Saturday Selfies

It's time once again for the Graphical History Tour  to venture down into the deep recesses of your friendly tour guide's basement to rummage through some April cartoons decades old.

Starting with—

1986

in UW-P Ranger, Somers Wis., April 28, 1986

Just five years after a mentally deranged person attempted to assassinate the President of the United States, Congress, with the full support of that assassination target, decided it was time to relax gun controls. 

The so-called Firearms Owners Protection Act of 1986 amended the Gun Control Act of 1968 to redefine "gun dealer," excluding those making occasional sales or repairs, and legalized interstate sales of firearms provided that seller and buyer meet in person.

Another provision of the Act prohibited "the establishment of any system of registration of firearms, firearm owners, or firearm transactions."

On the other hand, it did add penalties for the use of armor-piercing bullets during the commission of a crime involving illegal drugs.

1996

Gun rights in this country depend to some extent on one's socio-economic status.

in UWM Post, Milwaukee, April 18, 1996

Nowadays, the Citizen's Militia types even get presidential pardons and Justice Department pressure on judges to vacate seditious conspiracy convictions for trying to overthrow the U.S. government.

in UWM Post, Milwaukee, April 22, 1996

Speaking of eternal constants, consider the plight of poor, cursed Lebanon. Once considered the Paris of the Middle East, capital Beirut was ripped apart by a sectarian religious war in the 1970's and pummeling by its neighbor to the south, Israel.

The main difference between then and now is that Shimon Peres appeared to have genuine regret at the death and destruction, whereas the Netanyahu government seems to revel in it. Targeting ambulances, schools, journalists, and hospitals all seems entirely intentional now.

The University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, where this cartoon was printed, has long had Islamic and Jewish student groups very vocal about matters involving Israel, Palestine, and their neighbors. I might have expected some blowback over this cartoon, but the next issue's letter to the editor from the Israel Activist Center defending Israel's actions made no mention of my cartoon. 

Nor did the counter-response from the President of the Collective Union of Arab Students a week later. And with that, the school year ended, and any further salvos in the conversation went up on some long forgotten BBS.

2006

for Q Syndicate, April, 2006

Donald Trump, Eric Swalwell, and Tony Gonzales most certainly did not invent sex scandals. One such scandal, quickly forgotten among the parade, involved sexting of underage girls by Department of Homeland Security Deputy Press Secretary Brian Doyle.

55-year-old Doyle, believing he was sexting with a girl of 14, was caught in an on-line sting by the Polk County, Florida, Sheriffs Department. Charged with sending the fictitious girl sexually explicit photos and movie clips, Doyle had even given her his name, that he worked for DHS, and his office and governmental cell phone numbers.

This embarrassment came on top of the department's woefully inadequate response to the devastation of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina, and the revelation that someone at DHS had disposed of an envelope of suspicious white powder out an office window. (There had been a few incidents of envelopes being mailed to news anchors and Democratic politicians made to appear as though they contained a toxic chemical.)

Going for a Three Stooges reference here was complicated by the fact that DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff bore no resemblance to Larry, Moe, or Curly. I do think that I got his caricature down in this, the one and only time I ever put him (or Brian Doyle, for that matter) in a cartoon.

2016

for Q Syndicate, April, 2016

I haven't set a cartoon in a diner in a long time, which is too bad. I like the setting, with its possibilities for slightly altering the point of view. 

In the years before I started colorizing my cartoons, the second or third panel would have probably shown this couple in silhouette. It keeps the cartoon from being too static, since the characters aren't actually moving around doing things.

The situation also allows for this sort of twist ending in a way that, say, talking heads on Fox Noise might not.

From Lebanon to Halloween in Order Categorical

Given the newest war in the Holy Land, it is only appropriate to start our Graphical History Tour of my October cartoons with this reminder of the dangers of getting involved in the region.

in UW-Parkside Ranger, Somers, Wis., Oct. 27, 1983

U.S. Marines were in Beirut in 1983 as part of a multinational peacekeeping force during Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war. Those dates should give you a good idea of just how successful those "peacekeeping" efforts were.

On October 23, 1983, a suicide bomber exploded a truck at the Marines' barracks near Beirut International Airport, killing 241 U.S. Marines, sailors, and soldiers. Another suicide bomber blew himself up at the barracks of the French paratroopers, killing another 58. This coordinated attack, for which Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility, was the second deadly attack on Western interests; a suicide bomber had killed 63 at the American embassy in April.

A joint American-French retaliatory strike against Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), believed to be training Hezbollah militants, was proposed; but it never came about because of doubts within the Reagan administration that Iran was behind the October 23 bombings. Instead, most of the U.S. peacekeeping force was moved offshore to transport ships. The following February, President Ronald Reagan authorized withdrawal of U.S. troops from the conflict.

in UW-M Post, Milwaukee, Wis., Oct. 7, 1993

Ten years later, American lives were lost in another civil war, this time in Somalia. Bill Clinton had inherited Operation Restore Hope from the George H.W. Bush administration. U.S. troops were assisting the United Nations operation providing famine relief there when, on October 3, 1993, soldiers loyal to Somali warlord Mohammed Farah Aideed shot down two U.S. Blackhawk helicopters.

Eighteen U.S. soldiers and hundreds Somalis were killed in the crash and ensuing battle. Video of Somali combatants dragging the naked bodies of slain U.S. servicemen through the streets shocked and revolted the nation.

in UW-M Post, Milwaukee, Wis., Oct. 11, 1993

President Clinton pulled the U.S. forces out of the conflict zone four days later, and from the rest of Somalia the following March. America wanted nothing to do with a distant African nation where all of the warring factions were the bad guys.

The snake imagery in the earlier of these two cartoons echoes two famous cartoons by J.N. "Ding" Darling of a giant German serpent swallowing the world. Darling has not been the only cartoonist to liken war to a giant snake; Pat Oliphant drew at least one cartoon using snake images to represent U.S. involvement in Vietnam, and that country's shape inspired a number of other editorial cartoons.

✍

Lest today's post get too dark and depressing, let's skip ahead another ten years and sing us Picayune Butler, or something else that's funny.

for Q Syndicate, October, 2003

The U.S. was at war again in October of 2003, but the publications I was drawing for had other priorities. The Business Journal didn't happen to write any editorials about Afghanistan or Iraq that month, and I'd just drawn a cartoon a month earlier for Q Syndicate of religious zealots trying to enlist homophobia in the George W. Bush administration's strategery planning.

My cartoon about the fictional Rock Knuteson was a purely made-up scenario about closeted ball players. We now know of a few bi and gay athletes who were active in professional sports in 2003, but none of them were out to any but their closest friends at the time.

for Q Syndicate, October, 2013

And I couldn't let this post end without a Hallowe'en cartoon.

In 2012, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie had vetoed a marriage equality bill passed by the state legislature and had called instead for a putting a constitutional amendment up for popular vote. The legislature failed to override the veto, but didn't pass the amendment measure, either.

Meanwhile, Garden State Equality v. Dow was making its way through the courts, and New Jersey Superior Court Judge Mary Jacobson ruled that New Jersey "shall permit" same-sex couples to marry, effective October 21, 2013. The state Supreme Court unanimously denied Christie's appeal to delay implementation of Judge Jacobson's decision, and New Jersey's first same-sex nuptials were performed at the stroke of midnight.

Christie has a mixed record on LGBTQ+ issues, but a considerably better one than most Republicans. As governor, he favored civil unions for same-sex couples prior to legalization of marriage equality; he also signed a bill outlawing conversion therapy for minors. 

Now making a second run for the presidency, he spoke out against his party's bans on gender-affirming care, telling Brian Kilmeade on "Fox and Friends" this past June, "It's more of a parent’s decision than a governor's decision for goodness sakes, Brian. You really think that [Arkansas Governor] Sarah Huckabee Sanders should be making this decision for children in Arkansas?"

Be That As It May

Today's Saturday rummage through the archives should perhaps belong before last Saturday's, since I'm starting off here with the last cartoon I drew for the Parkside Ranger before the 1983 summer break; but I'll move on to later years when summer breaks were not an issue.

I've got no unifying theme to the cartoons this week, so join me on a hopscotch tour taking us hither, yon, and points unknown.

in UW-Parkside Ranger, Somers Wis., May 5, 1983

I don't believe that I got the original of this cartoon back from the Ranger, so I've lifted this from their on-line archives. I notice that I had not written the Ranger's name on the cartoon, so perhaps I drew the cartoon I led off with last week in case the editors wanted to run it in the May 12 edition. (They ran a post-graduate cartoon I had drawn in April instead.)

At issue in the cartoon is Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon. The imp in the corner (possibly the last time I used him in a cartoon) is referring to Lebanon's various ethnic and religious camps fighting to control other sectors of the country: Druze, Christian, and Palestinian, and within them, splinter groups. The Syrian government of Assad carved off a sector twice as large as the one taken by Israel.

Seated at the table is Lebanon's President Amine Gemayel, who had came to office in place of his assassinated elder brother Bachir in September of 1982. Leaning in through the window is Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin — a caricature I wouldn't be able to get away with today. But seriously: the man looked like an antisemitic cartoon come to life.

May, 1993

This local issue cartoon from May, 1993, speaks to me now because we happen to be going through yet another hospital merger where my Better Half works. These mergers are advertised as improving cost efficiencies, and we've noticed how it works: if Acceptional Health Corp. offers its employees more paid days off than Adepture Medical Inc. does, and Adepture contributes more to its employees' 401-Ks than Acceptional does, Acceptional-Adepture employees will end up with the lesser number of paid days off and the lower 401-K contribution. 

The front page of the May 20, 1993 Racine Journal-Times headlined reports of a move by All Saints Medical Center (itself a then-recent merger of St. Luke's and St. Mary's Hospitals) intention to buy up Racine Medical Clinic and Kurten Medical Clinic. The proposed merger would result in a practical health care monopoly in Racine, which had some doctors concerned, according to a sidebar article. 

Another sidebar, and a subsequent editorial, complained that the legally required public notice had appeared not in the local paper, but in the Milwaukee Sentinel. A spokesperson for All Saints explained that "Our customers aren't all from Racine." The paper further alleged that a rash of hospital merger activity in Wisconsin was timed to beat a state law set to take effect on July 1 submitting mergers and major equipment purchases to review by a public panel.

The Journal Times didn't run my cartoon this time. The All Saints monopoly issue would eventually become moot anyway when Aurora Health Care moved into town. Both have been involved in mergers since then, albeit not with each other. Yet.

And Racine still has hospital facilities in and around town, unlike some communities where absentee vulture capitalists shut down the hospitals they've bought in order to finance further mergers and acquisitions elsewhere.

May, 2003

Speaking of cartoons that didn't get published: I've scanned this one in grayscale to show how close I was to finishing it before I gave up on it.

Why did I stop drawing? Because just about every political cartoonist and late night comedian was doing some variation on the same joke about Saddam Hussein's belligerently grandiose spokesman, whom we called "Baghdad Bob." Al-Sahhaf confidently predicted the crushing defeat of U.S.-led invading forces all the while that they advanced with only nominal opposition toward the Iraq capital.

Of course, we already had Beltway Bobs of our own. Our troops weren't exactly greeted as liberators. Nor did the war pay for itself.

Q Syndicate, May, 2003

If you weren't bothered by cartoon stereotypes in my caricature of an Israeli Prime Minister, perhaps you will also enjoy some mafia stereotypes, too. 

What can I say? In our household, we watch "Some Like It Hot" and "Key Largo" whenever they show up on Turner Classic Movies.

I have since learned that "youse" is plural. My bad.

Q Syndicate, May, 2013

Taking some time off to travel to a family wedding in May of 2013, I drew only three cartoons that month.

Since immigration reform is again (or rather, still) in the news these days, I'll choose this one drawn for Q Syndicate. LGBTQ+ activists had hopes of convincing the Senate to include a provision in that year's immigration reform bill to grant citizenship to same-sex foreign spouses of U.S. citizens — just like different-sex couples, including a recent First Lady, enjoy.

Judiciary Committee Chair Patrick Leahy (D-VT) supported such a provision, but couldn't get it through his committee. Democrats, even those sympathetic to LGBTQ+ couples' rights, realized that there was zero chance of the Republican House accepting the provision.

They might as well have included citizenship for Grindr hook-ups. The Senate passed the "Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013" in June, but Republicans in the House never took up the measure at all, once again preventing the government from solving our immigration problems.

Instead, Republicans kept immigration as an issue they have continued to bitch and whine about ever since. 

Flying a planeload of migrants to Martha's Vineyard is so much easier than responsible governance, you know.

Stop Me If You've Heard This

History, it is said, repeats itself. Or at least it rhymes. Or exhibits recurring themes and leitmotifs. Or wanders in circles. Or suffers flashbacks.

In the past week or so, the NRA elected itself a new leader best known for illegal arms sales; a foreign enemy released three American prisoners; Donald Joffrey Trump abrogated a treaty with Iran; and the White House complained that a criminal investigation was getting too close to the president had dragged on too long.

Where have I heard this song before? Doesn't that tree look familar?

When the Reagan administration's secret arms deal with Iran first came to light in 1986, it was immediately associated with the release of one of the hostages who were being held by various factions in Lebanon's civil war. Iran was backing Hezbollah there, while also in the sixth year of war with Saddam Hussein's Iraq.

I drew a connection with Nicaragua, whose socialist government had just arrested Eugene Hasenfus, an ex-marine from Marinette, Wisconsin. Hasenfus had been shot down while flying arms to right-wing rebels known as the Contras. I wasn't making the right connection, but I was in the right ballpark.

When the true Iran-Contra connection came to light, the Reagan administration line was that aid to the Nicaraguan guerillas was all the work of one U.S. Marines Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North.

It was a complicated scheme, involving North's funneling $10,000 from the Sultan of Brunei to a Swiss bank account (to the wrong account as it happened), and enlisting the aid of Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega against the Nicaraguan government. (Overthrowing Noriega would become a priority of the George H.W. Bush administration.)

Since President Reagan had no idea what was going on, he was obliged to appoint former Senator John Tower (whom we discussed a couple weeks ago) to lead a commission tasked with investigating the Iran-Contra affair. The Tower Commission presented its findings to the president in March, 1987.

But that didn't bring an end to the matter. Attorney General Ed Meese named New York attorney Lawrence Walsh special counsel to determine whether to charge anyone with any crimes. Congress also held hearings into the Iran-Contra affair; Lt. Col. Ollie North was a star witness. He defended his having lied to Congress because he believed aiding the Contras through illegal arms sales was a "neat idea."

You never saw future NRA head honcho Ollie North on TV except in full military uniform, badges and all.

On March 16, 1988, a grand jury handed down a 23-count indictment against top administration officials, including future NRA top gun Ollie North. By the time any of the court trials got underway, Ronald Reagan was out of office. He was also exhibiting signs of senile dementia, although those closest to him were doing their best to conceal the problem and to pass it off as his usual aw-shucks folksy demeanor.

Walsh had concluded that Reagan had not himself broken the law, so popular speculation immediately after his presidency centered on whether he would be called upon to testify at the trials of his subordinates. Of more pressing concern to the first of these was paneling a jury that could be impartial in weighing the fate of future NRA don Ollie North.

But a jury was finally seated. In May, 1989, North was found guilty of three out of 16 federal charges: accepting an illegal gratuity, aiding and abetting in the obstruction of a congressional inquiry, and ordering the destruction of documents.

Appellate courts would ultimately set aside North's conviction, as well as those of Reagan's National Security Adviser Adm. James Poindexter and nine others. Five others — including former State Department official Elliott Abrams and former defense secretary Caspar W. Weinberger — were preëmptively pardoned by lame duck President George H.W. Bush on Christmas Eve 1992.

There was no investigation of Walsh's investigation, of course. Bush's successor would have to endure a totally unrelated interminable investigation which was supposed to be about some Arkansas land deal in which Bill and Hillary Clinton had lost money. But it ended up being about extramarital affairs and —

I'm positive we passed that tree before!

Q Toon: Smother of Exiles

The Republicans are standing by the golden door again, making damned sure it stays shut...

I couldn't possibly fit all the candidates still in the presidential race into this cartoon, so I offer my  thoughts and prayers to any of them who feel slighted and left out.