Osama bin Laden cartoon of thank you letter to Pakistan

First Osama bin Laden cartoon

I was in shock for the first couple of days – I guess we all were – but the main question that nagged at me,  was why the sneak attack without Pakistan’s permission, and how could he possibly live there, in a bustling city, for so long, without anyone noticing? I can honestly tell you that I would have been on the phone to my Councilman, Tom LaBonge, within days of that house built and mysterious people moving in. So I did this cartoon right away, because I don’t like lying countries.

On the radio Wayne Resnick pointed out that the US is being very circumspect about both exclaiming that there is something suspicious about the whole thing, and yet on all the Sunday news shows, they denied that they have any evidence that Pakistan knew Osama was living there. Can’t wait til more facts are in on THAT one.

Interpretation of cartoon

Cartoon caption: Found in [Osama's] compound: some pressed violets, a machine gun, an old-fashioned photo of Osama bin Laden, and a thank you letter on creamy thick ecru stationary, reading: Dear Pakistan, I just wanted to thank you for giving me a home the past few years! Thanks for putting me up…and for putting up with me! I know I can be a handful, but you have always been a gracious host. You rock! Sincerely, your friend and America’s enemy, Osama bin Lad...and the note ends there, with some scattered drops of blood. We can only imagine what scenario took place there, and why the note ended so abruptly.

Since we kept hearing how the Osama team didn’t let electronics in the house, I wanted to use an old fashioned setup. Victorians were big on pressed flowers! And maybe Osama had picked some to give to Pakistan with the note. And I used an old-fashioned Kodak snapshot, from the 50′s or 60′s, as his picture.

Thank you notes are out of fashion now, but always appreciated.

Osama home videos

Also, I finally saw the Osama bin Laden home videos. Unlike the dog video, they were lame, as I expected. Time says:

But one video screened by the Pentagon offers a starkly different portrait of the infamous recluse. The seemingly candid video (above) shows Osama bin Laden sitting on the floor of his compound, watching satellite television. He holds the remote in his hand as he flips through the news networks to analyze the media’s coverage of him, a vain action he was said to engage in often…

Who writes this crap? Vain? Try living in Los Angeles, with actors everywhere you go. (but I love ‘em anyway!) And like everyone reading this doesn’t look themselves up in Google or post pictures of themselves in Facebook! Gah!

But it is not bin Laden’s vanity that has surprised so many web viewers, but rather his physical appearance. He appears frail and unkempt, with a beard that’s gray overall.

I’ve read this description in other sources, too. He doesn’t look frail to me, he looks cold. And, surprise, in Mideast countries they sit on the floor a lot, and they wear blankets and shawls all the time. It’s not enough that we killed the man – now the media wants to keep stirring the pot by saying silly slurs.

Image via Wikipedia - Osama is an author! He wrote this book!

The only thing I see wrong in the video is that the plugs are in a weird place on the wall, and the TV is much too small. Get a life.

More cartoons:

1. Obama found a horse head in his bed.

He’s dead, as it turns out. I heard the news oh boy on Wayne Resnick, KFI. I always try to catch him each week, but this time I only listened about half an hour before I realized all the TV stations might run the President’s announcement, too, and so they did.

I’m glad they caught that SOB, but at the same time, I honestly don’t feel glee knowing that the Navy Seals set it up like an assassination. I mean, what do you call it when they target someone in particular and shoot to kill? That’s not war, it’s like illegal capital punishment.

And now we find out all the facts, like hiding behind one of his wives, and his being armed, are false. Some kind of mess there, for sure. Daily Caller talks about some of these conflicting accounts.

My first reaction to the announcement of his assassination, in spite of my personal problems swirling around me now, was to make a joke about it on Facebook, and turns out a lot of people liked it. So I’ve turned it into a cartoon. (cartoon after the break)

Osama cartoon about how his death affects single women - is he good marriage material?

Notes on art: one of the best ways to start experimenting in art is to have something happen by mistake. In this case, I just swooshed a bunch of color on the floor, thinking about the pine floor of a bar. Then I used a purply wound color for the background area. I also colored the TV a pale blue in other versions, but didn’t have time to do it here. (I’m going to try this cartoon out in Psychology Today tomorrow. They’re a rather conservative crowd (not in politics, in humor), so I’m not sure how this cartoon will go over there!)

Cartoon caption: Girls Night Out, with 3 women at a bar. One says, Okay, but let’s be honest, girls. Now there’s also one less available man around. Behind them is a TV with the news of Osama’s death.

Ann Coulter says her dog knows more about Arabs than Obama does. I thought she was going to say, knew more about how Osama died – like dogs have better noses, etc.

Image via Wikipedia- a Navy Seal posing

Speaking of Psychology Today, this writer says when we misspeak and say Obama, when we mean to say Osama, that’s meaningless. I’m not so sure. I’ve been doing it myself, and hear announcers say it, too.  Well, at least no one is talking about his birth certificate this week.

No related posts.

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.

Paul Conrad, whose fiercely confrontational editorial cartoons made him one of the leading political provocateurs of the second half of the 20th century and who helped push the Los Angeles Times to national prominence, has died. He was 86.

“When it comes to editorial cartooning, I am unabashedly biased: Paul Conrad was simply the best ever,” Times Editor Russ Stanton said Saturday.

He was great, that’s for sure. He won an amazing 3 Pulitzers. He was an exceptionally wonderful cartoonist, and I can’t imagine why the liberal loving Times let him go – he never got a venue as good as that again. Of course, Russ Stanton wasn’t editor when Paul Conrad was the cartoonist there, and none have been hired under your watch, Russ. So your experience is like, nil. (Side note: The LA Times is 4th biggest in circulation, but has fewer editorial cartoons than at least the 100 biggest papers in the country!)

Conrad was on Gocomics with me in Editorial cartoons – quite impressive and inspirational to me. I don’t look at the other cartoons all that much, but when I was doing my LA Times cartoons roundups here a few weeks ago he had one that caught my eye:

paul conrad cartoon of Obama as Nixon

I just checked, and Conrad is no longer on Gocomics – I don’t know whether they dropped it when he died, or whether Tribune dropped them, but I believe this is the last cartoon they used of his, so I’m glad I saved it.

Love the inky messiness. I know that’s Nixon’s famous victory? gesture, but I don’t know why Obama is doing it. Maybe it  hooked up to a news item a while ago.

I met Conrad a few times, as we were both in the Impolitic gallery in Santa Monica, CA. I wasn’t doing political cartoons at the time, but of course I knew his work – one of the few editorial cartoonists I ever read, with his bold, yet minimal drawings and wry humor. He was sort of egotistical and not very friendly at the parties; so, not a people person, at least at parties. He always had a crowd around him, however.

Paul Conrad via LA Times via Huntington Library ITVS

Paul at work. He kept drawing even during the parties (which were pretty damn great).

Your work was stand-out, Paul. Good job.

More cartoons:

1. Complete list of all Political Cartoons through 2011!
2. Giving out vaccines for Halloween.

John-Jones nutty putty cave

More than 50 people tried to help him for over a day.

The 6-foot-tall, 190-pound Jones got stuck with his head at an angle below his feet about 9 p.m. Tuesday in an L-shaped area of the cave known as “Bob’s Push.” The area is only about 18 inches wide and 10 inches high.

I literally shuddered at those numbers. Oh my gah. My worst nightmare.

At one point, they had moved him roughly 12 feet out of the tight crevice, far enough to give him some food and water. But he slipped back into the space when an anchor in the cave roof that supported the pulley system failed,

Spencer Jones said his family is “remarkably strong,” but is struggling to make sense of what happened.

I think I know.

I remember reading about a totally different death in the LA Times in 2006 that was disturbing on several counts. A family reported a woman was missing – Mariesa Weber, a 38 year old woman who lived with her mom and sister. Well, that’s strange to begin with. Anyway, from Fox News:

Weber, 38, returned home Oct. 28 and greeted her mother, then wasn’t seen again. Her family thought she had been kidnapped and contacted authorities. Family members scoured her room for clues but found nothing, though they did notice a strange smell.

Her family believes Weber, who was 5-foot-3 and barely 100 pounds, may have fallen headfirst into the space.

On Nov. 9, Weber’s sister went into her bedroom and looked behind a bookcase, where she saw the woman’s foot. Using a flashlight the family saw Weber was wedged upside-down behind the unit.

Um, yeah, I guess. How could someone possibly fall BEHIND a bookcase?

There’s a disgusting description of the girl’s body in St Petersburg Times, of all places!, and many comments from people who were as confused as I was. One comment:

one good thing, they werent looking for a lost wallet or keys

Also, (I crossed out the delicate parts below.)

This is a VERY interesting story. I’m actually glad you published the details (rubbery foot, xxxxx face, mouth open in a xxxxxx, etc) because (unlike everyone else) I’m interested in details. I’m not going to lie and get all “noble” and say it’s bad.

Okay, we won’t call you “noble.”

I still didn’t understand what happened to that woman,  until I did some research. I think it’s positional asphyxia, which occurs when the position of someone’s body prevents them from breathing. Apparently you can’t breathe when you’re upside down for a few hours, although they always hold babies and magicians upside down, so I don’t know. Anyway, poor Mr. Jones was at least at an angle, if not entirely upside down. Maybe it’s your heart or your lungs that can’t work that way.

Here‘s another example: a plumber fell into a manhole head first. It’s really very shocking.

*Oh,  God, horrible update! They are going to close the cave and LEAVE HIS BODY IN THERE. From ABC4:

Utah County Sheriff’s Department says the body of a spelunker who became stuck and died in Nutty Putty Cave will be left there. The cave will also be permanently closed and sealed off.

It’s a state park, which is now closed to everyone! It’s a poor dead lad, and they’ll never know exactly how he died, or give him a funeral! Ugh.

More cartoons:

1. Dow Jones cartoon.