Friday July 20, 2007

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday July 20, 2007

Black to remain out on bail

A Chicago federal judge on Thursday allowed convicted media tycoon Conrad Black to remain free pending his November sentencing but declined to let him return to his native Canada.

Conrad Black Cartoon Gallery

U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve restricted Black’s travels to the Chicago area and southern Florida, where he owns a beachfront mansion.

The ruling was a compromise between placing Black in jail as federal prosecutors wanted and giving him complete freedom. St. Eve said she does not think Black is “going to run and hide,” but indicated she’s not entirely convinced Black will return to Chicago for sentencing.

St. Eve said she would reconsider Black’s request to live in Toronto if his lawyers can provide more assurances that he will not start an extradition fight when it is his time to be sentenced. She continued to hold his passport and scheduled another hearing on the matter for Aug. 1.

“I think the judge is a very reasonable woman,” Edward Genson, one of Black’s attorneys, said after the hearing. (Source: Chicago Tribune)

“Black admittedly has a larger presence in Canada, which is why Graeme MacKay leapt on the story and did this cartoon for the Hamilton Spectator. Black was convicted of fraud and obstruction of justice and was serving a 42 month sentence when he remembered that he was (A) rich and (B) a publisher …”

Thursday July 19, 2007

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday July 19, 2007

Strip Conrad of Order of Canada, NDP urges

The reputation of former media baron Conrad Black, who fell from fortune to felon last week, could plummet even further now that the federal New Democrats are asking Rideau Hall to strip away Black’s Order of Canada.

Conrad Black Cartoon Gallery

The NDP has put in an official request to take away Canada’s highest civilian honour from the former head of Hollinger Inc., reasoning Black’s convictions for three counts of fraud and one count of obstruction of justice in Chicago on July 13 undermine the integrity of the award.

NDP heritage critic Charlie Angus told the Canadian Press that the Order of Canada was meant to represent the noblest achievements of Canada’s men and women, but “when someone falls below that standard by being convicted, in the past they’ve been removed from that order.”

Black’s leading defence lawyer, Edward Greenspan, e-mailed a statement to the Canadian Press saying that any move to strip Black of the order should wait until the judicial process is completed.

“Since we have announced that there will be an appeal, the only appropriate thing to do is to await the result of the appeal before any motion about his Order of Canada should be brought,” Greenspan wrote. (Source: CBC News)

 

July 13, 2007

Every year editorial cartoonists get together in the United States to celebrate, commiserate, or just totally avoid talking about the business of our craft. When I tell people about these conventions they often wonder out loud what we could possibly fill the hours talking about — ink brands? cross hatching? pen nibs? Invariably, the jokes turn to how a “cartoonist convention” is an eloquent way of referring to an elaborate drunken piss-up amongst doodlers. Yes, much alcohol is consumed, but no more than what would be downed at your average conference of journalists, accountants, or funeral directors. Everybody needs to blow off steam once in a while.

This year the Convention Itinerary was packed with all kinds of subjects which go beyond ink brands, cross-hatching and pen nibs. The position of on-staff editorial cartoonist is in decline, with one in our ranks suggesting that only 80 salaried cartoonists remain employed in the U.S. today compared with 2000 a century ago. Editorial Cartoonists in the U.S. are very concerned with their impending extinction, and at this year’s gathering they held townhall style meetings at the start and end to come up with solutions. Some cartoonists are figuring that in order to stay in the business of political satire they need to animate or go the way of the dodo.

Other topics included blogging, politics, cartooning on war, Dennis Kucinich, and cartoonist rights.

One of the really cool things I was able to do while visiting D.C. over the Fourth of July holiday was attend a dinner reception on the rooftop of the Canadian Embassy. Editorial Cartoonists were invited to dine on huge shrimp and caribou meat while rubbing shoulders with diplomats, commissioners, and other big wigs. I took my father inlaw to the event — that’s him, above left, nestled between former ABC News White House correspondent Andrea Mitchell and her husband Alan Greenspan, former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman. The photo on the right shows me with Canadian Ambassador Michael Wilson.

On the left is a photo of me with Arnold Roth, whose book Arnold’s Crazy Book of Science served as an inspiration for me to draw when I was a kid. On the right is me with Malcolm Mayes, cartoonist at the Edmonton-Journal, who distributes my cartoons with his partner Fran Seary through the Artizans Syndicate.

One of my cartoons (shown at the end of the centre wall) was part of a show at The Katzen Arts Center at American University. The title of the exhibit, Bush Leaguers: Cartoonists Take on the White House is a collection of 99 editorial cartoons and is slated to appear in Pittsburgh and then Columbus, Ohio.

Wednesday July 4, 2007

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator - July 3, 2007 America's birthday from Canada editorial cartoon, 2007, USA, Canada, patriotism, July 4, Canada Day, Independence day, holiday, national birthday

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday July 4, 2007

Happy July 4th to the USA

From disgruntled Canadians wishing our neighbours might tone it down a bit, or we’ll call the cops.

How July 4th became a thing (Source: Wikipedia)

  • In 1777, thirteen gunshots were fired in salute, once at morning and once again as evening fell, on July 4 in Bristol, Rhode Island. Philadelphia celebrated the first anniversary in a manner a modern American would find quite familiar: an official dinner for the Continental Congress, toasts, 13-gun salutes, speeches, prayers, music, parades, troop reviews, and fireworks. Ships were decked with red, white, and blue bunting.[14]
  • In 1778, from his headquarters at Ross Hall, near New Brunswick, New Jersey, General George Washington marked July 4 with a double ration of rum for his soldiers and an artillery salute (feu de joie). Across the Atlantic Ocean, ambassadors John Adams and Benjamin Franklin held a dinner for their fellow Americans in Paris, France.[15]
  • In 1779, July 4 fell on a Sunday. The holiday was celebrated on Monday, July 5.[15]
  • In 1781, the Massachusetts General Court became the first state legislature to recognize July 4 as a state celebration.[15]
  • In 1783, Moravians in Salem, North Carolina, held a celebration of July 4 with a challenging music program assembled by Johann Friedrich Peter. This work was titled “The Psalm of Joy.” This is recognized as the first recorded celebration and is still celebrated there today.[16]
  • In 1791, the first recorded use of the name “Independence Day” occurred.[citation needed]
  • In 1870, the U.S. Congress made Independence Day an unpaid holiday for federal employees.[17]
  • In 1938, Congress changed Independence Day to a paid federal holiday.[18]

How July 1 became “Canada Day” formerly Dominion Day (Wikipedia)

Some Canadians were, by the early 1980s, informally referring to the holiday as Canada Day.[n 4] However, this practice did cause some controversy:[46] Numerous politicians, journalists, and authors, such as Robertson Davies,[47] decried the change at the time and some continue to maintain that it was illegitimate and an unnecessary break with tradition.[41] Proponents argued that the name Dominion Day was a holdover from the colonial era, an argument given some impetus by the patriation of the Canadian Constitution in 1982, and others asserted that an alternative was needed as the term does not translate well into French.[41] Conversely, these arguments were disputed by those who claimed Dominion was widely misunderstood and conservatively inclined commenters saw the change as part of a much larger attempt by Liberals to “re-brand” or re-define Canadian history.[41][47][48] Columnist Andrew Cohen called Canada Day a term of “crushing banality” and criticized it as “a renunciation of the past [and] a misreading of history, laden with political correctness and historical ignorance”.[49]

Available at the MacKayCartoons Boutique

Available at the MacKayCartoons Boutique

 The holiday was officially renamed as a result of a private member’s bill that, on July 9, 1982, two years after receiving first reading in the House of Commons,[35] there received third reading when only twelve Members of Parliament (MPs) were present. (This was actually eight members less than a quorum, but, according to parliamentary rules, the quorum is enforceable only at the start of a sitting or when a member calls attention to it.[50]) The bill was passed by the House in five minutes, without debate,[46] which inspired “grumblings about the underhandedness of the process”.[35] It met with stronger resistance in the Senate—some Senators objected to the change of name; Ernest Manning, who argued that the rationale for the change was based on a misperception of the name, and George McIlraith, who did not agree with the manner in which the bill had been passed and urged the government to proceed in a more “dignified way”—but finally passed.[41] With the granting of Royal Assent, the name was officially changed to Canada Day on October 27, 1982.

Lobby groups and politicians since have occasionally campaigned to have the holiday named returned to Dominion Day.[51] In 1996, Reform Party of Canada MP Stephen Harper introduced a private member’s bill to reinstate the name. It was defeated.[51] In 2012, Conservative Party of Canada MP Brad Trost made a speech in the House of Commons favouring the reinstatement of the Dominion Day name.[51]

June 30, 2007

My Editor, David Estok, talks about me in his Spectator column today:

Graeme MacKay is a popular person when local school kids tour The Spec building.

Our editorial cartoonist, Graeme regularly takes time out to talk to young people about what he does. There is a reason. Many years ago, Graeme, while on a boy scout tour, spoke with legendary Spec cartoonist Blaine. A little while later, while struggling in high school, a smart and caring teacher noticed his doodling and suggested he sit down with Blaine and talk about it.

It changed his life.

Today Graeme draws five cartoons a week. He starts his day at the morning editorial board meeting where a group of us gather around to talk about the day’s events and decide what the main editorial in The Spectator should be. I often wonder what Graeme is thinking as we talk about national politics, city hall, Hamilton personalities and pretty much everything else in between.

I get to find out later in the day, or the next day, when we see his latest creation.

Sometimes these cartoons are controversial. A recent one about the Pope and the Vatican’s Ten Commandments for safer driving upset some readers.

Graeme, who will celebrate his 10th anniversary as The Spec’s cartoonist July 7, says the local drawings are always the ones that provoke the most reader reaction.

“They sting the most,” he says. “But they are also the most popular.”

The “perfect storm” of a cartoon?

“It is the one with the least amount of words,” MacKay says.

“It means it is all visual … the power of a simple image.”

MacKay and his fellow cartoonists Terry Mosher (Aislin), Brian Gable and Roy Carless recently raised $10,000 for the family of Afghanistan-born Said Shiragha Rahimi, who died suddenly early this year.

* * * * * *

Kind words from the big cheese… in other news…

Between now and the middle of July I’ll be mixing vacation time with the business of “professional development”. My family and I are to off to visit friends in Virginia and Delaware, and between that I’ll be at the 50th annual Convention of Editorial Cartoonists in Washington D.C. I’ll take pictures.