Environmental Graffiti

This may be a bit of old news, but then again I think that delusion of a grand scale deserves to be called out from time to time.

Photo by Stephen Codrington

I think we specialize in this in the US, and for whatever reason our state legislatures are especially good at it. Georgia is invading Tennessee, and now Kentucky has Rep. Jim Gooch, taking his revenge after getting embarrassed last fall. What exactly could he have done that’s worth mention alongside the border war?

See, Gooch, who is a Democrat, used his committee chairmanship last year to stop cold the Mine Safety Bill,AND the Stream Saver Bill (which would have crippled Mountaintop Removal Mining), after receiving, er, questionable, campaign donations. And he held hearings on global warming… without inviting anybody who actually thought global warming was occurring (Amazing Youtube HERE). Yes, you read that right. As you might imagine, editorial cartoonists, opinion pages, and yes, blogs, took it upon themselves to display a great deal of disrespect towards the Honorable Mr. Gooch.

Now, it appears he’s getting his revenge. He has introduced a bill that categorizes editorial cartoonists and editorial writers not as journalists, but as lobbyists, because he believes that they serve not to inform public opinion, but to sway legislators. Right. It has nothing to do with the cartoon of Gooch in a hot tub with two dudes.

By new Environmental Graffiti contributor Ben Ray. Ben is a freelance writer, check him out at What’s Required