“I frustrate/I increase they birth rate”

College Republicans produce seizure-inducing rap video.

Stick around long enough and your number gets called.

Three pieces of news from this month:

• I was named one of the UWIRE top 100 collegiate journalists in the country.
  
• I also won one of the Red & Black’s two national SPJ awards.
  
• LDSA accepted me into the graphic design program. By the time I graduate, I will be a dirty old man by Athens standards.
  

We now resume your irregularly scheduled blogging.

Begin fiber regimen.

Update! (5-29-09) Atlanta TeeVee Blogging Sensation LiveApartmentFire has a Q&A with me regarding the first item.

Why cartoon politically?

Like Eric B said, it’s been a long time. Plus I’m working a graveyard and trying to stay awake. Here goes.

Generally speaking, editorial cartooning is a reactionary medium. On any given day an editorial cartoon broadcasts to the world what the artist thinks about a particular event. The reader who flips immediately to the opinion page wondering what the cartoonist thought about X issue recognizes this. And the cartoonist who does mental gymnastics trying to figure out what to say about the day’s top story does too.

But is this necessarily a good thing? Take this unscientific sample of cartoons about the Sotomayor nomination:

Pat Bagley, Salt Lake Tribune

Mike Lane, Syndicated

Nate Beeler, Washington Examiner

Despite the different messages, we can find shared traits between the three. First, they use hyperkinetic imagery to engage the reader. Lane’s feuding “Far Right” stand-ins, Bagley’s crazed elephant and Beeler’s giant, threatening gavel all provide entertaining visuals on the page. Second, they focus on politics while ignoring the substantial issues involved. Instead, they all emphasize personal traits meant to induce in the reader a sense of wide-eyed disgust. “Identity politics,” “all hail Dick and Bush” and “far far right” are all bits of political shorthand. You’d be just as likely to get these bits of wisdom from party hacks.

Why care, you’re probably thinking. Because it reflects (and shapes) the way we view the world. If we are conditioned to view events and issues within a binary right-left scheme, how are we supposed to make sense of events in a global or historical context? What we end up with is NBC’s chief political
reporter only being able to make sense of the Bush/Obama torture regime in terms of the “difficult politics of the time:”

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Maybe Ted Rall is right, that a Promising Young Breed of altweekly cartoonists will save editorial cartooning from this tendency. Perhaps cartoonists will actually one day write substantive pieces instead of easy gags. Or, instead of pretending at being a political operative day after day, the cartoonist will occasionally be content to say “I don’t know.”