Despicable cartoon
How low of your paper to run Henry Payne's "shoot the messenger" cartoon this morning. I am speaking of a sketch of Al Gore appearing on a stage morbidly obese with an observer saying "The original live aid was about addressing world hunger. Apparently we've solved that problem". What is the point here? His message whether he is liked politically or not is no longer disputed. His message is so profoundly important that it seems frighteningly foolish to denigrate it.
Here is an idea for a more useful cartoon: Al Gore is on a stage,and behind him an innumerable band of people representing future generations. Behind them is a portrait of all animals, all food and vegetable plants, all fruit and nut-bearing trees, all running streams . Then, behind all of this is a gigantic sapphire blue sphere with its translucent atmosphere resting in the heavens. In the cartoon Al Gore is looking toward the audience overhearing a remark such as mentioned above. We look closer. He is crying.
Mary E. Barnes
Springfield Township
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Byron Borger · July 17, 2007 4:25 PM
Thanks to Dr. Barnes for this elequant response. What was the point of that cartoon? That Gore is overweight? Does that bar him from caring about world issues? That some entertainment leaders want to raise money for ecological work? Does that discredit the anti-hunger movement? Does a previous fund-raiser on hunger take away from the credibility of this new one?
That is just dumb. Would someone mock a benefit event to raise awareness about breast cancer, say, because we've not fully found a cure for Jerry's Kids?
It seems the spirit of the piece was to put Gore in his place, but not by legitimate argument about the issues, but by mean innuendo. Not unlike the concern I wrote about below. Sigh.