nycabron@yahoo.com For those who believe that the last battle have not been lost.

 
THIS WEEK ON THE MEDIA

The Rolling Stone last edition (920, 4.17.2003) includes an article about five American cartoonists that work criticizing their government. Tom Tomorrow (This Modern World), Aaron McGruder (The Boondocks), Lalo Alacaráz (La Cucaracha), David Rees (Get Your War On) y Ted Rall (Search and Destroy). The five of them, from a critical position and their periodical spots, shout their anger against this government, the politicians, the society, etc.
Tomorrow’s strip is a good example: Starts with Bush saying: “Because the moon some day could break out its orbit and crash against the Earth. I’ve decided to use our “NUKELAR” arsenal to destroy it NOW!” The story follows with Rumsfeld using his persuasion powers to convince the American people –terrorizing them and menacing the press with evidence that only he knows--. In the next frame, two citizens look really scared: “The damn rock could fall down over us ANY MOMENT…The sooner we get rid of it, the happier I’ll be””. In the last frame two citizens are making fun of some liberals without bollocks: “Probably they want us to sit down and wait until the damn rock fall down on us…Those crazy moon lovers.” You can check some of Tom Tomorrow strips on the Village Voice






Lalo Alcaráz lives in L.A. and is one of the best known Latin cartoonists in America. He made a fascinating cartoon book about the history of the Latinos and the fights of the Hispanic people for their rights in this country. La Cucaracha, his comic strip, is published on 65 papers all around the United States. However Alcaráz prefers some media where he can publish independently, curse a little bit more and express himself with total liberty, like this comic web site about the Chicanos : www.pocho.com



The Boondocks is one the best comic strips published in the U.S. (240 papers in all the most important cities). His characters have received a lot of media coverage, especially Huey, a black young man that grows in the white suburbia and always have something to protest about. One of the best examples is the strip he published a couple of days after 9/11 when Huey calls to the telephone number of the CIA to give information about Americans collaborating economically with Al Qaeda “The first one is Reagan. It’s R–E–A–G...."
Check the web site of the www.RollingStone.com





The New Yorker, in its 4.17.03 edition, includes a feature about the fighting of Eliot Spitzer, the New York State Attorney General, against some of the biggest companies in Wall Street. The financial analysts of companies like Merryl Lynch and Morgan Stanley, misused his analysis to favor their employers. At the same time, thousands of the citizens that invested in stocks and believed in the objectivity of those analysts, lost millions of dollars. (some analysts as Jack Grubman from Morgan Stanley Dean Witter made approximately 20 millions per year, including year 2002, at the same time that the companies whose stocks they had recommended went bankrupt.) The Attorney General office reached and agreement and established new rules for the Wall Street monsters that could avoid in the future disasters like the ones that happened when the dot-companies- bubble exploited at the beginning of this century.

In the same edition of the New Yorker, Seymour M. Hersh –the journalist that denounced Richard Perle (the president of the Defense Policy Board who promoted the war to gain millions of dollars in future investments in Saudi Arabia with his own company, --Perle resigned weeks after the article was published ) reveals the controversial political maneuvers of the Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and publish the statements of people form the military that do not agree with the way the war have been conducted. The arrogance of Rumsfeld (an ex-wrestling fighter aficionado) to conduct the war with Iraq and the way he have belittled the older military where in the center of the controversy. You can check the web page of the New Yorker




The Atlantic Monthly in its April edition includes an article about the mind of George W. Bush. The journalist and biographer Richard Brookhiser writes it and concludes that, even if the president is more intelligent that what his rivals thought, he could have a serious lack of imagination, a very important factor to consider in a person who conducts a country through a war with unpredictable consequences.
The article studies the development of the character of George W. Bush, his ability to understand and rule organizations-- something he learned at Harvard Business School-- and concludes that the experience as a governor and as a president has developed and improved his natural tendency to act guided by impulses.

The article also analyzes the religiosity of the president and try to understand in which ways this could be a obstacle that he has, and impedes to understand other people without his strong religious beliefs.
For further information visit Atlantic Monthly






posted by ulises at 5:09 PM