Mark E Kelly wants to fly, while Gabrielle Giffords lies in her hospital bed

We’ve all read the news and human interest stories about the gallant Mark remaining next to the bedside of his fallen wife, Gabrielle Giffords. After she was shot, he left his astronaut duties and spent all his time by her side. And doing interviews with the media. NASA even named a backup, thinking he wasn’t going to go.

Everyone had great sympathy for him, of course. They were really just newlyweds, married barely 4 years. There’s a great picture of them that looks like how I would like to look at my husband if I got married. Daily Beast says they’re always living in different cities, however. Well, that keeps it romantic.

From the LA Times:

Saying he knew his wife’s mind well, astronaut Mark Kelly announced Friday that he was resuming his training to command the final flight of space shuttle Endeavour…

“I know [my wife] very well, and she would be very comfortable with the decision that I made,” he told a news conference in Houston that was broadcast on NASA TV.

Here’s what’s weird: Kelly won’t tell anyone whether she can even speak! Or how she might be communicating. Maybe he’s just good at reading minds!

Giffords and Kelly Wedding picture

The point is, I hope he has gotten the go ahead from her, although why he would be secretive about this is very strange. Otherwise, he’s rather headstrong in his decision.

(Oh, and Congress hasn’t even provided money for the shuttle yet. :))

Cartoon caption: Congresswoman wife, shot in head, still recovering in hospital bed. NASA astronaut husband needs to go on space mission soon, to lead. WANTED: GOOD COUPLES COUNSELOR

I had fun with this cartoon. I actually got part of the idea from Wayne Resnick, on KFI, when he was talking about them not being your typical married couple.  I didn’t even name the couple. And I wrote their descriptions in rhyme.

I am fascinated by how people make decisions and compromises. (what’ does “compromise”  mean?) And when I thought about a counselor, maybe I was a teeny tiny bit influenced by my new cartoon gig on Psychology Today!

• “Should Mark Kelly Leave Gabrielle Giffords to Go Into Space?” and related posts (nymag.com)
• Mark Kelly, Gabrielle Giffords’ Astronaut Husband, Trains For Shuttle Mission (VIDEO) (huffingtonpost.com)

More cartoons:

1. Sarah Palin as suspect in Gabrielle Giffords shootout?

Just Kidding again! I wanted to see if you were paying attention. So not true. He read the Communist Manifesto and was a Liberal. But lefties can’t get their fingers to stop pointing at Sarah Palin for Every. Single. Event.

Sarah is innocent. Okay, Sarah, you did make one mistake: Don’t draw guns or crosshairs on top of anyone. Also, ever since you started your TV show and proved that hunting is a sport for you, I would never vote for you now. Yes, I’m that against hunting. but I’m hoping you’ll come around on that issue Sarah. Guns, okay, killing animals for fun, not okay.

But the media has gone straight from the shootings, to Sarah as a cause. Amazing how non-logical that is. According to Mediaite:

“However unfair the link is,” said [Geraldo] Rivera, “I think that this event affects Sarah Palin’s at least short term political future.” He then offered his prediction that, tomorrow, Palin’s name will (still) be tied to the media’s flurry of reports on the shooting, facing “criticism and scrutiny” for a perceived link to alleged gunman Jared Loughner.

Newsbusters is not exactly a neutral news organization – they’re a conservative group – but maybe they’re necessary in our liberal media world. They point out this ridiculous politicization of the tragedy, by seeking everything Republican to blame. They had a great tweet from Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas:

who tweeted, “Mission accomplished, Sarah Palin

OMG! Needless to say, now we all know the boy shot them on his own, with no help from anyone else, and no indication that he even knew who Sarah Palin is.

This cartoon took me about 5 hours, I’m embarrassed to say. I had to figure out how to do the jigsaw puzzle thing, what clues to include, etc. I rearranged the puzzle pieces for Slate, to make a more pleasing arrangement for teh nutballs over there.

Cartoon Caption: FIND OUT WHO’S TO BLAME! (for the killing of 6 people with Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson.) You know who (Hitler), Jared Loughlin, Sarah Palin, talk radio, Fox News, Ayn Rand‘s book, We, the Living, a semi-automatic gun, a crosshairs, or an editorial cartoon by D. Barstow or any other cartoonist? Cartoon is cut out in shape of jigsaw puzzle. Oh, and the missing glove is here, too. :)
Other sites:

• Sarah Palin, The Real Victim In Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ Shooting (queerty.com)
• Barbara Walters Feels Bad For Sarah Palin (thehollywoodgossip.com)

More cartoons:

1. What would Sarah Palin do? What will she do?
2. The vampire and Sarah Palin.

Afterwards, of course, they were accused of nasty misappropriation of public funds. The 2 reporters in the LA Times investigation, Jeff Gottlieb and Ruben Vives, spoke at the LA Press Club about their investigation. Interesting story, but I still don’t hate the accused.

Bill Schorr cartoon on Bell councilmen in jail

Of course, when the populace is so apathetic and uneducated that only 1% of them voted in the election, these kinds of oversights and mishaps are bound to happen from time to time. :)

Last week, the LA Times reported that for at least 8 years, the City of Bell has been seizing vehicles for imaginary code violations, and then telling the owners that they had to pay various fees.

Normally, such cases would be reviewed by a judge to ensure that they had been settled fairly. But the vast majority of these cases do not appear to have been presented to a court.

The LA Times doesn’t stop after explaining this fraud and lack of due process. The article continues:

A number of those caught up in the enforcement efforts were struggling to get by.

Of course, the income of those having been bamboozled by these fake charges has nothing to do with the illegal activity of the City of Bell; these unlawful shakedowns by the city would offend and penalize both rich and poor.

But that’s the LA Times for you: if there are any low-income people connected with a story, the uber-liberal Times will point them out, as if they have more feelings and are more vulnerable than other citizens. Infuriating! Who knows, perhaps they hope that readers will get emotional and vote for more social services…

Bell, CA cartoon

California cartoonist Bill Schorr was right on top of the situation with this funny Bell cartoon. There aren’t enough cartoons about bad Councilmen. Online, most cartoons look better in color, and even the cratchety “classic” editorial cartoonists are beginning to work in color now, but black and white for prison works just fine! The vertical jail bar stripes also look good with the horizontal captions, so thanks, Bill.

You can find more Bill Schorr cartoons here, and if you wonder what will happen to this council, you might want to check out this scary cartoon. (Sorry, no link now. Uclick Gocomics threw away 2 years of my cartoons on Slate, Gocomics and Yahoo News when they kicked me out.)

Am I right about the LA Times, or am I right? I wrote more about this in the link below.

Related:

• You can run, but you can’t hide in Bell, California (examiner.com)

More cartoons:

1. How many minority and women cartoonists are in the LA Times?

The LA Press Club has some pretty good speakers, but I was looking forward to the one on talk radio for weeks, and it didn’t disappoint!

KFI’s John Kobylt, half of the John and Ken show, Talkers magazine publisher Michael Harrison and KPCC/LA Times journalist and radio host Patt Morrison will be among the participants of a high-powered panel discussing the state of talk radio in L.A. and the nation, presented by the Los Angeles Press Club, Thurs., Oct. 28, at the Steve Allen Theater.

According to Talkers magazine publisher Michael Harrison, who coined the term “talk media” and defined it years ago in preparation for this new era, “Talk media is collectively the most accurate bellwether of American public opinion in the mass media today.”

Radio veteran Bill Moran will moderate by tossing such queries as “What is the impact of Talk Radio on the mid-term elections?” and “Is a strong news department relevant or even necessary to the content of Talk Radio?”  And there are many other probing questions he will be challenging participants to answer.  Two of those being put on the firing line include top talk show program directors Robin Bertolucci of Clear Channel and KABC’s Jack Silver.

I happened to sit next to Bill Moran at another event and knew he would be a good moderator. He told a couple of us beforehand that he was going to ask John Kobylt why John and Ken had such a strange position on Prop 23 (set up by oil

Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown in a close physical encounter

companies to squash AB 32, our very strong anti-pollution act, which hasn’t even started yet). John and Ken have been ranting for weeks that it will cost everyone their job, and no one believes in Global Warming anyway. (Right.) Bill did ask John about this, and he went right into his spiel against global warming! (Although I agree with him about fluorescent bulbs are ugly, don’t fit anywhere, and have terrible light. Hate.)

patt morrison: two t's in her name and a hat on her head

Also, before it started, I talked with Patt Morrison of NPR for a couple of minutes about her dog – told her I had been following rescue groups on Facebook. Then she said she had to leave to go change her hat, because she had a better one in the car. (She is known as the hat lady everywhere. She writes a column for the LA Times, and has a hat in that pic, too.) I wasn’t sure if she was kidding, but she returned wearing a different hat!!!

John Kobylt came late; I was so excited I got his autograph! He brought his wife and kid, too, so maybe he thought it would be fun for them – I hope so. Not that it toned him down any. Anyway, it turned out that he, another fellow, me, his wife, someone else, all from PA/NJ area – kind of funny. I told him my editor at CalWatchdog, Steve Greenhut, was a guest host on KFI on Superbowl, and he laughed. (Steve was great!)

To get back to Meg: John & Ken interviewed her for half an hour on August 5, and kept playing the interview again the next few days.

The SF Chron describes it:

Whitman’s interview on the powerhouse station KFI 640 with John and Ken provided an often sweat-inducing half hour of radio — a compelling and unscripted exchange between two broadcast pitbulls and a GOP candidate who has rarely ventured off her talking points in press appearances.

The podcast of the 3:30 p.m. interview can be found here.

Whitman’s agreement to appear in studio with John Kobylt and Ken Chiampou, the two SoCal talk radio hosts with a loyal conservative fan base of an estimated million listeners, comes as they have lambasted the Republican gubernatorial candidate in recent weeks, mostly on the issue of illegal immigration.

The two have accused Whitman of switching positions on issues, and have specifically criticized a Spanish langugage op-ed piece…

I heard part of it, but it made me uncomfortable – I would hate to be on the spot like that (although they interviewed me over a year ago about my Mexico cartoon and couldn’t have been sweeter!). But it turns out all of it was

meg whitman on kfi - thanks SFgate for photo

on purpose to make her feel terrible: John said there were no breaks or commercials, so she wouldn’t have any place to cool down or ask anyone anything or compose herself.  As he put it, there was no corner for her. They were surrounded by cameras and hot lights, and questions that didn’t stop – he said her face got very red.  They also interrupted her the whole time.

Someone else on the panel said it was like they shanghaied her.  He himself said she shouldn’t have agreed to come on, and that Jerry Brown had come on many times in the past, but wouldn’t come on before the election, and that was wise of him. *John also said JB is crazy!

As I said, they played the interview several more times that week, so everyone could hear how she stumbled, etc. A couple of other people on the panel said they thought this will be what makes her lose. I don’t know, the poll has been falling mostly this month, 2 months after their interview. If it’s the maid’s fault, I hope they sue her. What a low-class human being she is.

A couple other interesting tidbits:  Michael Harrison said that talk radio became right and rabid in 1987, when they no longer enforced the Fairness Doctrine: to interview each side the same amount of time. I didn’t know that. And John said that their biggest audience isn’t in LA, it’s Orange County, and places like Riverside County, where they come out to meet them in tens of thousands! I always thought there were more people like me here in LA – my friend Bruce listens to them all the time, even more than I do.  But I’m not like “those people” in Riverside, really I’m not! And finally, at different times during the evening, John described himself and Ken as either/or  populist and libertarian.

Your choice.

Cartoon caption: Cartoon is 2 separate parts. One is a woman doing a tree pose, a yoga position. The other half is Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown duking it out, called Political Posturing. Bam! Pow!

Yeah, been doing a little yoga lately. I had fun drawing Meg and Jerry doing the dance of hate – boxing, about to wrestle. I have never understood wrestling – it’s so mean, and so INTIMATE, all up in someone else’s space! Boxing, too. Who wants to touch someone else’s face, unless you love them?  But when it’s just the two of you, I guess…

Gocomics  (Sorry, no link now. Uclick Gocomics threw away 2 years of my cartoons on Slate, Gocomics and Yahoo News when they kicked me out.) has…9 comments on this cartoon. Not about yoga, no.

And speaking of Halloween, here’s the one I did last year for Slate (no link now), which, oddly enough, still works today!

Halloween party cartoon, or Unemployment sadness?

More cartoons:

1. Who’s your rac-ist?
2. Meg Whitman’s maid has nothing on John and Ken.

Also, not always Republican, no. Let’s call him Republican lite.

arnold schwarzenegger wants a high speed train, people be damned

The LA Times had an article that he wanted to leave something behind him, a kind of legacy, that would be a high speed train connecting the big North-South corridor of California. (As usual, once again the search engine on LA Times doesn’t give it up.)  I think it sounds cool, but the problem is, then you get eminent domain, which I totally HATE, which is the gov’t taking your property and home at what it says is a fair value. For the public good.

I do believe in parks and public land. And I believe in railways, which work very well back east, although I don’t know anyone who takes it out here. Yet – it’s that attitude of you MUST DO THIS that I hate in the government. And it’s our homes, you know, a dear place to all of us.

Now, CurbedLA says:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger really wants California’s high-speed rail to get going. So much so that he’s hoping a tiny portion of the development is built so he can get a photo-op (and be forever remembered as the politician who spear-headed the line). Meanwhile, this week, he vetoed a measured that would have killed funds for the project if fiscal accountability wasn’t taken into consideration.

CalWatchdog calls it a bullet train, and says there isn’t enough money, anyway.

Caption: Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in a last ditch effort to win an Oscar as Guv: Okay, call me a robber baron, but I’m a High Speed Rail baron, people. Signs outside window says Save our Farm, and Keep our Home.

I did several versions of this – he’s a good looking man, but I find his head is hard to draw! This is the earlier one. Here’s another drawing in Yahoo! (Sorry, no link now. Uclick Gocomics threw away 2 years of my cartoons on Slate, Gocomics and Yahoo News when they kicked me out.)  and one in Gocomics (no link now), which has, of this writing, 24 comments already!

Also, in case you don’t know California history, we have had a series of robber barons through the years, from oil to railroads to gold – why, some of our finest museums were founded by them!

More cartoons:

1. Arnold and Obama, sitting in a tree…
2. Arnold as Baby-daddy for Father’s Day.