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Jun. 20th, 2004 09:45 amIt is amazing what a little (or a lot, actually) mulch will do. Last night ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
maureen_the_mad and I went out and weeded, put down 20 feet of edging, and mulched half the Shakespearean rose garden and WOW! What a difference! And it didn't take very long either; one more good day and the rest will be done.
That's only part of a busy but productive weekend - I've been to a Shore Leave meeting, ordered the masquerade trophies, got a list of things to do for SL plus some sewing for Prepare for Fair (which is next Saturday. Eeep!)
The one lemon in the lemonade is a surprise. I'm particularly fond of editorial cartoons, so I faithfully buy the "Best Editorial Cartoons" collection every year. This, however, is probably the last year I shall do so for a while.
Until recently, it was pretty unbiased. They ran both pro and con cartoons for just about every hot button issue, and the person writing the short chapter intros shifted every year - one year conservative, one year liberal.
For the last couple of years, the intros have been hard conservative, but the cartoons themselves were still mixed. Okay, fine. This year, the book itself tilts hard to the right. There's nothing the editor could do to hide that liberal cartoons were generally the award winners, nor that there was such an anti-war reaction to the attack on Iraq. But everything else toed the neo-con, conservative Christian line nicely. Debate about "under God" in the pledge? Only pro-Christian cartoons printed. Debate about abortion rights? Only anti-abortion cartoons printed. Women's rights? One cartoon printed, under "sports" because it was about Augusta. And there was a whole chapter for Democrats, running only Democrat-bashing cartoons. No equivalent Republican section running pro or con, just a chapter of "Whack-a-crat." Prefaced with a little intro confused about why Democrats hated the President, presumably because of the "vote counting problem in Florida." Never mind opposition to just about every policy to come out of this White House, we're just sore losers. So accordingly we "unreasonably hate" the President - as opposed to the universal roses and support Clinton and his policies got. (Man's been out of office for three years, they're still running anti-Clinton cartoons in the book.)
I read political cartoons faithfully. I'm willing to read the ones opposed to what I think. But I'll be damned if I'm going to continue to give my money to an editor who is going to pretend that people like me don't have anything worthwhile to say - especially if they are going to bash the left while runnning several cartoons complaining about liberal bias in the media!
Screw that. If I'm going to read material that only leans in one direction, it's going to be the same direction I tilt. And it exists - check outmuskrat_john's LJ.
But I'd really rather read a book that's actually balanced. Think that'll happen again?
maureen_the_mad and I went out and weeded, put down 20 feet of edging, and mulched half the Shakespearean rose garden and WOW! What a difference! And it didn't take very long either; one more good day and the rest will be done.That's only part of a busy but productive weekend - I've been to a Shore Leave meeting, ordered the masquerade trophies, got a list of things to do for SL plus some sewing for Prepare for Fair (which is next Saturday. Eeep!)
The one lemon in the lemonade is a surprise. I'm particularly fond of editorial cartoons, so I faithfully buy the "Best Editorial Cartoons" collection every year. This, however, is probably the last year I shall do so for a while.
Until recently, it was pretty unbiased. They ran both pro and con cartoons for just about every hot button issue, and the person writing the short chapter intros shifted every year - one year conservative, one year liberal.
For the last couple of years, the intros have been hard conservative, but the cartoons themselves were still mixed. Okay, fine. This year, the book itself tilts hard to the right. There's nothing the editor could do to hide that liberal cartoons were generally the award winners, nor that there was such an anti-war reaction to the attack on Iraq. But everything else toed the neo-con, conservative Christian line nicely. Debate about "under God" in the pledge? Only pro-Christian cartoons printed. Debate about abortion rights? Only anti-abortion cartoons printed. Women's rights? One cartoon printed, under "sports" because it was about Augusta. And there was a whole chapter for Democrats, running only Democrat-bashing cartoons. No equivalent Republican section running pro or con, just a chapter of "Whack-a-crat." Prefaced with a little intro confused about why Democrats hated the President, presumably because of the "vote counting problem in Florida." Never mind opposition to just about every policy to come out of this White House, we're just sore losers. So accordingly we "unreasonably hate" the President - as opposed to the universal roses and support Clinton and his policies got. (Man's been out of office for three years, they're still running anti-Clinton cartoons in the book.)
I read political cartoons faithfully. I'm willing to read the ones opposed to what I think. But I'll be damned if I'm going to continue to give my money to an editor who is going to pretend that people like me don't have anything worthwhile to say - especially if they are going to bash the left while runnning several cartoons complaining about liberal bias in the media!
Screw that. If I'm going to read material that only leans in one direction, it's going to be the same direction I tilt. And it exists - check out
muskrat_john's LJ. But I'd really rather read a book that's actually balanced. Think that'll happen again?
