CSotD: Post-Weekend Update

Most Easter and April Fools Day cartoons were mayflies, good for a moment but with no real shelf life.

But Harry Burton‘s, while intended as a general comment about Israel’s blocking of aid to Gaza, gained significance Easter Monday, when Israeli Defense Forces attacked vehicles of the World Central Kitchen, which has been providing food to starving civilians in the besieged strip.

Al Jazeera reports that the dead aid workers were from Palestine, Australia, Poland, the UK, and a US-Canada citizen, but apparently Israelis won’t learn it from them, since the Qatar-based network has been banned in Israel.

This is not to be confused with IDF attacks on crowds waiting for aid distribution earlier in March or the incident in January when Israeli tanks fired on aid trucks traveling a route that had been approved and designated by Israel. The WCK vehicles were reportedly also following approved routes.

David Rowe mashes up the hourglass metaphor with the flag of Israel to suggest Netanyahu’s government clinging to power as the deaths mount up.

Tens of thousands of protesters were in the streets of Jerusalem this weekend, demanding the government find a way to free the remaining hostages from the October 7 Hamas attack and hold elections to allow voters to voice their views on the Netanyahu government’s conduct of the war.

Martyn Turner wonders aloud if it’s even necessary for Hamas to keep up the fight, considering what a good job Netanyahu is doing to destroy Israel’s image both abroad and within his own nation.

Meanwhile, Patrick Chappatte suggests that, while American weapons remain welcome in Israel, Biden’s increasing demands for a pause in the conflict do not.

America’s abstention from a UN Security Council call for a ceasefire angered the Netanyahu government, which canceled a diplomatic visit to the US in protest of the non-vote.

Juxtaposition of the Day

Oliver Schopf — Cartoon Movement (Austria)

Vasco Gargalo — Cartoon Movement (Portugal)

Cartoonists reacted to surprising results of Turkish elections, in which Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AK Party suffered strong and unexpected losses in major cities. The BBC reports that, while Erdogan is prohibited by term limits for running for reelection in 2028, more favorable results might have led his party to amend the Turkish constitution so he could run again.

Patrick Blower points out that, while Erdogan has a well-earned reputation for authoritarianism, his defeat shows a difference between his style of government and that of the recently reelected Vladimir Putin.

And Marian Kaminisky (Cartoon Movement) offers a grim prediction should Donald Trump win his election and have a chance to continue his infatuation with Putin.

Gargalo noted that infatuation last month on Valentine’s Day. The whole world indeed is watching.

Not sure the conversation in this Clay Jones cartoon actually took place, but it’s a funny comparison of two competitions most viewers consider to have been fixed.

And for those who missed it, Joe Biden was asked about Trump’s golfing triumph and responded that he’d be willing to play the champ, as long as Trump — who has been reported to drive his cart onto the greens — agreed to carry his own clubs.

Juxtaposition of the Day #2

Nick Anderson — Tribune

Clay Jones

There was little surprise on Wall Street, but a great deal of schadenfreude elsewhere, as stock in Trump’s Truth Social network plunged 21 percent within days of its initial availability.

It was expected that the initial price would be a test of Trump’s popularity rather than of the company’s value, but there was some shock when the company revealed major revenue losses in 2023, not because analysts thought it was profitable but because dabblers had failed to look into it.

Reuters, whose headline writer referred to a “Trump and Dump,” found an investor who made money on the stock by buying it early and waiting for the groupies to boost the price so he could sell out and walk away before it cratered.

Anderson’s graph is exaggerated; the stock only lost 21 percent of its value, but a cartoon is not a prospectus, which reminds me of a diner where the placemats were a cartoon map of downtown businesses with the marginal note “Not to be used for navigation.”

Some reports have made much of Trump losing a billion dollars in the crash, but he’d gained three billion in the initial sale and, since it was three billion he didn’t have before and was prevented from accessing now, losing one billion is purely paper.

Though the waiter in Jones’s cartoon may have made a wise investment. Even if Trump is used to his cunning plans ending in financial loss, he’ll have plenty of other reasons to fling ketchup in the coming days.

Unfortunately, it’s more difficult to invest in groceries, such that, as Matt Davies points out, a rising stock market is cold comfort for those who find cost-of-living to be rising as well.

It is a puzzlement: While it’s obvious that paying burger-flippers $20 an hour is likely to raise the prices of those burgers, there are other price increases that don’t have that direct a reason to go up, and perhaps have little reason at all.

Robert Reich, former cabinet member and award-winning economics professor, has devoted himself on social media to de-mythologizing the economy, and is dismayed but unsurprised that, while inflation itself has been brought under control, profits and prices continue to rise.

He points out that it’s a major reason Biden doesn’t get credit for healing things: Because corporations don’t allow the trickle down to trickle down, not that they ever have.

Drew Sheneman has a bit of fun with corporate greed. There’s unintended wisdom here, because you don’t have to try expensive “free” samples, and, while prices aren’t down, smart shopping makes it possible to eat on a budget.

A very tight budget.

Joel Pett (Tribune) provides a guide to dealing with modern capitalism, which advice mostly boils down to “don’t.”

Though nobody provides a guide that tells you how to avoid it.

Fiona Katauskas fails to see any humor in life at the bottom of the food chain.

While there are several supermarket chains in Australia, Woolworth’s is the nation’s largest private-sector employer and Cole’s is second, and their market dominance is a reality for shoppers.

As is just scraping by.