After being reminded by some particularly negative tsunami-related America-bashing in the Opinion pages (and this despite the massive outpouring of privately-raised money and relief efforts from our nation), James Lileks stated his feelings about the medium of political cartoons:

"My reaction is usually one of four. One: if you think I’m that stupid, fine. Two: if you’re that stupid, fine. Three: if we agree, that’s nice, but I can’t exactly use your point in an argument because it’s usually the sort of reductio ad absurdum used by cynical adolescents who believe that artfully rephrasing a suspected hypocrisy invalidates every other aspect of your argument. Four: Nice drawing. I'm not saying the genre is over, or should be swept off the page - but it's stale. Smart papers would hire some guys who'd put together JibJab flash cartoons, load 'em with soundbites and video clips. They'd be just as cruel and unfair, but they'd back it up. It's a Pixar world, and the editorial cartoon has yet to climb off Tom Nast's lap."

I admit, I haven't read any political cartoons lately, and the last ones I read were with a conservative bias (Cox and Forkum, I think), but yeah, it's generally the same thing most of the time. I imagine it's at least as difficult to come up with something clever to say about any given political situation as it is to come up with something funny to say for the average daily strip. Much harder to come up with a statement that has more of a factual basis than an emotionally-charged snark. Fortunately, I don't have to worry about that - as fired up as I occasionally get about political issues, I really have very little desire to do any sort of political cartooning.

I began classes this week. Monday I worked, attempting to answer the latest "get to know you" e-mail (this one from Beth, who gets kudos for using the word "kunoichi" in a sentence) until it got erased because Excite told me my "session had timed out" after I pressed the "Send" button. Considerate. Programmers take notice... Tuesday I had my day full of class, from 9:30 to 9. I'll talk about that some more, but right now I have to get back to work. Oh, well.