Secret Revealed: Now We Know the Person in Dick Cheney’s Sunglasses

A few days back a bunch of news junkies like myself were trying to identify the naked woman in Dick Cheney’s sunglasses. While some think they found the answer (some even had the notion to suggest it was just a hand casting a fly rod), I got unconfirmed sources from within the Clinton camp that on the day in question, Hillary Clinton was not campaigning. Instead it’s rumored she looking for a way to get in touch with her base, reaching for booze and guns. This source, of course, asked to remain anonymous, so as to retain their unpaid position with the campaign.

You see here though, considering how I’m a high-class journalist, drawing cartoons, and poking fun, I couldn’t let this story just fly over. So I had to do some some field work. Instead of heading down to the tabloid stand (where I do most my initial research) I decided to open up Photoshop, zoom into that photo of Dick’s sunglasses (seen below) and really dive into what was in those glasses. What you have here (seen above) is an exact representation of what I saw (minus a few pixels here’n there).

It’s quite scandalous, if I must say, but makes perfect sense.

Note: I submitted this story to all the big media outlets, but haven’t heard back yet. Perhaps I should post it over at the DailyKos?

In Black and White (and Red) Day 7: China Olympic Disaster: A Silence Kept Too Long

I’m normally not one to recycle material, however considering that most visitors to this site are new, I’m going to guess you, my angry reader, won’t mind. (I’m assuming your angry, otherwise you’d probably not be interested in cartoons bashing China’s human rights position and the fact it was given the Olympics to host despite this obvious mark on its record.)

This is a drawing I did way back in the early days of this blog project called PixelMarx, I did a cartoon for the Darfur: An Unforgivable Hell on Earth. Since then, this cartoon’s been buried. That was until recently, as the public began to awaken to this whole issue.

Now with the protests surrounding the Olympic Torch relay, the image is all the more relevant. Those who’ve already seen this, I apologize (well maybe not).

You can read the original post, Foul Smell from Beijing More than Olympic Sized Pollution.

There are a few comments, including the most recent one just the other day.

Sier wrote, “Your drawing is based on your biased imagination and showing you have not any real knowledge about China.” To the biased imagination part, I fully agree (in fact I’m thinking I might steal that line when describing what I do here - drawings biased by my imagination - it has a special ring to it. But I digress.

Instead, I’m making my own pledge to boycott the Olympics, the whole thing. I’m not going to read, watch, pay any attention to the event. It’ll tie nicely into my boycott of NBC and the rest of mainstream media. And to all those who say boycotts don’t work…don’t think you persuade me :).

Note: For anyone wondering who the man behind the mask might be, it’s Hu Jintao (pronounced “who”).

The Building of a Movement: 2004, 2006, 2008

The world doesn’t seem much different than when this video came out in 2004. That’s when Dean still had promise, Kerry was looking tired and in need of another round of Botox, and some couch-potato Democrats were just starting to get tired of the Iraq war. There were signs though that something was happening and the youth movement (those 18 to 30) in this country was building.

The video director, Ian Inaba, has a great explanation of the impact this video had when it was released. While the video didn’t unleash the flood of youth votes critics would have required before making this a news story, a 9% increase is a nice amount.

Now in 2008 we have another movement, or more correctly, a continuation of the original Dean movement, except this time there’s no scream to stop it in it’s tracks. And this is what is frustrating Republicans. After nearly a decade of failed policy advocated by their party, (I’d like to actually include the Clinton post-1993 term in that as well), people are tired, but they also realize that they have a voice, that one vote does matter when added to enough other votes.

Bush Lays Out the Foundation for Peace, One Body at a Time

Yesterday, Bush stated in an address, that the 4,000 deaths in Iraq have laid the foundation for peace.

The Blood Tag: 4,000 US dead. Nearly 30,000 US wounded.

The Treasure Tag: $500,000,000,000 USD and counting.

The Collateral Tag: 82,000 Iraqis and counting

That’s all I’m going to say.

What Do Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and Hillary Clinton Have in Common?

That’s what I’m wondering.

While other news organizations seem to have moved on from the issue of Obama’s pastor and his comments, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh seems obsessed with bringing Obama down. My question, in watching this is what’s their point? Why not tackle both democrats with equal tenacity. And who really benefits? No true democrat listens to their commentary. Independents see them for the hate-mongers they are.

The only one benefiting from the constant cycle of Reverend Wright and Obama bashing is Hillary Clinton. And she’s smartly remained mum on the topic, enjoying the slight boost it’s given her. She’s also probably the only democrat on this earth said FOX NEWS was more fair than MSNBC. This has been the greatest gift to her campaign short of Rush and Sean forming their on PAC for her cause.  She’s not had to run near as much advertising in the coming primary states due to the great negative campaign being pushed by Fox, and other right-wing media outlets.

And what’s the motive? It’s not Rush-Sean-Fox’s love of Hillary. It’s the fact that they want to tear apart the Democratic Party. They want the huge numbers that have been energized by the candidates during this primary season to stay home.

It comes down to a simple event that needs to take place.

Hillary needs to drop out.

She can’t win, but she can systematically tear apart the party by remaining in the race and dragging this out. She’s also continuing to funnel donations that would be going to other Democratic campaigns, into both Obama and Clinton campaign coffers.

P.S. With regards to the cartoon, I want to remind any right-wingers out there that might take offense, it’s you who’ve insinuated that his supporters think he’s some sort of messiah, that they think Obama can walk on water. So I say, if you can take him that far, then you should be able to take the analogy to the end.

Vogue Magazine, a Confession, and the Confused Artistry of Annie Leibovitz

I’m in the checkout line at Safeway with two beers and shaving cream and I notice the latest issue of Vogue.

Is this for real?

With all of the uproar over race, racism, and a media that keeps picking at the scab, how could such an insensitive cover make the stands?

I left the checkout with two beers, shaving cream and the April edition of Vogue, and a bit of fire for the keyboard with three points to make.

First point. If you’re a photographer, and your going to rely on Photoshop to pull off your ill-conceived gig, do it right.

I’m a graphic designer by trade and not a physicist, but I’m pretty convinced the cover image is a mediocre Photoshop job ( please comment if you feel otherwise.) One of the tell-tale signs of a manipulated image versus the real deal is gravity - the way bodies press against objects, or folds and light shadows bend and fall. In this photo, Gisele is weightless. While I know 99% of us couldn’t even dream of doing what Lebron does on the court, try to do what he’s doing in this photo. Even LeBron couldn’t pull this off.

First, find someone about half your weight and who is comfortable running suspended in your left arm. (It also helps if they don’t have a right arm.)

Now grab a basketball and assume a pose that goes somewhat like this. You’re in a wide stance and dribbling the basketball. Your left foot, (the same side as you’ll be holding whomever you convinced to play Gisele), hovers a few inches off the ground. Your Gisele should now assume the running pose in your left arm. Keep dribbling the basketball with your right. Now as Gisele fakes running, casually keep her restrained.

Keep this pose while I ready my camera.

Now comes the tough part. Roar at the camera. Don’t say cheese. That’s too wimpy. Make this a deep roar from the depths of your being, all the while looking straight at the camera and dribbling the basketball.

Oh, and Gisele, while you’re running, levitating and being restrained, give us a goofy smile and look somewhere way up in the rafters just over my left shoulder.

I hope you get my point. This cover is a concoction, and one of the worst kind, because it takes it’s influence from a movie, King Kong (1933), with a long history of controversy over it’s racist innuendo, and places it smack dab between my beer and shaving cream. Lesson here: If you’re going to concoct, know how to mix your ingredients.

This brings me to point two, a confession on creative arrogance.

Artists deal in manipulation of images. We see, process, and then regurgitate in whatever medium we prefer with the hope that others see what we see. From the moment we’re born, images are coming in, embedding themselves in our subconscious. And herein lies the problem. No two people have ever been exposed to the exact set of images, or reality.

In college, after I changed my major from Marketing and decided to dive head first into the process of becoming an Artist, I created art under the concept of shock first, question later. The unconscious intrigued me. Juxtaposition without reason, became reason itself. This was 1995 and I’d created a painting that stirred people, angered people. This is a painting for which I’m not proud. But at the time I wouldn’t take any criticism. I said, it’s how the images appeared, I created, I’m stepping back now and I disassociate myself from it. How was I to know what those to symbols meant anything other than my original intention? It’s all ART, right? Wrong. Lesson two: Don’t assume you have no responsibility to self-censorship.

And so I’m going to finish this long soapbox post with my final point.

Annie Leibovitz is a portrait photographer of great fame. At one time we’ve all seen her work. Because of her fame, and the expanse and recognition of her work, I’m going to make some assumptions. First, that she’s smart with a world view and has a great creative perception. That she knows her history of symbols and imagery.

As the photographer for this Vogue cover, Annie knows very much that she’s doing a play on the King Kong movie posters of the 30s (a time when the question of whether racism was ingrained in American life is a mute point). And yet she chose this as the construct for her LeBron and Gisele shot.

Magazine covers don’t spontaneously materialize. They start with a creative concept and a story. They are a collaboration between creative direction, editor, photographer and subject. Leibovitz was given a subject. A black man, a celebrity, and great athlete, and a blond woman, a super model. When the idea was conceived to shoot a photograph in the likes of the King Kong film poster, I’m going to guess this made some on the creative team a bit uneasy, but they went along with it. They were dealing with creative genius, and of course, it’s all in fun. And so the process that would produce this cover started. Leibovitz, thinking she was doing something daring, in the same mold as her photograph of Whoopi Goldberg in a bathtub of milk (another photo that could be questioned for its creative intentions), or her Demi Moore pregnant cover for Vanity Fair.

Unfortunately, the imagery and predisposition to make this photograph was already in Leibovitz’s unconscious way before this shot took place. It probably started in childhood with images from the 40s and 50s and has been reinforced all through her life. And her creative arrogance, and the fact she’s likely a politically liberal person with an open mind, means her mind is closed to her own prejudices, that she’s unaware of the myth she continues through her art. The myth that black men are primal brutes, that the blond damsel is their prize. There are a million ways to arrange and photograph two attractive celebrities.

Leibovitz gave us this.

For those interested here’s a list of other commentary on the subject of this Vogue cover:

1. ESPN Sports, Jemel Hill, March 21, 2008

Show’n Them What’s Really Wrong with America

Wow, I feel as though I’ve been drawing an entire series on racism in America lately. Didn’t quite expect that, but I guess it’s good to suck it up and address what needs addressing.

I’m going to confess - actually the Irish in spacemonk probably gives it away - but I’ll confess anyway. I’m pretty white. With a typical mutt heritage of various European immigrants (Irish, Swedish, German, and whatever else there is out there). And I was also educated in a largely white school in Alaska. But I’m also of Gen X, a liberal democrat, and so I like to think of myself as pretty open minded.

Then I took a Black Studies class on the history of African Americans in film, I was surprised to learn how ignorant I’d been of the ingrained racism in movies, even to this day (If you wish to read a great book on this subject, check out, Donald Bogle’s “Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, & Bucks” .) And if this is rampant in the movie industry - a pretty progressive bunch - then I feel safe to guess it’s gonna be even worse in society in general. If you don’t believe me, do a search for blacks as CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. Then do a search for females as CEOs for Fortune 500 companies. You might be surprised to learn it’s four blacks, twelve women.

So this gets me to thinking that as long as we avoid teaching our children the real nature of racism, that it isn’t just what makes the news, but it’s an inherent pattern of stereotyping, of fears, passed on by parents to their children, then we’ll never get beyond this issue. It will continue to be pushed aside, left for later generations, hoping that it goes away. Just last year, while in the grocery store parking lot near where I live, a pickup truck with teens was cutting across, with two huge Confederate flags flying off the back end. I was surprised. Who’d be that insensitive? This wasn’t the South, this was Oregon.

America, we haven’t made it as far as we like to tell ourselves.

Someday a black man or a black woman will again try to run for president, and will get quite far, and then it (the issue we refuse to talk about) will rear it’s ugliness into the lives of another generation, and because they’ve never been taught where the anger and resentment originates, we’ll deal with it in a similar fashion as we are today. Scared. Hateful. And with suspicion.

It will seem like we’ve gone nowhere.

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