Pure Imagination

Facebook is coming to Iowa.

This reminded me of Google coming to The Dalles, Oregon, sometime around when I was graduating high school It was so exciting and mysterious - I remember thinking about Charlie and the Chocolate Factory back then, too.

So here it is, my last cartoon of the year, and probably ever, for The Daily Iowan. It was a lot of fun, and a very cool opportunity to continue drawing. I'm grateful to The Daily Iowan for being yet another outlet for me to share my ideas and expressions.

To prepare for my next year of law school though, I have to cut out some of the things I'm involved with, as enjoyable as they are. So I don't think I'll submit any more cartoons.

But thanks everyone for checking them out and being my audience.

The New Boston Tea Party

Oh, so it turned out the Boston cartoon I thought wasn't going to be published, was published today in The Daily Iowan. I thought it was going to be old news before today, since now the news isn't so much catching Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, but how he is being criminally charged. But I'm grateful that The Daily Iowan put it in the paper anyway.

For more on this cartoon, click here.

I only now realized that I forgot to put my signature on this one. Oh well.

The Sixth Great Lake (plus the New Boston Tea Party, plus a shout-out to Erin)

In light of all the flooding throughout the Midwest:

Another map-themed cartoon in today's Daily Iowan. I tried to cover all the areas I knew were facing floods: Chicago, where flights were delayed at O'Hare, and Indiana, where there was a flood-related fatality, and then around here in eastern Iowa (although where we live is fine, in case you're wondering).

I also did another Boston Marathon bombing cartoon. The Daily Iowan didn't publish it today, and I don't think they can save it for later in the week, since it might be old news by then.

So I'll post it here.

Last week's saga in Boston was something, wasn't it? I wanted to draw something that showed the entire United States surrounding these two terrorists. I tried to think of something that represented 300,000,000 vs. 2. This is what I came up with.

My sister Kandis pointed out that the cartoon works in another way, because Dzokhar Tsarnaev was found in a boat. I realized, "Oh, I should have drawn a motorboat instead of an old colonial era ship!" That would have been a good idea. Oh well.

Oh, that reminds me, I should give credit where credit is due: for my Tax Day cartoon, I should publicly acknowledge that my beautiful wife Erin helped me come up with that idea. My first idea was a college kid with an accountant doing his taxes, saying something like "I wish I could hire someone to do this for my homework." But how many college students hire an accountant? So Erin thought of someone who comes to class exhausted because of working on his taxes. And that led me to think of the "hungover" element. Erin definitely helped me come up with something better than I came up with myself. Thanks, Erin!

A Little Busy Right Now

Here's a cartoon in The Daily Iowan that combines the tragedies in Boston and West, TX, and North Korea:

This week has been fascinating from a journalist's point of view, and I've been watching the Boston story especially. Of course, it's also been horrific. I can't even imagine what Bostonians are going through right now. I don't think I've ever had the feeling that I'm only safe if I'm locked up in my home, and even then I might be in danger. I don't think I've ever experienced that terror.

Here are a couple of awesome Boston tributes that were spread around this week:

In Tuesday's New Yorker magazine

On The Colbert Report, on Tuesday

I did another Boston cartoon earlier this week, but for some reason The Daily Iowan didn't publish it. Good thing I have a blog to publish it on!

In case you need some explaining: that's Paul Revere outside the Old North Church, pausing on his famous Midnight Ride, to take in the sadness.

Political cartoons aren't always funny or sarcastic. Occasionally, a cartoonist takes the opportunity to portray the community's emotions and sorrow, or recognizes history and heroes. I've noticed cartoons like that on the anniversary of September 11, or on Veteran's Day. I've never done that before - any tragedy over the years has always been when I wasn't currently drawing cartoons. (The Newtown school shooting was on the last day of final exams last December, so I was done drawing cartoons for The Daily Iowan for the semester.) So this was my first time trying out a serious cartoon. I thought it turned out pretty well, but for whatever reason it didn't end up in the paper.

I'm doing just one more week of Daily Iowan cartoons, so stay tuned!

Happy Tax Day!

In The Daily Iowan

Rock the Vote

Today is the last day of UISG elections (for all my BYU readers, it's basically Iowa's BYUSA elections). So I just had a funny image in my head of Wolf Blitzer in The Situation Room on CNN, talking about the returns coming in.

And then I added Anderson Cooper playing with the touchscreen map that CNN always has fun with on election night. I didn't even do speech bubbles, to me the image was enough. Maybe it isn't that funny, but I hope the candidates see the cartoon and think it's cool.

For more about the election, read this story: UISG voting begins today

And playing with the map reminds me of this hilarious clip from Saturday Night Live, the 2008 election:

Terrible Twos

In today's Daily Iowan. (In case you can't tell, President Obama is talking to is Park Geun-hye, the president of South Korea.)

All Aboard!

Today's cartoon in The Daily Iowan:

Everywhere you turn, another politician (Republicans and Democrats alike) is coming out in support of "marriage equality." They are saying it's "the right thing to do" and that they have "evolved" ... and it doesn't hurt that public support for "marriage equality" has made it safe for them to "evolve" these days.

This weekend was General Conference for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and among the many things I was listening for I found some very interesting and reassuring teachings on marriage and its true place in the world today. I'm sure there are some statements that will make people pretty mad, but they were meaningful and I took them to be truth.

Here are the talks I thought were especially relevant. The texts aren't available online yet, but you can watch video or listen to audio here.

President Boyd K. Packer - Saturday Morning Session
Elder David A. Bednar - Saturday Afternoon Session
Elder Robert D. Hales - Priesthood Session
President Dieter F. Uchtdorf - Priesthood Session
Elder L. Tom Perry - Sunday Morning Session

Ol' Hawk Eyes

Iowa basketball is playing in the NIT championship today against Baylor at Madison Square Garden, in New York City.

Time to invoke my inner Frank Sinatra.

In today's Daily Iowan.

MSG

Iowa basketball plays today at Madison Square Garden, in the "NIT Final Four."

Not a brilliant cartoon, but hey, it's something.

In an interesting turn of events, BYU is also in the quarterfinals. So I got to include both Iowa and BYU in a cartoon. And if Iowa beats Maryland and BYU beats Baylor, then my two schools will be playing each other in the NIT championship. Whaddaya know.

When we lived in New York, we never saw Madison Square Garden. Although, when my family came to visit, I went with them to Penn Station to try and figure out how to get them from there to New Jersey to their hotel. Penn Station is directly under Madison Square Garden.

I remember Erin, Allisyn, and I walking by the Flatiron Building and seeing Madison Square, and thinking, "Oh, this must be where Madison Square Garden is." Of course, later I realized Madison Square Garden is above Penn Station, which is eight blocks north. It wasn't until preparing this cartoon did I come across the history and reasons why Madison Square is in two different places.

Supreme Troll

It's rare that I come up with a cartoon that even cracks me up.

This one didn't even require much drawing, not even Photoshopping. It was all Microsoft Paint. I was pretty proud of it when I finished, I think it's one of my top five favorites.

The only problem was that it was originally in color, but when I changed it to black and white for the newspaper I somehow deleted the original color version. Maybe I'll get around to re-creating it sometime.

It sort of reminds me of this cartoon, from summer 2010, with the "Photoshopping" and social media:

For more of my thoughts on the actual same-sex marriage issue, click here.

Happy Easter!

A generic, Republicans vs. Democrats cartoon for Easter.

Behind the Prop 8 Ball

In today's The Daily Iowan:

It's funny that, given my interest in the Supreme Court, this is my first time actually drawing the nine justices in a cartoon. (Although I did draw a cartoon for Elena Kagan's confirmation hearings.)

If I were still drawing cartoons for The Daily Universe, I probably would have drawn something different. But for here, I went with something neutral, that could express the situation no matter which side of the debate you're on. I'm sure The Daily Iowan would have loved a "marriage equality!" cartoon, but for that they would need to ask somebody else.

I have surprisingly a lot to say on the subject of gay rights and same-sex marriage. I won't repeat it all here, but if you're curious, you can read these previous posts of mine:

Evolution?

It Gets Better

Good, Better, Best (and a follow-up: Letter Aftermath)

Much Ado About Nothing (and a follow-up: Update - Church's response)

Signing Off

I'll just add a few more thoughts.

1) In forming my opinion, I do my best to follow the teachings of my church and prophet. A lot of people (more and more these days) would say that I'm a blind follower. But I'm not following blindly. The way I see it, the prophet and apostles have answered questions for me, and I'm going to follow those answers. And I have faith that these men speak eternal truth, and speak for God. And I'm willing to reshape or change opinions to align more closely with what they say. Not because I'm a blind follower, but because they are following the truth, and I want to join them. And I can't go that direction, and at the same concede to the growing trends in the world and move in that direction too. Maybe someone feels like he or she can fragment him or herself into a religious, spiritual identity and a secular, "pragmatic" identity. But I try to avoid even making that attempt.

2) By remaining in full support of traditional marriage, I feel like I'm part of an ever-shrinking minority - especially as a 26-year-old, at law school, in Iowa City. It feels like it won't be long before the only people who agree with me are fellow Latter-day Saints (and even people who support traditional marriage in that demographic seem to be shrinking in numbers).

I'm sure to many people, my opinion seems so backward and behind the times, and that it is outright bigotry. But it wasn't long ago that the topic of same-sex marriage was just a matter of differing opinions. That has changed though, rapidly and recently, to a sentiment that supporters of "marriage equality" were just quicker to arrive at an inevitable conclusion, and are impatiently waiting for the rest of the world to catch up. Those supporters assume it's a given that people have an inalienable right to marry whoever they want.

I think a lot of this mentality comes from our retrospective view on the Civil Rights Movement. We know that Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rosa Parks were the "good guys," and Jim Crow was the "bad guy." And we will go out of our way to make sure we don't follow the footsteps of restaurant owners who kept black people out of their businesses or bus drivers who sent black people to the back seats. They were the "bad guys" in our middle school social studies textbook, and we are not going to repeat their crimes and mistakes. And already, just one generation removed, we have a black president in the White House.

All of that is good and impressive in many ways. And there are many lessons to be learned from the Civil Rights Movement that can be applied to fighting for gay rights. Gay people shouldn't be segregated, shouldn't be discriminated against when renting apartments or offering jobs, shouldn't be bullied, and definitely do not deserve to be victims of violence.

I'm all for gay rights in the sense of treating everybody with the same legal and democratic protections, regardless of their sexual orientation. Certainly, many of the same rights and respects that were fought for in the Civil Rights Movement deserve to be given to the gay community as well. In fact, I would probably support any "gay rights" that the gay community and its supporters want - except marriage.

But saying the fight for "marriage equality" is "today's Civil Rights Movement" is too simplistic. And I don't just mean that marching in Washington is different from changing your Facebook profile picture or tweeting. Being black and being gay are totally different. And fighting for equal protection of the law and fighting against discrimination and fighting for marriage are totally different.


3) I see a lot of people who resolve this issue for themselves by saying, "I just think government should get out of marriage altogether." There's probably a good argument for that somewhere. But with some people I know who take that stance, I suspect they use that argument because it satisfies them if they want to keep one foot on both sides of the debate, and reconcile both their religious beliefs and their interest in keeping pace with the world's so-called "progress."

I, for one, am glad that there are certain governmental privileges for people who are married, I'm glad that my relationship with my wife is recognized by my government as well as my church (more on that below). Marriage has been a fundamental unit of our law since medieval times (and in our society and human existence since Adam and Eve). I don't think it would be easy to just remove it, and even if it were, I don't want to try.

4) Some people who are familiar with the Church compare this to the revelation on the priesthood in 1978, which opened up the priesthood to men of all races and ethnicities. These people say the Church eventually "came around" on that issue, and so they'll eventually come around on this one. And they eagerly anticipate the day when they can tell people like me, "I told you so!"

But, again, race and sexual orientation are totally different. We don't know all the reasons why black men couldn't hold the priesthood for about 150 years. I do know that through the course of history, God has revealed His gospel in bits and pieces, to segments of the population, one at a time (like revealing His gospel first to the Jews, and then to the Gentiles - see Acts 10). And I do know that by opening the priesthood to all worthy men, regardless of race, the Lord was furthering his work on the earth.

Same-sex marriage is different. Allowing men of all races to have the priesthood doesn't change what priesthood is. But allowing for same-sex couples to get married does change the definition of what marriage is. And, of course, any member of the Church knows that "marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God," for so many reasons (that I can get into more at another time). The gospel teaches us that not even every heterosexual marriage will be in effect for eternity - only those marriages done in the holy temple, under priesthood authority, and when the husband and wife are faithful to their covenants.

For the Church to embrace same-sex marriage, or give it the same validity as traditional marriage, would obstruct the Lord's work, rather than advance it. The most "progressive" reach I could ever fathom the Church making would be to do nothing and withdraw from the debate, continuing to recognize only traditional marriage while the entire world around them preaches for "marriage equality." As time goes on, the Church could possibly be more tolerant and could possibly be more sympathetic to the gay community - but I don't see how the Church would ever be accepting of the practice of same-sex marriage. That would be being "lukewarm" about one of our purposes of life and an essential component of the plan of salvation.

5) I'll end with these words from my friend Chris Hill:

"This [belief] has nothing to do with how we feel about homosexuals as individuals. I believe they are incredible people, I'm sure better than me in so many ways. This just explains what I believe to be the divine nature of marriage and the family. Love is love; and all have the right to love whom they please; but marriage is marriage."

The Other March Madness

In today's Daily Iowan:

As I was driving around Coralville on Saturday, I wondered why there were all these NCAA Tournament banners around the city. Then I noticed signs saying "Welcome NCAA Womens Basketball." So I looked it up, and that's where I learned that Iowa City was one of the hosts for the first weekend of the women's tournament, and that Iowa was in the tournament for the sixth year a row.

There's a student at BYU who I'm sure will appreciate this cartoon ... the year I was a sports editor at The Daily Universe, during the reign of Jimmermania, there was a girl who constantly wrote letters to the editor and commented on the website and replied to tweets, demanding more coverage of BYU women's basketball. (She also had the same last name as one of the star players on the women's team, probably the player's sister.) The women's team was good that year, and certainly deserved attention. But any sense of newsworthiness will tell you that men's basketball should have more attention devoted to it, especially the 2010-2011 season at BYU.

Of course, credit should be given where it's due, and I don't mind highlighting women's basketball. I know a lot of sports fans who seem to have almost contempt for women's basketball. I don't have a problem with it, because I like sports in general. As long as I think of women's basketball as a different sport from men's basketball and don't try to compare them, I can still enjoy it.

Happy Spring Break!

In today's The Daily Iowan

Missed the Bubble

An update on the state of Iowa basketball in today's Daily Iowan:

Iowa ended its regular season with two wins, and heads to the Big 10 Tournament this week. Unless Iowa wins the tournament, I think they'll fall short of making it to the NCAA Tournament.

I am way out of the loop on college basketball this year, I'll have no idea how to fill out my bracket. Oh well, such is law school. The idea is that someday I'll have a comfortable enough job where I can watch more college basketball.

Drone On

The news is a little old, but I appreciate that The Daily Iowan published my Rand Paul filibuster cartoon anyway.

This one was fun to make. I found a transcript of Sen. Paul's filibuster, copied and pasted a page of it into a Word document and made it fill the page without any margins. I drew the cartoon on another piece of paper, cut it out, and glued it on top of the transcript. When I scanned it, it looked like it was all on one piece of paper.

The filibuster, naturally, makes me think of one of my all-time favorite movies: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Nowadays, the filibuster has become more mechanical, but Sen. Paul returned to the romanticism by actually standing up and talking for hours.

The pun of this cartoon was too good to pass up. But really, this filibuster seemed to be a noble cause. First, I didn't believe that President Obama could attack Americans on American soil with drones. Then, Attorney General Eric Holder responded to the inquiry by saying: "It is possible, I suppose, to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate for the President to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States."

And, I didn't believe that President Obama actually would target Americans with drone attacks, even if he could. But then I read somewhere a hypothetical question, "What if President Lyndon Johnson or President Nixon had drones at their disposal during the college campus protests and riots?" That made me realize that at least plausibly there might be some use for drones on American soil.

Anyway, maybe we should all be rest assured by Eric Holder's response to the filibuster.

Early appointment

I had a hard time coming up with a cartoon for Hugo Chavez's death. I knew I wanted to, both because it's big news and because I have a special connection with South America. But when I sat down to think, I realized it was kind of hard to come up with something.

Chavez was a self-proclaimed enemy of the United States. But he wasn't an enemy in the same way that Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein were. So I didn't want to lump him together with those guys, or draw a cartoon of him at the gates of hell being welcomed by Satan. But I also didn't want to draw him at the Pearly Gates, and imply that I think he was a saint. I don't think I would draw him entering the Pearly Gates, but just drawing him surrounded by clouds and halos and talking to St. Peter would probably not portray the idea that I intended.

Another idea I thought of was to draw President Obama saying something like, "On my watch, we got rid of both Osama bin Laden and Hugo Chavez!" And someone commenting and saying, "Wow, he really is more confident in his second term." I might still draw that one later, but I wanted to actually draw Hugo Chavez himself (and, again, I wanted to avoid equating Chavez with bin Laden).

So then I was thinking about Hugo Chavez's connections with Fidel Castro, and Che Guevara, and how it's somewhat ironic that Castro has survived both of them. And that's what led me to this idea, replacing Satan or St. Peter with the Grim Reaper:

In today's Daily Iowan.

Bet On It

Yesterday, voters in Linn County (where Cedar Rapids is) approved building a casino in their county.

I thought it was interesting to see so much support for the casino, around town and also among Cedar Rapids natives at the law school. About 10 years ago, when I was growing up in Hood River, Oregon, there was a proposal to build a casino nearby. And there I saw a lot more opposition for the casino than support, and not just among my fellow "goody two-shoes" Mormons. I think I saw one "Yes Casino" bumper sticker the whole campaign. I don't know if it's a difference between Oregon and Iowa, or a difference between 2002 and 2013, or what it is.

Anyway, here's my cartoon:

I also did a cartoon for the possibility that the casino didn't pass:

I also drew a cartoon yesterday for Hugo Chavez's death. I didn't get it done in time for today's paper, plus they had this casino cartoon already. So maybe it will be in tomorrow's paper.

Just a Little Off the Top

Another sequester cartoon in today's Daily Iowan: