History Always Needs Visuals
But how is the question
The Trump hush-money campaign finance trial in Manhattan starts tomorrow. It won’t be televised, but the NY Times always has good minute by minute coverage in written updates. Wish I could live-draw it, but I knew it would be impossible to get into the courtroom. When I drew the E Jean Carroll trial in lower Manhattan, unlike courtroom artists, I drew more than just the principle characters. I sketched the jurors, the lawyers, the judge, the attendees, the courtroom officals. I think the more visuals we have, the better—but alas, I won’t be there.
What I might do is do sketches throughout the day. I don’t like to draw from photographers photographs, so I’m not sure what I’ll do. Stay tuned. This is a big deal, an historic trial. I want to be witness to it in some fashion.
It was a tense night last night for everyone. We were watching live coverage on CNN as Iran launched over 200 missles and drones at Israel — no one really had any idea what would happen. I texted my relatives and friends in Israel, and a cartoonist friend in Iran. I am glad no damage was reported—although a young child was seriously injured by falling shrapnel— thanks to the Israeli missle defense system and ours and other allies help in intercepting the attacks. So now we wait to see what Israel does in response. This is a good oped by Thomas Friedman in the NYTimes, in which he urges the best response would be global isolation of Iran. No one wants a war in the Middle East. At the end of his piece, Friedman points to what many have said in the last 24 hours: that this attack has significantly changed the dynamics of the region. What I like about Friedman, to my mind, is that he is a realist but also an optimist. He wrote,
“Still, what happened Saturday is ultimately a significant boost for what I call the Inclusion Network in the Middle East (more open, connected countries like Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Israel and the NATO allies) and a real setback for the Resistance Network (the closed and autocratic systems represented by Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and Iran’s Shiite militias in Iraq) and Russia. The sound within Iran and the Resistance Network on Sunday morning is that sound you hear from your car’s GPS after a wrong turn: “Recalculating, recalculating, recalculating.”
I hope we can find peace, somehow stop Iran and her proxies, and end the wars in Gaza and Ukraine.
Have a good Sunday, thank you for being here.
Great post Liza! Thank you. I wish you could be in the courtroom. Thomas Friedman is my constant go-to for getting my bearings about Israel and the Middle East. As you say always realistic but at the same time optimistic. I think of him as always having a vision toward what’s possible. I always feel steadied by how he is wise. Thanks again:-)
And thank you for being there and sending some optimism our way.