Author: liza

Those of us born before 1990 work hard to keep up with technology, we weren’t born into it.  I love twitter, tumblr, email, FB, and I was born well before then.  But it will be interesting to see how the upcoming generations will be different because of the Internet.  Will they physically be different from bending over phones?  Will their brains work in new, as-yet- to-be-understood ways? Will their handling of cyber-etiquette be so ingrained as to further distance us from them? Just when we were able to trash the music divide that existed with parents when I was young–my children and I share music tastes– along comes the Internet.  I text with my daughters frequently, but I am not able to email my computer-less father.  The Internet is not only changing us in both good in bad ways, it is changing how the generations co-exist.

I guess there’s always something.

Stone Age Print

The future of print media is, to put it mildly, uncertain. I don’t read any magazines any more (except for, ahem, The New Yorker. I have to say that), and still hang on to reading the paper version of the New York Times, as well as online. It’s not exactly becoming obsolete, but is a different form of news gathering. I read the paper edition of the Times to see what they consider worthy of being in the print edition. The online version is for me up-to-date news.

But my first love for immediate news is, of course, Twitter.

 

 

How?


The devastation in Japan, continuing turmoil in Libya, Bahrain and Egypt– these events have the world riveted and heartbroken.  How is this affecting our consciousness and our way of life? How do we respond to natural disasters? What are the safety issues surrounding nuclear power? What does freedom mean, and what are we willing to do for it?

How do we allocate and how much do we allocate of ourselves for these things?  There is a need to express ourselves and give to the world, but then what do we have left for our own loved ones?    Plenty.

International Women’s Day


What is  International Women’s Day? I was invited to a large gathering today to recognize this day, and I wanted to know more about its origins. Of course I was aware of it, but wanted to be clear in my mind about the why of this day. My personal feeling is that anytime we as a world bring attention to the horrible conditions of anyone, any group, it’s a good thing.  Women are half the population, are second class citizens in most of the world, and violence towards women is horrendous.

IWD been around a long time, something I did not know. The idea started in the early 1900?s by the American Socialist Party, with National Women’s Day. Here is more from the official website:

In “1910 [an] International Conference of Working Women was held in Copenhagen. A woman named a Clara Zetkin (Leader of the ‘Women’s Office’ for the Social Democratic Party in Germany)… proposed that every year in every country there should be a celebration on the same day – a Women’s Day – to press for their demands. The conference of over 100 women from 17 countries, representing unions, socialist parties, working women’s clubs, and including the first three women elected to the Finnish parliament, greeted Zetkin’s suggestion with unanimous approval and thus International Women’s Day was the result. Following the decision agreed at Copenhagen in 1911, International Women’s Day (IWD) was honoured the first time in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland on 19 March. More than one million women and men attended IWD rallies campaigning for women’s rights to work, vote, be trained, to hold public office and end discrimination. IWD is now an official holiday in Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, China (for women only), Cuba, Georgia, Guinea-Bissau, Eritrea, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Madagascar (for women only), Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Nepal (for women only), Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Zambia. The tradition sees men honouring their mothers, wives, girlfriends, colleagues, etc with flowers and small gifts. In some countries IWD has the equivalent status of Mother’s Day where children give small presents to their mothers and grandmothers.”

So, I am going to participate in the gathering today to recognize IWD. Normally, I’m not one to go to such things, I prefer to do what I can through my cartoons and by donating  drawings. Speaking out–about any group in need–is important, in any way we can, even if it is a small gesture such as a local march.  I love feeling connected to the world, knowing that there may be men and women doing the same thing in recognition of IWD across the globe.

“For every place where women’s lives have improved, there are still too many where there has not been that progress….women’s rights are human rights.”  Hillary Clinton

International Cartoons, CNN and World Ink

Being connected to cartoonists around the world is a great pleasure for me. I feel it is a way for people to talk about issues without needing to use words and it is a way to be connected with other cultures and their concerns through art. And, I am fascinated at how we can see different artists approach one issue.   I was fortunate to be invited to write about this for CNN.com, and I curated a cartoon slide show for the article.  You can view it here, and it is titled “How International Cartoonists See Gadhafi.”  I put out a call to all the cartoonists I know around the globe, and within a few hours had a selection that we went with. The editors at CNN and I felt we had to move fast in case the situation changed in Libya.  Over the next few days, more cartoons arrived in my inbox  that I could not use for the CNN feature, but were equally poignant.  I will run these in the next day or so on the site I edit called World Ink.