IWA For Sunday November 26, 2006

Hey folks,

OK, here’s the truth. I’ve said this numerous times in the past. I would love to be able to do this for a living. I would love to be paid to do what I love to do. Write articles, talk to you folks. I have even written books in the past that I’ve never got publish, just because I had no idea how to go about it. Now that I'm older and wiser, maybe I'll try it again. So when I saw this, it really got to me.

This guy was doing what he loved to do. He was a cartoonist for Miami’s leading Spanish newspaper, EL Nuervo Herald. All he had to do was draw cartoons and tell little stories to make people laugh, think, whatever. Yet he throws it all away.

According to this version of the story in the,

The Washington Post-"Cartoonist Held After Siege at Miami Paper"

"MIAMI, Nov. 24 -- Dressed in camouflage and brandishing what looked like a submachine gun, the cartoonist for this city's leading Spanish-language newspaper strode into the office of the top editor Friday morning and told startled staff, "I am the new executive editor, and that is my new office."

It was not a joke.


The demands of El Nuevo Herald cartoonist José Varela to see the editor, with whom he had unspecified grievances over ethics and what he told police were censorship issues, set off a tense 3 1/2 -hour standoff at the offices of the Spanish newspaper and the Miami Herald, which share a six-story building on the northern outskirts of downtown. Executive Editor Humberto Castelló was not in."

Sorry but there are better ways to deal with censorship.

"He said, 'Just bring me the editor,' " said Gus Perez, director of operations for the newspapers, who confronted Varela on the sixth floor. "He said, 'I have 30 rounds.' I said, 'I'm really asking you to point that at the floor,' and he did."

Now according to this article, this was a toy gun and noone was ever really in danger.

"He apparently was disgruntled by some ethics issues and the "way the newspaper was being run," Ordonez said. "He's an intelligent man, and he realized this was not appropriate behavior."

According to the Miami Herald, Varela spoke disjointedly. "You are speaking with the new director of the newspaper, and I'm here to unmask the true conflicts in the newspaper," the newspaper quoted Varela as saying. "They laugh at exiles here. There are problems with payment.""

After three and a half hours it was over. Noone was injured and Mr. Varela was charged with three counts of aggravated assault with a firearm and was being held on $22,500 bond.

This guy is just plain nuts. He lost his mind. All his job was, was to draw and make people laugh, and he goes in and does this? With a plastic gun? I understand problems in the work place. TRUST me when I tell you that. But this is not the way to solve them.

Congratulations Mr. Varela, you ARE the Idiot of the Week. Maybe you should have just stuck to cartoons.
Peter