"Some beehives suffer from "colony collapse disorder." Be careful, Mr. President." ©D.Barstow

When I was little, I remember lying on the living room couch with a sore throat and an upset tummy, miserable as only sick children can be. My grandmother was playing cards with a few of her friends, and I couldn’t have felt less festive. One of her friends, Aunt Rita, made me honey toast. I didn’t even want it, but I ate some, and I was instantly healed.

No one pointed at me as if it was a miracle, but that was okay- I was pretty shy, so I just sat up, got dressed properly, and went to play. Even having experienced this, and having read that honey was used in World War 1 as a wound healer in the battlefield, because of its antibiotic qualities, and other good things that bees put in honey, I don’t eat it all that often. But I do collect honey cookbooks or pamphlets I come across, and I like to buy local honey from any place I visit, as a souvenir!

That’s about all I know about bees or beekeeping, but a few months ago, when I investigated the whitenose syndrome that has been killing off bats,  I read in several sources that scientists suspect it’s related to the devastating die off of bees, which syndrome is called, “colony collapse disorder.” Read more »

Cartoon by Dana Summers, from Gocomics. You can find all of his work (and mine!) there for free.

I don’t usually read other editorial cartoonists. I don’t want to be influenced by them too much! But 2 or 3 times a month I look at some to see what topics they’ve covered, or haven’t, so I can decide what to do next, or to find out what’s important to cover, because they have tons more experience than I do.

I also don’t usually laugh at most political cartoons, but I thought this was a good clear drawing by Mr. Summers, a good punchline, with the extra bon mots of using the sock imagery, and, maybe most importantly, how I feel about Ms. Sotomayor.  At least when she spoke those words, a few years ago, there was a tiny bit of racism there, you must admit.

Link to cartoon: http://www.gocomics.com/danasummers/2009/06/09/

"When the deadline passed, and California couldn't make its budget, it began to eat its own young..."©D.Barstow 2009

Sometimes ideas come to me out of nowhere! In this case, I think I began with the sentence up to budget…and then just tried out some endings. I also don’t know why I thought of Mickey Mouse! It’s not like I like the character, or like Disney in any way. But it was a symbol that one could hurt…

I only do cartoons about California now and then, as it’s obviously not national, but an LA Times article said recently, the State Treasurer claims it’s “too big to fail.”  Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said they’d have to make education cuts – which I say, hallelujah – we have a terrible record of even teaching kids to read and write, with the most corrupt school system, at least in SoCal.  He also talked about selling landmarks like San Quentin! and the LA Coliseum.  Read more »

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

This is how every WordPress blog begins, with the title and sentence above. (The photo is the view from my apartment of the Glendale mountains, on a very rare day of beautiful clouds.) WordPress is charming and exciting – and very often frustrating. I’m leaving that famous sentence up here, even though this is actually my 3rd WordPress blog, because the beginning is always something to celebrate!

I’m starting this third blog because my first cartoon blog, Why I Did It, is more about general cartoons and my life as a cartoonist, and this will be a blog  just about current events and the news and my response to that through cartoons. (All posts before today are ones I posted over there and moved here as archives.) I’ll be posting each editorial cartoon here, about a week after they are published in Slate and Gocomics first. So if you want them hot off the press, go there. New ones go up about 10:30 PM PST for the next day.

I’ve only been doing editorial cartoons for a few months, so it’s been quite the learning experience. I’ll share some of that with you, too.

And I was thrilled to find this theme (template), so beautiful in its simplicity. I did make a lot of changes, but the major elements are still here, (I hope), and Dansette gets all the credit for that. I still want to change the header (the black & grey bar at the top), but I also want to get this blog rolling, on June 13th, lucky day!

And we’re off.