The Joker

The "real" Joker will be featured in a cool new blockbuster film that is in nationwide release starting today.  The "wannabe" Joker, by contrast, is with us constantly locally as the cartoonist in our local paper-and is not cool....at all....

Andy Marlette, even by his own very flimsy, flexible, and slippery standards--has sunk to a new low.

  His disgusting, disingenuous cartoon from Sunday September 29th DELIBERATELY misrepresented a tragic situation that occurred in 11-Mile Creek two weeks back.  When a constituent's dog died shortly after coming out of the creek--we all went to red alert.  We demanded testing, and we will be planting warning signs and doing additional testing.  We took serious action.

What did Andy Do?  Well, he disgustingly attempted to capitalize on this young man's tragedy, while simultaneously conflating the facts surrounding this dog's death and attacking the company he hates with every fiber of his being, the company  that is his nemesis, International Paper.

In his cartoon, he intimates IP contributed to this canine tragedy--by depicting the dead dog on the banks of the creek, with the IP Discharge pipe directly on the other side of the river where the dog died.

But the problem is this is not true.  IP does not discharge into eleven mile creek and they haven't for 7 YEARS!  Furthermore, the area where the dog died is TWO MILES upstream from where IP's effluent pipe empties into a 1400 acre private wetland area.  IP effluent no longer is discharged into 11 Mile Creek--and Andy and PNJ should know this.  But hey, don't let facts get in the way of a good attack piece and cartoon, right?

The truth is these blooms of algae that produce toxins that are harmful to animals are occurring all over the southeast--and are caused by high temperatures and low rainfall combined with other biological factors.  To believe otherwise, as Andy wants you all to believe, would require that you believe that the IP Mill in Cantonment is responsible for blooms and canine deaths in Mississippi and South Florida too!

But never mind these facts, though--right Andy? 

Nah, just take more shots at this young man who lost his dog, IP (who you hate) and those of us that are looking at facts and trying to solve issues logically and practically within the bounds of our abilities.

Nope--what we get from Andy is more disingenuous, disgusting, and inaccurate cartoons.

No wonder people in America no longer have respect for the newspaper industry and the larger media in general.  Unrepentant dishonesty and mean spirited, biased, tactless misrepresentations.

Disgusting.