Editorial cartoons aren’t for entertainment

Our opinions page today contained two complaint letters about an editorial cartoon on that same page last Thursday. Two readers also called to complain about the same subject.

The cartoon, by Pulitzer-prize winning editorial cartoonist Mike Peters of the Dayton (Ohio) Daily News, showed a couple apparently attending a funeral, holding a program that said “Charlton Heston.” The cartoon also pictured a coffin, with an arm extended upward holding a rifle. The visiting man in the cartoon was saying, “He looks so natural.”

It was an outstanding editorial cartoon because it did exactly what it was supposed to do – it stirred controversy, jolted people out of complacency, and made readers think.

Editorial cartoons, unlike the cartoons on the “comics” page, aren’t about entertainment; they’re about generating thought and evoking a response. The Enterprise could have run a cartoon that was a take off on the stone tablets Heston held in his role as Moses, maybe saying, "Rest in Peace, Charlton Heston." How boring would that have been?

In the same way that it’s important that columns on the editorial pages take a stance on something, it’s important that editorial cartoons also raise eyebrows and provoke discussion. Editorial columns that played every issue right down the middle would be worthless. Cartoons filled with happy faces and flowers and nary a true commentary or criticism would be a waste of time and newsprint.

Some people thought the cartoon was disrespectful of Heston. I’d argue that it was absolutely respectful of his opinions and his hard-line stance against gun control as the former president of the National Rifle Association. I know a thing or two about the group. My own father was a lifetime member.

We’ve all seen the bumper stickers and the T-shirts that say, “They’ll get my gun when they pry it from my cold, dead hands.” I think that’s a sentiment shared by many serious gun owners and, certainly, one by which Heston lived.

I’d like to think he would have “gotten” the controversial cartoon, and that it would have made him proud to know he was remembered beyond his acting for his hard-line stance on an issue he obviously thought was extremely important.

Public information is just that . . . public

A resident of Dallas visited a relative in Beaumont and took a look at The Enterprise while she was here. What she saw on our pages was so disturbing it moved her to write a letter of complaint.

She wrote to say she was “shocked” by the fact that this newspaper actually “printed of list of folks who had the misfortune to file for bankruptcy” and said the paper’s action, in printing those bankruptcy reports bordered on “mean.” She referred to the practice of presenting this “hurting information for all to see” as “unnecessary and very small town.”

She also objects to The Enterprise’s publication of birth announcements for couples who are unmarried, though I’m not sure how she distinguishes those from couples who simply have chosen to use different last names.

The writer says her beloved hometown paper, the Dallas Morning News, would never publish such information.

My reply to this woman will say several things, including, a mention of the potential “misfortune” of those businesses to whom the person filing for bankruptcy owes money – a very legitimate reason for publishing those lists.

It also will say – hold on to your hat, ‘cause you “ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.”

The Dallas Morning News, and the even less “small-town” Houston Chronicle, are among newspapers riding a trend of posting database information on their Web pages. The Enterprise is on the verge of making sure we supply our readers with any and all information they might want to access.

Bankruptcies, lawsuits, divorces and other such “private” matters are just the beginning.

If your salary is paid by public tax money, that’s going on-line too . . . and the tax valuation of your house or other property . . . and the TAKS scores of the school your child attends.

Those who are offended by such intrusions into privacy can feel free to skip that portion of our Web site. Readers who, conversely, are curious to know just how much money public officials are putting in their pockets, will probably like the easy access to what is . . . public record.