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CTRL+F
DIGITAL EDITION
AUTHOR: JMG
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Wednesday, December 26, 2012

  CALL OF DUTY 6: MODERN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

"Call of Duty 6: Modern Elementary School"

Unless it's not clear, the woman is supposed to be a teacher. I was hoping the blazer I gave her made it obvious that she wasn't some troubled youth.



  MEET THE PRESS

"Meet the Press"

When Mike Huckabee proclaimed that the Newtown Massacre happened because God wasn't in the public school system anymore, I slapped my forehead.

I mean, what could possibly go wrong with something like this?...


Tuesday, December 25, 2012

  000-0000

"000-0000"

I have this fascination with how our local, seedy lawyers are giving themselves new phone numbers that consist of one number. For example, Cellino and Barnes is 888-8888.

This is just a play off of that.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

  DUCK HUNT

"Duck Hunt"

I realize this drawing is kind of ambiguous. It can be taken different ways. I'm fine with that.

My view: Please don't blaming video games for mass shootings. Nobody is training to kill using Doom.

PS: I made this while I still had blurry vision from an eye test so it didn't turn out quite as well as I hoped. OH WELL!



Saturday, December 15, 2012

  HEROES

"Heroes"

I put this together in response to the horrible shooting at the Connecticut elementary school. I tried to sit down and really try to understand what it is about our country that leads to so many of these senseless tragedies.

I don't want to just blame guns because I know a lot of people who own guns and are very responsible with them. I grew up in a house with guns and my Dad made sure to point out that they were deadly weapons that could kill people, so I had to be very careful with anything gun-related. Plus, I truly enjoyed the food my Dad would put on the table each year because he owned guns and hunted responsibly. Surely, semi-automatic weapons that resemble military issue guns serve no real purpose out here in the real world. But I believe that if someone can prove that they are responsible enough, beyond any doubt, to own and store one they should be allowed to own them.

I think most of the blame lies in our American culture and what we are repeatedly, almost subliminally, told to value. We hold our soldiers up as heroes every day. And I agree that our members of military deserve the moniker because they are willing to die for you and me. However, our culture tends to glorify the uniform and power a soldier has, rather than the actual person behind all that armor and weaponry. Our soldiers are asked to do horrible things that no one should have to do and that is typically glossed over, or worse, glorified.

Meanwhile, our culture would never consider a college-educated professional a hero. Or, at least, until they did something where death was involved. The general sense you get is that people who are brighter than you, go to college or strive for more education on a particular topic are elitist snobs, worthy of derision, who think they know better than the rest of us. In other words, there's a lot of animosity towards people who press the limits of their education and are brazen enough to be proud of it.

And I wonder, given recent events, if this constant canonizing of gun-toting, hardened warriors could lead a troubled mind to pick up guns as a means of getting that power our culture so respects and adores. Maybe it would lead them to kill because the lines between a military hero that kills a perceived evil and a citizen that kills a perceived evil are blurry. Perhaps we need to step back and say that war and the associated killing is a solemn, horrible act that should be humbly spoken of. I know my grandfathers (who fought and killed people in WW2) and father (who served in Vietnam) never, ever talked about the wars they fought. It's not that they weren't proud of their service, it's that they saw the horrors of war with their own eyes and didn't want to relive it. They did their duty and served proudly and humbly. Then they moved on with their lives as best they could.

Maybe we need to start focusing on humans and our lives and celebrating knowledge, wisdom, creativity and accomplishments of the mind. (All of which can be found in our students in elementary schools, high schools and higher learning institutes.) We need to hold up bright students as high as the heroes and respect people who get their PhD just as much as those who choose to serve our country in the military. We need to celebrate human accomplishments just as much as we celebrate the defenders of our country.

I realize I'll probably be disappointed in our culture down the road but these are just my thoughts today. I hope I can pass an appreciation for learning onto my kids. And I hope they feel proud of how smart they are and continually strive to learn more. They'd be my hero.

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

  AFRICA

"Africa"

Sometimes, I admit, I will subject myself to right-wing talk radio at work or in my truck. I do this because I try to understand the oddity that is Conservative talk radio. I also get a kick out of the blatant hypocrisy these hosts display without the smallest hint of recognition. It's both funny and frightening to me.

So, tonight I wanted to practice doing a caricature and I chose Mr. Rush Limbaugh as my subject. I'm happy with the way it turned out but while drawing it, I thought about how to turn it into something of a message.

Now follow me here...

Everyday I hear about how bad off the United States is. About how we're on the path to ruin. I look around my life and I don't see ruin. I see struggles, sure. But I see determination, as well.

Then I think about a small child in Africa without enough food to eat, struggling just to live. And I think to myself that most any other poor nation would kill to have the types of problems that we have here in the US.

But when you listen to these talk radio people, you realize how disconnected they are with reality and how firmly entrenched they are within their little bubble of yes-men. To them, Africa (or the rest of the world, for that matter) is some distant land full of half-wild humans who don't matter to our world.

So when I put the "Africa" in this drawing, I was trying to say that right-wing, Conservative types are ignorant of the world in which they live and perpetuate fear and ignorance in their audiences.

Yeah, it was a stretch and it's not a funny comic but sometimes the raised-in-the-80's "misunderstood artist" in me needs to pop out and drop some vague stuff on your butts.


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CASSETTE BACKUP
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