Nik Scott

Two Naomis

Last week i listened to Naomi Klein(No Logo) on Air America explain how rebuilding Iraq was sluggish to say the least given that all the rebuilding work is only farmed out to contractors from the 'Coalition of the Willing'. Building materials which could be manufactured by Iraqis are instead imported at great expense etc. She said she only saw one industrial crane during her entire trip to Baghdad which far from actually rebuilding anything was in fact hoisting a huge advertisement for Saudi honey. It sounds as if noone's particularly concerned with rebuilding the country when a quick profit at Iraq's expense is the sexier alternative.
In contrast Naomi Wolf (The Beauty Myth) has written an extraordinary piece accusing Teresa Heinz Kerry of cuckolding the hapless John Kerry with her dead husband. Poor John Kerry who is currently being called gay and French(not that there's anything wrong with that) is now according to Wolf, a cuckold to a dead guy. This is surely one of the most unusual observations from this campaign especially since it's coming from a liberal.
I drew the above cartoon just after the initial bombing of Baghdad and sadly it still remains relevant. What a mess!

Those wacky Gays

Last week 'Neighbours' (popular Australian soap) aired its first lesbian kiss. Conservative talkback callers are apparently outraged (Age p5 27.09.04) and say it's 'glamourising a high risk culture'.
This is a cue for a cartoon of a couple of comfortable looking women in woolly jumpers on a sofa reading books, watching tv, drinking tea, tequila or whatever surrounded by cats, dogs or kids on top of a caption 'High risk culture".
Instead because i'm lazy i've uploaded a cartoon i did last year about gay rights in Texas.
What is it with these groups that insist that everyone has to be heterosexual? What business is it of theirs? How dare they!

I remember when i worked as a psych nurse some 30 years ago. A young lesbian was brought in to the clinic with severe depression. The doctors seemed to agree that stamping out those errant lesbian thoughts was the best therapy. 'Normalisation' at all costs. Very scary.
I imagine psych hospitals have moved on a little by now but it's clear stupidity and hate is alive and well in talkback land. It's also regrettable that much of the anti gay lobby is represented by so called Christian groups.

Guards

Both Bush's government and Howard's government insist on playing the patriot card ad nauseam. If you dissent you're un-American or un-Australian. Even John Kerry who unlike Bush actually did fight for his country has been today labelled by the President as being un-American. Samuel Johnson once said that patriotism was the last refuge of the scoundrel. I'm sure he might have had a few more choice things to say about GWB.

Charles and Batman

I suppose the silliest thing that's happened this week is the dude dressed as Batman scaling the walls of Buckingham Palace in order to attract attention to his cause (something to do with Dad's rights)
Prince Charles has apparently spat the dummy and is demanding that security is beefed up. However the real reason is cunningly outlined in the above cartoon.

Pete

I've always had a lot of respect for Pete Garrett. I'm afraid i was never an Oils fan and have the dubious distinction of once having walked out of an Oils concert due to a sudden and overwhelming irritation with Pete's bizarre jerky twisty dancing. I have however had the utmost confidence in his politicing over the years either with the Oils or without. He has been an inspiration to so many thru his activism and should be very pleased with his achievements. So like everyone else i was shocked when he threw his hat in with Labor and not with the Greens. Whether or not the ALP machine will grind him into tiny pieces remains to be seen.

God and Uncle Sam

I copped a lot of flak for this cartoon when i first posted it. Fortunately i also got a lot of praise. I think it's still appropriate. God and America and this President are intertwined. I don't think this would be so much of a worry if the God currently in vogue was a loving Jesus Christ figure but he's not. He's an old testament God. He's Charlton Heston and he's ready and armed for a Holy War. It's the mission of GWB. Where's next? Iran?
I find it strange that Jesus Christ's doctrines of love and peace don't seem to have made much of a dent into the beliefs of the old testament crowd.
This may sound glib but 'kill for Jesus' just isn't right.

Greens

I've just been handed a Greens pamphlet and i fail to see any of the kooky policies as indicated by John Howard. Must be those kooky green tinted sunglasses i wear.
Here's a link to them (the party not the shades)
http://www.greens.org.au

Shamanic Funnies

Staying deeply in the spooky area, here's a shaman toon. Every weekend hordes of self improvement junkies head for the hills and pay vast sums of money to cunning old hippies who promise to guide them on their vision quests.
I've a great respect for the genuine old medicine men, witches and shamans that i see (ahem) on the Discovery channel but somehow the whole shaman trip seems a bit phony when transplanted to an urban environment. No offence to any hip modern urban shamans who happen to be reading this!

Troops

Another old cartoon but still pertinent given the Australian election process is now in full swing. I'm almost as terrified that John Howard will win another term
as i am that George Bush will win another term. However even his own side are now calling Howard a 'lying rodent' which gives me some hope altho as many have commented it gives a bad name to rodents everywhere.

Smells and Bells

I can't say I spend an inordinate amount of time perusing Smells n' Bells shops but every now and again i'm in the market for a bath bomb or spooky meditation tape. I love this cartoon but not many people seem to appreciate it!

Monks

This cartoon just won a merit award in the Rotary Club of Coffs Harbour Annual Cartoon Awards. It also won $250 which is great. I won another from them a few years ago for a Taliban gag. This makes me a multi award winning cartoonist. woo-hoo!

http://www.rotarycartoonawards.com.au/

Puppy

I drew this for a health organisation last month. I drew 11 in all. This was one of the rejects.

Sorry

Only Australians will 'get' this. Here's a link to some background.
http://www.acn.net.au/articles/sorry/

Dogs of War

I'm going to be uploading a few fave cartoons from the past to bulk up the beginning of this blog.

Demo

I can't claim ever to have been in New York demonstrating outside the Republican convention but i have been on many demonstations and this cartoon hopefully underlines a perennial problem. I remember demonstrating against the first Gulf war and marching with a friendly crowd of women with prams called 'wholegrain mothers for peace' or something nice like that. Somehow due to all the inevitable stops and starts i was startled to find myself marching under a huge banner saying 'Bush NO, Saddam YES' which altho a fairly zesty slogan wasn't the quite the angle with which i identified.