Now that we've heard from everyone else about marriage equality, let's hear from the cartoonists!

"Harry's decided that if the federal government
won't defend our marriage then he's got to."

"I have been gay all my life, and for most of it gay marriage was not even on the table. In fact, for many years the only time you saw anyone openly gay was on television, and they were hiding behind a screen with their voice disguised.

"I am thoroughly convinced that at some point in time same-sex marriage will be a non-issue. For the most part. Eventually. Sort of. . . .

"Did I mention  that I'm on vacation? I'm waiting for the sun to come out. I am not waiting for any government body or bodies to validate my relationships or determine my personal happiness. I am happy for everyone, gay and straight, who is happy about whatever it is the Supreme Court did."

-- New Yorker cartoonist Bill Haefeli

by Ken

Regular readers will recognize the infinite-dot technique of the above cartoon as the domain of New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff, and indeed in his blogpost this week, "Keep Calm and Carry On Being Funny," he has joined the chorus of commentary on the big Supreme Court decisions on same-sex marriage. "Both the jubilation and the jeremiads" that followed seemed to him "a bit overwrought," he says. After all, same-sex marriage is "still banned wherever it was banned, and the banning hasn't been ruled unconstitutional, even if it's unconscionable."

Bob being, as we know, a perpetual worrier, he has another worry now that DOMA has been dinged. "I worry that people may take matters into their own hands, with dire consequences" -- consequences like those he has imagined in the cartoon atop this post. (Note that all the cartoons should be click-expandable.) Bob does acknowledge, though, that "maybe now I'm the one who's getting overwrought."

For a "calmer perspective," he turns to New Yorker cartoonist Bill Haefeli, "who has mined this area of the cultural landscape for some time. And he offers us these cartoons of Bill's, from 1999 and 2000, respectively.

"If Heather has two mommies, and each of them
has two brothers, and one of those brothers
has another man for a 'roommate,' how
many uncles does Heather have?"

"I'm sorry, Jim. I love you, but I hate Vermont."

If you intuited a story coming on, well, you know our Bob, don't you? Here's the report Bill submitted to him.

Hi Bob!

I am on vacation.

Part of my vacation is taking a break from the news—that constant static of noise about things that, for the most part, have no specific bearing on one's day-to-day existence. I've heard vague rumors that the Supreme Court has done something positive in terms of same-sex marriage. I am gay. This could affect my day-to-day existence. I think I heard the word "momentous." I think I am supposed to be excited about this. Uh… O.K. A while back, when a state I do not live in legalized same-sex marriage, a straight friend of many years called me up to congratulate me on this advancement of my civil rights. I patiently explained that there were still forces opposed to my civil rights, the Forces of Evil, who were not about to give up and were plotting against me. All the while, the Forces of Good were strategizing, too, and there would be a long back-and-forth involving voters and three branches of governments in fifty states and the federal government, too, and reversals and appeals and amendments and acts and laws and even if all my civil rights were universally acknowledged legally there would still be individuals and groups who would not be on board and can I stop now? I am boring myself. I am on vacation, and even if I were not on vacation I would be boring myself.

Don't get me wrong. I am not pessimistic. I have been gay all my life, and for most of it gay marriage was not even on the table. In fact, for many years the only time you saw anyone openly gay was on television, and they were hiding behind a screen with their voice disguised.

I am thoroughly convinced that at some point in time same-sex marriage will be a non-issue. For the most part. Eventually. Sort of.

Did I mention that I am on vacation? I'm waiting for the sun to come out. I am not waiting for any government body or bodies to validate my relationships or determine my personal happiness. I am happy for everyone, gay and straight, who is happy about whatever it is the Supreme Court did.

Look! Here comes the sun!

All of which prompts from Bob this reply: "Thanks, Bill. Exactly the kind of under-wrought perspective I was looking for."


VISIT THE STAND-ALONE SUNDAY CLASSICS WITH KEN

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Sometimes cartoonists tackle seemingly trivial subjects, and sometimes they tackle the really big ones

"Oh, I know He works in mysterious ways, but
if I worked that mysteriously I'd get fired."

"If we're all wrong and God actually does exist, in my opinion He's going to turn out to be Jewish. At least, I certainly hope so, because if He is Jewish I figure He can take a joke."

-- New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff, in the
e-newsletter/blogpost "The Cosmology of Cartoonists"

"The idea of a god or gods doesn't hold for me -- but works great for cartoons."

-- New Yorker cartoonist Chris Weyant (see below)

by Ken

I've been meaning to get back to New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff's May 1 e-newsletter/blogposts, "The Cosmology of Cartoonists." It struck me that it had a lot to say about why I so prize New Yorker cartoons. In the process of being funny, their creators often bring amazing insight into the biggest issues. (I might add that even when they seem to be dealing with trivial matters, they often communicate why those matters aren't really so trivial.)

And it's one of the really big subjects Bob has in mind here. He explains:

In a post titled "Can Science Lead to Faith?," Gary Marcus writes, "Most scientists I know are nonbelievers, convinced that there is no deity, or at least there is no convincing evidence of one." On the other hand, practically all the politicians I know of claim to be believers, with "claim to be" as the operative phrase.

On this issue, I'll let my cartoons speak for themselves.

Atop this post I've placed one of the cartoons of his own which Bob offers on the subject. He goes on to explain:

Just to clear up any ambiguity, I'm not a believer, or even agnostic, I'm an atheist (denomination: Jewish). That means the God I don't believe in is different from the God you don't believe in if, for example, you're a Muslim atheist, a Catholic atheist, or a Protestant atheist. But if we're all wrong and God actually does exist, in my opinion He's going to turn out to be Jewish. At least, I certainly hope so, because if He is Jewish I figure He can take a joke.

Better still, Bob has taken "an informal poll" ("I couldn't find my tux for a formal one") of the team. I couldn't resist sharing a couple more of the poll findings. Among the poll-ees here are my favorites. (I can't believe I'm passing over Roz Chast!)


Frank Cotham

Frank tells Bob: "I think of myself as a believer, but without interference from a church."

"I wonder if we could allow women a greater
role in religion other than as sacrifices."

Jack Ziegler

"Hello? Beasts of the Field? This is Lou, over in Birds of
the Air. Anything funny going on over at your end?"

This is a cartoon we've already seen, back in February 2012 along with Jack's explanation of how it came to be his first New Yorker cartoon sale, back in 1973. Summoned into the office of then-cartoon editor Lee Lorenz --

I sat in the chair opposite him as he pulled my drawing from a fat pile of other people's work on his desk. It was a cartoon that had made me happy when I came up with the idea. Lee asked if I wouldn't mind if they bought it for the magazine, and if I'd be amenable to considering a few changes. It was my first exposure to the extremely polite ways of The New Yorker in conducting business with its contributors.

The caption and layout were fine, he said, but some adjustments would be required in the body of the drawing. Could I perhaps make the fellow on the phone older and a tad more Biblical? And the inner workings of the conveyer belt seemed, well, not quite mechanical enough. Just a few lines added onto the finished drawing should do it.

[Jack's complete first-cartoon-sale story appeared in a Mankoff blogpost, "The Journey of a Thousand Cartoons"]

Now in his religiosity "poll" response, Jack tells Bob:

Agnostic, I suppose, but it's not something I ever think about. Raised Catholic, but stopped at age thirteen, when I realized what a load it was. Don't like any religions at this point -- think they're all nuts to one degree or another. And they cause way too much trouble in the world -- as they always have.

Don’t get me started.

Chris Weyant

"Actually, the attraction wasn't freedom from religious
persecution but, rather, the all-you-can-eat buffet."

Chris, who you'll recall is currently on "Daily Cartoon" duty, tells Bob:

Since my mother is Jewish and my father is Catholic, it's too much guilt for me to go with atheist.

I'm an agnostic only in the pre-Big Bang sense that there had to be something that started it all -- even if the "it" was no more than collapsing quantum physics. The idea of a god or gods doesn't hold for me -- but works great for cartoons.

I'm humbled by the depth of wisdom encapsuled in these snapshots of religion. They make more sense than most anything I've read from supposedly more serious commentators.

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Chris Ware shares the thinking behind his lovely "two moms" Mothers' Day cover for this week's "New Yorker"

"[L]aughing at [Archie Bunker] allowed one to take the first step towards changing one's own biases, whether one knew it or not. . . . Fortunately, we humans are incessant editors, never happy with the first draft of anything."

-- Chris Ware, writing about his "two moms" New Yorker cover

by Ken

This exceedingly cool Mothers' Day cover is the work of graphic novelist and longtime New Yorker cartoonist-artist Chris Ware. Evidently Chris has been thinking about the way we humans "edit" the stuff we think, as he notes in the "Cover Story" he posted on the magazine's "Culture Desk" blog:

As a kid, my grandparents, and millions of other viewers rarely missed an episode of the television program "All in the Family." For those too young to know, Norman Lear's aboriginal must-see TV hilariously highlighted the friction between the nineteen-sixties' "progressive" generation and their parents via the bigoted, but strangely lovable, character of Archie Bunker. I suspect most of its viewers shared more in common with Archie's prejudices than they wanted to admit, but laughing at him allowed one to take the first step towards changing one's own biases, whether one knew it or not.

I like to imagine that my grandparents were always progressive, tolerant people in favor of things we now take for granted, but I know that's probably wishful thinking. I'm not even sure about myself in this regard. Fortunately, we humans are incessant editors, never happy with the first draft of anything. This tendency towards revision can cause problems, though. For example, most memories I have of my daughter as a baby have been systematically and irrationally replaced by a mental image of how she appears now -- an eight-year-old -- because I simply can't believe she was ever so small. In fact, when she was born, one of my friends, while cradling her fragile seven pounds, couldn't believe it then, saying, "God, why don't we just die the second we're born? We're so delicate and vulnerable!" My wife's mother, who was visiting, didn't miss a beat: "It's mothers, honey. It's our job to make sure that never happens." Well, score one for Moms, I thought.

Now that the numbers are in on same-sex marriage, many Republicans are falling like dominos all over themselves to express their support for something that only a few months ago they steadfastly claimed to stand against. They'll probably soon claim that this is how they felt all along, and they were simply too hamstrung by politics to be able to say what they really meant. Well, okay. In the spirit of openheartedness and what life is really all about, I'll go so far as to say that the fear of others may mask some deep-seated desire to understand, and maybe even to love. Because really, what is there to be afraid of? Few people today don't know -- or have in their families -- at least one loving couple who are raising children, same-sex or not. And it's really just the loving part that matters. That same-sex marriage could go from its preliminary draft of "diagnosable" to the final edit of "so what?" must indicate some positive evolution on the part of the larger human consciousness. My wife, being a biology teacher, puts it even more succinctly: "Why are all these people so worried about who everybody else is sleeping with, anyway?" (Score two for Moms.)

So, a final draft: happy Mothers' Day, moms. We are grateful to, and love, you all.

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The case of Penney CEO Ron Johnson: Managerial "genius" can't be rated without reference to context

Ousted JCPenney CEO Ron Johnson: Say, didn't this guy used to be a genius?

by Ken

On April 8, the AP's Anne D'Innocenzio reported:

J.C. Penney's board of directors has ousted CEO Ron Johnson after only 16 months on the job as a risky turnaround strategy backfired and led to massive losses and steep sales drops.

The department store chain said that it has rehired Johnson's predecessor Mike Ullman, 66, who was CEO of the department store chain for seven years until November 2011.

As D'Innocenzio reports the story, there wasn't any question about Penney's disastrous performance under Johnson's leadership. There was considerable surprise about the timing, though. Given Johnson's track record, it was widely assumed that he would be given more time to achieve the turnaround he was hired to do.

I'm just catching up with the story, because I'm just catching up with the "Financial Page" of James Surowiecki in the March 25 New Yorker, "The Turnaround Trap." Which is why magazines pile up in my apartment, including even those rare issues that I think I've read pretty thoroughly.

I'm always afraid I've missed something potentially special. And in issues I know perfectly well I've only skimmed, who knows what I've missed? (Trust me, you don't want to imagine -- and wouldn't have wanted to see -- what my life was like back when there were seven days a week's worth of New York Times-es piling up, until the inevitable periodic purge.)

It's especially odd that I missed Surowiecki's March 25 "Financial Page," because usually it's one of the early things I read in The New Yorker. I can only guess I was thrown off by this being the magazine's "Style Issue," which meant there were several long articles of astonishing triviality to tiptoe around. Intriguingly, this "Financial Page" may actually have been themed to fit in with the "Style Issue," dealing as it did with Ron Johnson's then-still-turbulent tenure at JCPenney.

Johnson's inaugural speech in January 2012 "was a much anticipated event," Surowiecki writes. And it was spectacular.

Penney was directionless and barely profitable, and Johnson was a retail superstar. He had helped make Target hip, pioneering partnerships with big-name designers like Michael Graves, and had then moved to Apple, where he orchestrated the creation of the Apple Store. Johnson's presentation did not disappoint. He made it clear that he wasn't going to just stabilize Penney; he was going to revolutionize it. Coupons and sales, which had become ubiquitous, were going to be replaced by what he called "fair and square pricing." The stores themselves would be radically redesigned, becoming curated showcases of mini shops, arranged by brand. J. C. Penney, Johnson said, would become "America’s favorite store."

Or maybe not.

Fourteen months later, J. C. Penney is America's favorite cautionary tale. Customers have abandoned the store en masse: over the past year, revenues have fallen by twenty-five per cent, and Penney lost almost a billion dollars, half a billion of it in the final quarter alone. The company's stock price, which jumped twenty-four per cent after Johnson announced his plans, has since fallen almost sixty per cent. Twenty-one thousand employees have lost their jobs. And Johnson has become the target of unrelenting criticism.

"Given Johnson’s track record," Surowiecki writes, "plenty of people are shocked by what's happened." But, he points out, "Hiring him was always a huge gamble," and he seems from the start to have totally misunderstood Penney's existing customers, for whom ferreting out those bargains was a crucial element of their relationship to the store, and the new Penney was rolled out without market research (which apparently "has always been anathema" at Apple) and "before the stores had been remodelled or filled with new merchandise," thereby "[driving] old customers away without giving new ones a reason to come in."

Columbia professor Mark Cohen, onetime CEO of Sears Canada, pointed out to Surowiecki that Johnson "had never been a C.E.O., never mounted or managed a turnaround, had limited fashion-apparel experience, and had no experience in the middle-market space." What's more, the people who were enthralled by Johnson's brilliance at Target and Apple somehow missed the fact that the situation facing him at Penney was a different beast entirely.

Johnson's champions assumed that, because he had done great work elsewhere, he would do great work at Penney. But the circumstances at Johnson's previous companies were radically different from those at Penney. Target was a thriving company that had already positioned itself as a trend-aware, fashionable store, so Johnson had plenty of support in the effort to make it cooler. And, while the Apple Store is a brilliant retail concept, its success was surely helped by the fact that it has been home to three of the best-selling consumer products ever.

Given the enormity of the challenge at Penny, Surowiecki ventures, "If Johnson isn't as good as he looked at Apple, he's probably not as bad as he looks at Penney.

The result, however, is that Johnson has --

become a living example of one of Warren Buffett's keenest observations: "When a manager with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for poor fundamental economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact."

I suspect that this is way more common than we acknowledge among that increasingly entrenched and overpaid class of superstar CEOs who continue to fail upward and slink off nursing their overflowing golden parachutes. Many of them may once have performed what looked like corporate feats of brilliance, but under circumstances that either were atypically favorable or didn't have all that much to do with them. But once they reach a certain corporate rank, it's no longer about job performance. It's about coddling wildly overinflated egos and locking in the pay packages to which they've come to feel entitled.

The assumption that Johnson would sweep to triumph at Penney's, Surowiecki writes, "probably reflects what psychologists call 'the fundamental attribution error' -- our tendency to ignore context and attribute an individual's success or failure solely to inherent qualities." There's a lesson there that seems to be little appreciated by the people who watch over our corporations: Context matters. That seems to me a large and powerful lesson to emege in a magazine issue so largely concerned with something as evanescent and trivial as "style."

And to think, I came this close to throwing that issue out of The New Yorker out without reading this piece.

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Bob Mankoff pays tribute to "New Yorker" cartoonist Ed Fisher and cartoon-caption writer Roger Ebert

"It seems to me that ordination of women
might brighten the place up a bit."

by Ken

New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff tells us that Ed Fisher contributed to the magazine from 1951 to 2000 and over that time published over 700 cartoons there. The above is the last one, which Bob says --

works as well today as it did when it was published, more than ten years ago. In its masterful art, its gentle wit, and its continuing relevance, this cartoon is echt Ed at the top of his form.

I think it's sublime.

As you may have guessed, the reminiscence is occasioned by Ed's death "a few days ago," at the ripe old age of 87. Happily, Bob includes a bunch of other Ed Fisher specials, from the '80s and '90s. Understandably for a cartoon-centric person, Bob leads off with this one:

"Why, no. I've never thought of putting
funny little captions on the bottom."

The cartoons Bob has chosen show a wicked sense of social awareness, and you should really take a look at all of them. Here's just one more, which Bob uses to illustrate the point: "Ed was one of the quintessential New Yorker cartoonists of his time, and his cartoons depended on a shared knowledge of historical, cultural, and contemporary information."

"The Athenians are here, Sire, with an offer to back
us with ships, money, arms, and men -- and, of
course, their usual lectures about democracy."

ROGER EBERT (1942-2013)

In a May 2011 post, I highlighted Bob Mankoff's report on newspaper and TV film critic Roger Ebert's long-awaited celebration of his vindication in finally winning The New Yorker's caption contest.

Today Bob posted a sweet remembrance called "Roger Ebert's Final Cartoon Captions," in which he says, "I had a feeling that [Ebert] was much sicker than he was letting on" -- because "he hadn’t entered our most recent Cartoon Caption Contest, No. 375."

Bob recalls the story of Ebert winning contest No. 281, then tells us:

After his win, Ebert claimed, a bit hyperbolically, that he had sent a caption in every week. In fact, he had entered a mere hundred and seven times. But after he won, that statement was no hyperbole. Ebert really did enter every week of the ninety-three contests that followed. And, in a tribute to the human spirit, which is nothing without the humorous spirit that Roger so nobly and ably embodied, he was entering right up to the end. And he always entered early. For example, in contest No. 374, out of over five thousand entries, Roger submitted the hundred and thirty-sixth entry:

"For burial, a companion coffin will facilitate
when he takes it all with him."

"Maybe not his best effort," says Bob, "but considering the circumstances, at least worth one thumb up." Then he offers "a two-thumbs-up tribute to Roger," consisting of a 13-entry slide show of "what we think are his best captions." I kind of like this one:

"I'm tired of waiting for the Rapture to come to me."

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