2020 in Masochistic Review

As is my wont on Circumcision of Our Lord Day, I pause to reflect on the headlines and cartoons of the year gone by.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind?

Sounds like an attractive plan of action this time around.

Q Toon: Auld Lang v. Syne

Extending 2020? Doesn't everybody think it was more than long enough?

Well, not a certain occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue desperate to find some way to keep January 20, 2021 from happening.

Adding more months onto everyone's least favorite year might not win him any new fans, but you can bet his legions of Trumpster cultists would suddenly be agitating to observe Undecember, Duodecember, Tredecember, ad infinitemcember all the way to 2025 and beyond. 

And it isn't any more ludicrous than any of the other frivolous lawsuits filed on the Donald's behalf.

When L. Lin Wood, Jr. filed one of those suits with the attestation that:

...it was surely a Freudian slip of epic propecia. Proportions!

I only hope that nobody on the Team That Couldn't Sue Straight sees this cartoon in time to take this argument to court.

This Old Year's Sneak Peek

 Oh, look! Carolers!

Merry Christmas, 1920 Style

"A Rare Bird" by J.N. "Ding" Darling in New York Tribune, Dec. 25, 1920

St. Stephenback Saturday wishes you a merry Second Day of Christmas; and as my gift to you today instead of a couple of lousy turtledoves, I bring you a collection of cartoons from the newspapers on December 24 and 25, 100 years ago. We'll start off with a rather bizarre holiday offering from the great Jay N. Darling, capturing the Spirit of Christmas in a bear leg trap.

"Just What We Wanted" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Dec. 24, 1920

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle's front pages in December were full of reports of a crime wave plaguing New York, but I am just going to assume that Nelson Harding is being facetious in this cartoon of New York Mayor John F. Hylan.

"To All Evening World Readers" by John Cassel in New York Evening World, Dec. 24, 1920

Other editorial cartoonists took a holiday from grave matters of politics. John Cassel wished his readers a merry Christmas...

John M. Baer, The Nonpartisan Leader, Fargo, ND, Dec. 27, 1920

...As did cartoonist-Congressman John Baer, fresh from a defeat at the ballot box which he apparently accepted without filing dozens of frivolous lawsuits or entertaining the notion of martial law. (I know I said these cartoons were going to be dated December 24 and 25, but I'm granting the biweekly Nonpartisan Leader a little leeway.)

"A Couple of Wiseacres" by Magnus Kettner for Western Newspaper Union, Dec., 1920

Magnus Kettner's cartoons generally steered clear of politics and were relatively gentle when they didn't. His cartoons were targeted to a rural readership, where it appears the horseless carriage was still a thing for future generations.

"Poker Portraits" by Harold T. Webster in New York Tribune, Dec., 1920

Guys get their share of ribbing in the humor panels for Christmas. A charitable explanation here might be that this fellow isn't as clueless as he looks. Perhaps he's Jewish or Sikh, and new to this country. And if he's Sikh, it's cartoonist Harold Webster who is the clueless one, having forgotten to draw him wearing his turban.

Be that as it may, cluelessness survives from bachelorhood to married bliss...

"Oh, Man" by Clare Briggs in New York Tribune, Dec. 25, 1920

I'm sure that Alice got a nice bathrobe, at any rate.

"You Send an Answer" by Robert Ripley in Washington Evening Star,  Dec. 24, 1920

Robert Ripley (yes, he of "Believe It Or Not" fame) leads our selection of cartoonists pushing Christmas commercialization. What heartless bastard could possibly let down this little girl praying to Santa for a doll?

"Can You Beat It" by Maurice Ketten in New York Evening World, Dec. 24, 1920

Maurice Ketten's shoppers aren't confusing religion with shopping. They are hep to a variety of Christmas shopping strategies, from fancy wrapping to regifting. Note the Prohibition reference in panel five.

"We're Out of 'Em" by Gaar Williams in Indianapolis News, Dec. 1920

Hey! Put the newspaper down and get that little girl her doll! Right now! Before they're all gone!

"Has She Forgotten Anybody" by John McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, Dec., 1920

If consumerism isn't your yuletide thing, there's also plenty of Christmas Charity guilt tripping to go around.

"I Wish My Mamma and Me Was Dogs" by Albert Wallen for Federated Press, Dec., 1920

Albert Wallen offers up a "Bah, humbug!" to the dogs of the late Mrs. Louise B. Pams, proving that there was nothing strikingly original about Leona Helmsley. Yet who knows but that Mrs. Pams was a loving and kind soul, forsaken by the grasping wretches of her ungrateful family, all except for Fido and Fifi. And seeing as all her children were deathly allergic to canines, wasn't this the charitable and thoughtful thing to do, all things considered?

"Same Old Knockout" by "Jim Nasium" in Philadelphia Inquirer, Dec. 25, 1920

Striking a blow against commercialization of the holiday, "Jim Nasium" was the pen name of Philadelphia Inquirer sports cartoonist Edgar Forrest Wolfe (1874-1958). Yes, Virginia, there used to be sports cartoonists as well as editorial cartoonists at any newspaper able to brag about its circulation figures.

 

This Santa may pack a mean punch, but he has got to be one of the scrawniest Santa Clauses ever drawn.

"No Hold-up Here" by Bill Sykes in Philadelphia Evening Ledger, Dec. 24, 1920

Man, you really do not want to get on Santa's bad side in Philadelphia. That guy has a wicked temper!

Well, that's enough violence for one holiday. I'll close today's trip beyond Memory Lane with a gentle wish to you and yours from the nation's capital.

Clifford Berryman in Washington Evening Star, Dec. 24, 1920

And to all a good night.

Merry Christmas, Trump Style

He knows if you've been bad or good, so be bad for goodness' sake.

Q Toon: Cabinet Building

You were expecting maybe another Christmas cartoon?

President-Elect Joe Biden is busy assembling his cabinet, and there are some interesting choices. They are a remarkably diverse bunch, racially, ethnically, and LGBTQ+ly, for one thing. One of them is on record saying nasty things about Republicans, which has shocked, shocked! a party where such behavior is completely unknown.

There might be more significant resistance to Biden's choice for Defense, Lloyd Austin II, a retired U.S. Army four-star general, commander of U.S. Central Command until April, 2016. The National Security Act of 1947, which began the process of replacing the Department of War with the Department of Defense, requires that the head of the department not have served in the U.S. military for seven years before assuming the job. Congress waived that provision for Gen. George Marshall in 1950 and Gen. James Mattis in 2017, but members on both sides of the aisle have expressed reservations about yet another waiver.

So some of Biden's other cabinet choices seem more at random. For Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Biden wants former Chief of Staff in the Obama administration Denis McDonough, who has some experience in foreign policy, but not in the military or in health care. Former Gary, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg, one of Biden's rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination last winter and one of his best spokesmen on TV in the fall, has been tagged for the Department of Transportation.

Secretary of Transportation is something of a dead-end job as far as political aspirations go. Oh, sure, Liddy Dole tried running for president in 2000 with Transportation Secretary on her résumé, and Andrew Card shows up on cable news now and again. But can you name any others? If you can think of the name of Donald Trump's Secretary of Transportation before reading past this comma, you are probably her husband, Mitch McConnell.

So will my LGBTQ+ continue to be interested in Mayor Pete? Will we ever hear from him again?

Ah, well. The President-Elect is an Amtrak aficionado, so maybe there's still a chance for the Department of Transportation to make news after all.

The Great Conjunction Function

 Check out the sky tonight! Jupiter and Saturn are closer than they have been in 800 years!