beshear told reporters, 

“At the end of the day, this is about my belief — and, I think, the belief of the majority of Kentuckians — that parents should get to make important medical decisions about their children, not big government."

The vetoed bill, hastily passed at the close of the legislative session, does more than tread on families' personal medical decisions. As outlined by the Human Rights Campaign, the 

• Ban gender affirming care: The bill will prohibit transgender youth from accessing best practice, age-appropriate medical care – care delivered after careful consultation with the young person’s parents and doctors. It would also force doctors to detransition transgender youth who have been receiving – and thriving – under their care plan.
• Force teachers to disclose confidential conversations they’ve had with students about their sexual orientation or gender identity to the student’s parents, even if that would put the student in danger at home: This bill will make it more difficult for LGBTQ+ students to seek assistance from trusted adults in school, and could put children in real danger if they are not safe being out at home. The bill also requires teachers and students be allowed to misgender their own pupils and classmates, and prohibits schools from recommending or requiring any policies on pronoun use.
• Ban transgender students from using school restrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity.

The first and third provisions listed above were added with minimal notice at the last minute to a bill which originally dealt only with the material in that second bullet point. That allowed the bill to pass through the statehouse's education committee rather than one concerned with health care.

The legislature's bill is a deliberate slap in the face to one of their own members, grieving the suicide of her transgender son just this past December.

"My child is dead, but I have parents from all over the Commonwealth and literally all over the country coming up to me, writing to me, calling me — look, these children exist," [Sen. Karen] Berg tells TODAY.com. "These children have all always existed. They're just asking for a space to be. If I can't use my own life learnings to protect other people, and what am I doing here? What's my purpose?

"I cannot bring my child back," she adds. "But I can help other families. I can."

The Republican General Assembly has already overriden Governor Beshear's veto, and the state Senate is sure to follow.

But I give Mr. Beshear his due for standing up for principle.

And shame on the assholes passing these mean-spirited bills in state after state after state after state after state after state after state after state after state after state after state after state after — well, perhaps you get the idea.

This Week's Sneak Peek

I don't usually offer sneak peeks of dialogue from the southwest corner of my cartoons, but I'll make an exception today. I'll explain further later.

A hat tip to friend of the blog D.D. Degg for suggesting as a possible inspiration for Carey Orr's cartoon (see Saturday) the election to Congress from Milwaukee of Socialist Victor Berger.

Voters returned Berger to Congress in the November, 1922 election; I mentioned him in passing in a recent post about the difficulty the House had electing its Speaker in December of 1923. (The 68th Congress began its session in March, but promptly adjourned for the next nine months.) He was first elected to Congress in 1910, but lost his reelection bid in 1912. He won election to Congress again in 1918, but the House refused to seat him, and he was defeated in his 1920 election bid.

Berger served in Congress from 1923 to 1929. Only five months after leaving office, he died as a result of injuries sustained when he was hit by a trolley car while crossing the street.

My opinion, so far, is that if Carey Orr were specifically referencing Congressman Berger, he would have labeled the Wisconsin eruption with the congressman's name. As it is, Orr didn't even limit his concern to Milwaukee, for its socialist congressman and mayor.

Just the same, Orr could certainly have had Berger in mind as one of several "activities in Wisconsin" that would "bear watching."

We'll stay tooned.

Dairyland Bolshevism?

Every once in a while when I'm cyberleafing through old newspapers in search of a topic for these Saturday posts, I run across a cartoon that makes me stop and wonder what could possibly have been in the cartoonist's mind.

"A Movement that Will Bear Watching" by Carey Orr in Chicago Tribune, March 25, 1923

Usually, such cartoons don't fit in with whatever I've decided to devote a post to, but I was so puzzled by this Carey Orr cartoon that I had to investigate further. The cartoon shows Uncle Sam, ready with a large club, rolling up his sleeve and watching a rising mound of earth from which emanates the words "Activities in Wisconsin." Meanwhile, a snake labeled "Bolshevism" is burrowing into the soil of Russia.

Being from Wisconsin myself, I wondered what rumblings of Bolshevism were threatening to erupt in my home state 100 years ago, so I scoured the pages of Carey Orr's employer to find what had the Chicago Tribune so worried about America's Dairyland.

The Wisconsin-related issue that was the topic of a number of Tribune editorials in March of 1923 was opposition by the Attorneys General of Wisconsin and Michigan to a Tribune-supported proposal to divert Lake Michigan water upstream to make the Chicago River navigable and connecting it to the Illinois River. One such editorial in the March 21 edition was headlined "Wisconsin and Michigan in Error." 

But tying that issue to any supposed Red Menace seems extremely far-fetched. Besides, Orr's cartoon makes no mention of Michigan.

Milwaukee had elected its second Socialist mayor, Daniel Hoan, in 1916; he was popular enough that he remained in office until 1940. Whatever Mayor Hoan was up to in 1923, I haven't found much coverage of it in the Chicago Tribune.

The Tribune did report that Non-partisan League founder Arthur Townley, a former socialist, was barnstorming Wisconsin trying to gin up support for the Farmer-Labor Party. Townley didn't find many takers on his tour; unfortunately, his National Leader had ceased publication at the end of 1922 due to a lack of paid subscriptions, so we don't have Townley's first-person account of his Wisconsin trip.

"It's Getting So Nowadays You Can't Depend Much on Labels" by Carey Orr in Chicago Tribune, March 21, 1923

Wisconsin's Progressive Republican Senator Robert "Fighting Bob" LaFollette was a frequent target of the Tribune's and its cartoonists' ire. LaFollette, shown here in the darkened back room pouring "Russian Red" into "Progressivism" bottles, spoke approvingly of Russian communism — until late 1923 when he went to Russia and saw it in practice first hand.

"My, My, What Won't the Archeologists Discover Yet" by J.N. "Ding" Darling in Des Moines Register, March 12, 1923

But if Senator LaFollette were Orr's concern in the cartoon at the top of today's post, why not include Iowa? That was the home state of another Progressive Republican Senator, Smith W. Brookhart, shown in our second cartoon at the counter offering progressivism tonic to a dubious John Q. Public, and here in "Ding" Darling's cartoon joining LaFollette's campaign against Standard Oil's cartel and the Sugar Trust. (Ding is riffing on the recent discovery-cum-raiding of Tutankhamen's tomb.)

And why not include Minnesota, home to another of the backroom apothecaries in Orr's cartoon, Farmer-Labor Senator Henrik Shipstead? The fellow farthest in the back is North Dakota Republican Senator Edwin F. Ladd, so why the heck single out Wisconsin when these Pink Progressives were all over the upper Midwest?

"Outbursts of Everett True" by Armundo D. Condo for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., March 27, 1923

Checking my hometown paper, I found banner headlines about an effort in Madison to meddle in Racine's mayoral election by declaring that the winner of the primary would be the winner of the general election. As written, the bill would have also applied to Kenosha and Superior. The Racine Journal-News seemed to believe that the bill was intended to favor Racine's incumbent mayor. If this preposterous and abortive plan was covered in the Tribune, I missed it, but the timing of the March primary suggested a possible motive for Orr's cartoon.

Wisconsin primaries were held on Tuesday, March 20 ― a few days before the Tribune ran cartoon that prompted today's post. Elsewhere around the state, a Labor candidate made it to the general election for mayor of Ashland; three Socialist candidates topped the results for Milwaukee's school board.

On the other hand, neither of Madison's newspapers noticed any surge of socialism as they reported election returns. One would have expected alarums from the Wisconsin State Journal and crowing from the Capital Times. Instead, I found coverage of a bill passed by the Assembly and State Senate to zero out state funding for the National Guard. Maybe that was what had Carey Orr hot under the collar?

Ah, well. I guess we may never know.

Incidentally, the Racine Journal-News's favored mayoral candidate led over the incumbent in Racine's primary. I haven't found the newspaper calling either of them a Bolshevik.

Q Toon: Send Out the Clowns

When I drew this cartoon on Sunday night, Donald "Spats" Trump had teased us with the prediction that he would be arrested by the Manhattan District Attorney on Tuesday.

As we now know, the Manhattan D.A. wasn't quite ready to put Diamonique Don in handcuffs just yet. The threat of MAGA mob action, however, prompted D.A. Alvin Bragg to warn against any efforts to intimidate his office.

For the moment, that intimidation is coming from congressional Republicans, several of whom are demanding an investigation of the the D.A.'s office for what they call a politically motivated prosecution. Three House committee chairs and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy have called for Bragg to turn over communications and documents from his office and to testify before their committees. McCarthy also complained, "You are reportedly about to engage in an unprecedented abuse of prosecutorial authority: the indictment of a former president of the United States!"

So says the political party that hired a prosecutor to investigate charges of realty chicanery in Arkansas, and when all the guy found was semen stains on a dress, they decided, "Okay, then, let's just impeach Bill Clinton for that."

I'm not particularly interested in the whole porn star hush money business in the first place. The alleged transaction in question took place before Trump became president, so we know that he wasn't having Ms. Daniels spank him with rolled up highly classified documents. Stormygate may be great fodder for late-night TV comedy, but it doesn't rise to the level of, say, colluding with Russia during a presidential campaign.

Or pressuring a foreign government to dig up dirt on the family of a president's political rival. 

Or pressuring a state official to pull 11,780 votes out of thin air. 

Or instigating an attempted coup.

But as the most corrupt president in the history of the Republic, Trump is going to be arraigned for something or other one of these days — unprecedented or not. 

The presidential oath of office does not include a free and full pardon for all high crimes and misdemeanors past, present, and future.

This Week's Sneak Peek

Some pencil roughs from my sketchbook:

Just a thought here, but I'm running out of time to get the obligatory Brackets Cartoon done this year.

The Looming French Menace

Our Graphical History Tour of 1923 this month turns to foreign affairs and finds Monsieur LePoilu looming over a terrified John Bull. Could it be 1066 all over again?

"Looming Across the Channel" by Harry Murphy for Star Company, ca. March 29, 1923

Well, of course not.

"Völker Europas, Wahrt Eure Heiligsten Güter" by Arthur Johnson in Kladderadatsch, Berlin, March 18, 1923

Unless you were looking at things from a German point of view. (By the way, that little dude pointing at the crazed French soldier is the Kladderadatsch magazine's mascot.)

Occupation by France and Belgium of Germany's Ruhr Valley provoked their erstwhile Entente ally Great Britain to suspend diplomatic relations with Paris. The Harding administration expressed disapproval, but declined to get involved.

Resistance (passive and otherwise) by the Germans under France's heel proved to be a considerable nuisance. French soldiers shot and killed a number of German railroad saboteurs in the month of March, and the government of Prime Minister Raymond Poincaré threatened action against Krupp Aktiengesellschaft and other German corporations for cheering on the resistance.

"Plenty of Advice from a Safe Distance" by J.N. "Ding" Darling in Des Moines Register, March 13, 1923

Cheerleaders on the other side of the fence include Krupp and mining and media mogul Hugo Stinnes (soon to buy Kladderadatsch). The character calling out from the gate in the distance is Chancellor Wilhelm Cuno, whose government encouraged resistance by the citizenry.

"Seeing Himself in the Boss' Clothes" by J.N. "Ding" Darling in Des Moines Register, March 29, 1923

Moving across the channel but sticking with "Ding" for the moment, the political establishment in Great Britain was coming to grips with the possibility of a government led by the Labour Party. The decline in the fortunes of the Liberal Party left the more socialist Labourites as the more likely alternative to the Conservative Party, whose leader, Andrew Bonar Law, was being sidelined by throat cancer.

"The Present British Pastime" by Dorman H. Smith for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., ca. March 29, 1923

As signals of the eventual likelihood of a Labour government, the King and Queen had a get-to-know-you lunch with Labourite leaders, and the party officially disavowed Soviet-style communism.

"This'll About Be the End of Me" by Clifford Berryman in Washington Evening Star, March 15, 1923

Speaking of the Soviets, a third stroke on March 9, 1923 had left Vladimir Lenin temporarily unable to speak, and presented the Bolshevik government with its first succession battle. Leon Trotsky, contrary to Clifford Berryman's cartoon, was not terminally ill. But with only tepid and wavering support from Lenin, Trotsky was soon to be pushed out of the government, as General Secretary Josef Stalin had already been consolidating power behind the scenes for years.

"A Haircut and Shave Might Help" by Gale in Los Angeles Times, March 23, 1923

At the same time, Progressive Republicans in the U.S. such as Senators Borah of Idaho and LaFollette of Wisconsin were urging the Harding administration to extend official recognition to the Soviet regime. A high-profile capital trial of some Orthodox priests and bishops, on top of Russia's repudiation of tsarist era debts to U.S. and European governments, made recognition of the government in Moscow politically unfeasible.

"Italy Enlightening the World" by Daniel Fitzpatrick in St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 30, 1923

Traveling now to Italy, we find il Duce Benito Mussolini hosting a major international conference. Daniel Fitzpatrick's sour assessment of Mussolini's welcoming speech was not shared by the Chicago Tribune, which editorialized on March 20:

"Premier Mussolini's remarks in welcoming the second congress of international chambers of commerce ought to win some serious consideration in this country and we especially commend them to those discontented communities of our west whose new leaders are preaching socialistic remedies.

"Mussolini was once a socialist and an exile from Italy because of his opinions. But he lived and thought through that phase and it was in passionate conviction of the fallacy of Marxian doctrine that he inspired and organized the movement that saved Italy on the brink of communist quicksand. Today from the seat of supreme authority, confronting the great dangers and difficulties of reconstruction, he announces his conviction that 'a government desiring to uplift its people after a war crisis must give free play to private enterprise and forego any measure of state control or state paternalism.' ...

"Says Mussolini, 'One of the great historical experiences, which has unfolded itself under our eyes, clearly demonstrated that all systems of associated economy which avoid free initiative and individual impulse fail more or less pitifully within a short lapse of time.'"

"Experience— that is the key to Italy's wisdom at this time. It ought to be ours."

"In Spring the Balkans' Fancy" by Elmer Bushnell for Central Press Assn., ca. Mar. 13, 1923

In addition to the international events recounted here today, shots were fired between Irish separatists and British occupiers, and between Lithuania and Poland. Negotiations to end the Entente powers' occupation of Turkey had been slogging on for months.

"Little Red Riding Hood" by Dorman H. Smith for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., ca. March 19, 1923

With all this in mind, Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes convinced President Warren Harding to support the idea of creating a World Court to settle international disputes.

"A Dangerous Platform" by Harry Murphy for Star Co., ca. March 29, 1923

It was an idea that didn't sit well with isolationists in the Senate, including the president's Republican supporters and the Progressives, or in the press. In the end, President Harding would be out of the picture before the Senate was ever gaveled into session.

Q Toon: But We Play Woke on TV

I'm taking a week off from alarmist cartoons about the fascist wing of the Requblican Party.

And drawing instead about the corporations that fund them.

By now, you cannot but notice how interracial and non-intergenderal couples have begun to appear in television and internet commercials, once the exclusive domain of white heterosexuals. (Although I've always had my suspicions about Mr. Whipple.)

Leaving interracial families aside for the nonce, unless the same-sex couples are pressing you to ask your doctor about anti-retroviral medication, you might blink and miss them. Which is why the guys in today's cartoon are stuck in that split second of time.

Many of these same advertisers wanting to appear (for lack of a better word) woke have, however, been helping fill Republican politicians' campaign coffers for decades, even as the party marches farther and farther into antiLGBTQ and racist territory. Repressive and restrictive laws are proliferating in Florida, Texas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Arizona, and Iowa.

Chuck Magro. John May. Donnie King. Cory Harris. Charles Scharf.

These are the CEOs of five of the most powerful corporations operating in Iowa: Corteva. John Deere. Tyson. Wellmark. Wells Fargo.

Where are they? Should we request a wellness check to make sure they’re OK?

These CEOs lead corporate monopolies making billions every year off the bodies and brains of Iowans, including LGBTQ Iowans, yet they’ve been missing in action as Iowa Republicans propose the largest number of anti-LGBTQ bills ever in a single legislative session.

These bills include everything from attempts to ban books (because kids reading about LGBTQ characters is dangerous, while meatpacking plant child labor isn’t) to an attempt to ban same-sex marriage in the state (forget the issue of constitutionality).

The time has come to realize that corporate monopolies are no friend of the LGBTQ community when the going gets tough.

For these corporations, maintaining favor with the Republicans who run the state is more important than standing up for LGBTQ Iowans, including their own workers. They know if they dare defy Iowa Republicans, their ability to maintain the monopoly power they use to deliver their excessive profits will be threatened. ...

Perhaps one can't blame Corporate America for being intimidated by the example Florida has set after Disney Corporation dared to stand up for its LGBTQ employees and customers. Not every corporation has quite as sweet a deal as Disney had up to this year from the states where they operate; but nearly every major corporation has plied legislatures with campaign donations in order to secure special benefits of one kind or another: Tax Incremental Financing districts, property tax waivers, monopoly protection, taxpayer-funded stadiums, and so on and so forth.

And they don't want those bennies taken away after so much investment in those politicians.

If we in the LGBTQ+ community want to know who our real friends are in the business world, that Des Moines Register editorial suggests we look to the folks who can't afford to pay premium prices for friends in the statehouse:

[I]t’s again small-business owners who possess the courage to speak up. Dozens of small businesses like the print shop Raygun, the bookstore Reading in Public, and the brewery Firetrucker Brewery have all taken stands alongside LGBTQ Iowans and against Iowa Republicans’ proposed legislation.

Wouldn’t Iowa’s LGBTQ community be better off with fewer corporate monopolies and more Rayguns, Reading in Publics, and Firetruckers? The answer is yes.

Ask your doctor if small businesses are right for you.

This Week's Sneak Peek

Last Saturday's post got a little shortchanged thanks to the weather around here.

I had not gotten a whole lot written for the post when we got a bit shy of a foot of wet, heavy snow in our area late in the week. We had to clean it off the driveway and sidewalk, of course; and fortunately, we never lost power to the house. Dad's neighborhood, on the other hand, was without electricity for nearly 24 hours.

Once we found out about it, my better half and I had to scramble to convert the guest room from a storage room for piles of random stuff that didn't belong anywhere in particular back into a habitable space, and I drove over to Dad's place to bring him over here for the night.

This is the third time in less than a month that ice or snow has cut off the power to neighborhoods in our area (some of my cousin-in-laws were without electricity for a day and a half last weekend).

This meteorological spring has got some 'splaining to do.

Springtime for Harding

Turning our attention to U.S. politics in March of 1923, we find President Warren Harding heading out of town.

"Wonder If the President Had a Tip on This Spring Weather" by Clifford Berryman in Washington Evening Star, March 7, 1923

President Harding's golf vacation to Florida coincided with a mighty snowstorm throughout the Midwest and up and down the East Coast.

"Back to Normalcy" by Dennis McCarthy in New Orleans Times-Picayune, March 13, 1923

Louisianan McCarthy probably didn't begrudge the president for heading south ahead of the storm.

No caption, by Daniel Fitzpatrick in St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 13, 1923

The political prisoners Daniel Fitzpatrick might have had in mind were labor organizers, suspected German sympathizers, socialists, and antiwar activists.

"I See in The Papers That Congress Has Adjourned" by Wm. F. Canan in Minneapolis Star, March 12, 1923

It's not is if there were important business for Harding to deal with. The new Congress had just been sworn in, but had just as quickly been adjourned.

"Farmer Daugherty Breaks the Record for Early Planting" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, March 21, 1923

Back in Washington, Harry Daugherty, the Attorney General of the U.S. and a longtime buddy of Harding's, was confidently planning the president's reelection campaign.

"One Opposing Element" by Elmer Bushnell for Central Press Assn., ca. March 26, 1923

As the incumbent, Harding would have been heavily favored for renomination in 1924 (had he lived), and, given the mood of the times, it is likely that his "return to normalcy" would have gotten him reelected. But while his reelection announcement convinced others such as Senators William Borah and Hiram Johnson to clear the field, Harding faced one prominent rival from within his own party: Senator Robert LaFollette of Wisconsin.

"He Thinks He's St. Patrick" by Carey Orr in Chicago Tribune, March 17, 1923

Borah, Johnson, and LaFollette were leaders of the Progressive wing of the Republican Party, emboldened by the losses suffered by the Establishment wing in the 1922 congressional elections. The Republican Party maintained majorities in the House and Senate, but by slim enough margins that the Progressives wielded considerable clout in the legislature.

"Only Four More Days!" by Clifford Berryman in Washington Sunday Star, March 11, 1923

We'll be talking about "Fighting Bob" LaFollette plenty over the next year or so. In the meantime, I leave you with this reminder that if you lived in the U.S. 100 years ago, your tax report to the government would be due on the Ides of March.

Q Toon: The Warm-up Act

I'm starting to find the fascist wing of the GOP a bit tiresome.

I mean, just last week, I drew my cartoon about Florida Requblicans demanding that their colleges and universities surrender the health records of any and all transgender students to the state — the better to round them up someday — and compared them to Nazis hunting out hidden Jews, homosexuals, and Roma.

So this week, some right-wing podcaster delighted the thronglets at the Conservative Political Arian Convention by calling for the Final Solution to transgenderism. What am I supposed to do, draw a second Nazi-themed cartoon in a row?

Mike Godwin should be collecting royalties on all the Nazi comparisons.

Meanwhile, every Requblican-run state in the country is branding transgender citizens as outlaws, criminalizing their health care, and even barring them from public restrooms. And although we have waited in vain for decades now for anything to be done about armed psychopaths shooting up American society, those same legislators are moving lickety split to make cross-dressing a felony.

It's the gateway drag to transgenderism, don'tcha know.

This Week's Sneak Peek

And now for something slightly different:

March Times On

This week's Graphical History Tour takes a hop, skip, and a jump through 40 Marches' worth of my cartoons.

in UW-Parkside Ranger, Somers Wis., March 3, 1983

Your social media was no doubt littered with notices that the final episode of M*A*S*H aired 40 years ago this week. 

The two-hour broadcast broke records for viewership, but I didn't get to see the show that night. I was in the cast of the local Theater Guild's production of George Bernard Shaw's "You Never Can Tell" at the time, and "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen" aired during one of our performances. The crew had it on a small television backstage, so I did get a few passing glances at it; but in the absence of On Demand technology, I had to wait until CBS got around to airing the rerun to see the whole episode. 

(If I remember correctly, as a rerun, it was broken up into four half-hour episodes.)

CBS did try to hang on to M*A*S*H fans by concocting a spin-off about Col. Potter, Father Mulcahy, and Cpl. Klinger working at a Veterans Administration hospital stateside. It lasted two seasons; I'm pretty sure I never watched the second one.

unpublished, March, 1993

Two of the cartoons that I drew for the Racine Journal Times in March of 1993 never got published, and this is one of them.

The Racine Unified School Board's personnel committee had recommended a policy of automatic suspension lasting 20 weeks or a full semester for any student found to have brought any dangerous weapon into a school. The suspension would last an entire year if the student threatened another person with the weapon, and permanent expulsion if the weapon were used.

This was before Columbine and a host of other mass shootings at schools, but there had been the occasional rumor of somebody bringing a knife or a gun to school at least as far back as my own high school days. How many of those rumors were true I couldn't tell you.

Nowadays, Wisconsin law mandates that "school boards of common or union high school districts shall expel a pupil from school for not less than one year whenever it finds that the pupil, while at school or while under the supervision of a school authority, possessed a firearm" (per Giffords Law Center). It is likewise illegal to carry a knife of any kind into a school building; but otherwise, state law prohibits local knife and gun regulations from being stricter than the lax standards Republicans passed in 2016.

Speaking of unpublished cartoons...

unpublished, March 2003

Ten Marches later, the Dubya administration was determined to go to war with Iraq, and absent a gay angle or a Business Journal editorial coinciding with my point of view, I didn't have a publication interested in paying me for cartoons about a topic addressed by every syndicated editorial cartoonist already. So I went ahead and drew this one for my own amusement (and the amusement of anyone who happened upon my old GeoCities page).

I used it as an exercise in exploring colorizing the cartoon. In black-and-white, little Prime Minister Tony Blair and his British flag didn't stand out enough to be noticed; it helped to have him seated among colored chairs. Colorizing the cartoon also allowed the movie screen to be in grayscale, like an old movie.

But you may have noticed that I have largely given up crosshatching, and colorizing this cartoon had a lot to do with that.

for Q Syndicate, March, 2013

Which is not to say that I never give myself a lot of tiny detail work to paint on Monday morning. This wedding bower, for example.

No doubt that's why I decided to leave the chairs white.

Q Toon: The Things That Guide My Life

I've finally gotten around to my Jimmy Carter tribute cartoon this week. It quotes extensively from an interview the former president gave to Huffington Post in 2012:

Q: A lot of people point to the Bible for reasons why gay people should not be in the church, or accepted in any way.

A: Homosexuality was well known in the ancient world, well before Christ was born and Jesus never said a word about homosexuality. In all of his teachings about multiple things -– he never said that gay people should be condemned. I personally think it is very fine for gay people to be married in civil ceremonies.

I draw the line, maybe arbitrarily, in requiring by law that churches must marry people. I’m a Baptist, and I believe that each congregation is autonomous and can govern its own affairs. So if a local Baptist church wants to accept gay members on an equal basis, which my church does by the way, then that is fine. If a church decides not to, then government laws shouldn’t require them to.

As president, Carter didn't have a lot to say about homosexuality. Not because gay rights weren't an issue, mind you. Lesbian and gay activists were openly pushing for non-discrimination laws, and the other side had Anita Bryant crusading against us. Sgt. Leonard Matlovich was suing the Air Force to reinstate him after it had discharged him in 1975 for being gay (he won his suit in 1980, but accepted a monetary settlement instead). San Francisco's gays and lesbians rioted after the antigay assassin of Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone was sentenced to only seven years in prison. The first homosexual rights march on Washington D.C. was in 1979.

On the other hand, the disease that would later be named HIV/AIDS was known only to a few and understood by even fewer. Even within the lesbian and gay community, there was little interest in marriage equality.

Carter's administration did, through Midge Costanza and her Office of Public Liaison, urge federal agencies to adopt and enforce antidiscrimination policies, however. And in 1978, when pressured at a pre-election rally by gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown to endorse a "no" vote on Proposition 6, the antigay Briggs Amendment, (and promised that Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan had already done the same), Carter returned to the mic and added his support for California's lesbians and gays as a postscript to his appearance there.

Well, I suppose the 1970's were a different time. I don't remember Senator Joe Biden speaking up for us, either; yet that doesn't negate his endorsement of marriage equality in 2012. 

So I return here to the Huffington Post interview. Toward the end of the interview, Carter explains his Christian life philosophy more fully. It wouldn't all fit into my cartoon, but his answer to a question about people who cite selected biblical passages to defend their homophobia deserves to be included here in full.

A: The example that I set in my private life is to emulate what Christ did as he faced people who were despised like the lepers or the Samaritans. He reached out to them, he reached out to poor people, he reached out to people that were not Jews and treated them equally. The more despised and the more in need they were, the more he emphasized that we should go to and share with them our talent our ability, our wealth, our influence. Those are the things that guide my life and when I find a verse in the Bible that contradicts those things that I just described to you, I put into practice the things that I derive from my faith in Christ.

Amen, Mr. President. Amen.