Loud and Proud!

These started out just by having the camera on the "Night" setting by accident and then playing just a little in PhotoShop. Bet that Kensie and Rena won't like having such bizarre pictures of them on the web.

Double-standards still standard 50 years after Little Rock

Thursday, September 27, 2007 the Mapleton PRESS

A year ago a black high school student in Jena, Louisiana, a town about the size of Mapleton, asked his principal if it would be alright for him to sit under a tree that white kids were claiming was only for them. The principal said it was okay, but the next day, there were nooses hanging in the tree. This was an unmistakable reference to the historical practice of lynching Black people in the South, and an unmistakable threat.

Haven't we make ANY progress? This may as well be 60 years ago. Well, not completely true, they wouldn't all be at the same school 60 years ago.

The principal wanted to expel the white kids who hung the nooses in the tree, but his superintendent decided that they'd only receive a short, in-school suspension.
At first I didn't know whether or not I'd have done more than suspend the white boys either. Of course, I'm not in the South, I'm safely sheltered here in mostly homogeneous rural Iowa. And I'm not Black.

I was thinking from the point of view of a high school teacher, someone who's been around 12-18 year olds all day long for the last 14 years. I always look for the best in kids and I'm slow to believe the worst. I also always assume that they are immature, impulsive, short-sighted, and insensitive to others and therefore not as responsible for all of their actions as adults. Of course, this side of 35, with 3 kids of my own, I'm starting to think the same way about anyone under say 32.

Droves of protesters traveled from all over the country to Jena last week to march past the high school because lawyers were calling for a sentence of up to 80 years for "attempted murder" for 6 Black kids who beat up a white kid, Justin Barker for taunting a black kid, Robert Bailey about getting hit in the head with a beer bottle in the weeks after the nooses appeared.

Barker was knocked out and got a black eye, but he was in good enough shape to go golfing the next day. Not exactly attempted murder. Personally, I'd say he was asking for it. The point is, white kids threatened murder the same way the Klu Klux Klan used to and almost nothing happened to them, it was blown off as a "prank." But when the black kids stood up for one of their own, the hammer of "justice" came down full force.

A couple of weeks ago we went to an outdoor church service at "Timber Ridge." After church was a brunch at the Timber Ridge Lodge, which used to be sort of a dance hall and saloon. It has an old west theme; they use antlers in all of their decorating, if you know what I mean.

Being an Arizona boy it was right up my alley- lots of cowboy junk and taxiderm/ trophy animals. I had fun identifying and explaining all of the deer, antelope, rattlesnakes, raccoons, bobcats, and even a wild turkey to my girls.

But thank God, they didn't seem to notice or ask me to explain the noose hanging from the wagon wheel chandelier. The thing made my blood run cold. I don't know if it was the racial implications or vigilante/anarchy aspect from our frontier history, that they're used so often in suicides, or just the brutality of the thing. But I definitely don't have the stomach for that sort of thing anymore.

Hanging a noose in that tree was far worse than most any vandalism to cars, lockers, desks, or walls that those kids could've done. It was infinitely more than just a "prank."

I'm proud that so many people traveled down there for the protest march today. I heard that Rev. Jackson challenged Sen. Obama to speak out on it. I don't know to be more frustrated with the media for not reporting their outrage- or more disappointed with ALL of the Democratic candidates for not speaking up because I haven't herd boo from ANY of them about it today.

Ah, September

Doesn't that look like a painting? No PhotoShop Filters Gallery, no gimmicks- that's the genuine article, a gorgeous Western Iowa sky during "Indian Summer." Gotta love it.

I've always thought that junior high football is played during the perfect time of day (4-6pm) during the perfect time of year for taking pictures- no need for flash or fill light or any special speed of film or ISO or ASA or F-Stop or whatever. Besides that the referees aren't as big of sticklers for keeping photographers at a safe distance as for Varsity. Anyway, I always get pretty lucky as far as shots go at junior high games. Here are a few of them:

High School Bible Study

Cartoon for week 39

Here's my editorial cartoon for the Thursday, September 27 Mapleton PRESS
Sorry, I just couldn't bring myself to draw anything about OJ Simpson

See more of my cartoons here

See some of my recent favorites by "big league" cartoonists

Kindergarten Diva's Greatest Hits

The Mapleton PRESS Thursday, September 20, 2007
by Ted Mallory
ted.mallory@gmail.com http://tedscolumn.blogspot.com

During the summer at the PRESS office we were excited about the new NBC show "Singing Bee." We'd play it in the office, challenging each other to finish a stanza of old songs given only a few lyrics to begin with. It must be a popular game because FOX imitated their rival network's format with their own show, "Don't forget the lyrics."

My friends and I used to play the same game back in school, but it seems like the lyrics we most often got wrong were never as profane as the ones we had been mistakenly singing in place of them.

Maybe the goofiest one is what we did to Manfred Mann's 1976 cover of the Bruce Springsteen song "Blinded by the Light." "Revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night" usually became "ripped-up like a douche." Why it never occurred to us that you're much more likely to sing about a 1932 Ford Coupe beloved of hotrodders than to ever sing about personal hygiene items.

Most people have trouble remembering the lyrics to "Louie Louie," but how could anyone learn the words to that song? When the Kingsmen recorded it in 1963 they sounded like a group of drunken fraternity boys.

But the people most likely to butcher an old standard, have to be little people. My five year old daughter, for example, loves to sing, but having the limited life experiences that she does, she's much more likely to get songs wrong than right. Here is a sampling of her expert song-styelings...

"God bless America
God bless for you and me
God bless our 'merica
God bless it and you too
For purple mountain's recipe!
God bless you, God bless me, we're a happy family..."

I don't know if I feel worse for Irving Berlin and Kate Smith, or Barney the Dinosaur. You also have to understand, that this song doesn't end here, Ellen (our daughter) went on singing for what had to be at least five more minutes. The average pop hit on the radio only lasts 2-3 minutes.

She eventually brought closure to her patriotic aria-
"God bless us every one!" Tiny Tim would have been proud.
The other morning, (this is September, mind you) we were treated to one of every kid's holiday favorites-

"Santa Claus is coming to town
you'd better not cry, you'd better not shout
you'd better not cry and shout
he knows when you are bad or good so be good for Heaven's sake
Santa Claus is comming to your town
so you better not frown
so you better not shout or frown
he's commin' around..."

And again, imagine this lasting about seven minutes. Getting lyrics wrong is bad enough, but doing it to a song that not just everyone, but every kid in the universe knows by heart is almost unforgivable. This grievous sin was compounded by the fact that Ellen's two year old sister Annamarie started singing along, repeating each lyric in about a five second delay, and often messing up Ellen's messed-up lyric. She also started asking me when Santa was coming to our house and if we could go see Santa. This from the kid who has been frightened out of her mind by the red elf every time she's met him her entire life.

The other night, she struck up a tune during supper. I'm never opposed to dinner entertainment, after all my parents were visiting us from Arizona. Ellen graced us with another patriotic song-

"Yankee Doodle went to town
Yankee doodle dandy
Stuck a bandanda in his hat and called it macaronis
Yankee doodle bandandy
Yankee doodle went to town
Yankee Doodle fancy
Yankee doodle band-aid
I am that Yankee Doodle dandy"

Now, ask her to sing the theme song to the Hanna Montana SHow on Disney Channel and she'll get every single line exactly right!

Ted Mallory lives in Charter Oak and teaches at Boyer Valley Schools in Dunlap. 'Ted's Column' has appeared weekly in the Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper since 2002. You can see all of Ted's cartoons at http://tmal.multiply.com

See "Ted's Blogs" on your Google homepage

Your friend, ted.mallory@gmail.com, has sent you the following Google Personalized Tab and included this message:

Here is a Google page that includes feeds to all of my stupid blogs. What can I say, sometimes hobbies snowball into obsessions.

See "Ted's Blogs" on your Google homepage »

Arrrgh

Happy International Talk-Like-A-Pirate Day Aye, just wanted t' wish you the 'ery happy holiday. Gar.

You can talk like me too, just visit:
http://www.talklikeapirateday.com/translate/index.php

Me ka pule,
Pirate Ted

Sunday High School Bible Study

I want to offer a standing open invitation to anyone who ever wants to come check out the high school Bible study that I lead every Sunday morning at 9 in the basement kitchen at St John Lutheran Church in Charter Oak.

Click here to see the kind of things we cover.

If you're nervous or shy or embarrassed or whatever, don't be. There's no obligations whatsoever. you don't HAVE to stay for church, upstairs at 10, to bring any money for an offering, or even to come back if you decide you don't like it. Just follow HWY L51 into Charter Oak, you can park by the back and come in through the back door on the North West corner, keep coming through the room with the refrigerator, water heater and trash cans and I'll be there to your left at the end of the kitchen table.

Right now we're studying Jesus' Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7. In October we'll start on how to think positive and try to fight off depression with Paul's letter to the Philippians.

Art resources for Elementary Teachers who didn't major, minor, or have a concentration in Art.

Okay, Colleagues of the short people,

Here are a whole slew of websites and elementary art lesson plans on the web. See, not being a qualified Elementary Educator myself, I'd probably come up short if I tried to write your lessons for you. Besides, if I gave you all of my fun, short lessons on the elements of design, what would I have left to teach Seventh graders?

I will be sure to send more resources your way as I discover them through out this year. Good luck!

Some Specific Lesson Plans

• Incredible Art Department - this is from Princeton University
  
• The Worldwide Art Gallery
• Prairie Visions - they have summer workshops for teachers in Nebraska
  
• Artsonia Kids Art Museum - The Largest Student Art Gallery on the Web! I liked this one, hopefully you'll enjoy it more than KinderArt
  
• KinderArt - Art Lessons - Art Education: The largest collection of free art lessons and art education information on the Internet.
• Preschool arts and crafts
• A. Pintura: Art Detective -This is really kind of fun, I assume you remember Carmen San Diego? It's like that only his name is like Ace Ventura, Pet Detective.
  
• Living Colour
• The Art Teacher Connection Home Page
• Search Lesson Plans (Education at the Getty)
• Crayola® Creativity Central - Lesson Plans
• A Lifetime of Color - (from Sharpie Markers)
• Inside Art: An Art History Game
• Art Resources in Teaching
• Drawing in One-Point Perspective
• MoMA | online projects | Art Safari
• National Gallery of Art | NGAkids home page
• Color Matters

Some Specific Lesson Plans

• A Lesson Plan for Why the Mona Lisa is Smiling
• Art and Technology--for those would want to use technology in art education Art - Math -Science Connections
• Art Strand Lessons
• AskERIC - Art Activities
• Carolyn Roberts--computer art lesson plans using MS Paint
• Christmas Stockings/ Spiders / Skeletons Lessons
• Computer Art--more computer art lesson plans using MS Paint
• Drawing Lessons
• Great Art Lessons
• Judy Decker's Incredible Art Resources
• LessonPlansPage.com--Art Education resources
• McREL (Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning) The Arts Lesson Plans and Activities
• Painting Lessons

Mourning in America

So, thanks to Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush (41) and now George W. Bush (43), the people who have to work for a living and can't afford to invest enough and don't inherit enough to have their wealth work for them- are responsible for more of the tax burden, and are earning and retaining less of our earnings. Meanwhile, inflation is creeping up, the economy is a wreck, unemployment is soaring, gasoline and milk are at all time highs, and homes are being foreclosed on. In 1970 25% of Americans were members of Labor Unions, today that's less than 8%. Thanks to Free Trade and irresponsible corporations, all of our manufacturing jobs have been sent overseas and the things we buy from China poison us.

Believe me, you don't want me to show you charts on our National Debt. But I can tell you that we owe most of it to China, and we keep borrowing from them. This war in Iraq? Something in the neighborhood of $8 BILLION a week. Who do we borrow it from? Take a guess.

I have nothing against China (Nixon) but as a middle aged Midwestern guy with blue-collar roots, I have had enough with Republican bullshit. They are not conservative, and they're not patriotic. They care more about their investment portfolios and their stockholders than their citizens or the principles contained in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Their world view has wreaked havoc on the American Dream for the last 27 years. Isn't it time for a change?

Something serious to think about

"In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of."

~Confucius

Simpsonmania Revisited

Last summer, like half of everyone who ever uses the internet, I went to Burger King's promotional website to have a Simpsons version of myself created. The other day, I made some changes to it in PhotoShop to make it a little more accurate. Read what I wrote about Simpsons creator Matt Groening back in August.

Political Cartoon

So... 'W' says that Iraq is like Vietnam after all... (in a weird sort of way). Well guess what 'Dub? History repeats it self in all kinds of ways...

Labor Day is a lot of hard work

NOTE: This cartoon didn't run in the PRESS. I don't know what the issue was, room, time, lost the file, or editorial prerogative- but in hind sight I think it may be a little over the edge. Not because it accuses Southerners of being sexist or racist, or because it uses the word "colored," but because cartoons usually accuse politicians of things, this one accuses you the reader. So if you feel accused of liking Fred Thompson because he's a male, white, protestant, conservative- sorry, but do examine your own heart and remember, "walks like a duck, quacks like a duck..."

The Mapleton PRESS Thursday, September 13, 2007

My wife even prepared me for sleeping in a summer camp cabin with 12 other people at a family reunion by making sure that I brought some throat spray and “breath-right” strips for my nose so that no one would be kept awake by my snoring.

So it seemed like our eight year old was going to be the one who snored. I was having trouble sleeping and could hear her having trouble breathing. Everyone else had just nodded off around eleven, after several efforts at getting out two-year old settled. When she was five, we had Grace’s tonsils and adenoids out so that she’d get less congested. It hadn’t seemed to help that night.

I could hear the poor kid coughing and got up to grab some toilet paper to have her blow her nose. It was too late. When I got back from the bathroom, she was standing next to my wife’s bunk, asking permission to throw up. Who asks permission for that?

I ushered her in the dark to the restroom and she almost made it. I tried my best to console her and clean up after her without waking everyone else up, but to no avail. Her five year old sister and ten year old cousin were quite vocal about their distress over the odor, so the cabin door had to open and over head light had to come on.

Eventually I finished with Grace and the adults got the cousins to calm down and go back to sleep.

My mother-in-law objected to my leaving the bathroom light on, even with the door almost closed, but I understand the need for dark to help you sleep.

That’s when our two year old woke up. Sort of. We think she may have been in some kind of semi-conscious dream state, because she kept asking for her mother, who was already holding her.

Two year olds are notorious for being afraid of the dark and anxious in strange places. My wife and I and my mother-in-law all took turns trying to console the toddler, but to no avail. She was so distraught that her cries became coughs and- you guessed it, more vomit.

Two year olds are also notorious for not making it to the bathroom. After another round of cleaning up, my wife eventually resorted to taking the child out to our van to sleep in her car seat. Mosquitoes not withstanding, that was probably about as good as they could do.

Sunday afternoon we were all packed up and ready to head home after the big church service, business meeting and pot-luck. But, as will happen, we couldn’t find the two year old. I was searching the lodge inside while my wife searched outside. Finally, our daughter responded to my calling her name. She was in the lady’s room. I knocked on the door-frame and announced “man on the floor,” hoping she’d be the only female in there. Sure enough she was, and she was busy.

“I’m changing my poopy pants,” she explained. Part of me was almost proud, we’re finally getting somewhere with potty training. I say PART of me was proud. Pants at half-mast meant poop was everywhere.

I grabbed my wife. She’s clean up the child if I’d run to the van to get wipes and new clothes (sometimes it’s good to be a man- except for the guilt). Well, one of the dozens of second and third cousins happened to bring her two-year old into the bathroom right about that time. This second toddler was so overcome by the aroma of our child, that, you guessed it, she vomited. So now these two poor women are sharing the joy of cleaning up after both of their kids. Now, I was just outside, waiting patiently, providing distant moral support, so I didn’t witness this, but, as I warned, this was a classic situation…

I’m very proud of what a strong woman my wife is. She’s been through a lot and she can maintain her composure in almost any situation, far better than me. She had to be able to in this instance, because the other mother was so overcome by her daughter’s vomit, that she lost her lunch too.

Ted Mallory lives in Charter Oak and teaches at Boyer Valley Schools in Dunlap. 'Ted's Column' has appeared weekly in the Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper since 2002. You can see all of Ted's cartoons at http://tmal.multiply.com

Some of the best of other people's cartoons

I couldn't believe Bush told the Australian Prime Minister that we're "Kicking Ass," in Iraq. New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson had it right when he said, "What does he think this is? A high school football game???" 3,700 American servicemen and women are dead. Their families are irrevocably damaged by their loss. What a twit. Anyway, I thought this cartoon made it clear that he's about as mature and responsible on the domestic front too. When will America wake up to the fact that "Reaganomics" has destroyed our so called American Middle-Class way of life?
I think this one is a thinkin'-man's cartoon. It makes clear the things that the Administration would rather we not pay attention to.
I LOVE the payoff to the set-up for this gag. Anyone with a clue about history, or anyone who lived through Vietnam/Watergate HAS to appreciate the irony here!
Their table is a flag-draped coffin, get it? Took me a while, I must be slow. But once it dawned on me, it is VERY powerful.

Now, if I could just think of something for ME to draw for the PRESS next week....

Art Basics for non-art teachers

Here is the PowerPoint Show for the presentation I made today for the Boyer Valley Elementary Teachers in Dow City

http://boyer-valley.k12.ia.us/artbasics.pps

And here is a PDF of the National Standards for Art
http://boyer-valley.k12.ia.us/artstandards.pdf

Patriot's Day Display

This is an American Legion Post Chaplain, taking a moment. He was one of 33 volunteers placing 4,200 flags on a lawn to commemorate our fallen soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Tired of "Chicken Hawks"

War is a cowardly escape from the problems of peace.
- Thomas Mann

(German novelist and essayist whose early novels—Buddenbrooks (1900), Der Tod in Venedig (1912; Death in Venice), and Der Zauberberg (1924; The Magic Mountain)—earned him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929.)

I listened to a speech by our Congressman Steve King today at the dedication of our local Veteran's Memorial. To his credit, he drew attention to the nearly 510 service men and women who lose their lives every year during peace time training, who die unheralded as part of the cost of being prepared to defend our freedoms. I liked that part.

Unfortunately, mush of what he said was pretty typical pro-Bush, pro-War propaganda. He contends that you just can't solve some problems by talking and you may as well use your military as long as you have one. He mentioned how scary Iran is and even went so far as to quote Sun Tzu's "the Art of War."

I thought to myself that even heap big macho Republican god Ronald Reagan talked us into better relations with Russia, and Gary Sick, who served on the National Security Council under three presidents contends that Reagan's campaign met secretly to negotiate the release of the American hostages from Iran (but not until January 1980, so that Carter couldn't take credit). Every preschooler and kindergartener knows, to "always use your words, hitting never solves anything.".

Hello??? It's called "militarism," it's what Italy, Japan, and Germany were practicing in the 1930's. Our honored veterans of the "greatest generation" (God bless them) fought and died to defeat this viral, insidious philosophy! It seemed like Congressman King was trying to make himself sound smart by citing historical references. I think he needs to go back to school and brush up a little on both history and philosophy.

Whew! Thanks, now that I've got that out of my system, I can go write a nice, pleasant, innocuous, objective news story about the dedication of the memorial, which really is beautiful, solemn, and moving.

I always believed that America's founding fathers hoped that we would be a nation built on reason and intellect, not military might, like the great European empires that preceded and eventually spawned us. But alas, it looks like, as happens to almost all adolescents when they grow up, we have become our parents- the very thing we once held in such disdain.

This brings me to Thomas Mann's quote. I think of it as an antidote for Sun Tzu (and Machiavelli, for that matter). I think when I finish reading "Cannery Row," maybe I'll try to get my hands on some of his work. This is some of what Wikipedia says about him:

In 1930 Mann gave a public address in Berlin titled "An Appeal to Reason," in which he strongly denounced Nazism and encouraged resistance by the working class. This was followed by numerous essays and lectures in which he attacked the Nazis. At the same time, he expressed increasing sympathy for socialism and communism. In 1933 when the Nazis came to power, Mann and his wife were on holiday in Switzerland. Due to his very vociferous denunciations of Nazi policies, his son Klaus advised him not to return. However, Thomas Mann's books, in contrast to those of his brother Heinrich and his son Klaus, were not amongst the many burnt publicly by Hitler's regime in May 1933; apparently, since he was the literature Nobel laureate for 1929 (see below), they did not dare that so early. Finally in 1936 the Nazis denied officially his German citizenship.

"Images of Disorder", by social critic Michael Harrington in his collection The Accidental Century, is a highly literate account of Mann's political progression from the right to the left.

One last quick aside- at the pancake brunch before the ceremony, one member of the VFW, a retired Air Force General, called me a "reactionary liberal." I wasn't too offended because for one thing, in spite of George H. W. Bush's spin on the word back in 1988, I think that being liberal something to be proud of, even though I'm really pretty moderate to conservative on many issues. And because basically, anyone who writes about politics is reactionary, you're always reacting or responding to something. In this post, I'm reacting to what a dweeb I think my Congressman can be sometimes. The other reason I wasn't too offended, was that what he actually said was, "There's my favorite writer, of course I wish you weren't such a reactionary liberal, but you're still my favorite writer." How can you be offended by something like that? Thanks Doc.

Prevent war with Iran

Dear Ted,

Thank you for signing my petition to tell President Bush that
diplomacy, rather than war, is the best way to keep nuclear
weapons out of Iran's hands. I am writing to you today because I
need your help once again.

Last weekend, the London Times reported that the Pentagon was
drawing up plans for a massive wave of air strikes on Iran aimed
at wiping out that nation's military forces.

I can understand that leaking this plan is intended to raise the
pressure on Iran. But is it credible? And will it have the
desired impact? To be effective, such "threats" have to be
conveyed -- and not just by exercises and planted stories but by
earnest dialogue, the more broad-ranging, factual and
non-emotional, the better.

One-dimensional efforts like this usually don't payoff. They
arouse fears among friendly nations, and hostility from the
intended targets. If anything, they're likely to leave the
Administration in a less credible position.

We must let the Administration know that its one-dimensional
Iran policy -- threaten, intimidate, coerce -- isn't likely to
work. And when it fails, we'll be left with war. War.

Email your friends and family, and ask them to sign my petition
at StopIranWar.com today. Ask them to tell the Bush
administration that the best way to stop Iran's nuclear program
is by engaging in diplomacy -- not by shooting first and asking
questions later.

http://ga4.org/campaign/stopiranwar/forward/wssixwnrfi8mi8x?

If there is one mistake that George Bush makes over and over
again, it is that he believes that military force is the
solution to every problem. The Bush administration refused to
engage in any serious diplomacy before the war in Iraq -- and
now our nation is entangled in an endless guerilla war in that
nation. We cannot make the same mistake again.

Now the Times reports that the Pentagon has drawn up plans for
"massive airstrikes" against over 1,200 targets in Iran. Why
would the US draw up such plans without engaging in a full-scale
diplomatic effort with Iran?

The Adminstration's failure to engage in diplomacy shows its
preference for a military "showdown." This violates common sense
and experience.

The ideas of national security are to gain objectives and
protect interests, without military conflict, if possible. War
is costly and permanent. Lives are lost, and outcomes are
usually more difficult and have unanticipated consequences.

So why doesn't George W. Bush get it? Why not? Not enough
casualties, yet? Not enough pain? Not enough sorrow? And
especially, not enough wisdom?

Tell George W. Bush: "You've failed too often, miscalculated too
often, misled us too often. Enough is enough! It is time for
diplomacy with Iran."

Ask your friends and family to sign my petition today!

http://ga4.org/campaign/stopiranwar/forward/wssixwnrfi8mi8x?

We must give diplomacy a chance to work. It is our best hope for
defusing this crisis peacefully, creating a more stable Middle
East, and protecting American security.

Sincerely,

Retired General Wes Clark

Sign the petition: http://ga4.org/campaign/stopiranwar/wssixwnrfi8mi8x?

Visit StopIranWar: http://ga4.org/ct/RdSElP11tmnZ/home

First PRESS run

Well, they finally went and did it. They combined the Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper and the Schleswig LEADER into their flagship, Mapleton PRESS. I threw this scan up here in case web readers don't know or believe that I'm actually published in a real newspaper.
I hope/think that readers will like the new paper. I like that it's a hefty 14 pages as opposed to 4 or 6. Except that we didn't have color, I think it stacks up pretty good next to about any other weekly or biweekly I've seen.

I have to admit, however, that it's kind of intimidating. For one thing, I went from two newspapers with around 500 subscribers each to one that (before the merger, already) had a circulation of about 2,535 with an estimated readership of around 5,070. I realize that the Denison papers are over 7,000 and the Des Moines Register is in the neighborhood of 302,896, which pales by comparison to papers in Chicago, L.A., D.C., and New York, but it's still intimidating to me.

I'm also intimidated because Mapleton is where my wife works. Now, not only can she be embarrassed by me in front of her relatives and neighbors, but her colleagues, administrators, students and their parents may occasionally say something to her about her obnoxious, over opinionated husband.

I guess this all hit me when I got my copy and opened it up to page 6. Everything was so huge! For years I felt bad because my cartoons were squeezed into a 3.792 inch space atop of a two-column wide column. So now, a full 5.750 inches seems ENORMOUS. And, in what Garrison Keillor would tell us is typical Midwestern/Lutheran fashion- I feel like I don't deserve it. It's so conspicuous that I feel a little guilty. It LOOKS just like a major metro daily. Yikes.

Well, guess like the Country band 'Big and Rich' like to sing, I'm livin' in the big time. Well, okay, so it's still not the big show, this is still the Farm Leagues, but it is probably like going from the B-Leagues to "AA." I sure hope I'm up to this. Hope I can fill the space and prove myself worthy. I just wish I wasn't feeling so scared about just continuing to do what I love doing. Let's face it, it may be a dream to make it big, but basically it's just a hobby.

Some simple silliness

I've been reading John Steinbeck's 'Cannery Row'- pretty good stuff. I am teaching a class this semester on web page design. I decided to make a project for my students that's loosely based on the book. In the story, a group of vagrants make money for a party they want to throw by collecting frogs for a biology classroom supply company. As you can see, I found an old picture of a Model-T Ford Truck, and Marine Biologist Dr. Ed Ricketts and customized them for our project in Adobe PhotoShop with a Microsoft clip art of a frog. They aren't masterpieces, but it was fun and hopefully they show kids some of what PhotoShop is capable of.

Great book, by the way.

Welcome to the my little corner of the paper

Welcome to the my little corner of the paper
the Mapleton PRESS Thursday, September 6, 2007

The PRESS is undergoing a bit of a makeover.

This column used to appear in the Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper and the Schleswig Leader on page 3, right above the recipes and next to the Church schedules. As of today it has moved to the new opinion page of the PRESS.

One reason of course, is that the Leader and the NEWSpaper have been absorbed into their parent paper due to rising production costs and postal rates.

So what's the deal with an opinion section? Do we really need one of these in a small regional weekly paper like this? Are we trying to rock the boat or somethin' here?

Yes and no. Yes, I at least, personally think that an opinion section will be useful, and no, we're not just a bunch of rowdy muck-ruckers trying to rabble-rouse.

So what's all the hubbub, Bub?

This section of the PRESS will have a lot to offer.

There may be occasions when our publisher Brad Swenson or the President of Enterprise Publishing, Mark Rhoads, decide that there's an issue which they'd like to address with a full-fledged "editorial." Editorials represent the official position of the paper and don't have what are called "bylines." In other words, no single person takes credit for it because it is as if the newspaper itself is speaking.

I'd venture to bet that we'll continue to occasionally publish articles submitted by your elected officials like Clarence Hoffman, Steve King, and of course Senators Grassley and Harkin. These are called "guest columns" and it goes without saying that they represent the opinions of their authors, and not necessarily those of the PRESS, it's staff, publisher or owner.

The most exciting and perhaps the most important aspect of this part of the paper is that it is a forum where ideas are exchanged. YOUR ideas. As we've always done, we look forward to running your letters. They can be positive attempts to bring attention to praiseworthy people, projects, and organizations- or they can be concerned or critical pleas for action or change. They can address local, state, national or even global issues.

Who knows? Maybe we'll even seek out your opinions with survey questions or some kind of man-on-the-street interviews.

The Op/Ed page is my favorite part of the paper. Of course, I'm probably biased. I provide two more elements to this page; editorial cartoons and a regular humor/opinion column. I guess I must have started drawing cartoons as far back as 5th grade, but I hadn't really published any since college until about a year ago when I started putting them on top of my column. I double-majored in Art and History in college, so I guess it makes sense to draw political cartoons. Although I have plenty of friends who say that they get so disgusted by politics that they no longer follow the national news and thereby, they tell me that they "really don't get" many of my cartoons. I hope that whether you agree with them, disagree with them, or just don't get them, you'll still enjoy seeing funny pictures in your local paper.

This column started running in the Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper back in 2002 after a summer working at the PRESS for Mike and Barb Lyon. The column's motto has always been "Sex, Politics, and Religion- not necessarily in that order." The point being that we shouldn't be afraid to talk or debate about pretty much anything. I can't tell you how many people tell me that they "read my column every week, sometimes I even agree with you."

Chances are pretty good that you won't always agree with me. I just want to let you know ahead of time, that I don't intend to deliberately offend you or try to brain wash you some how. But I have no problem with pushing your buttons once in a while and getting you a little riled up The opinions in this column are mine alone, there's plenty of times when the publisher and even my wife disagree with me. My real goal is not to make you mad, but to make you think. Hopefully I'll make you chuckle once in a while too.

Ted Mallory lives in Charter Oak and teaches at Boyer Valley Schools in Dunlap. 'Ted's Column' has appeared weekly in the Charter Oak-Ute NEWSpaper since 2002. You can see all of Ted's cartoons at http://tmal.multiply.com

Join our group!

Hey-- Join our group... http://www.democrats.org/page/group/WesternIowaBLUES

Political Cartoon

Editorial cartoon for the September 13, 2007 Mapleton PRESS

Inspired by a report on where Senator Fred's major support would be coming from. I keep trying to improve my printing, especially because veteran cartoonists, experts and editors (like Daryl Cagle) frown on using actual computer fonts that look like cartoonist printing. But I'm still very self conscious of my penmanship. Maybe I need a bolder pen or even a felt tip marker. I guess it's just like how people hate to hear their voice on recordings. Ick.

NOTE: This cartoon didn't run in the PRESS. I don't know what the issue was, room, time, lost the file, or editorial prerogative- but in hind sight I think it may be a little over the edge. Not because it accuses Southerners of being sexist or racist, or because it uses the word "colored," but because cartoons usually accuse politicians of things, this one accuses you the reader. So if you feel accused of liking Fred Thompson because he's a male, white, protestant, conservative- sorry, but do examine your own heart and remember, "walks like a duck, quacks like a duck..."

See some of Ted's photography!

You can see some great pictures Ted got at last Friday Night's Boyer Valley v. Treynor football game, and some wild shots he took camping this weekend at http://malloryart.blogspot.com

Or, you can see Cheer pictures from the Treynor game at http://www.cheercoach.blogspot.com

Wild Weekend

Some mornings it pays to get up early. We went to ca family reunion camp out this weekend and stayed at St. Thomas Moore catholic Youth camp near Guthrie Center. No one got much sleep. I couldn't sleep anymore and went for a walk around 7 this morning. What a blessing. Not just some time alone and a chance to pray and meditate, but just look at some of the things I got so see. Someday, I'll capture one of those blue herons up close or in flight, but on the dock turned out pretty neat. Why is it that when you're in a vehicle, deer are so stupid that they either stand still or jump out in front of you, but on a walk, they can sense a very move you make and are always running away? Anyway, beautiful stuff- I thought.

Friday Night Lights

I love my new camera when it comes to taking yearbook pictures at football games. Of course, I've been begging the administration for a new camera for the yearbook for a year now, lucky for them I broke down and bought one for myself instead of waiting another couple of years for them to give me the okay. Anyway, above, we're on defense- (purple) Boyer Valley tackles Treynor.
The General at dusk.
Bulldogs get the TD!