Author Archives: Bok
Veterans Day
Camp Arifjan Kuwait
Thank you to all who’ve served, from my 92 year old father-in-law in the greatest generation, to all the men and women I’ve met overseas this year. 
Since it’s Veterans Day it seems like a good time to reflect on two trips I made this year to visit troops in Kuwait, Djibouti, Turkey, and Iraq. The trips were sponsored by the USO and featured members of the National Cartoonists Society. We were there to draw and help build morale.
Our visits were promoted in advance so we’d often arrive at a facility with people lined up waiting for us. Each person took a seat at tables opposite a cartoonist. Then we drew. 
Good Morning from a guy who teaches Arabic to our troops
My method was to talk to the person while observing facial features. I’d try to get to know something about his or her background while trying to provoke a smile or frown. All the while I was drawing in ink and processing the information I was getting. If all went well I ended up with a caricature in a gag cartoon that had something to do with the person’s real life. And if it really went well I didn’t have to ask to be reminded of the guy’s name. Then I signed the cartoon to him, with thanks for his service.
Usually they love it. 
They told me all kinds of stuff, mostly about family at home, what their jobs are in the service, and what they hope to do when they get out. Sometimes they’d whip out an iPhone with pictures. I’ve drawn whole family portraits from cell phones and iPads. One guy asked me to draw a picture of his little boy born in Spain, except his wife lives in England. Whatever makes ’em happy.
It’s an intense process requiring serious concentration from an easily distracted cartoonist. It’s also really rewarding. For the most part these are special people doing a hard job they volunteered for far from home. They don’t get much recognition and they don’t complain. At least not to the cartoonist.
Veterans Day
So this Veterans Day I’d like to thank all who’ve served, especially the ones who took time to talk to me. 
Mizzou Football Econ 101
Nutty professors calling for muscle weren’t the biggest story during the University of Missouri protests. The football team was.
Thirty-six hours after black players said they would strike, the president and chancellor resigned. Mizzou would have had to pay Brigham Young University a million dollars if it cancelled Saturday’s game.
Now that football players have had their consciousness raised about their economic clout, will they use it to their own benefit?
Pipeline to Paris
When President Obama killed the Keystone Pipeline last Friday he threw blue collar unions under the bus in favor of elitist greens. That’s according to Terry O’Sullivan, president of the Laborers International Union of North America.
Obama agrees:
“Approving this project would have undercut our global leadership on climate.”
He hopes to lead the UN climate conference in Paris at the end of the month.
Sharm el-Sheikh Baggage
Investigators are 90% sure a bomb took down Russian Metrojet Flight 9268 in Egypt. The plane took off from the Sharm el-Sheikh resort on the Sinai peninsula. ISIS is active in the Sinai and took credit for the bombing.
Thousands British and Russian tourists stranded at Sharm el-Sheikh are being flown home without their checked baggage due to bomb fears.
Keystone Killed
After seven years of dithering, President Obama killed the Keystone pipeline on Friday. He said the project wouldn’t make a meaningful long term contribution to the economy.
Matt Lewis in The Week explains the real reason the president took so long. Labor unions were for the pipeline and environmentalists were against it. Labor isn’t happy:
We are dismayed and disgusted that the president has once again thrown the members of [The Laborers’ International Union of North America], and other hard-working, blue-collar workers under the bus of his vaunted ‘legacy,’ while doing little or nothing to make a real difference in global climate change. His actions are shameful. [LIUNA, via The Hill]
New Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took the slap in the face more gracefully.
Warren Buffett took the news gracefully too. Oil not shipped by pipeline will have to he shipped by train. He owns the trains.
