The Politics of Tea

I wrote a little bit about the original Boston Tea Party in my book. Those hooligans were as ragtag as the current ones. They too were worked up about politics outside their control; then it was about overseas trade more than taxes to fund social programs. (There were no social programs then.) Today's tea partiers have legitimate fears, fears that many of us share. It's the way those fears are being channeled that should worry us. Also in my book is the story about John Adams, a young lawyer, who in the aftermath of the Boston Massacre, undertook the legal defense of the British soldiers charged with murder. Today he would be hung in effigy. Our early democracy was more complex and open-minded than many of today's so-called "patriots" would like to believe.

Road Rage

A friend of mine wrote about road rage in my paper this morning. I have a few stories about that; we all do. Everybody's stressed, anxious and easily pissed off. I did this illustration for Plan Sponsor magazine a couple of years ago, under the excellent art direction of Soojin Buzelli. Looking at it again, the guy on the left reminds me a little bit of the bull in Picasso's Guernica.