I thought I had a controversial, muck-raking SCANDAL on my hands!
A DARK PERIOD IN HISTORY:"COMIC-GATE"!
At first I couldn't believe my eyes. I was SHOCKED!

Hoo-boy, I thot I'd uncovered something here. Well, so did Dan Rather of the CBS Evening News before he fell from grace. So did The Coeur d'Alene Press when their front page headline screamed out that the recent School Bond levy passed, only to get it WRONG; it didn't pass, which was what the competing paper, the Spokesman-Review, printed in ITS headline. So, I've set no precedent for being wrong here; we've all slid down that slippery slope at times. Here is my tale of ruin, despair, and agony on me...

This concerns two comic strips: "Pearls Before Swine" and "Get Fuzzy". The CDA Press runs both strips; The Spokesman-Review only runs "Fuzzy". Today's "Pearls Before Swine" strip featured a cow and a mouse in a restaurant booth, with an obnoxious guy in the booth next to them, yakking on a cellphone. The Mouse gets annoyed, and beats the cellphone guy into submission. Something I'd like to do. Today's "Fuzzy" features the SAME dialogue, the SAME situation and the SAME Cellphone guy. Only, the Dog and Evil Cat of "Get Fuzzy" are pasted OVER the "Mouse and Cow" characters of "Pearls before Swine". And, I thought, "whoa, a case of comic-strip PLAGIARISM!!!"

I thought I was uncovering some really big scandal here. Plagiarism! Surreptitiousness! Unlawful duplication! Covert comic operations! Subversion of the entire entertainment-page!
In all fairness, Monday's "Get Fuzzy" comic strip showed the main character being "late" with his comics, so he was going to use some "unpublished" "Pearls Before Swine" comic elements; his idea being pasting in the "Fuzzy" characters, mailing 'em in, and that was the gist of the comic strip. So, in other words, this all was planned, signed, sealed and delivered. NOT plagiarism. An alert commenter (see 'comments' section) took me to task, tied me to the whipping post and lashed me into submission. Okaaaay...remember the old Saturday Night Live show, when Gilda Radner's character would start ranting and raving about something, only to find out she'd gotten the story wrong? That's happened to me. And like her, I'll just say, "NEVERRRR MIND!!!" You can see the original Monday "Fuzzy" strip at this address, www.comics.com/comics/getfuzzy/archive/getfuzzy-20060417.html

I do have TWO observations: 1. Today's "Get Fuzzy" strip is the best one I've seen in WEEKS; the one with someone ELSE'S idea. So his "comic plagiarism" thing may not have done him any good at all! In my defense, yes, I saw that Monday "Get Fuzzy" comic strip. Today is Friday. So I didn't even THINK about what I'd seen Monday, and I honestly don't know if elements of "Pearls" were used in "Fuzzy" every day this week. I suppose if I'd been a "Fuzzy" fan, I woulda paid more attention. But "Fuzzy" is truly a pathetic cartoon. So I generally ignore it. "NEVERRRRR MIND!!!!!" I suppose that I could draw some kind of parallel between how I got the story wrong, and how Geraldo Rivera or Bill O'Reilly gather their news...and, 2, I didn't go blaming everyone else for the factual error I committed, UNLIKE a certain editor at a certain local area newspaper. Can we move on now?
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Something nice in this old cold world dept.: The CBS Evening News, every Friday, does a story selected by the viewers. Today's story was about a lady who graduated from the High School in Lakeland, Florida. She then became a teacher there. She's taught there for generations. She is now 90 years old and is STILL teaching. She's a real sweetheart with a great sense of humor, and the students love her. She's been teaching there for at least 60 years. She's being forced to retire this year, tho; her hearing is starting to go. So, she's gonna travel. People like her are absolute GEMS in todays' society. My heart was warmed, as I saw that story. How nice. How very nice.

Talk about an obvious conclusion dept.: The headline said, "distractions greatest cause of car crashes." It's no wonder you don't need a doctorate or PH.D. to work for a newspaper. (I used to work at one myself; that's PROOF!) Well, Yeah, Sure! Distractions, yeah. The article said that women are more subject to distraction, what with brushing hair, putting on makeup, changing their hair color, removing the curlers, or whatever they do. Guys, on the other hand, are more subject to speeding, which leads to more traffic mishaps for them. It's amazing, though, how things sorta "dovetail"; elsewhere in the paper was an article about two guys driving along, and they were "checking out" a female jogger, and CRASH!!! They ran a stop sign and hit a car. Which proves that females have the best of both worlds: They get distracted more, and they ARE distractions. I suppose the guy will say in court, "I can't help it that she was wearing skimpy jogging shorts", and try to beat the rap that way. A great case for "Judge Judy"!

Could there ever BE such a thing dept.: The Spokesman-Review was taken to task today, as someone wrote a letter to the editor that whined about the "bad" photo of Vice President Cheney (the mighty hunter) that it printed during the Veep's recent Spokane visit. The letter's writer asked why the paper couldn't use a GOOD photo of Cheney. Excuse me, but have you SEEN Cheney? I rest my case. You CAN'T take a good photo of the guy. Paparazzi who take pictures of Cheney have to first take out insurance on their cameras. Cheney's image has been known to fracture lenses. When Cheney was born, the doctors slapped his MOM! You get the idea.

I guess I'll be happy with my little slice of land dept.: I don't like the fact CDA is changing. Every time a new hole is dug, every time a building comes down, I feel like "things are getting away from me". Today, going down Sherman Avenue, as I've done only every day this week, I noticed (at last) the "Pre-Press Color" building between 5th and 6th Streets on Sherman is gone, and there's a big hole in the ground in it's place, where a CONDO is going. Okay, well, whatever. Soon after, while reading the paper, I saw where land is being grabbed for a PARKING GARAGE in downtown CDA. Makes me wonder...say I go away for 5 years and come back...will I even RECOGNIZE Coeur d'Alene?

We want a closer, not a pitching poser dept.: I made that up. And it shows. Anyway, Seattle Mariners closer Eddie Guardado WALKED 4 BATTERS, ALLOWING THE WINNING RUN to score last night! Isn't the general idea in using a closer, to GET THE OTHER TEAM OUT??? WithOUT any more runs scoring? It's not that often we get a good performance out of starting pitcher Joel Piniero, after all, and he only allowed 1 run thru 6 innings. He "gave Seattle a chance to win". My strategy for Seattle? The M's should go out and find a good WOMEN'S SOFTBALL PITCHER to close. She'd shut 'em down!

Patting myself on the back dept.: (Hope I don't break my arm in the process!) I've been MOANING and WHINING all week about how "blah" I've felt, how "listless" my brain is, just whining, whining, whining. So today I slapped myself in the face, actually READ thru the paper, JOTTED down notes, and so today I feel you got a pretty good post! BUT...no matter HOW bad my blog would be, I will NOT copy what someone else has written in their blog, and post it here on "THIN AIR". Which is what happened in "Comic-Gate", which I described above. And to close this masterpiece (judgment IS subjective, after all), a nice lil' visual for ya's...



Back a long time ago, CDA's City Park was called "Blackwell Park". I don't know where all of these little pathways in this old "enhanced photo" were located, but long ago, the Park looked like a great place to visit, and remains so to this day. I was down there, playing guitar today. I was forced to stop early due to the windy, wet weather which was starting to present itself. Which leads me to compose an original joke: "How do the Seattle Mariners know they're not going to lose that day's game? When they're RAINED OUT!!!"
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Obviously, I've had a little too much coffee today. Looking back over what I've written here, the first half of my "manic-depressive" side has obviously risen to the fore.