The weather was iffy all day, swinging back and forth from perfect to looking like a downpour from one minute to the next. Still, by the time showtime rolled around, it had finally settled down to something unseasonably comfortable, and the gathered crowd of DC Statehood activists and supporting citizens finally got down to celebrating Flag Day by showing off a wide variety of DC flag-based tattoos.
“In The Flesh”, photographed and edited by Mike Flugennock, 04:32
And now, to augment your Flag Day Experience, here’s a little trip to Song Poem Hell, with the perversely legendary Gary Roberts — in his own inimitably atonal fashion — crooning “Our Flag”:
Well, here’s a shred of good news from the Arab Revolution front: after a week’s worth of hell-raising, the Bahrain Grand Prix organizers have backed off and cancelled the race. Interviewed on Al Jazeera, Bahrain International Circuit Chairman Zayed “Stability” Alzayani was spinning furiously, hemming and hawing about a positive and constructive role in Formula One, assiduously avoiding any mention of the bloody suppression of the peoples’ uprisings in Bahrain, choosing to focus on the logistical issues posed by a postponement of the race. Hey, Zayed, if that’s your story and you’re sticking to it, that’s cool, we can work with that.
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My Cartoon Movement comrades from outside the USA can certainly be forgiven for being so caught up in the recent FIFA bribery scandal that they may have missed this bit of even more appalling news from Bahrain concerning FIA, the governing body for Formula One racing, and its recent decision to go ahead with the Bahrain Grand Prix, which had been cancelled in March owing to a problem with widespread mass peoples’ uprisings.
Even more galling was a gleeful Bahraini racing officlal quoted by Al Jazeera as saying that “stability has returned” after the uprisings had been brutally crushed, and was practically wetting his pants with delight to hear FIA’s decision.
That’s right, folks — mass popular uprisings in Bahrain have finally been violently suppressed by the Bahraini police and military with the help of Saudi troops using weapons sold to them by Barack Obama, and now that that unpleasantness is out of the way… gentlemen, start your engines!*
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*Yeah, yeah, I know…they don’t say “gentlemen, start your engines” in Formula One. Just a bit of artistic license. Gimme a break.
Normally, lately, I’ve avoided doing cartoons about the current crop of GOP politicians because I think people like Sarah Palin are a distraction and a sideshow, and because I think the Democratic Party is the more serious threat to the Left in this country, and thus far more deserving of a good skewering. Still, when Sarah Palin kicked off her Making Up My Mind Whether Or Not To Run For President Tour by barging in on the annual Memorial Day “Rolling Thunder” right-wing biker gang convention in DC, it was an opportunity I just couldn’t pass up.
Palin’s appearance at Rolling Blunder… uh, Rolling Thunder… was comical if anything; here was this squeaky-clean ex-beauty queen showing up in a brand-new leather jacket and a brand-new helmet and brand-new sunglasses and expecting us to believe she was a real “biker mama”. That day, she rivaled Jesse Jackson in her abilities as a media-attention-sucking cosmic vortex. Born to be wild? Born to be mild, more like.
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