Fairly balanced, sometimes, sorta

Fairly balanced, sometimes, sorta
Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper - Schleswig Leader, Thursday, October 26, 2006 -Page 3

A reader from Ute pointed out to me that a couple of weeks ago, when writing about how many things are observed in October, I omitted two important ones; Domestic Violence Month and Respect for Life Month. I’d apologize for the omission, except that as the reader noted in their letter to me, neither of these things are “much good for joke fodder.”

There’s never any reason to harm your spouse, children or any other family members or cohabitants. Wrong is wrong and domestic violence is wrong.

Respect for life is always a good thing. The problem is semantics and how insanely passionate some people get about life. One person may think that respecting life should include opposing war and the death penalty. Someone else may be vehemently opposed to abortion and euthanasia, but can’t for the life of them, can’t see how I can that first person can be possibly defend their positions. A third person may include all life, not just humans, so they’re opposed to butchering any animals or stepping on bugs or even cruelty to plant life. Pretty soon all three of these people are so angry with each other that they just about want to kill each other.

So there you have it, these are not things that are easy to joke about.

Well, wait..let’s at least try: Mutt: “Hey Jeff, how many times a week do you hit your wife?” Jeff: “Why you $X%&! Who told you I hit my wife? I’ll KILL ‘em! Ya hear me?! Tell me or I’ll kill you too!”

Okay, you’re right. Neither of those things are all that funny.

The point was that here we think that it’s fire-safety month or some people get bent out of shape because they hear that it’s Hispanic Heritage month and really it’s everybody and their brother’s cause-du-jour month. Or actually “du mois” or maybe “de la semaine,” but I don’t know because I don’t speak French.

Call it satire, call it trying to come up with an idea every week and looking to the calendar for inspiration.

And by the way, it’s that way every month. Mark your calendars now for “Waiting For the Barbarians Day” November 4, “Marooned Without a Compass Day” November 6, and the ever popular, “Start Your Own Country Day” November 22.

But thank you, you know who you are, for your letter. It’s always good to know that someone, somewhere is actually reading. Unless you want to send hate mail, then you can keep it to yourself, I’m very sensitive.

No, seriously- whether you agree with me, or disagree with me you should always write a letter to the editor. If you disagree with me, they your opinion will be heard, if you appreciate anything I write, then the publishers will have concrete evidence that might persuade them to keep me around.

I’d just as well take this opportunity to remind you that The views expressed here are not necessarily those of this newspaper, the publishers, Enterprise Publishing, the other staff members, or any of the subscribers.

I say that not only so you don’t assume that any of them condone any of what I write here, let alone share any of my opinions, but uh, well, uh...nope, that’s pretty much why I told you that.
My mother worries that maybe I should apologize to gubernatorial candidate Jim Nussle for the cartoon that I drew of him and Congressman Steve King weeks ago comparing them to NAZIs for proposing that America declare one official language. I’m sure he’s a nice enough guy, from everything I’ve read and seen, he’s more reasonable than Steve King, I have nothing personal against Nussle, I certainly hope his feelings weren’t hurt- but I still think that it’s an unnecessary, discriminatory, nationalistic, jingoistic policy and those are the kind of policies that NAZIs came up with in Germany, also he looked funny. That’s the point of a political cartoon, to make a point and be funny.

Besides, Nuissle is the Congressman for the First District, over by Des Moines, so I hardly imagine that he saw that cartoon. Combined, the Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper and the Schleswig Leader have a readership just over 2,000 and we’re in the Fifth District. There’s probably just as slim a chance that Steve King has seen my columns or cartoons either, even though he is our Fifth District Congressman, but you know what? He’s put his foot in his mouth enough and basically made a nest that he has to sit in as a wing-nut, so I don’t feel too sorry for him.

My wife considered the body of work of cartoons since this summer and suggested to me that I may be a little biased. “Where are the cartoons criticizing the Democrats?” she asked.
Who’s in power? Hard to make fun of people for doing stupid things when they aren’t in a position to do anything...

Ha ha, okay, okay, you’re right, that was a pretty good line, though, right? No? You were saying, “yeah, and I bet you have some great ocean front property to sell us in Arizona too?” You got me, I’m biased. In fact, I’m worry that if the Democrats gain control of the House and Senate next month it will be like baseball in October without the Yankees- there won’t be anyone to be mad at.

Be that as it may, I promise to TRY to be an equal-opportunity offender, if the opportunity should ever arise. Let’s just wait and burn that bridge when we come to it, shall we.
Now, I’d like to tell you why I think that you should vote for Democrat Joyce Shulte to represent the Fifth District in Congress...

Shoot! Dang, drat! Look at this? People are going to keep saying that Democrats only criticize the opposition without- (sorry ran out of room).