Inauguration

Here is the cartoon I drew after hours of watching commentary on how frigid the Obama inauguration was. It's January people. Get used to it.

Inauguration

Here is my Barack Obama inauguration cartoon.I wish the new president good luck. He is going to need it.

Snowmobile Tragedy

Snowmobilers have been mutilating animals in Northern Wisconsin, which led to this editorial cartoon.
These act of animal cruelty were especially hard to stomach as my wife and I watched our cat die this week. We put her to sleep on Saturday morning, the same day this editorial cartoon ran. Sparky was old, and quite ill with kidney failure, but it was still hard to see her go. She was a part of the family. She's been a part of my life for over a decade, and my wife witnessed her birth under a porch 18 years ago. I'm sure our mood will improve with time, but the loss is still pretty fresh. I still watch my feet when I'm carrying my son Owen around, to make sure Sparky isn't trying to trip me up. In our bedroom I double-take, and I realized that a balled up pair of pants are just some Levi's and not our precious Sparky snuggled up for an afternoon nap on my side of the bed.

We will miss you Sparky,
Rest in Peace.

It's cold here, but the lawmakers in Florida are still the stupid ones.

When my two-month-old woke me this morning, I decided to be immediately productive. Before I had even had a sip the sweet caffeinated elixir that is paramount to my morning ritual, I decided to take part in that most treasured of Wintry Wisconsin traditions: I shoveled.

I got the sidewalk out front clear, the walkway to the front door brushed aside, and part of the driveway shoveled, before the elements drove me inside, and then inspired with this editorial cartoon.

I like combining two topic of interest the way this cartoon does it. The bitter cold reminded me of how bitter I was starting to feel toward our legislators. (lucky for them I don't cling to any guns).

The economy is hurting, everybody is cutting back. A friend of mine was just told he was lucky; his company was only cutting salaries 5% across the board, and not laying anybody off. The state budget is faced with a $5.4 billion shortfall. And yet, state makers are getting a raise. And while a few noble ones are returning the raise the the state treasury, and several more are donating their raise to charity, most are quietly stuffing the extra cash in their pockets.

But there are some who are not only taking a pay raise, but have the audacity to say they actually deserve the raise.

Deserve it!!!! For what?!!! They say they have saved us money by not hiring as much staff as they could, or by cutting office expenditures, but let's be serious people. These irresponsible, "spend-now, pay-later" lawmakers a put the state in a financial mess. If anything they should be taking a pay cut for royally #%*@ing up the state budget.

But do you know what really gets me mad? No matter how incompetent or arrogant these lawmakers are, most of them will run unopposed and get reelected in two years.

And speaking of stupid state lawmakers. The idiots who run state government in Florida are making drastic cuts to the public education system, but won't even consider raising the cigarette tax, which is currently one of the lowest in the nation.

Drunk with Power

State Senate Majority leader Russ Decker, D-Weston, seems to think that Wisconsin's pathetically lax drunk driving laws are just fine. Currently repeat offenders aren't slapped with a felony until their 5th OWI, and a first offense isn't even a crime, it's a civil infraction. Wisconsin is the only State in the nation that allows first time drunk drivers off the hook with what is a essentially a warning.

Decker is one of several Wisconsin lawmakers with such a warning. He was pulled over for driving drunk in 2005 and could be personally effected by a proposed bill that would make a persons third drunken driving conviction a felony. The new bill would give Decker only 2 strikes to play with. I hope he likes this cartoon. I think she's his type.

Cold toons

As I freeze my tuckus off this morning, I thought I'd post the drawings that ran in the Wisconsin State Journal over the weekend.

At this time of year, I look back at the cartoons I've drawn in 2008 and I think this is one of the better ones. The idea is just great, even if the drawing isn't the best.

What's sad about this cartoon is that the fact that a Wisconsin lawmaker got busted for drinking and driving has barely cracked the headlines statewide. This is sad for two reasons. One is demonstrates the state continued tolerance for drinking and driving. Two the incident illustrates that people really just don't care about state government in Wisconsin. If we did, this would have been bigger news.


The other illustration went with Rick Horowitz's yearly political christmas carol column. I must say I really liked the illustration, but it definately didn't reproduce as well in color in the newspaper, as it looks online. The purple I used in the background got muddy, the yellow highlights on the faces didn't blend nicely, and the yellow backgrounds started to look the same color as my new son's poop. I really wish I had had the opportunity to look at this before it went to the presses, because with 5 minutes in photoshop I could have really helped the colors. Oh well.

More 911 Mess

More emails are being released about the Dane County's 911 call center's mishandling of the Zimmerman phone call. Apparently the dispatcher who mishandled the call wrote several emails to her superiors complaining about the equipment at the center, and most interesting the Madison Police Department's attitude. While the equipment complaints seem bogus the local media outlets have focused on that, but what is interesting to me is the dispatchers complaint that police don't like being dispatched to GPS locations, and not full addresses. (Zimmerman called from a cellphone, and the dispatcher couldn't pinpoint her exact address, only her general location). This is contrary to the Police department repeated claim that they only if they would have been dispatched they could have caught the killer.

Now both sides are playing the blame game, and the case doesn't appear any closer to being solved.