This weekly diary takes a look at the past week's important news stories from the perspective of our leading editorial cartoonists (including a few foreign ones) with a bit of commentary added in by me.
When evaluating a cartoon, ask yourself these questions:
- Does a cartoon add to my existing knowledge and help crystallize my thinking about the issue depicted?
- Does the cartoonist have any obvious biases that distort reality?
- Is the cartoonist reflecting prevailing public opinion or trying to shape it?
The answers will help determine the effectiveness of the cartoonist's message.
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THE WEEK IN EDITORIAL CARTOONS
You're so vain
You probably think this song is about you
You're so vain
I'll bet you think this song is about you
Don't you? Don't you?
Ed Stein, United Media, formerly of the Rocky Mountain News
CARTOON OF THE WEEK
The famous Scottish poet, Robert Burns, wrote in his poem "To a Louse"
O would some power
The gift to give us
To see ourselves
As others see us
It is often said that if you really want to understand and examine your own country, let an outsider help you for to "see ourselves as others see us" is as unbiased and objective an evaluation as you will ever get.
So it is true of this cartoon from Germany.
Rainer Hachfeld, Neues Deutschland, Germany
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- Few issues arouse more emotional debate in our politics than the one involving the use of torture. President Barack Obama has come under persistent criticism when his administration signaled its intent not to prosecute CIA transgressions over the past many years since 9/11. I'll simply quote Meteor Blades on why this is a regrettable decision
Obama is, obviously, far from a dictator. Including the denunciation of torture and the release of all those secret memos, he has taken numerous actions deserving of loud huzzahs. But he and his team have just tossed aside one key means of ensuring that no future President builds on the precedent set during those eight dark years. Sooner or later, in the next Presidency or a generation from now, that decision will come back to plague us.
Jimmy Margulies, New Jersey Record
Dave Granlund, Freelance, Massachusetts
Bill Day, Memphis Commercial-Appeal
Pat Oliphant, Universal Press Syndicate
Stuart Carlson, Universal Press Syndicate
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- Will there a sequel to the teabagging parties held recently by the Republicans and promoted shamelessly by FOX News? Not likely. If there is a group more ridiculed in recent days, I haven't heard of it. Every president should have political adversaries like these hapless clowns!
Steve Benson, Arizona Republic
Parker, Florida Today
The Texas two-step continues...
Pat Oliphant, Universal Press Syndicate
One way to stimulate exports and end the recession...
R.J. Matson, New York Observer and Roll Call
Take me out to the ball game,
Take me out with the crowd.
Buy me some peanuts and cracker jack,
I don't care if I never get back,
Let me root, root, root for the home team,
If they don't win it's a shame.
For it's one, two, three strikes, you're out,
At the old ball game.
Dick Locher, Chicago Tribune
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- Here's something that has crossed my mind over the past couple of weeks: with their stock value plunging by the week, how much ransom would be demanded if pirates were to kidnap the entire Republican Party? Not a lot. Given his growing popularity, even President Obama's new dog is considered a more desirable target. In fact, if Bo the Dog were a college football player, he'd be (according to ESPN's Mel Kiper) a can't-miss, high first round draft pick in the NFL Draft
Patrick Corrigan, Toronto Star
Jeff Stahler, Columbus Dispatch
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- The release of the CIA torture memos and Obama's handshake with Hugo Chavez have overshadowed an important fact of life: the economic recession continues with the end
nowhere not yet in sight. There have been a few anecdotal media stories about "recovery" but desperate times call for desperate measures.
Jeff Koterba, Omaha World Herald
Jack Ohman, Portland Oregonian
Dave Granlund, Freelance, Massachusetts
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- When it comes to summarizing the 'Earth Day' blues, Pogo still knows best!
Tab (Thomas Boldt), Calgary Sun
Monte Wolverton, Weekly Wolvertoon
R.J. Matson, New York Observer and Roll Call
Walt Kelly, Pogo Strip, Earth Day 1971
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- Finally, founding father Benjamin Franklin opines on the 2008 Minnesota Senate Race, "Certainty? In this world nothing is certain but death, taxes, and Norm Coleman Appeals!
R.J. Matson, New York Observer and Roll Call
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Remember to take the diary poll, 'Who is Your Favorite English Poet?' By definition, this is a very limited list and I have probably excluded dozens of your favorite poets. If so, list who they are and what it is you find fascinating about their poetry. Here's one helpful list of English poets.
If I may, let share one of my favorite poems
If
by Rudyard Kipling
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream---and not make dreams your master;
If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings---nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And---which is more---you'll be a Man, my son!