The 2022 World Cup opened in Qatar amid off-field controversies over “sportswashing,” gay rights, corruption, workers’ rights and a ban on alcohol sales in the country where and ultraconservative form of Islam known as Wahhabism is practiced.
Scott Stantis leads this week’s editorial cartoon gallery with an image of a soccer ball teeming with vipers representing the various distractions from the “beautiful game.” Steve Breen fills fans’ “World Cups” with a variety of non-alcoholic beverages. Joel Pett uses the soccer tournament to comment on the world’s rich countries “scoring” on poor countries by having created the climate crisis.
Another hot topic was the mass shooting at Club Q, a Colorado Springs, Colorado, gay bar. Five people were killed and 19 injured. The shooter, Anderson Lee Aldrich, was charged with murder and hate crimes. Members of the LGBTQ community pointed to the hostile climate created by anti-gay rhetoric and legislation. David Horsey draws a pastor yelling “perversion” at a rainbow stretching from Colorado Springs to Qatar. Drew Sheneman sees Republicans pressing “don’t say gay” and “grooming” bills as responsible for the hostility.
Editorial cartoonists leaned on Thanksgiving imagery to comment on millennial entitlement and climate reparations (Michael Ramirez), Twitter’s troubles (Walt Handelsman, Nick Anderson), colonialism (Horsey), food waste (Pett) and the relationship between Donald Trump and Mike Pence (Mike Luckovich).
Other topics in the gallery include the new GOP House majority’s intention to investigate Hunter Biden’s laptop; tech layoffs; the holiday surge in viral disease; and the FTX cryptocurrency scandal.
Cartoons were drawn by Nick Anderson, Bill Bramhall, Dana Summers, Drew Sheneman, Scott Stantis, Walt Handelsman, David Horsey, Phil Hands, Joel Pett and Joey Weatherford of Tribune Content Agency; and Steve Breen, Mike Luckovich and Michael Ramirez of Creators Syndicate.
