By Sheila Pursglove
Legal News
Political cartoonist Ted Rall has slaughtered enough sacred cows – including legal bovines – to make a mountain of humorous hamburgers.
Nothing escapes the satirical eye and pen of this nationally syndicated cartoonist, author, blogger, opinion columnist, graphic novelist, radio personality and occasional war correspondent who recently returned from covering the war in Afghanistan.
“I’ve actually been quite the defender of lawyers over the years, having written favorably about their role as the last line of defense for the common person in my book, ‘Revenge of the Latchkey Kids.’ I have, however, written a number of cartoons that mention the legal profession,” he says.
Those cartoons have skewered trial lawyers, the penal system, constitutional loopholes, Miranda rights, animal rights, the death penalty, and more.
Rall, whose work has appeared in hundreds of publications, embarked on a 17-city tour this fall to promote his new book from Seven Stories Press, “The Anti-American Manifesto,” for an America heading toward economic and political collapse.
A short Midwestern tour was scheduled to bring him to downtown Ann Arbor this evening for a 7 p.m. talk at the University of Michigan Hatcher Graduate Library Gallery, Room 100 (enter from the steps on the U-M Diag). This is Rall’s second visit to Ann Arbor.
“I spoke at the Michigan Theater a few years ago to my biggest crowd ever — 1,200 people, with my name in lights — amazing,” he says
While others mourn the damage to the postmodern American capitalist system created by the recent global economic collapse, Rall sees an opportunity.
As millions of people lose their jobs and their homes, they and millions more are opening their minds to the possibility of creating a radically different form of government and economic infrastructure.
Rall, 2008-09 president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists, twice the winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award and a Pulitzer Prize finalist, drew cartoons for The Columbia Daily Spectator, Barnard Bulletin, and The Jester humor magazine while majoring in physics at Columbia University.
His professors may not have shared his sense of humor — Rall was expelled for academic and disciplinary reasons, although he later returned to graduate with honors.
After posting his cartoons on New York City streets, he landed a dozen clients, including NY Weekly.
His work was signed for national syndication by San Francisco Chronicle Features and later Universal Press Syndicate. His cartoons now appear in more than 100 publications, including The Los Angeles Times, Tucson Weekly, Willamette Week, Newark Star-Ledger, Village Voice, and The New York Times.
Rall, who hones in on issues important to ordinary working people — un- and underemployment, the environment, popular culture, and political and social trends — became a contributing editor to Might magazine in San Francisco in 1992; his first major piece, “Confessions of the Investment Banker,” was reprinted around the world.
He has contributed op/ed articles to The New York Times; had a weekly syndicated opinion column for Universal Press Syndicate, and been a staff writer for P.O.V. magazine.
His most recent major feature story, about the threat posed by Lake Sarez in Tajikistan, appeared in Men’s Journal two years ago.
From 1998 to 2000, Rall hosted a twice-weekly talk show in Los Angeles that included “Stan Watch: Breaking News from Central Asia,” simulcast by National Public Radio and the BBC, and interviews with such figures as former Klansman David Duke.
Rall, who often broadcast his radio show from overseas, aired the first live talk radio shows from Cuba, Uzbekistan and Kashmir Province.
His live reports from Afghanistan for KFI Radio and written dispatches for The Village Voice were called “some of the best war reporting from Afghanistan” by The Nation.
He is currently working on “The Year of Chris,” a graphic novel sequel to “The Year of Loving Dangerously.”
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