The General Conference of the United Methodist Church (UMC) voted last week to lift its bans on clergy performing weddings for same-sex couples or being openly gay or lesbian. The policy change comes after some 7,600 U.S. congregations left the UMC because, while their church officially held that homosexuality is "incompatible with Christian teaching" and prohibited same-sex weddings and homosexual clergy, church leaders had indefinitely delayed implementing a 2019 vote to defrock an married lesbian bishop, Karen Oliveto. Their departure from the UMC was facilitated by an agreement allow ..read more

Someone left a comment on one of my old posts, saying that editorial cartoonist Robert Carter was his great-grandfather, and including a little more family information. I was going to reply something to the effect of "Interesting!" But even though I was already signed in to Blogger to approve his comment for publication, it wanted me to sign in again with a Google ID in order to reply.  Does everybody who wants to make a comment here have to sign in with a Google ID first? It doesn't seem to bother the bots who leave comments advertising quack HIV treatments or voodoo enhancements for y ..read more

"Terry and the Pirates" by Milt Caniff It's Inko de mayo ..read more

"When the Egg Hit the Fan" by D. Edward Holland in Chicago Tribune, May 3, 1974 It's time for our Graphical History Tour to step back 50 years, just as the Watergate scandal was really, um, hitting the fan. On April 30, 1974, Richard Nixon released transcripts of tape recorded White House conversations, responding to a subpoena from the House Judiciary Committee earlier that month for 380 hours' worth of the tapes themselves.  "Right After You Eat..." by Dick Locher in Chicago Tribune, May 4, 1974 Rodino in Locher's cartoon is Judiciary Committee Chair Rep. Peter Rodino ..read more

The Prime Minister of Iraq, Mohamed Shia al-Sudani, was at the White House last month, which was made slightly awkward because the Iraqi parliament was all set to make homosexuality or being transgender a capital offense. The provision was included in "The Law on Combating Prostitution and Homosexuality," an update to a 1988 anti-prostitution statute. The parliament delayed passage of the bill during al-Sudani's visit, then, in response to U.S. and European diplomatic protests, amended the bill to reduce the penalty for homosexuality from death to ten to fifteen years in prison. The puni ..read more

Having come across the French slang word "mec" and wondering whether it was short for something, I was pondering this morning about some of its English equivalents. "Fellow" comes from a medieval English word meaning a man who is one's social equal. "Chap" is shortened from an old English word for buyer or seller. My dictionaries don't know the origins of  the more colloquial "guy" or "dude." The Britishism "bloke" isn't even in my dictionary. If I had to guess, I would imagine that "guy" derives from the male name, a diminutive variant of  the French "Guillaume" (William) or "Guib ..read more

In an episode of a podcast called "Look Into It" hosted by conspiracy fabulist Eddie Bravo, NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers claimed that Dr. Anthony Fauci, in cahoots with the Center for Disease Control and the federal government, was responsible for exacerbating the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980's and repeated their strategy with COVID-19. I don't care to link to the February 23 podcast itself, which is behind a paywall anyway; but this little germ from the three-hour episode escaped the lab last week and went viral on Xitter: "The blueprint was created in the '80's: create a pandemic ..read more

Caricature sketches from my scratch book last night ..read more

It's that time of the month again! I've rummaged through my old cartoons from 40, 30, 20, and 10 years ago for today's Graphical History Tour. UW-Parkside Ranger, Somers Wis., April 26, 1984 This 1984 cartoon starring Ronald Reagan's Secretary of Health and Human Services, Margaret Heckler, was probably the first one I drew of the AIDS crisis (not this one). We still didn't know what was causing the terrible new disease that was apparently targeting otherwise healthy young gay men, Haitians, and patients who had received blood transfusions. Reagan had made no public comment about ..read more

We don't have Starz TV in our home, so I haven't seen their current in-and-out-of-costume drama, "Mary and George," a series about Mary Villiers' scheming to secure her son George as King James I's royal boy toy. For the benefit of American readers whose knowledge of British history is gleaned exclusively from television, I have to explain that the Queen Anne in my cartoon is not the one portrayed by Olivia Colman in "The Favourite," but James's wife, Anne of Denmark. She was still very much alive when James began his dalliance with the young George Villiers; in fact, it is thought tha ..read more