I first heard about the attacks on the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists early in the morning while juggling my two kids at breakfast. My wife and I spoke in hushed tones and spelled out words in front of the kids. I want to keep this sort of awfulness from them as long as possible. Our oldest knows I’m a cartoonist, and suddenly, cartoonists getting killed was the top story on every news outlet.
While I have the luxury of living and working in the United States, where thankfully free speech is revered, the attacks in Paris definitely put the “what if?” in the back of my head.
No time for that, I had to contact my political cartoonist friends around the country to see if they had any news or knew any of the cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo. It didn’t take long to hear stories of palling around with these guys or having beers with them, and now they were dead, targeted by terrorists for their cartoons.
Imagine your grandfather or an older uncle who can draw and make people laugh. They’re fun at parties and have an interesting, weird job. That describes many of the cartoonists I know, and seems to apply to the cartoonists killed at Charlie Hebdo. (Three of the cartoonists who were killed were over 70 years old.)
I don’t want to minimize the senseless killing of the other non-cartoonists, but it was the cartoonists who led the crazed gunmen to attack the Charlie Hebdo offices that day. They did it because of the cartoons.
The Koran states one should ignore insults.
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Last night while outside contemplating things, I reminded myself I’d not been to Den’s, so planned to do it when I was back at the computer.
I forgot. Dammit, I forgot! I get so mad at myself when I let that happen.
Quincy needs his dinner and a walk and some play time, I’ll be back later. I’m going to leave DWF open in a tab so I don’t forget.
By the way, a little snow yesterday. A little more today. Only a total of a couple inches, but I can’t see my trails very well.
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Sol has returned today. 55 degrees. yay!
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Sunny here.
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My friend in South Dakota reported 50 degrees the other day. Still waiting for it to reach us.
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Tomorrow my daughter and Brian leave on a vacation to Mexico. Will be back next Friday. I hate when my kids get on an airplane. I know, safest way to travel and all that, but a mom worries. 😦
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“What, me worry?”
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Same route as yesterday, but a bit over 60 minutes on the sticks today. Assuming yesterday’s count is too high, that makes 175+ minutes for the week. More than enough.
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Brief chat with Alice about 5:30.
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Went motor-home shopping today, found a decent one, just no way to pay for it yet, still good to look and see what is out there. Many different ones with some good, some bad, sorting early saves last minute mistakes, at least that’s the theory anyway.
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Yup. Look lots.
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Time to gather the sheep once again and return to the count.
Baa
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Baa is the lowest investment grade.
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