So the ill-advised Arizona Daily Wildcat cartoon is now national news, at least in media and LGBT circles.

A Change.org petition that calls for the figurative heads of the Arizona Daily Wildcat cartoonist, editor and copy editor (Huh? Copy editors don't look at cartoons!) as of this writing has around 3,250 signatures. Jim Romenesko, the country's pre-eminent media blogger, had the debacle as his top story earlier today.

Well, as a newspaper editor, a former student journalist and a gay dude (by default, the one of the most-prominent gay journalists in this dusty little burg), I feel the need to share my two cents. And the summary of those two cents?

Everyone needs to calm the heck down here.

Let's consider some of the comments on our Facebook post about the issue.

The guy who wrote it got fired, cool. What about the editor who allowed it to be published? What about the publisher who allowed it to be published in his paper?

Yes, the cartoonist who did this cartoon was fired, and he probably deserved it. This toon crossed a line, to be sure, and crossing a line is OK, if that line-crossing is given proper context.

This strip did not do that. There was no context. It wasn't funny. And I am concerned that the fired cartoonist, D.C Parsons, doesn't yet understand all of that, based on his lame apology. He says, in part: "I have always used humor as a coping mechanism, much like society does when addressing social taboos. I do not condone these things; I simply don’t ignore them. I do sincerely apologize and sympathize with anyone who may be offended by my comics (I am often similarly offended by “Ralph and Chuck”), but keep in mind it is only a joke, and what’s worse than a joke is a society that selectively ignores its problems."

If society were ignoring its problems, D.C.—problems, like, say, bias against gay folks—your ass would not be figurative grass right now.

However, I think the editor and everyone else at the Wildcat should get a bit of break.

Folks, this is a student newspaper. That means that, at its heart, the Wildcat is a learning tool. Writers, cartoonists, editors and photographers who don't have experience go there to get experience. And when people are learning something as complex as journalism anew (and, yes, this shit is complex), they're gonna make mistakes.

That strip should not have run, and based on her apology, it seems that the Wildcat editor, Kristina Bui, gets that now.

Let's put this in context here. What's more likely: The Wildcat is staffed by tone-deaf homophobes, or it's staffed by overworked, unexperienced, semi-amateur journalists who, for whatever reason, really messed up here?

Here's another Facebook comment:

uh, this comic wasn't homophobic "in a way". it was homophobic and disgusting in EVERY WAY. STOP DOWNPLAYING THIS.

I gave our previous post on The Range an edit, and I was the one who inserted "in a way" into David Mendez's copy. Why?

Well, I am not sure this is full, complete homophobia . You know what's full, complete homophobia? Someone getting attacked outside of a gay bar simply because they're gay. Or legislation that targets gay folks simply because they're gay.

A cartoon by a kid that appears in a college newspaper? Somewhat damaging and unbelievably dumb, yes. Homophobic? Not necessarily. Again, look at the context.

Another comment:

BFD.

You know what? This is a big deal—and that's a very good thing. Lessons are being learned here, and I can promise you that the discussion of this matter—in college classrooms, at newspapers, etc—is happening right now. It's a BFD, folks, and I am happy about that.

South Park must give you all heart attacks.

This comment, from TW contributor Casey Dewey, misses a point that I think sums up this whole matter: If you're going to approach tough, controversial topics in a way that involves humor, you'd better do it well.

One of the reasons why South Park is so bloody brilliant is that Matt Stone and Trey Parker have an almost unparalleled knack at satirizing sensitive topics in a way that is funny and sends a message. (But even they, on occasion overreach—by, say, attempting to depict the prophet Muhammad in an episode, thereby subjecting employees at their network to legitimate threats of violence.) Same goes for the humor of George Carlin, Louis C.K. and other brilliant humor minds.

But for every Matt Stone or George Carlin, you'll have a Michael Richards, or now a D.C. Parsons. Funny, pointed satire is very, very hard to do.

Enough with the petitions and the gnashing of teeth. What happened here is that a college kid, who probably didn't exactly mean to be homophobic, tried to make a point with humor. He failed, badly, and got the punishment he deserved. And we all learned something as a result.

Taggart Romney, son of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, was interviewed by North Carolina radio station WPTF following the second Presidential debate, and was asked by host Bill Lumaye what it felt like to have President Barack Obama call his father a liar (starting at 00:35 here).

Tagg's response?:

"[you want to] jump out of your seat, rush the debate stage and take a swing at him"

Which isn't a brilliant response, particularly from a 42 year old man who should know better than to say something like that on the airwaves, considering that he's currently serving as an adviser on his father's campaign to be elected the President of the United States.

I can get why he felt that way — after all, no one who actually likes their father enjoys hearing him called a liar. It's an emotional thing. It happens. You don't talk about it on the radio, but it happens.

But this response from Salon.com's David Sirota takes the topic and (to borrow a phrase from Deadspin.com) abandons the damn yard with this absurd tangent about white privilege:

In a post-debate interview with a North Carolina radio station, Tagg was asked about his visceral reaction to President Obama, and he said his first thought was that he wanted to “jump out of your seat and you want to rush down to the stage and take a swing at him.” He then laughed and added, “But you know you can’t do that because, well, first because there’s a lot of Secret Service between you and him.”

One of the hallmarks of White Privilege is the unquestioned and largely unchallenged assumption that white people can say heinous things about people of color without blowback or even mild criticism — things that people of color rarely dare to say about white people, for fear of serious retribution. Tagg — aka Mr. White Privilege — proves the point perfectly. He feels totally comfortable fantasizing about committing physical violence against an African American man. And remember, he’s not just any white guy pondering such grotesque dreams. On the contrary, he’s one of the public faces of a national presidential campaign appearing in a public media interview, meaning White Privilege has made him feel so comfortable airing such notions, that he didn’t hesitate to whimsically broadcast them to thousands of voters.

Seriously? I know that I'm a Hispanic staffer for a newspaper and website that tends to have a leftward lean, but even I'm of the opinion that this was just a stupid, stupid thing said by a son who wants to defend his father's honor.

There's nothing that suggests "white privilege" in his comment — I don't doubt that, had he been asked the same thing about hearing Joe Biden call his father a liar in a public forum, he'd have a similar response.

Tagg Romney needs to be more careful with what he says, and I don't doubt that he'll be shuffled behind curtains for some time while his father deflects questions about Tagg's comment by praising his passion. But to write that Romney said what he did because he's white and President Obama is black is so empty-headed it defies description.

Yesterday, the Arizona Daily Wildcat ran a comic that was, well ... let's just call it dumb.

I don't feel like republishing it here because looking at it makes my head hurt, but there's a link to it here, for those interested in seeing it.

The problem with the comic is two-fold. For one, it's homophobic, in a way. For another, it's simply not funny. It's like taking a photo of a car-wreck and stapling it to the end of a "Garfield" comic.

People were offended; letters were written, petitions have been circulated—and in response, the Wildcat issued a statement of apology on its website:

The Arizona Daily Wildcat does screw up, and acknowledging its mistakes and oversights is critical to its accountability.

On Tuesday, the Wildcat staff made a serious error in judgment in printing a cartoon that some readers felt was homophobic and inappropriate.

The views of individual staff members do not represent the views of the Wildcat, nor does the Wildcat reflect the views of the UA. However, printing the cartoon was irresponsible to our readers. We apologize.

— The Daily Wildcat staff

This was followed shortly by an apology from the strip's creator, D.C. Parsons:

My name is D.C. Parsons, and I would like to formally apologize to anyone who I may have offended in my comic “etc.” on Tuesday. The comic was not intended to offend. The desired end means of my work is solely humorous.

It was based on an experience from my childhood. My father is a devout conservative from a previous generation, and I believe he was simply distraught from the fact that I had learned (from “The Simpsons”) what homosexuality was at such a young age.

I have always used humor as a coping mechanism, much like society does when addressing social taboos. I do not condone these things; I simply don’t ignore them. I do sincerely apologize and sympathize with anyone who may be offended by my comics (I am often similarly offended by “Ralph and Chuck”), but keep in mind it is only a joke, and what’s worse than a joke is a society that selectively ignores its problems.

— D.C. Parsons,
“etc.” cartoonist for the Daily Wildcat

And, according to the Daily Wildcat, their association with Parsons has been terminated, as made clear in this letter from its editor-in-chief, Kristina Bui:

The Arizona Daily Wildcat is now reviewing its editorial policies and has terminated the employment of the cartoonist as of Wednesday. His views do not represent the views of the Wildcat staff, nor does the Wildcat represent the views of the university.

The “etc.” cartoon in question illustrated a parent threatening their child if he ever came out, and the two characters joke about the threat. We agree with the criticism we’ve met, and we apologize. The comic was not funny.

That, combined with the poorly-handled apology from Parsons, is the problem. The comic wasn't funny; it wasn't satirical; it wasn't clever; and it didn't make a reader really think about the issues behind homophobia and violence.

The Wildcat is in trouble for this — as they well should be. Publishing this comic was a poor decision. But that's part of the process of running a student newspaper: Mistakes are bound to happen, and this is where one learns both the consequences of a poor editorial decision, as well as the proper way to respond to the resulting controversy.

Good luck to Parsons (who I hope has learned that, if you're going to put a joke into an apology, you'd best make damn well sure that it's funny), as well to Bui and the rest of her staff at the Wildcat.

You folks are going to need it.

A video made by conservative-leaning musician Kid Rock with documented lefty Sean Penn makes it seems like we could all get along if we just traded shirts, shared conversation over beers rather than cocktails and ... yeah, trying to steer the country back to civil discourse is a bit more complicated than that.

Still, the video is entertaining, even if Spicoli is looking a bit haggard.

From the Hollywood Reporter:

The famously liberal Penn zinged Kid Rock by calling him a “seal clubbing, Confederate flag waving, oil whoring, Chick-fil-A eating, water boarding, NASCAR loving, Cayman Islands bank account having, endangered species hunting, war mongering, redneck, toothless, Wall Street Troglodyte."

Kid Rock strikes back, calling Penn a “tofu munching, welfare loving, Prius driving, Obama sucking, tree hugging, whale saving, gay marriage fantasizing, big government voting, PETA chasing, Oprah Winfrey masturbating, flag burning, socialist, ACLU, whiney assed granola-crat.”

But the men’s blind rage blooms into something like respect after an immigrant scolds them for not appreciating America’s freedom. Soon after, news of the U.S. casualties in Afghanistan gives them further pause.

Cue a montage of Kid Rock buying a Prius and attending a gay wedding, and Penn ditching his girlish martini for an American beer and donning a NASCAR shirt.

“The goal of the film is to tear down the one-dimensional political stereotypes portrayed by the media by confronting them head on,” reads the video's YouTube description. “It reminds us that what really matters is that we're all Americans, with diverse thoughts, opinions and stances on issues.”

Kid Rock also plead for political civility in August, during the Republican National Convention.

“I pray that no matter what happens, that this will not divide us as a country, because I believe that no matter what you see on TV, no matter what they tell you on the news channels over and over, all day long,“ he said.

Another video gem from our friends at Narco News TV — news anchor Nancy Gunn and analyst Ida Dumass get to the heart of the War on Drugs and those extremist Mexicans. Help make it go viral, Tucson:

If you never had chance to see a screening of Jason Michael Aragón's Under Arpaio, his documentary on Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and those fighting for justice, you can see the documentary in its entirety on YouTube.

For the third year in a row, the Tucson Weekly was honored with one of the Arizona Newspaper Association’s big awards in the annual Better Newspaper Contest.

The Weekly earned the General Excellence prize for non-daily newspapers with a circulation of more than 10,000. The Weekly earned the same honor in 2010, and was the Non-Daily Newspaper of the Year in 2011.

The Weekly advertising side also earned general-excellence honors.

In total, the Weekly editorial side took home 29 awards, including nine first-place honors. The contest covered work done from May 1, 2011, through April 30. The results were announced on Saturday, Sept. 29, at the annual ANA convention.

In the ANA’s advertising contest, the Weekly earned six awards—including four first-place prizes.

The editorial awards (all in the category of non-dailies with a circulation of more than 10,000):

• In the newspaper-wide (non-individual) editorial awards, the Weekly won first place for Departmental News/Copy Editing Excellence; and Page Design Excellence.

• The paper nabbed second place for Best Newspaper Website; Community Service/Journalistic Achievement; Reporting and News Writing Excellence; and Special Section (for the Best of Tucson® 2011).

• The Weekly won third place for Editorial Page Excellence.

The Weekly’s 21 individual awards:

• The Weekly swept the Investigative Reporting category. Tim Vanderpool won first place for “Defending the Innocent” (May 19, 2011) and second place for “Tactical Terror” (Nov. 24, 2011). Leo W. Banks earned third for “Arizona Burning” (June 30, 2011).

• The Weekly also swept the Best Column: Analysis or Commentary category. Tom Danehy nabbed top honors for “Pima Community College’s Admissions Changes Deserve a Hearty Round of Applause” (Sept. 29, 2011). Renée Downing took both second and third place, for “The GOP’s War on Planned Parenthood and Contraception Has Given Obama a Huge Boost” (March 29, 2012) and “The Greed of the Health-Care System Rivals the Greed of the Banking System” (May 26, 2011), respectively.

• The staff took first place for Best Sustained Coverage or Series for the Jan. 5, 2012, issue, which covered the anniversary of the Tucson shootings on Jan. 8, 2011.

• Tom Danehy won first place for Best Sports Column, for “One Year Into the Arizona Interscholastic Association’s ‘Reorganization,’ We Have a Mess” (Dec. 22, 2011).” Irene Messina won third place in that category for “Around Jennifer Higgins, Women Weightlifters’ Stereotypes Fall Apart” (Nov. 17, 2011).

• Vanderpool won first place in the Best News Feature Story category, for “The Mayor of Fourth Avenue” (April 5, 2012).

• Jim Nintzel and his reality-journalism competition, Project White House, which encouraged everyday folks to run for president, won first place in the Enterprise Reporting category.

• Josh Morgan won first place for Best Sports Photograph for a picture he took of UA gymnast Katie Matusik (“The Birth of the Pac-12,” Aug. 4, 2011). He also took home second place for Best Feature Photo Layout for his photo essay “Real Refuge” (June 2, 2011).

• Speaking of “The Birth of the Pac-12”: Danehy won third place for that piece in the Best Sports Story category.

• Weekly scribes took home two awards in the Best News Story category: Mari Herreras won second place for “Questionable Hires” (April 19, 2012), while Vanderpool earned third place for “The Smoking Gun” (Sept. 15, 2011).

• Weekly writers also earned two awards in the Best Column: Feature or Criticism category: Ryn Gargulinski nabbed second for “In Southern Arizona and Beyond, Pigs Get No Respect” (June 16, 2011) while Randy Serraglio earned third place for “A Tucson Artist Uses Experiences From His Bi-National, Bi-Cultural Life in His ‘Narco Nation’ Works” (Oct. 27, 2011).

• Photographer Zachary Vito won two awards: second place in the Best Feature Photograph category for his picture of Jeffrey Scott Brown (“Surviving and Thriving,” March 1, 2012); and third place in the Best News Photograph category for his picture of Gabrielle Giffords with “Goodbye for Now” (Jan. 26, 2012).

• Finally, Bilal Muhammad won second place in the Best Multimedia Storytelling category for “Inside Al’s Barber Shop” (The Range, June 29, 2011).

Here are the Weekly’s other advertising awards:

• The staff earned first place for Best Classified Section.

• First place in the Best Black-and-White Ad category, for Asian Spa and Massage, went to Alan Schultz.

• Greg Willhite and Stephen Meyers won first place in the Best Color Ad category for Sundance Kid.

• Willhite and Jim Keyes won top honors in the Best Online Ad—Animated category for Tui-Na.

• Jill A’Hearn won second place in the Best Newspaper Promotion Ad series category for “We Have an App for that.”

• Schultz earned third place in the Most Effective Use of Small Space category for Eddie’s Cocktails.

Arizona’s small newspapers ruled the day (or at least the contest), nearly sweeping the biggest contestwide awards: The Yuma Sun was named the Daily Newspaper of the Year, while the Arizona Capitol Times followed in the Weekly’s footsteps as the Non-Daily Newspaper of the Year.

Bill Hess of the Sierra Vista Herald (a paper which, like the Weekly, is owned by Wick Communications) was named the Daily Journalist of the Year. Non-Daily Journalist of the Year honors went to Cindy Yurth of the Navajo Times.

The Non-Daily Photo Journalist of the Year is Dave Brown, of fellow Wick papers the Arizona Range News/San Pedro Valley News-Sun. Oddly, the award was not given in the daily category.

Alexis Bechman of the Payson Roundup won Story of the Year honors in the non-daily category. Rob O’Dell nabbed the sole big award that went to a large daily newspaper: The current Arizona Republic reporter won the daily Story of the Year award for work he did at the Arizona Daily Star.

Fox News was following a high-speed car-chase from its Phoenix affiliate when the driver ditched the car, ran into a field, put a gun to his head, and apparently shot himself.

From the Guardian:

Fox News's live coverage continued as [the suspect] stopped running, raised what appeared to be a gun to his head, and fell to the ground.

The channel went back to the studio, where [Fox News anchor Shepard Smith] was seen looking off camera and shouting: "Get off it, get off it." The network swiftly cut to a commercial break.

When Smith returned, he apologised for the graphic coverage, saying that the channel had been carrying the chase on a delay to avoid such an incident, but made a mistake in broadcasting it anyway.

"While we were taking that car chase and showing it to you live, when the guy pulled over and got out of the vehicle, we went on delay," Smith said.

"We created a five-second delay so that we would see in the studio what was happening five [seconds] before you did, so if anything went horribly wrong we were able to cut away from it, " he said.

"We really messed up, and we're all very sorry. That didn't belong on television. We took every precaution ... I personally apologise to you that that happened," Shepherd continued.

"It's not time appropriate, it's not sensitive: it's just wrong," he said. "That won't happen again on my watch, and I'm terribly sorry," Smith said.

You can see both edited and unedited footage of the shooting at Buzzfeed, if you're so inclined, though I warn you that the footage is both graphic and disturbing.

Before we jump in, let's give some praise to Valerie Cavazos at KGUN Channel 9 for her series on the Rose Hamway retaliation case and the Tucson Unified School District special education issues she's unearthed in the process. So far, Cavazos at KGUN and Weekly World Central are the only Tucson media outlets to dig a little deeper.

If you haven't had a chance, take a look at Cavazos' work on the KGUN website under Education Watch. And you can get to our work here. A third Weekly story with a parent interview runs this week, followed by an additional parent story and a story on the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights' process.

So let's get to the matter at hand with a question: With this body of work out there on the Hamway story, what is the point of a recent KOLD piece on TUSD's "Exceptional Education" department that not once mentions the issues raised by the school psychologist in her complaint?

While it's true, not every special ed student or parent in TUSD has had the same experiences as the 14 parents Hamway helped during her short time in the district, this story only takes a small look at a program, a couple of parents, and makes the district's program seem like a sought-after gem it must keep hidden.

The truth on special education, its successes and its difficulties is somewhere in between both stories. Nonetheless, Hamway's issues should be alarming, because there are other schools and many other kids who didn't have a Hamway intervene on their behalf or help parents' file much-needed OCR complaints.

Point is, Hamway isn't an anomaly.

• Dr Pepper

It's (not exactly) official, people will lose their minds over anything on the internet. Case-in-point: The nearly 7,000(!) comments on a recent Dr Pepper ad, seen above.

Apparently, a number of folks whose beliefs run counter to the theory of evolution are deeply, deeply offended — and willing to say so in front of the entire internet. One Facebook user wrote "Im never drinking this junk again," while another wrote "Just lost my business! As an avid drinker of Dr. Pepper, I can assuredly say that I would never drink Dr. Pepper ever again. If they think their soda's are good enough to make people forget their faith, they are simply fooling themselves."

The soft drink company seems to have a great deal more fans of this ad than detractors, though; a number of Facebook users came out in force to challenge what people were writing, while others decided to just laugh at it. "I'm a full time pastor. I love Dr. Pepper. I have both a sense of humor and the ability to not blow every little thing out of proportion. If this offends you, I invite you to turn off you computer, grow up, and stop giving Christians a bad name. Thanks in advance."

And, of course, some people just want to watch the world burn: "There is no mention of this 'Dr. Pepper' in the Bible. Obviously another lie spread by these so called 'scientists' and the liberal media elite. My God drinks Pepsi and so do I!"

AdWeek's AdFreak blog summed the issue up pretty succinctly: "Once again, though, it goes to show how protests can spread like wildfire in social media, where outrage—and counteroutrage—are just a click away."