Debate watching, & a reminder that Facebook wants to kill you

😃Greetings from Stanford, land of journalists & at least one cartoonist...

Last night was sure fun, wasn’t it?

I was lucky enough to be watching the presidential debate at a restaurant in Stanford’s student union.

(In case you missed the earlier post, I’m here doing a JSK journalism fellowship!)

As if watching Kamala Harris work her prosecutorial magic on the Defendant-in-Chief wasn’t enough, I watched with some of the other fellows — including a Russian exile and a wonderful couple from Venezuela.

It was fascinating to discuss Trump with new friends who are directly impacted by the rambling old conspiracy nut up on the television screen.

And yes, there was beer and pizza . . . and laughing at just the right points in Trump’s flailing responses.

Here’s a quick cartoon I drew before the debate. (There is a giant radio telescope dish on a hill overlooking the Stanford campus that fascinates me — I’m sure this won’t be the last time I draw this magnificent structure.)

It felt great to finally see a candidate who effectively shined a light on the lying ramblings of a sad, dangerous ex-president.

I’ll be updating my caricature of Kamala’s jeez-you’re-a-sad-and-despicible-human-being smile that she nailed so perfectly last night.

Something tells me most Trumpists will still stand by their cult leader, but I do feel more optimistic after the debate.

In other news, Facebook still wants to kill you!

It was bad enough Meta turned off the news during emergencies, as I animated in this cartoon a while back . . .

First they shut down posts from established news outlets, now the geniuses at Facebook are silencing information about approaching wildfires and other emergencies that are posted by regular ol’ users.

The Washington Post has a scary read about Meta’s latest attempt to rid the world of all news and information.

I’ll leave it at that for now, but plan on posting more short updates soon.

Thank you so much for following my work and Stanford fellowship experience, I’ll keep you in the loop!

-Mark