Believe Me I Can Tell You That

or, The Airports We Watched

You can expect the Fox News talking heads to spend all night explaining colonial air superiority at Fort McHendry.

Q Toon: Ain't the Kind of Place to Raise Your Kids

Russian President Vladimir Putin, in an interview with the Financial Times last week, claimed that persistent reports of antigay repression in his country are greatly exaggerated: "We have no problem with LGBT persons. God forbid, let them live as they wish. But some things do appear excessive to us. They claim now that children can play five or six gender roles."

Singer Elton John blasted Putin in a tweet, writing "I strongly disagree with your view that pursuing policies that embrace multicultural and sexual diversity are obsolete in our societies. I find duplicity in your comment that you want LGBT people to 'be happy' and that 'we have no problem in that.'"

"[Elton John] is mistaken," Putin was quoted as saying by the Russian state-run news agency TASS. "We [in Russia] have a very neutral attitude to members of the LGBT community. We have a law, for which we've been slammed, a law banning propaganda of homosexuality among minors."
According to Putin, the law just aims to make sure children are "left alone" until they've grown up, and then they can make decisions regarding their sexuality.

John was particularly upset over scenes cut from his recent biopic, Rocketman, when it was shown in Russia.

Some of those scenes involved depictions of drug use and gay sex, and it's easy to see how those scenes might ruffle the feathers of younger and more sensitive viewers. But the film's distributors also cut a G-rated photo at the end of the movie showing John and his husband with their two sons, and the film was advertised as being restricted to viewers over the age of 18.

Whatever the film distributor did to the film, and whyever they did it, there is plenty of documented evidence of Russian persecution of LGBTQ persons, especially in Chechnya. Elsewhere, LGBTQ Russians have to be wary of  vigilante gangs who attack LGBTQ gathering places or use dating sites to lure them into a mugging.

Since repression of LGBTQ citizens is more important to the Russian government than protecting them, the vigilantes might as well be working with Putin's blessing.

And probably are.

Forrest Trump

Memesters have been having fun with Ivanka Trump's latest appearance at Take Your Daughter to Work Day, so let's have at it.

Original Intent

Independence Week's Sneak Peek

Happy Canada Day, eh!

And before I forget, Happy Independence Day to all my U.S., Venezuelan, Belorussian, Rwandan and Ghanaian readers.

Last Call: Water, Water Everywhere, Nor Any Drop to Drink

Detail from "The Rectangle" by Frank O. King, in Chicago Tribune, June 1, 1919

The 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was set to go into effect on July 1, 1919, prohibiting the production, sale and transportation of beer, wine, and intoxicating liquors throughout the country. As reported by Arthur Sears Henning in the Chicago Tribune that fateful Tuesday morning, alongside reports that $1.5 million was spent in 4,500 Windy City taverns Monday night:

Washington, D.C., June 30: Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, who is a Quaker and a "dry" than there is no dryer, announced tonight the determination that the department of justice [sic] "shall do its utmost to enforce wartime prohibition, which goes into effect tomorrow."

"The Vacant Chair" by John T. McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, July 2, 1919

Faced with the reality of the situation, a few — very few — editorial cartoonists still thought the Noble Experiment was a good idea worth a shot.

"Its Finish" by Orville P. Williams in New York Journal, ca. June 30, 1919

And by "very few," I believe I mean "perhaps as many as two."

"Drowned in His Own Bathtub" by J. Thomas in Bend (OR) Bulletin, June 9, 1919

The rest of the lot were not looking forward to that Tuesday morning.

"It Doesn't Seem Like the Same Old 'Smile'" by Paul Plaschke in Louisville Times, ca. June/July, 1919

"Sketched on the Edge of the Desert" by Wyn Barden in Los Angeles Evening Herald, June 27, 1919

If cartoonists were apprehensive about John Barleycorn's impending doom, the nation's tavern keepers were all the more so. They would be put out of business overnight unless they could come up with some other commodity with which to attract their old clientele.

"Booming" by Kenneth R. Chamberlain in Cleveland Press, ca. July, 1919

Frank O. King devoted the top half of his "The Rectangle" on the Sunday prior to Prohibition to the spectacle of the guys down at the bar gathered to enjoy a frosty mug of soda. This originally printed at about a meter wide, so you will need to click on the image to read any of it.

Detail from "The Rectangle" by Frank O. King in Chicago Tribune, June 29, 1919

Many taverns did indeed become soda and ice cream fountains, but as King predicted, those treats simply were not going to cut it for many American men.

"Signs of the Times" by Shafer in Cincinnati Post, ca. June/July, 1919

"Near beer" would remain legal for the time being: pending a ruling by the courts, there would be no prosecution for the sale of beer with less than 2.75% alcohol content. In that court case, however, Attorney General Palmer contended that even 1/2 of 1% alcohol content was intoxicating, and warned that if the government won its case, it would not grant immunity from prosecution to anyone cited for selling near beer.

"It Will Be Dry By To-Morrow" by Ted Brown in Chicago Daily News, June 30, 1919

Some of the nation's editorial cartoonists were openly skeptical of the prospects for the Noble Experiment.

"Samuel" by Daniel Fitzpatrick in St. Louis Post Dispatch, ca. July 1, 1919

Barely weeks before Prohibition went into effect, American and British pilots had successfully flown their rickety, open-cockpit aircraft across the Atlantic from North America to Europe, triumphing over fog, rain, snow and mechanical breakdowns. Nobody had yet managed to make the return trip against the prevailing winds. But where there's a will, there's a way.

"What Will the Atlantic Look Like..." by William Donahey in Cleveland Plain Dealer, June/July, 1919

In the meantime, there was still talk that "wartime Prohibition" would last only as long as the war was officially on, perhaps only a few months. Germany, after all, had finally signed the Treaty of Versailles on June 28. There were a lot of cartoons about people having stockpiles of beer, wine and liquor in the cellar to tide them over until Congress ratified the treaty, too.

"Whenever Mrs. Jones Thinks She Hears Burglars..." by Kenneth R. Chamberlain in Cleveland Press, June/July, 1919

That stockpile was going to have to last a while.

Stonewall Semicentennialback Satureve

Given that my blog features my editorial cartoons for the LGBTQ+ press, plus a regular Saturday feature of old cartoons marking this or that anniversary, you might expect that tomorrow's post will feature a bunch of 50-year-old cartoons about the Stonewall Riots.

Well, it won't.

The fact is, the nation's editorial cartoonists hardly took note of Stonewall (and most probably would have drawn cartoons demeaning the rioters if they had). Outside of New York, few newspapers even reported the uprising. As riots go, Stonewall was overshadowed by racial riots in several U.S. cities, including Omaha, Nebraska; Kokomo and Marion, Indiana; Des Moines, Iowa; Middleton, Ohio; and Waterbury, Connecticut that same week.

"The President Says He'll Cover That..." by Pat Oliphant in Denver Post, ca. June 28, 1969

But since it is the 50th anniversary of Stonewall today, here are a few modest examples of what editorial cartoonists were drawing about at the time. The Nixon administration, and, for some reason, former Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford, announced plans to withdraw some of the American troops from the war in Vietnam. The Nixon administration also withdrew the nomination of Dr. John Knowles to be Assistant Secretary for Health and Science Affairs in what was then the Department of Health, Education and Welfare.

"Tell Them We Did Everything We Could" by Gene Basset for Scripps-Howard Newspapers, ca. July 1, 1969 

One of the issues that sunk the Knowles nomination was his support of all-inclusive health insurance so that poor people could afford health care, by the way, just in case you thought that was a new-fangled concept.

"Aren't We Suppose to Get Some Foreign Aid First" by Wayne Stayskal in Chicago Today American. ca. June 30, 1969

And let's see... We were about to send our first manned mission to the moon — which is pretty fricking amazing when you consider that the moon landing was 50 years ago now, and 50 years before that, we had only just succeeded in flying across the Atlantic Ocean for the first time.

"His Critics Never Broke Through...," unsigned (Ted Shearer?) in Washington (D.C.) Afro-American, July 1, 1969

And Chief Justice Earl Warren stepped down from the Supreme Court. I've already discussed how Republicans Merrick-Garlanded President Lyndon Johnson's nominees to succeed Warren, so it's hardly worthwhile to repeat myself today.

"That Cat's on Crab Grass" by Bill Mauldin in Chicago Sun-Times, ca. June 29, 1969

Oh, there was plenty of other stuff, but most of it just doesn't inspire a whole lot of nostalgia (I'm not quite old enough to wax nostalgic about 1969 anyway...although I have sometimes wished I still had the drug awareness workbook we had in elementary school, just to see how well I remember it) or insightful commentary.

"To Soothe the Savage Breast" by Bill Crawford for Newspaper Enterprise Association, ca. July 1, 1969

So tune back here tomorrow morning for a slew of cartoons half a century older than these.