By Tracy Dingmann

I try to be fairly circumspect when I’m writing posts about the noteworthy things I see in the Albuquerque Journal. I try to tie my criticism – or praise – to some kind of constructive journalistic principle I’ve picked up over my 20 years of writing for newspapers. That’s really the whole purpose of this blog.

But today, I’m gonna just have to throw a tantrum.

What the hell was with that cartoon on the editorial page Sunday???

It managed to stand out as especially bad, even outshining the guest column printed above it in which a reader rather unimaginatively bashed President Obama and Gov. Bill Richardson for their opposition to a controversial Arizona law on immigration and, in a FOX News–type rant, vowed to vote against “Richardson clone” Lt. Gov. Diane Denish and “Nancy Pelosi’s waterboy” Rep. Martin Heinrich. Classy.

Anyway – back to the cartoon. It accompanied a guest editorial by yet ANOTHER “adjunct fellow” of the right-wing, free-market Rio Grande Foundation (the Journal seems to have an endless stream of “scholars” from this group churning out guest opinion pieces for the paper). Check out what we’ve written about that here.

The column, “Success for N.M. Minority Students Lies With Adults,” caught my eye because, well, I am a “minority” and my children are “minority students.” (Such a quaint word, minorities – and apparently still sanctioned for un-ironic use by the Associated Press Stylebook! What does the term really mean in New Mexico and the four other states where non-whites are in the majority? I don’t know).

So apparently the author, Dr. Matthew Ladner, of the Goldwater Institute in Arizona, knows what is best for all “minority” students. (I’ll keep it short: His solution has something to do with Florida, which is also, apparently, another state that is tasked with educating large numbers of “minorities.”)

Ladner’s column actually included this heart-stopping bit of information: “The kids, even the poor and minority kids can learn (sic).”

As a parent of little brown kids, I can’t believe how great that makes me feel! And what an inspiration it is for all of the other “minorities” reading his column in the Journal!

Seriously – does it even occur to the Journal that this kind of writing could be considered offensive?

I guess not, because the Journal chose to pair this guest column with a truly odious syndicated cartoon that managed to slam “minority” students, teachers and…I guess, just for fun, those crazy environmentalists, too.

The cartoon showed little black kid babbling to his parents about how his teachers told him that his parents could save the polar bears by riding their bikes to work. Then the parents ask the kid a question and he reveals himself to be incapable of adding 10 plus 10.

Har har har! Oh, those Journal editors must have been slapping their knees over that trifecta. These are same folks who think Argus Hamilton is hilarious. (Note to the Journal – it is possible to be “politically incorrect” and still funny. Argus isn’t. Funny, I mean. At all. )

What the hell is going on over there? Do Journal editors really think this crap is funny?

I’m tired of trying to analyze it.

Tantrum over.

Thanks for listening, everybody!