Much has been said about Kansas City Chiefs place kicker Harrison Butker's commencement address to the graduating class of Benedictine College, a small Roman Catholic college in Atchison, Kansas.  You may not have heard of Benedictine College before now, or, for that matter, of Harrison Butker. Not much attention gets paid to NFL kickers, who spend most of the game on the sidelines — even though, to the bafflement of the rest of the world, Americans name our sport after the body part that only the kicker uses for anything other than running around. I mean, do you remember Ryan Longwell ..read more

Having been in a high school production of "My Fair Lady," I try to celebrate Liza Doolittle Day every Twentieth of May. One buys flowers on the street, or goes to the horse races, or dances with a Transylvanian count, as the occasion presents itself. Why, there's my dashing figure in the yearbook. Meanwhile, I'm a bit late to the Harrison Butker-bashing party, and all the good ideas have been taken.  Tune in this Thursday to see what I managed to dig up from everyone else's rejects ..read more

Travel back in time with me for some of my own cartoons which celebrate their decennials this month. for Q Syndicate, May 19, 2014 Ten years ago, University of Missouri defensive lineman Michael Sam made sports headlines as the first openly gay NFL draft pick. In his senior year, he led the SEC in quarterback tackles and sacks; he forced a fumble that was run back for a touchdown in Missouri's 2014 Cotton Bowl victory over Oklahoma. He came out as gay to his college teammates that senior year, and went public after graduating in December.  Cameras were rolling when he was selecte ..read more

On the campaign trail last week, Donald Berzilius Trump joined the cabal of Republican governors threatening to undo President Biden's new Title IX rules for education facilities that benefit from public funding. These rules cover matters such as responding to reports of sexual harassment and misconduct, accommodating pregnant students and protecting students from sex-based discrimination. What has right-wingers' panties in a bunch is that the anti-discrimination rules protect students who are LGBTQ+ — particularly since many Republican-run states have recently passed pro-discriminati ..read more

In writing the part in last Saturday's posting about disaffection of Blacks in Indiana with that state's Republican Party, I summarized the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution as guaranteeing civil right to all. Then I had to stipulate that they only applied to men. Within a generation, they didn't apply to Chinese men in this country. And before the civil rights amendments turned 50, they didn't apply to Japanese men here, either. Or Hindoos, or Musselmen, or Filipinos... Just wanted to note that I would have mentioned this before, except that it was beside the point then. A ..read more

We've stepped outside several times over the weekend in search of the aurora light show. I don't know whether it's light pollution from Foxconn, or from Milwaukee to our north, but we haven't caught the display everyone else on Earth seems to have. Even with the clouds that came in Saturday night, some people in our area got some nice photographs, so we must simply have not waited outdoors long enough ..read more

Let's catch up on the 1924 presidential race, shall we? On the Republican side, President Calvin Coolidge had his party's nomination all sewn up. Republicans brushed aside a challenge by progressive Senator Hiram Johnson (R-CA) in nearly every contest. "Had You Noticed That Suspicious-Looking Couple in the Stagecoach" by J.N. "Ding" Darling in Colliers, April 26, 1924 Meanwhile, Senator Robert LaFollette (R-WI) was seriously considering a third-party run for the presidency. A group calling itself the Progressive Party was interested in being that third party. "That's Just L ..read more

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