And family doggie-mutt named Posh

Usually leashed to the outside table café
Where mum stops for a bit of nosh
Can only whine at the empty roller-tray.


"Hey! Look! Babe is a hundred feet away
trying to swim in Lavender Bay
In the race that will be shown on Instagram!"
Barks the mongrel left outside.


"Next time", woofs the neutered mongrel 
"Leave us in your locked SUV heap 
with no window opened, so we can both die
of 50 F-ing bloody degrees heat, inside."

Of phones and babies. These brilliant Leunig cartoons were published nearly 30 years ago. Gus thought that in regard to the present "controversy", they deserved a bit of airing. 

 

Phones: Leunig predictions were fairly accurate except for the phone with the swimming pool...

 

Babies: Leunig is relatively on song here, as we end up the days of our lives in a "home" (euphemism for dementia clinic in a retirement village with no hope of understanding or seeing the world outside any more)...

The artist [Michael Leunig's sister — Mary] said she published the response because she was “sticking up for mothers” and because her brother was “picking on people who don’t need it”.

“But for this particular one … I know mothers. I talk to women with children and the load they carry …And they are not the people that Michael thinks they are.

“I think that he does not talk to people enough, he doesn’t listen enough. And because of that, he is missing out. If he was to speak to people, to talk to these women, I don’t think he would do something as stupid as that.”

Mary, 69, said she had become estranged from her brother in recent years.

“It is difficult for mothers, we try very hard,” she said.

“That’s the only reason I respond to that [cartoon]. I could have let that go. If it was about feminists, I could have let it go because he does that and we all know. But I couldn’t let this one go. Because I do know women and parents who have kids, and he just shouldn’t do that. He shouldn’t do that.

“But listen, he’s getting old,” she added. “That’s all I can really say about that particular cartoon.”

 

 

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/oct/24/michael-leunigs-artist-sis...

The Michael Leunig cartoon that suggested mothers love their phones and Instagram more than their children was originally rejected by the Spectrum editor for Saturday’s Sydney Morning Herald and Age and published on Wednesday’s opinion pages instead.

Leunig has been offending large sections of the population for decades, notably parents who use childcare or vaccinate their kids.

Sources told Weekly Beast the cartoon was rejected on the grounds of taste but executive editor James Chessell says the decision to move it to the op-ed pages was taken because it “expresses an opinion”.

“We like the duck ones for Saturday,” he said. “There’s not a conspiracy.”

 

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/commentisfree/2019/oct/25/michael-leun...

 

 

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Cripes... I'm getting too old for this caper. Leave the cartoonist alone...

Michael Leunig has denied his cartoon of a mother ignoring her baby was misogynistic after he received heavy criticism over the drawing.

Key points:

• The cartoonist said he was 'engulfed in free-floating hate' after his drawing was published
• His cartoon depicted a mother ignoring her baby while looking at her phone, which some criticised as being unfair to mothers and misogynistic
• Leunig denied this, saying the work came from a "special interest" in infant development

 

The cartoonist was accused of unfairly judging mothers after his drawing appeared in Melbourne's The Age newspaper last week. His sister Mary Leunig, also a cartoonist, called it "feminist baiting".

It was accompanied by a poem about a mother being "busy on Instagram", with her abandoned baby lamenting he was "unseen and alone, wishing that he was loved like a phone".

Leunig has defended the cartoon in an opinion piece titled Aiming to stir the possum, I got engulfed in free-floating hate, published by The Age.

"I drew a mother not out of misogyny but because of my lifelong special interest in the mother-infant relationship and all that is at stake in that early connection," he wrote.

"To paraphrase [paediatrician and psychoanalyst Donald] Winnicott: the attentive, loving eye contact made by mother with the baby is crucial in the child's developmental process.

"What the father can do best at this point is to protect and nourish the flourishing of this early mother-child connection."

 

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-01/leunig-mother-phone-cartoon-backl...

 

 

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Family of controversial cartoonist Michael Leunig are dealt another blow - after his sister called him an 'awful abuser' and celebrated his death

Michael Leunig, 79, died on December 19

He won't be given a state funeral

 

The son of a controversial Australian cartoonist once deemed a 'national treasure' has taken aim at the government for failing to acknowledge his death.

Melbourne born artist Michael Leunig, 79, passed on December 19. He was known across Australia for his political, whimsical and colourful cartoons depicting Aussie life for more than 50 years.

His son, musician Sunny Leunig, on Tuesday took aim at the Victorian government for failing to give the artist a state funeral in an opinion piece through the very publication which fired his father for being too controversial just months earlier - The Age.

While Sunny admitted his father 'had blind spots' - including allegations of sexual abuse and misogyny - which saw him lose fans, he said his father's passing shouldn't be 'ignored'.

'The state government, in its solemn deliberation, has turned away from the notion of a state funeral for my father, Michael Leunig,' Sunny wrote.

'They have been unwilling to honour or simply acknowledge a soul whose creative vision etched itself deeply into the heart of Melbourne and beyond.'

Sunny insisted his father wouldn't have cared for a state funeral but believed he should be given some honour nevertheless. 

'In truth, we weren't particularly interested in the idea of a state funeral, and Michael himself probably wouldn't have cared,' he wrote.

'I often heard his scepticism about the legitimacy of such events. 

'But we were surprised by the lack of public recognition of Michael's death on the government's part.'

Sunny was not the only family member to speak out following Michael's passing.

The cartoonist's sister, Mary Leunig, shared a scathing post just days after his death to celebrate the end of his life.

'I've been wishing him dead for some time now,' she wrote on Instagram.

Mary said she was rejoicing over his death 'only because of his contact with my kids. Michael's fame ... Michael was always on view, always acting, bathing in his celebrity.

'So, sexual abuse and wife bashing aside, what do I feel about his death?

'It's a relief, a time to celebrate what's left of my family... and all the animals and birds and people and nature and all.'

She also reproduced one of her cartoons entitled 'I finally get the recognition I deserve by shooting my brother in the bum'.

Sunny conceded that his father had 'become a controversial figure' in recent years.

'He was pro-Palestine, accused of hating mothers, critical of government-mandated vaccines and Covid lockdowns, and once drew an esoteric yet questionable marriage equality cartoon,' he wrote.

'...Towards the end of his life, Michael certainly strayed from the progressive hymn sheet that many follow. 

'He became persona non grata to a large portion of the media class, ultimately embodying the symbol of the old male Boomer - a moniker a few rungs lower than a serial killer these days.'

Despite the negative reaction to some of his works, Sunny insisted his father should be properly memorialised. 

'For more than 55 years, Michael's cartoons, poems and words appeared regularly in newspapers, magazines, on television, in church services and, of course, lived on the front of many fridges in households across Australia,' he said.

'He was declared a national living treasure in 1999 and his work was a feature of the opening ceremony of the 2006 Commonwealth Games. 

'...I could go on, but my point is this: his work has been part of Australian culture long before today's state ministers were out of nappies.  

'The lasting impact of his art has transcended politics, class and religion for decades. His work meant a great deal to a great many people. It seems appropriate that his contribution to Australian culture be recognised.'

A public memorial for Michael Leunig will be held at St Paul's Cathedral in the Melbourne CBD this Thursday at 2pm. [YESTERDAY]

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14332529/Michael-Leunig-funeral-state-memorial.html

 

 

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YOURDEMOCRACY.NET RECORDS HISTORY AS IT SHOULD BE — NOT AS THE WESTERN MEDIA WRONGLY REPORTS IT.

 

         Gus Leonisky

         [OLD] POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951.

 

WE MOURN THE PASSING OF MICHAEL LEUNIG — A GIANT WHO WAS A HUMBLE SATIRIST...