February 16, 2004

There were 2 posts published on February 16, 2004 (this is page 1 of 1).

Save The Editorial Cartoonists

Here’s a cause that’s near and dear to my heart: editorial cartooning. Chris Lamb writes in the Editor and Publisher magazine about how editorial cartoonists are being killed by meek newspaper editors.

Editorial cartooning is an art form. I have long admired how a stroke of a pen can cut through columns of newsprint to the essense of an issue. That little box can pack quite a wallop. Its strength comes from expressing an opinion: something that is verboten in the rest of journalism.

My high school heroes were Jeff MacNelly, Bill Watterson, Gary Larson, and Mike Peters. Once I stalked MacNelly around the store where I worked until I got the nerve to get his autograph (he graciously complied). In an alternate universe, I still draw cartoons. So it makes me mad to read how cartoonists are left with no choice but to quit over the silly concessions they are asked to make.

Maybe I will dust off my drawing skills, before the great drawings that made people care about the news are only a distant memory.

Varmits

We’ve got a few mice who’ve decided to move in with us. Over the past few months, we’ve heard them scratching around in the attic. One woke us up this morning, having parked himself on the ceiling right above our bedroom.

I was poking around the garage the other night when I saw a mouse-sized hole chewed in a bag of sunflower seeds. Apparently, I found their pantry. I think they got in the garage and found a hole from there into the crawlspace.

The same night I discovered the sunflower seed thief, I discovered an even larger varmit. A fat opossum got startled when I walked from the garage to the shed. It may have been hanging around our garbage can, since our motion light was on, though the lid was still firmly attached. I thought for a moment of chasing it but then figured there were a million other things I’d rather do than get rabies shots. Fortunately, he made an escape some time afterward and hasn’t been seen since.

Some of my day off today will be spent plugging those gaps in the house and setting varmit traps in the crawlspace. If that doesn’t work, we’ll have to start charging rent.