The Yanks Are Coming

Slackerback Saturday returns yet again to the thrilling days of World War I. When we last revisited events of a century ago, the U.S. just had declared war against Germany, which the Entente powers generally welcomed.

Cover of Fantasio, Paris, by Auguste Roubille, May 1, 1917

The question at this point was, "You and what army?"

"You Never Miss the Water 'Till the Well Runs Dry" by Robt. Satterfield in Cleveland News, April, 1917

The U.S. had been able to get by for generations with a volunteer army. The Spanish-American War had been decided in a matter of months, and the expeditionary foray into Mexico had faced only a small band of guerrillas. The U.S. had not defeated Pancho Villa's ragtag rebels, however, and the German war machine was anything but ragtag.

North of the border in British-ruled Quebec, the cartoonist for the Montreal Daily Mail had some disappointing news for "the slacker who went to the U.S."

"To-Day's Hero" by Lawrence (?) in Montreal Daily Mail, April 14, 1917

President Wilson realized that in spite of the patriotic fervor immediately following the declaration of war, the all-volunteer U.S. military would be insufficient to make a substantial difference in any long-term fighting overseas. The answer, of course, was to institute mandatory selective conscription of male citizens, an idea not without its detractors.

"Some of Those Opposed" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Eagle, April 27, 1917

Congressman James Beauchamp "Champ" Clark" (D-MO) had been a rival for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1912, entering the convention that year with more delegates than the eventual winner, Woodrow Wilson. In his role as Speaker of the House, he had done much to advance President Wilson's domestic agenda, so Harding's suggestion here that Clark was against conscription because Wilson was for it is a gross mischaracterization; but the Speaker did split with the President over America's entry into the war.

If not against involvement in European affairs generally, Clark was at least no fan of the British Empire, having argued forcefully in the House in favor of the U.S. annexing Canada.

"Backing Up Uncle Sam" by Winsor McCay in New York American, May 1, 1917

In spite of Speaker Clark's opposition, Congress overwhelmingly approved instituting the draft on April 28.

"Universal Training for These" by Jay N. "Ding" Darling in New York Tribune, April, 1917

I include this John Darling cartoon because it features future U.S. President Herbert Hoover. "Ding" was a lifelong fan of fellow Iowan Hoover, whom President Wilson named to lead the U.S. Food Administration based on his indefatigable efforts in bringing relief aid to Belgium. In the cartoon above, Hoover's front line troops of produce and livestock are threatened from behind by "German plotters" cabbage worm, potato bug, and black dust.

"The Kaiser's Prop" in L'Asino, Italy, April, 1917

Meanwhile, as long as we brought up Messrs. Wilhelm Hohenzollern and Nicholas Romanov a moment ago, here's a prediction from a cartoonist for the Italian L'Asino that the sudden end of tsarism in Russia foretold doom for the German Kaiser. (The broken crutch is labeled "tsarism," and the fist is labeled "Russian Revolution.") The cartoonist wasn't about to let the inconvenient detail that Russia and Germany were on opposite sides of the war — and that continued unrest in Russia left its future commitment to the war in doubt — spoil a perfectly good cartoon.

After all, there was a new Triple Entente in town.

"Pals" by Sidney Greene in New York Evening Telegram, April 25, 1917

Hard Heart of Dixie

The fight against marriage equality goes on:

Alabama Governor Kay Ivey is expected to sign a bill this week ensuring that adoption agencies in her state can discriminate against same-sex couples. The rationale for HB24, according to its chief Senate sponsor, Sen. Bill Hightower (R-Mobile), is that if they're required to consider same-sex couples just like anyone else, adoption agencies would rather shut down. “The need for adoption is so high," Hightower explained. "We need to have every avenue available.”

Much better, as Alabama Republicans see it, to lock potential adoptive parents out of the system. The law doesn't specifically name LGBT parents as its target of discrimination, so one can easily imagine the possibility of a wider issue:

“It’s hard to see this as anything but animus toward LGBT families, but the bill could have a greater effect than that,” said Randall Marshall, the Legal Director for ACLU Alabama. “Agencies could turn away qualified families for countless other reasons that have no relevance to their ability to provide a safe loving home. A Catholic or Jewish agency could turn away Evangelical or Protestant families. A family could be turned away because they don’t attend church regularly.”

The Daily Show has been airing a series of reports in an effort to understand Alabama, which happens to have the lowest viewership of The Daily Show in the country; and in Monday's report, State Rep Patricia Todd, the state legislature's one and only openly gay member, noted that her state was the only one in Dixie not to have passed antigay legislation while she has been in office. She now has to sing a different tune.

“I’m tired of being in a country where I’m not welcome,” Rep. Patricia Todd, a Birmingham Democrat, told Rep. Rich Wingo, the Tuscaloosa Republican who sponsored the bill. “And to deal with institutions that know nothing about me but make a judgment that I’m a bad person because I am gay.”

Lest you think that Alabama is out in front on this issue, South Dakota, Michigan, North Dakota, and Virginia have all passed similar laws, and have been proposed in several other states as well. Discriminating against LGBT Americans has been and continues to be a legislative priority for Republicans everywhere.

This Week's Sneak Peek

Apparently, I'm just too lazy to go back and color in all that orange stubble.

Happy Earth Day with the NCJ

In celebration of Earth Day, Sierraback Saturday recycles a handful of cartoons I drew for the NorthCountry Journal roughly 30 years ago.

The NorthCountry Journal was an environmentally themed monthly newspaper published in Poynette, Wisconsin from 1986 to 1988. Each issue ran 12 pages, with news primarily of issues concerning northern Wisconsin, updates from the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR), activities of the state legislature, and regular columns about wildlife by Ced Vig, living close to nature by Justin Isherwood, and hunting by Jim Kalkofen. Plus the occasional handy household hints: did you know that cucumber peelings repel ants?

My cartoons became a regular Page 6 feature in the NCJ soon after the newspaper was launched. Editor Susie Isaksen would send me the topic of the next edition's editorial, and I'd send her a cartoon to complement it; for example, finding common cause between hunters and naturists above, and in favor of funding a Wisconsin soil erosion program below.

I've selected here cartoons that don't focus on specific politicians, although the guy with the bulbous nose in the background of this next cartoon was a generic politician character I used in the NCJ from time to time. (The unshaven guy was another recurring character.) The editorial was about industrial representatives and farmers "whining" to state officials about the so-called undue burdens of environmental protection regulations.

The U.S. Air Force was conducting low-level flights of B-52 bombers over northern Wisconsin and Upper Michigan in the spring of 1987, leading to complaints that people couldn't hear each other talk in the woods. There was also concern of the flights' effects on eagles and other wildlife. I tied the story in with another environmental concern of the time.

Where to put the state's garbage was a growing problem. There was such a thing as recycling back then, but it mostly involved taking your old newspapers, cans and milk cartons to a recycling center. Very few municipalities had curbside pick-up of recyclables, and rather than wait in line at the recycling company yard, many people didn't bother to separate recyclables from their other trash.

Recyclables aside, did you know that an apple core will completely decay in a couple weeks in a compost pile, but it will last for several months in a landfill? And that we've been stocking our landfills with non-biodegradable Styrofoam (well, almost non-bio-degradable) since World War II?

That unshaven guy from the third cartoon above puts in one more appearance in this last cartoon featuring a generic industrial plant, Slimeco, that was another recurring entity. I never made it clear what sort of company Slimeco was, other than that the corporation had a callous disregard for the environment.

Slimeco and its CEO Roger Slimec appeared in a few cartoons I drew for other publications after the NCJ suspended publication. I have not, however, had much call for it to appear in my LGBT-focused work, so Slimeco has been out of the public eye for a quite a while.

Heck, it's probably a wholly owned subsidiary of Koch Industries by now.

Caveat Circuitor

Yesterday's post ended with the observation that even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Then I was reminded that it ain't necessarily so.

Torture Logic

You'll have to forgive me for getting serious this week.

Most of what Americans know about the Soviet Russian Republic of Chechnya has to do with the Islamist revolt there in the 1990s and Chechen terrorist attacks such as the 2002 Moscow theater hostage crisis and Beslan school hostage crisis in 2004. Moscow has tightly controlled the Chechen government since crushing the revolt and eliminating the territory's independence-minded leaders. Vladimir Putin installed Ramzan Kadyrov as President of Chechnya in 2007.

This month, the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta reported that Chechen authorities had begun mass arrests of gay men, who were tortured with electric current to get them to give up the names of other gay men:

The media scandal on repressions against homosexuals in Chechnya broke out on April, 1 after the publication of the Novaya Gazeta investigation, which referred to the detention and torture of more than 100 homosexual men in Chechnya, as well as to the murders of at least three people.
The publication aroused the anger of Chechen politicians and clergy, who called these data "lies and provocation". Kadyrov's press secretary Alvi Karimov said that there were no gay people among the residents of the republic, and Kheda Saratova, a member of the HRC with the head of Chechnya, said that she "would not consider a statement about the murder of a homosexual, because this is an evil that every resident of Chechnya must fight with".

The official denial of the existence of any gays in Chechnya echoes Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's denial ten years ago that Iran was hanging men and women for the crime of being gay.

In keeping with dictatorial standards and practices, the official state policy is to attack the media. But we're not talking about merely denying Novaya Gazeta admisison to a press gaggle.

At the April 3, 2017, gathering of some 15,000 men, Chechen presidential adviser Adam Shahidov called the Novaya Gazeta journalists "enemies of our faith and our motherland" and promised "vengeance." The resolution adopted at the gathering included a "promise that retribution will catch up with the hatemongers wherever and whoever they are, without a statute of limitations," according to Novaya Gazeta.

The Novaya Gazeta reporters have good reason to be concerned for their own safety. The long list of Russian citizens assassinated for exposing what Russian government is becoming includes one of their own: Novaya Gazeta reporter  Anna Politkovskaya in October, 2006:

Politkovskaya was just 48 years old when she was found in the foyer of her apartment building, shot in the head with a pistol. Her unflinching reporting for the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta on the Chechen War’s human-rights abuses, corruption, and brutality made her one of Russia’s bravest journalists.

Kadyrov (who was Prime Minister in 2006) denied responsibility for the murder in a 2007 interview, but his reasoning is still chilling:

"Why would I have killed her?" he says, in heavily accented Russian (Chechen is his first language). "She used to write bad things about my father, and if I had wanted to, I could have done something bad to her at that time. Why now?"

Another Russian journalist was murdered just last month.

To its credit, even the Trump administration has denounced the gross violation of human rights in Chechnya. I guess that's some small progress; but even a broken clock is right twice a day.

This Week's Sneak Peek

Here's a rough pencil sketch from the making of this week's syndicated cartoon.