Holiday Spirits 2011

When I was a kid in Brooklyn, Christmas started with Santa coming to town in the Macy's parade on Thanksgivings Day. Now it apparently begins with something called Black Friday. I don't know anything about that, I've lived in Israel for forty years. The Christmas season seems, from a distance, at least, to have turned into the shopping season.

And this year, with the economic crisis, Dickens' three ghosts ("The Spirit of Christmas Past", "The Spirit of Christmas Present", and "The Spirit of Christmas Future") have morphed into the three shopping spirits; "Buy", "Save", and "Charge it".

In any case, my best wishes go to our readers who are, or who will soon be, out there Christmas-shopping.

White Powder (2001)

November 19, 2001

This Golden Oldie is from 2001.

Ten years ago America was caught in a massive anthrax scare. Everyone seemed to be on the lookout for anthrax-laden mail. According to the BBC of Wednesday, November 7 , 2001:

"In media offices, abortion clinics, and government offices around the United States, mail handlers are donning white gloves for fear of the dreaded white powder - anthrax.

But still the FBI has no conclusive evidence as to whether the recent attacks have been state-sponsored, or the work of America's own radicals.

It is a complex investigation made worse by the fact that more than 2,500 anthrax scares in the United States have turned out to be false alarms."-more

* * * This year Hanukkah begins at sunset on Tuesday, December 20, 2011, and ends at sunset on Wednesday, December 28, 2011.

2012

You've probably heard the ridiculous idea that because the Mayan calendar supposedly ends in 2012, some people believe that the world will end in 2012.

If not: check this idiocy out by clicking here.

a trip to 2011

When I was a kid the future was a wonderful place. Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, streamlined personal rocket ships, gleaming cities.

So now I'm living in the actual future!!

I love to do Time Traveler cartoons. I think of myself as the guy who got sent into the future and has come back to 1958 with his report. (and it's always a shock to the scientists who are running the operation back in the fifties).

Peace With Egypt (1973)

November 16, 1973

This Golden Oldie is from November 1973. We were about to begin peace talks with Egypt.

Current riots and unrest in post-Mubarak Egypt prompted me to post this thirty-eight year-old cartoon today.

This cartoon was done when the strip was less than a year old (I had begun drawing Dry Bones on January 1, 1973).

Mistake Dept: Back in 1973 most Israelis were smokers, as was Mr. Shuldig. I usually drew him speaking with a cigarette dangling on his lips. I just noticed that in panel three of the cartoon I forgot to draw in the cigarette.
Too late to fix the error.
Yikes!

Thanksgiving Day

Happy Thanksgiving!

Note: The American Thanksgiving is on the fourth Thursday of November, but there's also a Canadian Thanksgiving Day which is held on the second Monday of October.

This year, Canadian Thanksgiving fell on Monday, Oct 10, 2011 ...so a belated Happy Thanksgiving to our Canadian friends too.

We Beat Inflation (1986)

November 07, 1986

Today's Golden Oldie is a cartoon that I drew 25 years ago this month. It's from November 7, 1986. At the time, I was doing a special cartoon for the Jerusalem Post every Friday. It was, appropriately, called the Friday Dry Bones.

Back then we suddenly discovered that we Israelis had apperently beaten our runaway inflation into submission. We didn't, as the cartoon shows, know how we did it, but we had done it. And the Israeli Shekel has remained a strong currency to this very day.

My alter ego, Mr. Shuldig, who had been running a comic "anti-inflation" campaign at the time, appears in this cartoon in his "Spirit of the New Israel" caped superhero costume. Notice the "S" for Shuldig on his forehead.

a Simple Dry Bones plan

The idea of declaring Judea and Samaria as an independent Palestinian state has not worked.

So we are proud to present our simple and obvious plan.

An agreement between the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the State of Israel to jointly administer the area called the "West Bank". Palestinians resident in the Hashemite kingdom can return to the jointly administered area. Jewish settlements remain. Right of return for Palestinians living abroad is carried out in the unified for peace Palestinian entity. Local control is given to Palestinian and Jewish municipalities. International affairs in the hands of the Jordanian/Israeli partnership.

Jordan, with Syria on one side and Iraq, in danger of falling to Iran, on another ...with a growing Palestinian presence in their country should find the idea attractive.

Comments?

the Devil Explains

I'm playing with a new set of characters. The Devil teaching his young students about human beings and how they behave.

your reaction?

Bin Laden (2001)

November 30, 2001

This Golden Oldie is from 2001.

Ten years have gone by and it turned out he wasn't in a cave in Afghanistan.

MAD or Crazy

The Telegraph reported on Ahmadinejad in a piece entitled "Divine mission' driving Iran's new leader" in a report which began:

"When an aircraft crashed in Teheran last month, killing 108 people, Mr Ahmadinejad promised an investigation. But he also thanked the dead, saying: "What is important is that they have shown the way to martyrdom which we must follow."

and goes on to cover Ahmadinejad's UN appearance:

"World leaders had expected a conciliatory proposal to defuse the nuclear crisis after Teheran had restarted another part of its nuclear programme in August.

Instead, they heard the president speak in apocalyptic terms of Iran struggling against an evil West that sought to promote "state terrorism", impose "the logic of the dark ages" and divide the world into "light and dark countries".

The speech ended with the messianic appeal to God to "hasten the emergence of your last repository, the Promised One, that perfect and pure human being, the one that will fill this world with justice and peace".

In a video distributed by an Iranian web site in November, Mr Ahmadinejad described how one of his Iranian colleagues had claimed to have seen a glow of light around the president as he began his speech to the UN.

"I felt it myself too," Mr Ahmadinejad recounts. "I felt that all of a sudden the atmosphere changed there. And for 27-28 minutes all the leaders did not blink…It's not an exaggeration, because I was looking.

"They were astonished, as if a hand held them there and made them sit. It had opened their eyes and ears for the message of the Islamic Republic."

Western officials said the real reason for any open-eyed stares from delegates was that "they couldn't believe what they were hearing from Ahmadinejad".

Their sneaking suspicion is that Iran's president actually relishes a clash with the West in the conviction that it would rekindle the spirit of the Islamic revolution and - who knows - speed up the arrival of the Hidden Imam." -more

TV News (1981)

November 20, 1981

For today's Golden Oldie, I thought I'd rummage around and see what I was up to thirty years ago this month. I found this cartoon which had been published on November 20, 1981.

The Israel that Mr. Shuldig lived in (back in 1981) had only one TV Channel!

Yikes!

the Syrian Army

It continues to look like the West refuses to recognize that there is a religious war currently gripping the world ...and that refusal to see the obvious is what makes Western strategies so laughingly out of step with reality.

Another aspect of the current situation is revealed by to understanding that Assad's Syria is a client state of Iran. So the suspension of Syria's membership in the Arab League is simply drawing the lines between the Sunni Arabs and the Iranian Shiites.

Turning Point

History can be seen as slow evolution and subtle change, or it can be seen as a series of major "turning points". I think that history will note the world's ignoring of the Iranian threat as one of those turning points!

The Russians are Coming! (1991)

November 13, 1991

Today's cartoon was published on November 13, 1991.
20 years ago this month.

1991 was the peak of the Aliyah from the Soviet Union. In 1990-1991 more than 350,000 former Soviet citizens came to Israel.

Greek Dancing

The economic Euro trouble means that for Greece to remain in the Eurozone they've got to become less Greek?

Thinking of a dancing fun-loving Greece brought to mind, for me at least, the image of Anthony Quinn as Zorba the Greek. I assume that nobody remembers Zorba these days, but for those of you who do, below is a shot from the movie.

Anthony Quinn as Zorba

Targeting Terrorists (2001)

November 08, 2001

Today's cartoon was published on November 08, 2001.
Exactly 10 years ago.
To the day!

And it's another one of those "I could run it today, as it is, without any changes" cartoons!!

Your thoughts?

Shale Oil

The latest:

Oil Shale Initiative in Valley Where David Slew Goliath Could Turn Israel into an Oil Giant
"New technology developed by Israel Energy Initiatives could make it possible for Israel to profitably produce oil from deposits previously inaccessible. Based on this technology, Israel may have 250 billion barrels of recoverable oil -- nearly equaling the 260 billion barrels of Saudi Arabia. The Israel Energy Partnership is educating U.S. business and Jewish community leaders about this potential development." -more

In the last panel of today's cartoon, Mr. Shuldig displays his best "I think somebody is trying to sell me something" face.

Occupy Wall Street

Okay, so what do you think is behind it all?

Who do you think is carefully planning and secretly orchestrating the movement?

...Or do you think it's a totally spontanious and leaderless snowballing mass movement??Nu?

After Gilad Schalit !

The continued incarceration of Jonathan Pollard is an ugly stain on America's honor.

Back Home

I'm back home in Israel. A few hours ago I returned from my lecture tour in China.

While in China I got the news of Gilad Schalit's release. My immediate reaction was to sketch this cartoon in my notebook... but China's policy of internet-blocking prevented me from either posting the cartoon or even seeing the Dry Bones blog!

As I say, I just got back, so I scanned the cartoon from my notebook and posted it.

And now I'm going to bed.