DRAWING on OBSERVATIONS

Ball point pen on newsprint

A former White House Council and one time member of the Democratic National Committee agrees to rehabilitate the public image of one of the most corrupt, oppressive and undemocratic rulers in the world, for one million dollars a year.

The NYT article

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Ball point pen on todays newsprint

Reposted doodle from July 09

Ball point pen on todays newsprint

I thought the funniest line in the 80′s movie “The Big Chill” was delivered by Jeff Goldblum’s character: a writer for a glossy magazine. He said his magazine’s editorial policy was not to write anything longer than the average person could read during the average crap.

That’s why when Rolling Stone announced it’s redesign in o8 would have the mag looking more like it competition, I cringed. I really thought it was the death knell for the great magazine known for it’s in depth … Continue Reading

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Lawmakers hoped Sarbanes-Oxley would fight corporate corruption the way the RICO Act did organized crime: Become a powerful tool for prosecutors to punish individuals that we all knew to be criminal but were historically insulated from prosecution. The Supreme Court however found Sarbanes-Oxley Act to be too vague. That volleys the ball back to the legislators to write a more specific law to protect us from the likes of former Enron exec Jeffrey Skilling.

Ball point pen on todays newsprint

Petraeus’ confirmation expected to be streamlined after McChrysal was brought down by a freelance writer working on an article for Rolling Stone.

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General McChrystal will be called onto the oval carpet today after being critical of the Obama administration and it’s handling of the War in Afghanistan in a Rolling Stone interview.

Stay tuned.

the NYT article

Rolling Stone article

Ball point pen on todays newsprint

Today marks the end of the round-robin portion of the World Cup. In group C the U.S. will face Algeria at 10:00 am on ESPN and at the same time over at ESPN 2 England vs. Slovenia.

Good luck Stephen!

Update: For 90 minutes Algeria and the officials were able to hold off the US and I had resigned myself to the fact that the US was out. But at 90 + 1 Donovan was at the right place at the right time and put … Continue Reading

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For the most part, I haven’t been a fan of reality TV, mainly because the content has been anything but realistic. But I did occasionally watch Deadliest Catch. Having read The Perfect Storm I marvel at the bravery of commercial fisherman, and the guys on the show are REAL fishermen, not contestants. Now the show is taking on the ultimate reality. Over the next four episodes Deadliest Catch will deal with the death of the skipper of the Cornelia Marie, Captain Phil Harris.

Ball point pen on todays newsprint

On a recent visit to an Edward Hopper exhibition, my son whispered that he liked Hopper’s preliminary drawings better than the finished paintings. I had to admit that they were fascinating. They were beautiful drawings, but clearly preliminary works, filled with notes about value and color temperature. A glimpse into the creative process.

In that light, the recluse writer, John Updike must have known that a life he fought to keep private would and should be studied. We now know that while he was building walls to protect his privacy, he was simultaneously building an enormous archive to let us in. The Archive now crowds the basement of Houghton Library, Harvard University’s rare book and manuscript repository.

See the article HERE

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Ball point pen on todays newsprint

Ball point pen on todays newsprint

Ball point pen on todays newsprint

In the mid 60′s wigs were all the rage for the American housewife. With all the demands on a woman’s time, it was the height of convenience to pop on a fashionable hairdo for the trips to the market. My mom was no exception, she fell prey to the trend and bought a wig. But to tell you the truth, she never wore it much, It was an uncomfortable thing that was banished to the top shelf of her closet, perched atop a styrofoam head.

As a kid, it creeped me out having it ominously looking down from it’s high shelf, lit from below like a villain in a horror film. But when she took it down it was just a vacuous head composed mostly of air, it’s sole responsibility to hold that ridiculously phony hair.

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Revisiting last weeks post about how it’s a man’s world. A German drug company has come up with a pill that increases a woman’s sex drive. They even invented a disorder, hypo (under) active sexual desire disorder.

With woman’s health issues historically being underfunded, it’s troubling that a drug company has allocated valuable research and development funds to invent a drug that make it easier for men to get a little. The side effects include dizziness, nausea and fatigue. Is there any doubt that a guy thought to develop this?. Leonore Tiefer, a professor and sex therapist will offer testimony to the FDA opposing the drug coming to market.

Read the article from the NYT

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The first step in solving a crisis is to admit one exists and then spell it out in all it’s ugly detail. The newly elected Prime Minister of Greece, George Papandreou admitted that not only was the Greek deficit twice as high as previously reported, but his country’s finances were also a mess, corruption was pervasive and tax evasion, rampant. Refreshing to have a leader not resort to jingoism.

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U.S. goalkeeper Tim Howard, recovering from a rib injury caused by a spikes-to-chest collision with England’s Emile Heskey, has been cleared to continue World Cup play when the U.S. takes on Slovenia this Friday.

Check out my good friend Stephen Gardner’s World Cup coverage on his brilliant Sketch of the Day blog.
here
here
and here

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..and puppy-dogs’ tails,
That’s what little boys are made of.

At least according to the nineteenth century English poet, Robert Southey. And from the same poem:

What are our soldiers made of?
Pipeclay and drill, the foeman to kill

A chilling article in todays NYT about how US ally, Somalia, in violation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, isn’t distinguishing between boys and soldiers, recruiting anyone that can carry a gun.

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Increased pressure on school administrators to have their charges achieve, combined with bonuses for fifth grade math and science teachers for bringing up standardized test scores, led to a Texas elementary school achieving scores too good to be true. Principle Dianne Edwards and assistant principle Tonia Bush resigned after it was learned that educators cheated by “tubing” the test booklet (squeezing the test booklet without breaking its paper seal) to form an open tube, see what would be on the test, and distribute detailed study guides.

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This is a man’s world, this is a man’s world
But it wouldn’t be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl!
James Brown

Are there more men in the news, or do I gravitate to stories about men? What ever the reason, I realize that I doodle mens faces at a far greater percentage than I do women. Here’s my lame attempt to even the score. Four women on the rise in politics. Sharron Angle, Republican nominee for Senate trying to unseat Majority Leader Harry Reid in Nevada, Carly Fiorina, Republican Senate nominee running strong in California against Barbara Boxer, Nikki Haley, GOP nominee for Governor of South Carolina and Blanche Lincoln, fighting to keep her Arkansas seat in the US Senate in the Democrats column.

Click here to watch a couple of guys telling it like it is.

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This is a story that’s been on my radar for some time. My wife being in the fiduciary accounting biz has been waiting to see what congress will do about their oversight in the 2010 tax code, allowing estate tax to lapse for one year.

In 2009 heirs were subject to a 45 percent tax on estates exceeding 3.5 million. In 2011 the rate will rise to 55 percent, but for 2010 the tax on estates is zero. My first thought was that there are going to be a lot of plugs pulled in December of 2010. But in todays NYT the real life ramifications of congress’s oversight.

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Thomas has been asking tough questions to every president since Dwight Eisenhower. She was the first woman to be an officer of the National Press Club and the first female member and president of the White House Correspondents’ Association. At 89 she probably stuck around for one question too many.

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The Dems and Harlem voters seem in the mood to forgive Charlie Rangel.

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The game is not. That’s the ruling by Commissioner Bud Selig

Pitching a perfect game is one of the rarest achievements in sports, (only 20 in the history of major league baseball) but perhaps even more rare in this era is the true grace displayed by Armando Galarraga. Having been denied the legacy of pitching a perfect game; zero walks, zero hits and zero errors, he managed to smile and be respectful and gracious to umpire Jim Joyce who got it wrong on the final … Continue Reading

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Last August I promised to stay tuned to Yokio Hatoyama who rose to Prime Minister of Japan on a campaign platform to end American-dominated globalization, to reorient Japan towards Asia and to reconsider American military presence in Japan. After eight months in office, Hatayama says his failure to move an American base off Okinawa led to erosion of support and the reason for his stepping down.

I never was very disciplined about carrying a sketchbook, hence the newsprint drawings.

But while on vacation I carry a very small pad and a ball point pen in my back pocket.

It’s not meant to document everything I see as much as it’s there to fill up down time.

I would never impose on my family to sit and wait for me to draw, but rather I would break it out while we were souvenir … Continue Reading

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As an artist and a political junkie, two things come to mind when I here “The Kiss”. My artistic hero and superb draftsman Gustav Klimt’s famous painting, and then candidate Al Gore awkwardly planting a staged and uncomfortably long kiss on Tipper after accepting the democratic nomination for president. After more than one hundred years, Gustav’s Kiss is still vibrant and relevant. Alas, after forty years of marriage, the Gores are splitting up.

Time magazine reporter Lance Morrow ended a piece he wrote ten years ago about the kiss by saying “My deepest instinct tells me that if something is paraded in public, then it must be false — a mere performance.”

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Relations between Israel and Turkey (our two strongest allies in the Middle East) are strained after an Israeli raid on a Gaza bound international aid flotilla.