Last week Ben Bernanke somehow convinced the U.S. Senate to extend his tenure as chairman of the Federal Reserve by another four years. Somehow 70 senators managed to overlook his close ties to the banking industry, his role in poorly regulating the banks, and his alleged role in pushing Ken Lewis to mislead investors in the Bank of America merger with Merrill Lynch. I imagine that the “somehow” can be explained by the Senate’s own ties to the industry.

This caricature is the first installment of weekly caricatures I will be posting at this site. My approach so far is a caricature that offers some commentary or reflection of the subject’s role in society, persona, or behavior that has warranted public attention. I don’t consider them to be political cartoons in proper; there is no analysis nor opinion expressed here. There is a point of view, of course, an attitude toward the subject. But the approach is more in line with the traditions of illustration than with political cartooning.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the Citizens United vs. FEC case has expanded the free speech rights of corporations and, more significantly in the short term, allowed our corrupt system to become even more corrupt, if that were possible. Like Glenn Greenwald, I am ambivalent about limitations on the political speech of groups, whether they are corporations or unions or non-profit advocates. But the “corporations as persons” principle is total nonsense. They are a special class that receive special treatment that is beyond the reach of the average citizen. They are, in effect, if not in law, super persons. We ought to rethink that. Just sayin’.

As I mentioned last week, this week’s strip will be the last to appear on In Contempt. I have been at this off and on for ten years, and political cartooning in general for triple that, if you count my high school, college, and random underground work. But I have made very little money at it in all this time, and a lot of other projects have been put on the back burner or delayed due to this pursuit. Having just turned 40, I’m feeling a little urgent — a lot urgent, really — get those back burner projects going. That means I have to make a sacrifice. And this one is it.

I won’t go into the economics of political cartooning. There has been a lot of breath, ink and phosphorous expended on that subject. The recent sacking of Mr. Fish from LA Weekly speaks more eloquently on that subject. And quite a few great webcomics — D.A.R., Thingpart, Boxcar Astronaut, to name a few — have closed shop recently, as their creators start new projects and seek new directions.

My new direction is not really that new: I began Wanderlost under a different title (“Sheldon”) a couple years after starting In Contempt, but it has had many fits and starts over the years. Over the past few months I have returned to it in earnest. There are many stories to tell, the artistic challenge is interesting to me (and fun), and there are subprojects — games, animation, etc — that I want to create for it. Unlike In Contempt, the series is not political (intentionally, that is) and it takes a very gentle tone. My goal has been all along to create a kid-friendly comic that was not adult-hostile, something that was cute without being cutesy, and fun without being stupid. I think I’ve been pretty successful at that so far. Please drop by and check it out if you have not already.

My goals for In Contempt have changed over the years. At first I aimed it at the weekly alternative market. Then I turned it into a webcomic. Now this site will be an archive of my political work. But it will also become a portfolio of my caricature work. After this week I will be posting a new caricature every week. Don’t expect the kind of commentary that I have offered so far. But then, it won’t be just a series of silly drawings of famous people. My models are the late David Levine, Stephen Brodner, Barry Blitt, and others whose work has been stylistically unique while retaining a sharpness of attitude.

In other words, the strip is dead, but the site lives on. Very dramatic words, really.

Thanks to everyone who has supported my work over the years. Big shouts out to Ted Rall, Barry Deutsch, Matt Bors, Shannon Wheeler, Mikhaela B. Reid, Brian McFadden, Tom Tomorrow, Abell Smith, Jen Sorensen, and everyone else at Cartoonists With Attitude for your support, commiseration and friendship. Big smooches to Chris and Jen and Kip and Steve and Sara and Dylan and Erika. Big thanks to Lisa R. Jonté for guest-scripting earlier this year.

And many, many thanks to fans of the strip who have chimed in, blogged and tweeted over the years. Stuff like that really keeps a cartoonist’s spirit up.

I’d end this by thanking my wife and kids. So I will: thank you, wife and kids. But I won’t belabor that, because they will be putting up with my other creative endeavors in the future, putting the meaning into “long-suffering.”

Running late today, thanks to lumbar strain. Oh, the trials and twibuwations of a po widdle cartoonist.

Anyhoo, the situation in Haiti is terrible. The moment-by-moment coverage is necessary for awareness, getting aid delivered, and keeping track of developments. But the impoverished conditions Haitians struggle with day-to-day, earthquake or not, deserve sustained coverage and CONTEXT. That seems beyond the capabilities of the modern mainstream media.

Heads up: Next week’s cartoon will be the LAST cartoon strip for In Contempt. I will talk about it more then, as well as my plans for the site. But I wanted to keep y’all posted.

Perhaps you heard the news that executives and so-called “producers” at the world’s largest banks and financial companies — Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America — will receive bonuses this month. These bonuses average in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for each employee.

Goldman Sachs is expected to pay its employees an average of about $595,000 apiece for 2009, one of the most profitable years in its 141-year history. Workers in the investment bank of JPMorgan Chase stand to collect about $463,000 on average.

Divide either of those averages by ten. Then think about how the resulting figure represents the salaries of most Americans who are lucky enough to be employed in jobs that have actual social benefit: educators, health providers, emergency responders, public safety officers, and — yes, I am biased — librarians. I didn’t even list social workers who are overloaded with cases, but that should give an indication about social costs we all incur when we allow our priorities to benefit the money changers. As Ezra Klein recently observed, these insanely high levels of executive compensation amount to a redistribution of talent and wealth from the working and middle classes to private wealth:

Because Wall Street pays insanely high salaries as compared to, well, doing anything else, it attracts a lot of talented individuals who then spend their days creating absolutely no value. In that way, it’s worse than simply moving money around. It’s actively taking potential money out.

In other words, this is not merely a problem for this recession, an opportunity for populist outrage. This has long term social costs for the country at large, whether or not we are facing a downturn in two consecutive quarters of economic growth.

Obama has been catching flak from the Right and the Washington Consensus makers for failing to panic when a young man set his pants on fire. I am not sure how better served we would have been had Obama flown home on Christmas day and held a press conference to reassure the American people they have nothing to fear from incompetent idiots, or to jump to conclusions based on half-baked information. As it turned out, the national security and intelligence services dropped the ball. Again.

In the minds of not a few of my compatriots, Obama is to blame. After all, we all know he’s a secret Muslim agent sent from Kenya to destroy the America, the light and beacon of the First World. They have this all wrong. Obama was hatched in a secret lab run by the Democratic Leadership Council, from the same exact DNA centrist scientists had cloned Bill Clinton, but modified to be younger, smarter, less passionate and more disciplined. No drama. No blowjobs. This guy will not freak out in the face of the ginormous challenges the American Empire creates for itself. The problem is that the right views caution and deliberation as signs of weakness and fear, or even worse, the work of the Devil, he what planted dinosaur bones to fool scientists with satanic Darwinism. Failing to panic and to fan paranoia among the people provides aid and comfort to the enemy. Because Cheney said so. Or some shit.

More respectable news and commentary venues tend to refer to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab as the “Underpants Bomber.” Gawker and other blogs went with “Testicle Bomber,” with alternates of “Crotch Bomber” and “Panty Bomber.” I like my friend Alan’s suggestion “Scrotabomber.” Frozen Justice went alliterative with “Bollox Bomber.”

Someone might argue that it matters what we call things, because taxonomy is an instrument of control. What I think this suggests is that Abdulmutallab’s potentially fatal, yet fortunately failing attempt to murder his fellow passengers was fundamentally ridiculous. Taxonomy gives way to another instrument of control, humor. We will need plenty of that quality when the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) begins implementing full body scanners in U.S. airports.

Happy new year!

I can think of far worse ways than these to ruin someone’s holiday, but they probably aren’t very funny.

I hope all of you enjoy yourselves this holiday season.

I am forty years old and I draw cows farting wetly and propulsively from their butts.

This is also the second global warming related cartoon in a row. Well, it’s Copenhagen, what can I say? Reports over the weekend of diplomatic sparring between two of the world’s biggest polluters and contributors to global warming and globalization in general got under my skin.

And it’s the second single panel cartoon in a row. I feel like drawing big these days. It’s fun. More drawing, less verbiage. I’m not changing my style or abandoning wordiness. Just doing something different, because it’s fun and I like the way it looks. Maybe next week I’ll return to the multi-panel, text-heavy format I tend to favor. Or maybe a Santa Claus wishing everyone the best Christmas ever, because that’s what a hack would do.

The problem the public has with scientists is not that the scientists are smarter than most of the public. It’s annoying, but it’s not THE problem. No, the real problem is that most scientists are nerds. Nerds KNOW they are smarter than you, and really value that, more so than things like social skills. Or speaking simply and slooooowly so non-nerds can process the important things they are told. Like, say, that being a consumer slob or a corporate tool is putting thousands of species on this planet, including us, in danger of extinction.

Scientists don’t bother to flatter the public into thinking they are moral upstanding geniuses who have the best of intentions and God on their side. That’s what politicians — and whatever she is — do. And corporations and other institutions that rely upon gullibility. Scientists issue warnings and freak out when people don’t heed them. They draw connections between our driving and polluting and resource wars, on the one hand, and the devastation those behaviors wreak, then get all pissy when we refuse to change those behaviors. Now the really stupid and/or selfish non-nerds are seizing upon the arrogant tone and the difficulties inherent to the scientific method as expressed in a handful of emails to basically chuck the baby out with the bathwater.

I’m not saying it’s the scientists’ fault for being nerds. It’s the public’s fault for being giant babies.

Raise your hand if you are surprised that Obama has decided to escalate the war in Afghanistan. If your hand is up, smack yourself with it.