John Oliver Returns--and a New Film About Influential Cartoonist

Plus current cartoons, music and from Jesse Welles and Jason Isbell.

My latest film, “The Atomic Bowl:Football at Ground Zero—and Nuclear Peril Today” has been airing over PBS stations this past month and streaming (key links to watch and more here). A companion book, my 14th, has been available, and you can read more or order here. Thank you. And subscribing to this newsletter still somehow FREE.

John Oliver returned last night with a look at Trump’s attacks on universities.

The major NY Times story this morning:

How JPMorgan Enabled the Crimes of Jeffrey Epstein

But there’s this:

Emmys Snubs Trump by Finally Rewarding Colbert for Mega-Fight With the President

Before we go further, in case you have missed the sad news over the weekend, my friend, mentor and co-author on two books and many articles, Robert Jay Lifton, has died at 99. Here is my tribute and a photo from our final meeting on the Cape this past June. Even the doggie is admiring him.

Many of you may feel that the best feature of this newsletters\ remains my daily collection of the best (in my view) political cartoons of the moment. So the following should have special appeal. Growing up in the 1960s and later, my favorite editorial cartoonist (as syndicated in newspapers and magazines) was Pat Oliphant. You got the main subject plus an often witty character or little bird (commenting in a lower corner.

Now there’s a new doc about him appearing in theaters this week and surely coming to streaming. See the trailer below. But as the NY Times review indicates, the film is much more than a personal bio:

But where “A Savage Art” really shines is when it traces the discipline of political cartooning and the satirical edge it’s brought to journalism and commentary for centuries. The film locates the origins in the Protestant Reformation, when images lampooning authority figures helped chip away at hierarchical structures. Then, the development of the lithograph made it more possible to disseminate those pictures widely.

Showing how the cartoons drawn by Thomas Nast were important in developing iconography we still use today (like the donkeys and elephants that represent political parties) and to create actual change (like taking down the notoriously corrupt Tammany Hall politician Boss Tweed), the film makes the case for cartooning as not just funny, but — as Oliphant puts it in one interview — “a serious expression of a political thought.” In fact, the film argues, one might see internet memes, with their ability to quickly express an idea in a single image, as an heir to political cartooning.

It’s a compelling history, one that’s especially vital in a time when irony and satire can be hard to pin down. Oliphant is the vehicle for the story, but there’s a bigger point here: that American politics, in particular, are built on a rich heritage of protest, of challenging authority, and that cartooning has been a part of that from the start. However that evolves, and whatever it becomes, Oliphant’s work has played a crucial part.

Music Picks

As noted previously, Jesse Welles is gaining wide attention now for his topical songwriting, reminding me of old pal Phil Ochs, but even more prolific—with a new song seemingly every day at times. Keep an eye on him. Woody would approve. Here he mocks/warns about the current ICE recruitment drive:

And here’s longtime fave Jason Isbell live a few days backs with his fine recent song “Gravelweed.:

Reposting from yesrerday:

»»>I’m going to start encouraging more Comments and dialogue at this newsletter, so please join in:

From Tunes to Toons