"There is this young man on trial and the judge was chastising him. He was saying, “How can you possible justify such a heinous crime, killing a California condor? There are only 22 left of them in the wild. What could possibly have been going through your mind to allow you to do such a terrible, terrible deed?” He said, “Your honor, I was lost in the wilderness. I was camping and as I went to look for some food, I fell off this ledge and landed on this ledge on a cliff, and I was stuck there for 4 days and 4 nights with no food, no water, and I must have looked pretty bad, and this giant buzzard landed on top of me. And with the last ounce of strength in my body I picked up a rock, I bashed him in the skull and I ate him. It was a matter of sustenance.” The judge said, “Well, that’s a pretty good reason. I may just let you off. Just out of curiosity, what did it taste like?” And he said, “Well, it’s kind of a cross between a bald eagle and a spotted owl.”
The above is just the opening paragraph of a great speech that Michael Ramirez gave last month out in California. I'm going to link you to the speech (in print and video) but forewarn you that it is lengthy. You may want to to read (skim) the copy instead of watching the video - but it's your choice.
Either way, it shows the thinking of one of today's greatest American Editorial cartoonists... one that I have copied and pasted in this Blog on many occasions. He tells why he does some controversial topics, and why he skips others, like Johnny Cochran's death, and the ill fated Challenger explosion.
He also points out the difference between the News pages and the Opinion pages. Finally, he points out the Orwellian modern speak phrases with entirely reversed meanings... I'll let you read them for yourself if you care to, just click here for the article and the video.
Meanwhile, my admiration for Michael Ramirez just seems to grow ........
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