Mavis Returns, Woody Endures

Plus our usual cartoons and commentary.

Quick Note: As you may know, 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 via PBS (key links and more here). A companion e-book has been available but today it is also published as a paperback, and you can read more or order here. Thank you.

Glad they junked the new plain logo but surprised they replaced with this:

More profiles in courage:

He pretty much exposed his game plan yesterday. Trump: “I have the right to do anything I want to do. I’m the president of the United States. If I think our country is in danger, and it is in danger in these cities, I can do it.”

Thomas Friedman in The New York Times today:

Israel’s Gaza Campaign Is Making It a Pariah State

I will leave it to historians to debate whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. But what is absolutely clear to me right now is that this Israeli government is committing suicide, homicide and fratricide.

It is destroying Israel’s standing in the world, it is killing Gazan civilians with seemingly no regard for innocent human life, and it is tearing apart Israeli society and world Jewry, between those Jews who want to still stand with Israel no matter what and those who can no longer tolerate, explain or justify where this Israeli government is taking the Jewish state and now want to distance themselves from it.

On a far happier note, this from the great Mavis Staples yesterday:

I am thrilled to announce my new solo album, “Sad And Beautiful World.”Produced by Brad Cook, this record spans seven decades of the American songbook and includes reinventions of timeless songs by Tom Waits, Gillian Welch, Curtis Mayfield, Leonard Cohen, Frank Ocean, and more, as well as original music.

Take a listen to the first track of the record—my version of “Beautiful Strangers” by Kevin Morby.

And check out wonderful gift below from one of our subscribers, Woody Yocum, a longtime animator and animation director for Disney. He helped create this last month for a version of the “other” Woody’s “This Land Is Your Land.”

From Toons to Tunes

Yesterday, Trump again blamed Ukraine for starting the war with Russia: