Wildcats plagued by inconsistent plays

One thing that Friday’s article “”‘Cats trying to climb in Pac-10″” fails to address is the inconsistency of the Wildcats this year. They blow out the first two teams, which was expected since both of those teams only have four wins on the year combined between the two. Then they have downfalls against teams that they are “”supposed to win”” granted New Mexico and Stanford. They are also good wins against UCLA and Cal. I can recall watching the first half of the Oregon by looking at the defense and saying, “”Are they letting them score?”” It is absolutely awful to give up 45 points in a game, let alone in a half.

But it is not just the defense, it’s the whole team. The offense in the second half against the Trojans was like watching a tentative and scared puppy. Granted, USC is one of the best teams in the country, but I bet if you run a wide receiver screen every third down and long against Idaho, they will eventually be able to stop it.

What needs to happen is both the offense and the defense need to come out on the same page and clicking against Oregon State. Hey, what do the Wildcats have to lose? Nothing. They should play the way they played against Oregon minus the first half. Hopefully they can come out strong at home, not give up more than 40 points in the first half and play offense they way they played in the second half against Oregon, and make an upset against the No. 21 team in the land and improve their bowl seeding. Go Wildcats!

Matt Devine
pre-business freshman

Correspondent missed point of comic strip

In response to Michael A. Schaffner’s letter from the Mailbag on Nov. 18, I’m appalled by his interpretation of my “”Dibbs”” comic strip on Nov. 12 as being “”hate-filled”” (“”Palin cartoon shows some ‘hate filled’ comics OK””). Apparently he missed another series based on Gov. Sarah Palin going after Sandy the bear (Oct. 21 through Oct. 24), which depicts Palin’s support and promotion of aerial hunting on wolves in Alaska. Sandy retaliates against Palin’s likeness of hunting animals by repeating Palin’s previous action on Sandy. I’m not a fan of animal hunting, which is the motivation to this particular strip that depicts the clash between Palin and the animal.

I had no idea of what were to be published in the Daily Wildcat for that day, and this strip happened to run simultaneously with the cause of Stop The Hate, and unfortunately some people, like Schaffner, interpreted that as a form of hypocrisy run by the newspaper itself. I’m keenly aware of the fact that not everyone will understand each comic strip, including my own, and that everyone interprets it differently.

Sandy is one of the major characters in the “”Dibbs”” comic series. She is portrayed as a seemingly innocent guardian angel of Dibbs, the main character, when in fact she have a satirical and flawed side, for which I exploited for humor. Because of being an animal (and being invisible, only seen by Dibbs and Palin), she took full advantage of the technology created by human beings. Thus she was able to access to eBay and buy a gun to retaliate against Palin for trying to hunt her down in the earlier strips. I wanted to create a rivalry between Sandy and Palin, because a clash between an actual person to a fictional character is always entertaining.

I do realize how people would actually react if an animal hunted down a human being. Yet no one had responded or complained against the particular strip of Palin attempting to hunt down Sandy from a helicopter (Oct. 21). One of the more well-known television cartoon series that depicts hunting an animal was shown by Warner Bros., where Elmer Fudd constantly hunted Bugs Bunny. Yet Elmer was never able to succeed in shooting down Bugs Bunny. The same thing happened when Palin attempted to hunt down Sandy, only to fail, and yet Sandy chased after Palin, but no death ever happened. The portrayal of an animal retaliating against a human being comes off as a form of deviation, which is actually funny.

It’s not hate. The rivalry has a deeper meaning of the struggle between modern human nature and Mother Nature. Sandy represents the billions of animals worldwide that were hunted down as prizes or removal for human development. While most people are used to animal hunting and deem it as normal, it’s never normal to me.

B. Mitchell Gingras
pre-business senior

Columnist fails to deliver style, substance

Taylor Kessinger’s column on Monday was an ill-conceived, awkward and painfully drawn-out endeavor to bash Mormons for their support of traditional marriage amendments (“”Mormonism the next threat to traditional marriage,”” Nov. 24, 2008). Never have I read an article that manages to clumsily trip over its own attempts at sarcasm in a more ridiculous manner.

And, unfortunately, it’s not just a question of style versus substance. Kessinger’s column was bankrupt on both counts. I only have one question: Where were the editors?

Tim Richards
planning graduate