Lincolnite Dwayne Ball’s Thursday letter to the editor at the Journal Star accused my Sunday cartoon of reaching “a new low” thanks to what he describes as a “personal,” “mean-spirited” and “ad hominem” attack. He claims that the information Marc Schniederjans withheld is well-known and could easily be compiled.

The problem is, Ball and other defenders of Schniederjans seem to imply that Schniederjans was simply withholding the names of the faculty members who were hired without searches, and that this information he referred to is some kind of indisputable fact. But that’s not what Schniederjans said. He said “…the University of Nebraska, in effort to get as many minorities as they possibly can, have hired people that didn’t cut it.”

He also said the University uses opportunity money “to bribe department chairs,” and he suggested recruiters should “…get off their butts and start working and hire some people who are really high-quality African Americans,” which is not subtle in its implication that the University is hiring people who are low-quality African Americans. He added that the “basic idea in recruiting people is to find people who certainly meet the minimum requirements … it has been my observation on this campus that that is not the case.”

The details of which faculty members are unqualified for their jobs is what Schniederjans wouldn’t disclose, and that assertion was hardly accepted as fact by the Academic Senate. Throughout the debate, several professors openly disagreed with Schniederjans’ assertion, saying that their departments “always sought to hire the best person” and “in no case have we not hired the best person.” One member of the audience told Schniederjans that if he has evidence of bribery occurring, he needs to bring it forward or stop using such inflammatory statements (Schniederjans admitted he classifies opportunity money as “bribery;” the questioner slammed Schniederjans for having such a poor understanding of opportunity hires). So for Schniederjans’ defenders to act as if his undisclosed information is widely available, easily discoverable and indisputable is simply untrue.
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The challenge is to write and draw a 24 hour comic book in 24 hours. That challenge begins in less than 24 hours in Lincoln and in slightly more than 24 hours in Omaha. Having participated in one before, I can say it’s a lot of fun, regardless of your artistic skill or comics background. You’re sitting around with a bunch of people who are all going through the same challenge, and at the end of it all, you’ve got a comic story that you created. Pretty cool.

• 24 Hour Comics Day: Lincoln — Hi-Way Diner, 2105 Highway 2, Lincoln, NE 68502
The Diner will be providing free drinks to all participants.

• 24 Hour Comics Day: Omaha — Krypton Comics, 2819 S. 125th Suite 261, Omaha, NE 68144
Free energy drinks and food of some kind will be provided.

Also, word is the Journal Star will be covering the Lincoln event and The Reader will be covering the Omaha event.

from the Lincoln Journal Star

from Doomkopf.com:

from the Omaha Reader

Alan Gardner at the Daily Cartoonist has listed the 28 editorial cartoonists to leave the profession in the last three years. Pretty shocking, especially when you see some of the names in that list.

Brian Cronin at Comics Should Be Good (from the typically comic-book oriented ComicBookResources.com) is in the middle of a daily October series dedicated to “Stars of Political Cartooning.” Cronin has some fantastic old scans to go with his history lessons, so check out the updating archive.

from the Lincoln Journal Star

from the San Diego Reader

FiveThirtyEight.com is now including district breakdowns for Nebraska (and Maine) due to the national attention on the second district electoral vote. I got a kick out of this line explaining the political breakdown of Nebraska’s geography:

If John McCain has a nervous breakdown and replaces himself on the ticket with Jack Abramoff, Obama might win 537 electoral votes — with Western Nebraska being the holdout.