Sweet Georgia

I'm teaching both my Jr Hi Survey Art class and my High School Painting class about Georgia O'Keefe and her flowers. Then what do ya know I spotted the first flowers to bloom in my in-law's garden out on the farm. So, I couldn't resist putting the old macro setting on the camera and getting down on my knees to shoot a few. I like these so well, I may just have to paint one of them!

Molly Ivans

Mort Sahl

Jeff MacNelley

Hunter S. Thompson

Mike Royko

Like the American middle-class way of life? Thank a Liberal.

A Day in the Life of Joe Conservative

by Anonymous

Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards. With his first swallow of water, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to ensure their safety and that they work as advertised.

All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer's medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance -- now Joe gets it, too.

He prepares his morning breakfast: bacon and eggs. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.

In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained.

Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for the laws to stop industries from polluting our air.

He walks on the government-provided sidewalk to the subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.

Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe's employer pays these standards because Joe's employer doesn't want his employees to call the union.

If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he'll get a worker compensation or unemployment checks because some stupid liberal didn't think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune.

It is noontime and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe's deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Joe's money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression.

Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and his below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime. Joe also forgets that in addition to his federally subsidized student loans, he attended a state funded university.

Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards to go along with the taxpayer funded roads.

He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers' Home Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans.

The house didn't have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification.

He is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn't have to.

Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn't mention that the beloved conservatives have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day. Joe agrees: "We don't need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I'm a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have."

Moral: Want to be able to live like a Republican? Vote like a Democrat.

Does May 1 holiday make you a basket case?

As I understand it, the tradition used to be that the May basket was supposed to be left on someone's doorstep. When you ring the doorbell, you are supposed to run away. Where I grew up, that’s not what kids left on your doorstep when they rang the bell and ran away.

What I remember about May 1 were scenes on the evening news of the Russians holding big parades where tanks rolled by and the red army marched past a bunch of really old men from the Kremlin. It looked like it was their 4th of July or something. Growing up in the cold war, that certainly didn’t seem like a holiday that any red (er, uh, red, white, and blue) blooded American kid would want to be a part of.

The truth of the matter is, May Day is an American invention. It’s supposed to be about the little guy, the blue collar, working class regular Joe who puts in his 8, 10, or 14 hour day trying to make a decent living for his family. But like so many things that began here, May Day has become an international celebration. And like a lot of things, Americans decided that we couldn’t like it if Europeans did.

Back on May 4, 1886 there was a rally in the Haymarket of Chicago. Workers were protesting low wages and unfair treatment. They wanted the right to organize unions that would be able to bargain collectively, on behalf of employees, with business owners and management.

Someone threw a bomb at the cops who were trying to disperse the crowd and things got out of hand. No one really knows who actually threw it, but eight agitators were arrested and tried for the murders. Four were put to death, and one committed suicide in prison. Five of the eight were German immigrants. Their sentencing set off a huge growth in unions in Europe. And concern for how America treats it’s immigrants.

Okay, okay. May Day isn’t really all that American. Germans and Scandinavians celebrated it long before Christianity came to Europe. May first is the day, according to legend that the Tunic god Oden (the Norse knew him as Thor) died in order to discover some secret magic power from some people called the Runes or something. Europeans celebrated by lighting bonfires, going on runs, drinking excessive amounts of alcohol and dancing around poles. American college students do the same thing only they call it Spring Break.

Neo-Pagans have been trying to bring it back. They call the holiday “Walpurgisnacht,” probably another reason it doesn’t get celebrated her in the states. Can you imagine wishing people “Merry Walpurgisnacht?” Happy Walpurgisnacht. have you made any resolutions for Walpurgisnacht? What are you doing Walpurgisnacht Eve?

As much as I admire the working man, I’m not much for celebrating pagan holidays, so once again (remember February) I would like to offer readers an alternative (if somewhat obscure and esoteric) holiday for the first week in May. Cartoonist Appreciation Week, May 3-10.

National Cartoonist Day is every year on May 5. The very first comic strip, The Yellow Kid, appeared in a newspaper on May 5, 1895. But this year they decided to have it on May 3. I think because they couldn’t get Congress to make it a federal holiday, nobody can get the Monday off, so cartoonists wanted it on a Friday night so they can party.

A highlight of Cartoonist Appreciation Week is Free Comic Book Day, also May 3. Participating comic book specialty retailers around the world give away free comic books to any unsuspecting kids who make the mistake of entering their stores. Sort of like how drug dealers give you the first hit for free because they know they’re going to get you hooked.

If it’s that important to you to hold on to the old holiday’s connection to labor unions, you might be interested to know that cartoonists have their own union. The National Cartoonists Society is the world's largest organization of professional cartoonists, Founded in 1946, one of their goals is "to stimulate and encourage interest in and acceptance of the art of cartooning by aspiring cartoonists, students and the general public." I’m not a member because I can’t afford the dues. Maybe someday.

If you happen to know a cartoonist, you may want to send them a card or something. Preferably with a generous gratuity inside. Or perhaps you should bake them a pie, or a plate of cookies. Chocolate chip or oatmeal would be nice, but cartoonists don’t usually like raisins very much. Or marshmallows. Cartoonists hate marshmallows.

The lease you could do is leave a comment on this blog post and say hi, or maybe an email or poke them on Facebook. You COULD at least visit http://tedstoons.blogspot.com and leave some comments on some of those cartoons.

By the way, the distress call “Mayday, Mayday” has absolutely nothing to do with the first day of May. It comes from the French phrase “venez m'aider,” meaning “come to my aid!” Thought you’d like to know.

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'Ted's Column' has appeared weekly in the Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper since 2002 and the Schleswig Leader since 2004. In 2007 the Mapleton PRESS, which published both of the smaller paper, "absorbed" both the Leader and the NEWSpaper. But the PRESS is not exactly a major metro daily, it runs once a week and has an official circulation of 2130 with an estimated total readership of around 4260. So if you're ever in Western Iowa, at a gas station on a Thursday, buy a copy, we appreciate your support.

This week, he REALLY wants you to come see all of Ted's cartoons, some even in color at http://tedstoons.blogspot.com

Design for next year

Just playing around with some possible ideas for possible tee- shirts, stationary, web work

Surrealism

Teaching my photography kids about how to make composite images in Photoshop today, so I threw this together.

Mourning Granny's House

Don't shed too many tears
After all it's just a shell
People are to a home, what a soul is to a person
The family has been long gone
The house just sits on the corner
like an old person alone in a nursing home
neglected
empty of memories
waiting to go home
ashes to ashes
and dust to dust
the building has been caving in on itself
wishing a storm would flatten it
waiting either
for the family to come back home and live in it again
or to go home at last

Great Quote

"Anyone who is different today faces harassment, whether it is in the way he dresses, or in the position he takes on important issues. And when the price of being different is a cold fear, with good reason, then freedom as we peddle it in our international publicity releases is gone. If and when it disappears, it won't be stolen by big government, the tax collector, or the Supreme Court. Fascism will be the people's choice. It usually is. We've managed to avoid it so far only because nobody nutty enough to give the people what they want has come along. Yet. "

~Mike Royko