Gallery of art and thoughts

Here's the Pitch!

2007-04-23T12:53:00.001-07:00

Here's the Pitch!
Originally uploaded by SoxIn18.

New pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka has made quite an impact on the Boston Red Sox thus far. Last Tuesday, although he took the loss to the Toronto Blue Jays, he was nevertheless impressive.
Thanks to my friend Taro Matsuoka for his help with this cartoon. Any errors in translation are mine alone.
Oh, and I hear Sunday night's game was pretty interesting, too (wink, wink). I should have another cartoon about it soon ...

News on friends' art ventures

2007-02-27T10:56:00.001-08:00

A couple of friends have art-related news I'd like to share:

First, Cambridge artist Bren Bataclan discusses his upcoming projects on YouTube. Check it out!

Second, Georgia Bellas, who had an exhibition at the Holyoke Center last year, now has work on display (digital mixed media on canvas) at the Cambridge Common restaurant until March 27. That gives me a reason to stop by Porter Square...

News on friends' art ventures

2007-02-27T10:56:00.000-08:00

Hello, Red-State America!

2006-12-20T17:07:00.000-08:00

I visited Ohio for a week at the start of this month. This Bay Stater enjoyed touring red-state America. Until this month, I'd mostly visited blue-state destinations (New York City, San Francisco, and Washington, DC).

Among the highlights: Getting addicted to Tim Hortons bagels and Skyline chili. Touring art museums in Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati. Walking across the bridge into Kentucky. And getting an up-close look at the religious right.

I'd like to do it all again!

Tough talk from Israel?

2006-11-10T15:09:00.000-08:00

An Israeli defense official says his country could attack Iran to prevent that nation from developing nuclear weapons.

Someone should tell President Bush to rein in Ehud Olmert ... and someone should tell Vladimir Putin to rein in Mahmoud Ahmedinejad.

Israel and the 2006 elections

2006-11-09T16:12:00.001-08:00

Last night I heard a representative from AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobbying group, discuss (among other things) the impact of the 2006 elections on Israel. He didn't seem worried about any changes in US policy, although some Israelis are. I suppose that, given the absence of a Cynthia McKinney this campaign season, there won't be any such changes next year when the Democrats reclaim Congress.

He discussed the current situation in Israel. One big item in the news is the Israeli artillery barrage in the Gaza Strip that left 18 Palestinians dead. Seems like this is the first big story from the region since the Israel-Hezbollah war this summer.

What concerned him most? I would say Iran. He brought up Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's comments about eliminating the Zionist state.

Is Ahmadinejad as big a threat to the Jews as Adolf Hitler was? For all the Iranian leader's braggadocio, I don't think he (or the real power broker in his country, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei) would dare to attack Israel. The reasons are twofold: An American response, and a risk of creating Palestinian casualties.

There are objections to this second item. After all, Iran fought a war with other Muslims, namely those in Iraq, for eight years. And how much identification would the Persians of Iran feel toward the Sunnis of Ramallah, East Jerusalem, and Gaza?

The Palestinians, though, have become a cause celebre in the Islamic world, and a key part of the Muslim ummah. Their proximity to Israel may ironically prove to be a sort of protection for the Jewish state from the greater threat of a nuclear Iran.

Saddam sentenced

2006-11-06T07:52:00.000-08:00

Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein has received a death sentence. What are the charges against him?

The principal one, for this trial, seems to be his reprisal against Shiite Muslims in Dujail for a 1982 assassination attempt. According to the Chicago Tribune, "entire families from Dujail were detained. Death sentences against many were issued after perfunctory one-day trials. Nearly four dozen victims died in captivity--often during interrogation." The death count: 148.

While the sentence seems final, it may not be. "There are appeals and more trials," the Tribune wrote. Hussein is scheduled for another trial for charges of genocide. The basis: killing around 180,000 Kurds in 1987-88. The Tribune: "All told, Hussein's regime is believed to have killed at least 300,000 Iraqis."

Some Sunnis have reacted violently to the death sentence. Even after his sentencing, it seems, the dictator can still cause trouble in Iraq.

Christopher Hitchens on I.F. Stone

2006-10-09T14:44:00.000-07:00

Finished reading Christopher Hitchens' piece on I.F. Stone in Vanity Fair. It's a review of Myra MacPherson's biography All Governments Lie! The Life and Times of Rebel Journalist I. F. Stone.

Hitchens deserves praise for a balanced assessment of Stone, applauding the man for defying McCarthy and criticizing him for supporting Communism (among other transgressions). "But in point of fact and interpretation," Hitchens writes, "he was naïve about the Soviet Union for most of his life (dying just as it was about to do so itself, in 1989), mistaken about the Korean War, simplistic about both sides of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and unable to see the diminishing returns of the New Deal tradition."

Hitchens finds broader significance in Stone's style. "Even the slightest piece written by Izzy was composed with a decent respect for the King's English and usually contained at least one apt allusion to the literature and poetry and history that undergirded it: an allusion that he would expect his readers to recognize," Hitchens writes.

Also, I've begun writing (and drawing) for the AOL Elections 2006 blog. Check it out!

What's new?

2006-09-17T15:00:00.000-07:00

As a (more or less) lifelong resident of Malden, Massachusetts, I'm happy to be part of a new project, Window Arts Malden, or WAM. The project matches local artists with businesses in Malden Square, and each artist gets to display his or her work in storefront windows. I have seven pieces on display at the New England Comics on 95 Pleasant Street. The opening celebration was held on Saturday, Sept. 16, and the event runs until the 30th.

Also: There's a new progressive Jewish organization, Moishe/Kavod House, in Brookline. A few weeks ago, I attended a lecture by State Rep. Frank Smizik; you can see my cartoon about the event here.

World War II and 9/11

2006-08-26T10:08:00.000-07:00

In an article written for Gather.com, I compare and contrast two types of suicide attacks: those of the kamikazes in World War II, and those of al-Qaeda on 9/11.

Bat Mitzvah Cartoon

2006-07-31T11:00:00.000-07:00

Bat Mitzvah Cartoon
Originally uploaded by SoxIn18.

This is a response to an article on the adult bat mitzvah movement by Linda K. Wertheimer in the July 30 Boston Globe magazine. "During the last decade," Wertheimer writes, "the practice of an adult marking a bat mitzvah has become increasingly popular and an institution in both Reform and Conservative temples. Even Orthodox women are shaking up tradition, learning rituals once forbidden to them, though the pace of change is slower." Wertheimer's article focuses on the experiences of a group of women, including herself, at Temple Shir Tikvah in Winchester.

Local musician Geni impresses

2006-07-20T11:19:00.000-07:00

Geni
Originally uploaded by SoxIn18.

A few weeks ago, I got to hear local musician Geni perform at All Asia in Central Square. His schedule's stayed busy, as he's doing two shows this week (one at Lily's Pad tonight). Check him out; he does a great job playing the shakuhachi, or Japanese flute.

Thoughts on recent Globe articles

2006-07-02T15:53:00.000-07:00

Two writers discuss Jewish issues in the Boston Sunday Globe. Columnist Jeff Jacoby mourns what he supposes to be the loss of Israel's derring-do epitomized by Entebbe, and Harvard professor Susan Suleiman reviews a new book by Jan Gross about a post-World War II massacre of Polish Jews by their countrymen at Kielce.

We will begin with Suleiman's review and Gross' book, "Fear: Anti-Semitism in Poland After Auschwitz." Gross is certainly no stranger to documenting Polish atrocities toward Jews. In 2001, Gross published "Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland." According to Suleiman, "The most shocking fact was that those who murdered the Jews of Jedwabne were Polish. The Polish villagers killed their Jewish neighbors and took over their property -- with the approval and encouragement of the Nazi occupiers." Now Gross considers the plight of Polish Jews after the war. After the trauma of the Holocaust, Poles murdered a thousand more Jews between 1945 and 1946. One pogrom took place on July 4, 1946, in and around the city of Kielce. The victims included "a woman and her baby who were driven to a forest and shot in cold blood by a small group of men," Suleiman writes. "After stripping her of her few belongings, they went out and had dinner."

Gross does good work in identifying and debunking the purported causes of this pogrom, including what Suleiman calls a "medieval fantasy of ritual murder" and the equation of Judaism with Communism. "There are still historians in Poland who explain Polish anti-Semitism on those grounds," Suleiman writes, "but Gross shows that, if anything, the Jewish population was largely anti-Communist, before and after the war."

Perhaps the most frightening aspect of the Holocaust is that as soon as World War II ended, heartless people in Poland wanted the killing of Jews to continue.

The Entebbe operation, subject of Jacoby's column, also took place on July 4 (1976). He bemoans Israel for seemingly losing its soul, for committing the same audacious acts -- a commando raid in 1976, demonstrations against Gaza today -- while seeing its macho, martial character disappear. What is the evidence? "Israel's operation in Gaza comes less than a year after its unilateral retreat last summer," Jacoby writes, "when more than 8,000 Jews were expelled from the homes and communities some of them had lived in for decades." The Gaza disengagement, he adds, "didn't appease Hamas and Fatah. Instead, it convinced them that Israelis were weak, that terrorism worked -- and that more terrorism would work even better." He cites numerous examples.

Yet is Israel really different from its counterpart thirty years ago? Between 1968 and 1970, the country fought an inconclusive War of Attrition with Egypt before the Yom Kippur War of 1973 resulted in embarrassment, bloodshed, and the toppling of the Meir government. The Olmert administration seems better prepared today, given its rapid response to the kidnapping of French-Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

Withdrawal doesn't necessarily mean weakness. Leaving the Sinai after 1978 helped bring peace with Egypt. Yes, it is a cold peace, but Israel fought four major wars with Egypt before 1978 and none since. Leaving Lebanon does not seem to be the mistake the hawks felt it was in 2000. Hezbollah has had ample time to prepare for an invasion, yet that invasion has not come. And certainly we can argue that when Israel has acted with too much machismo, it has hurt itself -- as was the case with the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, which resulted in a deadly stalemate with Hezbollah that overstretched an IDF already trying to deal with unrest in Gaza and the West Bank.

Those who govern Israel must never forget that their country was formed to protect Jews. Renouncing Gaza gives the IDF less territory to patrol and thus strengthens its overall position. Nonviolent solutions may not grab headlines, but their effect may prove as lasting as the raid on Entebbe.

Al Gore and "An Inconvenient Truth"

2006-06-10T08:52:00.000-07:00

Fourteen years after the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Al Gore has finally come out with the pro-environmental message the world has needed. The prodigal son has produced a movie, An Inconvenient Truth, that details the dangers of global warming. While impressive, it should nevertheless have been titled An Incomplete Truth because it fails to present a complete picture.

Those of us in the greater Boston area may have particular cause to urge our legislators to take action against global warming. Mike Miliard, of the Boston Phoenix, describes an alarming scenario for Boston in the year 2106.

Holocaust Remembrance Day

2006-04-26T15:29:00.000-07:00

It's a day after Yom HaShoah. This article is a good explanation of why the world should continue to remember the evils of the Holocaust.

Hope?

2006-04-03T16:46:00.000-07:00

The specter of AIDS has haunted the world for decades. According to this Associated Press article, it seems that researchers could be progressing toward a vaccine. How wonderful that would be -- some good news amidst the terrible talk of dangerous diseases (bird flu, SARS, and of course AIDS).

Israeli elections, Palestinian response

2006-03-28T19:01:00.000-08:00

Ehud Olmert has won the election for prime minister in Israel, and the Palestinian government of Hamas has approved a cabinet and agenda. What does this bode for the Middle East? I attempt to answer this question on Gather.com.

Update

2006-03-22T18:00:00.000-08:00

I've been remiss in blogging, partly because I've been drawing cartoons for the Cambridge Chronicle over the past few weeks.

I've also been traveling. Two weekends ago, I was in San Francisco, where I visited the Cartoon Art Museum and saw fascinating exhibits on Israeli cartoonists, international cartoonists in general (and their views of the US), and the "Gross, Gruesome and Gothic." Additionally, I got to hear one of the better cartoonists out there (and a fellow Malden, Mass. native), Keith Knight, speak on marketing one's artwork.

As a result, I am considering making some changes to this website. I plan on drawing a political cartoon each week, using the format from last month. Cartooning requires persistence and consistency, and by setting a schedule for myself, I hope to display both traits.

Thoughts on Mohammed cartoons

2006-02-28T17:30:00.000-08:00

By Richard Tenorio

Several weeks have passed since the media began chronicling the increasing Muslim rage over 12 cartoons depicting Mohammed, first published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. It is therefore time to examine the reaction by the American media.
The response of American newspapers shows that the violent threats made in Europe and Asia have had a ripple effect across the Atlantic. The general reason why editors have shirked from printing the cartoons is because of a fear of reprisals, whether at home or abroad.
What the cartoon controversy has reminded the globe is that journalists and editors can face the same problems as the people whose lives they chronicle. Despite the best efforts of the Fourth Estate to remain outside the story, the decisions they make can sometimes become part of the story – or, in this case, the cartoon.
It does not matter that the most prominent newspapers in the United States, such as the New York Times and the Boston Globe, refuse to print the cartoons. What matters is that it was a Western publication that ran them in the first place. This action symbolized the most potent trait of Western culture: its ability to trespass. Whether disproving the Ptolemaic conception of the earth, experimenting with stem-cell research, or having Jesus Christ and Satan duke it out in a cartoon Christmastime clash, Western culture has always harbored individuals willing to defy cultural norms.
The Muslim world, meanwhile, has been characterized by the umma, the community. Dissent is discouraged, and the lopsided election returns racked up by Saddam Hussein and Hosni Mubarak attest to the prominence of one-party rule. The government assumes a major role in daily life because it appropriates so many functions: not only temporal ruler, but also spiritual one. Even journalism has been placed under the governmental mantle: most newspapers in Muslim countries are state-owned, which makes the complaint of Turkish prime minister Tayyip Erdogan more understandable: “There should be a limit to press freedom,” he said.
Now that one of its brethren has prompted a cultural controversy, the Western media is trying to return to its former position. The self-censorship of the cartoons is exposing many organizations as acting hypocritically. The same publications that decided not to print images of the Mohammed cartoons exercised no similar restraint in running photos of Chris Ofili’s sacrilegious artwork, of the Reverend Fred Phelps and his “God Hates Fags” signs, or of neo-Nazi rallies. They know that controversial subject matter attracts readers, and they must have seen the articles attesting to the sales climb for those newspapers brave enough to reprint the cartoons. The threat to their security must have been very great indeed for American newspapers, with their declining circulations, to eschew 12 controversial images.
The Western news media wants it to be January 2006 again, before the February furor. It is admirable that media bosses are so concerned for their workers’ safety. At the same time, it’s sad to see that intimidation tactics have silenced the mouths of the American media, with an effectiveness that John Ashcroft or George W. Bush would have envied.

The waiting is the hardest part

2006-02-23T18:11:00.000-08:00

I'm working on a new cartoon and a new column. The cartoon should be done by tomorrow, the column by next week. Enjoy this scrutiny of American inequity while you're waiting. It shows how concentrated wealth is in our society.

Ortiz or Rodriguez?

2006-02-20T06:29:00.000-08:00

I wrote a column on this subject -- who gives his team the better edge, David Ortiz or Alex Rodriguez -- in today's Daily Item. The link is here.

Gunsmoke, The Sequel

2006-02-16T07:27:00.000-08:00

Cheney Cartoon
Originally uploaded by SoxIn18.

The coverage of the Dick Cheney shooting incident continues to unfold. Here's my take on the bizarre story.

For another interesting article, incorporating the views of an actual hunting columnist, click here.

The Red Sox and Valentine's Day

2006-02-14T07:36:00.000-08:00

My latest article, accompanied by a Shakespearean sonnet, is on the relationship between the Red Sox and their fans, which resembles a romance. Read it here...

The New Bedford anti-gay attack

2006-02-10T08:01:00.000-08:00

Cartoon2-10
Originally uploaded by SoxIn18.

The news media is busy covering the recent anti-gay attack in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and the subsequent death of the suspected attacker, 18-year-old Jacob Robida. Here is my reaction.

Trouble in Denmark

2006-02-02T22:24:00.000-08:00

Cartoon
Originally uploaded by SoxIn18.

My take on the Mohammed cartoon controversy.