Cartoon Saturday

A few companies and several states have placed a temporary moratorium on mortgage foreclosures after revelations of widespread abuse and fraud that may have illegally removed thousands families from their homes; at least 20 men are dead and 17 others trapped in a coal mine explosion in China; former Secretary of State Condolleezza Rice has admitted that "mistakes were made" by the US in Iraq, although removing Saddam Hussein was "the right thing to do;" for the second year in a row, Social Security recipients will not receive a cost-of-living increase in their benefits; and according to a New York Times story, the Republican Governors Association has raised 31 million dollars in contributions in a three-month period on the way to the November elections.

If you haven't made a down payment on your Senator or Reprehensive yet, it's too late ... but Cartoon Saturday can help relieve your electoral misery for a little while.

A great take on the candidates as we lurch and reel through election season ...

In their classic opera Porgy and Bess, George and Ira Gershwin wrote one of my all-time favorite songs, It Ain't Necessarily So. If you aren't familiar with the song, the lyrics go like this:

The things that you're liable
To read in the Bible
Ain't necessarily so...

With that in mind, here are two takes on the story of Adam and Eve ... first, as Adam and Eve themselves might have looked at it ...

And then, as it might be reimagined for the hit TV series Mad Men ...

One of the unfortunate by-products of the current mess of the economy is an increase in the number of panhandlers on the streets of America. It's hardly funny, but it does lead to some interesting twists for cartoon purposes ...

Much has been written about the intrusiveness of modern security screening technologies. For myself, I prefer being scanned and inconvenienced to being blown up by someone in search of his 72 dark-eyed virgins, but I can see where the technologies of protection could lead us ...

And finally, I spend a lot of time reading stories to my grandchildren, and sometimes ... well ... I've been known to take a few liberties with the script. Leya calls me on it more and more often, but I can still get away with it when I read to little Elise ...

It look as if it will be a glorious fall day here in Northern Virginia. Of course, that means that the wind is blowing dead leaves down onto the yard faster than I can rake them up, but at least it's not snowing. That, I don't need for a while yet.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo