Jesters, Prophets and Cartoonists

I follow political cartoonist Michael de Adder on Twitter and some of his images are brilliant. Others, not so much, including a couple which have demonstrated insensitivity on women's issues. Surely this is the reality when a person is required to be creative and clever day in and day out. I found that writing a weekly sermon was both joy and challenge, and coming up with a blog entry between five and ten times a week is the same.

There used to be thousands of political cartoonists in North America and now there are a few hundred. Social media, Photoshop, and the steady decline in the number of print newspapers have all contributed to this. I still think that a well-drawn satirical cartoon can get to the heart of a matter in a way nothing else does. These cartoonists are somewhere between the court jester whose job was to "poke the bear" without getting killed, and biblical prophets, who also did their best not to draw the wrath of the "powers that be." Surely courageous prophet Nathan was under God's protection from the wrath of King David?

Michael de Adder got axed from several New Brunswick papers recently and now he is a celebrity and a reluctant symbol of free speech around the world. He has been in hot water for a while because he loves taking shots at Emperor Trump and the owners frowned on this, often cutting his president-related images. The last straw was the cartoon seen above which depicts Trump as a cold-hearted sociopath moving past the bodies of a man and a child in a river. This father and daughter did drown attempting to enter the United States and the intimation is that the Trump administration couldn't care less.



Salvadorean Father and Child

This was a cartoon that I didn't like because in condemning Trump it demeaned the tragic deaths of the father and child. I got it, and it was powerful, but I didn't find it helpful at all. So, I saw it and moved on. There will be other de Adder cartoons which will cause me to laugh or to exclaim "yes!"

If it is true that someone in the Irving family chain of command fired him for this, then shame on them. I'm glad that he continues to create cartoons for other publications and that the Toronto Star has picked him up as an act of solidarity.

We need the jesters and prophets and cartoonists who grab our attention and make us ponder the tough stuff of our daily existence. And sometimes if we didn't laugh we would weep.

Thoughts?



Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez, Tania Vanessa Ávalos
 and their daughter, Valeria, on Valeria's first birthday.