Apparently my Slate cartoon didn’t post properly today, so my work was for naught. One of the joys of online commerce… So here it is. Almost too late for Mother’s…
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Slate cartoon gets racist hate
My swine flu cartoon (H1N1 cartoon), was up on the first page of Slate on April 27, 2009, because they picked me as Cartoon of the Day! It has gotten some attention from Google, new followers on Twitter, and my first hate mail. See, now this is being a REAL editorial cartoonist.
Swine flu originated in Mexico. That’s a fact. Apparently they were hit bad, unfortunately, but swine flu in the US looks to be about the size of a head cold. It seems to kill only there – so far. I guess it’s getting weaker. In any case, I’m not a physician, and am not very interested in disease.
However, I read in the LA Times which I got hardcopy every day (update: not for a few years now) how the only incidences of tuberculosis in LA County were from Latino immigrants. (This was important to me, because a close relative died from TB, and they tested me for it.) The Times is a very liberal,minority-loving paper; it must have just killed them to admit that Mexico was the source of anything bad…like disease. And now it’s happening again.
As an editorial cartoonist, I have to report on the national news, not wild hypotheses like 8 kids in NYC had a sniffle. And Mexico has been in the news lately for other sad things, has it not? Think of me as the sundial for cloudy days.
Thanks to Mashable (on Twitter!) I found this article in CNN on
Swine flu creates controversy on Twitter:
Some observers say Twitter — a micro-blogging site where users post 140-character messages — has become a hotbed of unnecessary hype and misinformation about the outbreak, which is thought to have claimed more than 100 lives in Mexico.
For example, some Twitter users told their followers to stop eating pork, he said. Health officials have not advised that precaution.
Etc.
That will be nice, won’t it, when the USDC has some actual facts. Besides calling it H1N1 flu, to try to make it look like they’re working on it. :)
Why do white people get called racists?
Okay, let’s go to my mailbag -or hate mail, in this case – OOPS, just got another one.
AIG, the worst insurance company of the year, and they have some tough competition. And there’s a dog in it for you, too.
This was for Slate, and I did it right before the big news broke about AIG asking for even more money, for those f-ing bonuses. On the day I did this, it was just “normal” money they requested.
I thought AIG was an insurance company, but some cartoonists were doing it as a bank…I think it’s an insurance company FOR banks. But this whole idea that the world’s economy will collapse if AIG dies is a bunch of baloney. Too big to fail? I don’t believe it for a minute, and I’m sure I’ll do another cartoon on that idea. And when did insurance companies get such a stranglehold on America, anyway?
I heart Paul Newman! Not so much for his movies, although he was great – but for entering my own life by doing movies on location, where I found him in person.
I was dating the special effects guy on one film, and I remember he had to build a special sweat hut so Paul could sweat off all the beer he drank each day and still look trim for the film. (What, no Paul Newman beer? I think I saw a beer in his hand most of the time.)
Right after Obama took office he cancelled Bush’s plans to rewrite the Endangered Species Act, affecting wolves, among other animals. I took note of that, knew I wanted to do a cartoon on it, but then put it aside because I wasn’t sure if the EPA was already done, or just thinking out loud. Once you have to write about the news – and believe me, as an editorial cartoonist I’ve become a better journalist – you notice how much of the news is really stuff that might happen, or will happen. Then they report it all again when it does happen, as if it’s fresh meat!
So as I was saying, it actually did become law last Friday. Only Obama RESCINDED his protection promises for wolves, and turned them over to the lawless states, not the Federal government any more! So Bush’s original plan succeeded.
Why I Did It: It’s a brand new world. Now I have to read the newspaper – I mean the bits besides interesting murders, the funnies, and local stuff that makes me mad. Because my syndicate, Uclick, is waiting for more, more, more cartoons, with hungry maws. (and I just used that word in a cartoon recently.)
And I have to send in the cartoon by 6 PM my time, so there goes my Sunday afternoon, unless I do it in advance. Today I didn’t know yet what I would do. I had some ideas: that wolves can now be killed in many states (Obama said he would protect them with the ESA, which lasted, oh, about a month) , Obama’s continual pouring out of money into sinkholes, etc. But you know what I was most excited about today? TV reality shows, people! ABC did a mashup of The Bachelor and Dancing with the Stars.