Today’s editorial cartoon is inspired by Time Magazines cover story on what is known as Attachment Parenting and the controversial cover photo.  Here it is in case you missed it (Click image for a Time Q&A with the mom)

I guess this image has caused some controversy both from the side who think letting your almost 4 year old still breastfeed and the attachment parenting advocates who think that this does not show the nurturing aspects of the practice.  Forbes Magazine has a great round up of different articles on the subject.

So what are your thoughts??  Good idea, bad?  How long should a kid sleep in the same bed as their parents and/or breastfeed in your opinion?

Happy Mothers Day…in that honor I’ll share with you this ditty I posted on G+

Charity Challenge Update

Week 2 Breakdown:

$10 for Using ME in their Cartoon -

• Warren Frantz at Off Season Comic

$10 Blog about the Challenge

• Bo Lumpkin at Gatorhead
• Rachael Black at Yoyodine
• Red at Momma’s Money Matters
• Robert at Refrigerator Magnate
• George Ford at Addanac City
• Jande at Aedre’s Firefly

$5 Adding me to Blog Roll or Adding Banner

• Soma at Somkritya
• Cha at Dontchawannadream
• Sandee at Comedy Plus

$1 for ever new follower on Google Plus at http://googleplus.beartoons.com

359 NEW FOLLOWERS in a week.

Which gives us a week 2 total of ………$444 and a grand total of $926…Holy Crap I almost hit the goal.

PLUS:

I had 2 people donate money to Crayons2Computers in honor of Bearman Cartoons

Liz Krane - $25

Red – $25

So I will be matching those and last week’s donations with $105 of my own at the end of the month

Please let me know if I missed anyone and if you want to get involved click on the image below.

But even after joining, I didn’t become addicted.  I’ll check who has added me every so many days but much like Twitter, I don’t have much to say.  If I have something important to say, I tell people (or I write it here).

So now comes an article from Time Magazine that claims the one thing Facebook users share is lower grades.

The study, which will be presented at the annual meeting of the American Education Research Association on April 16, surveyed 219 undergraduate and graduate students and found that GPAs of Facebook users typically ranged a full grade point lower than those of nonusers — 3.0 to 3.5 for users versus 3.5 to 4.0 for their non-networking peers. It also found that 79% of Facebook members did not believe there was any link between their GPA and their networking habits. (See the 50 best websites of 2008.)

Karpinski says she isn’t surprised by her findings but clarifies that the study does not suggest that Facebook directly causes lower grades, merely that there’s some relationship between the two factors. “Maybe [Facebook users] are just prone to distraction.

Now of course what catches my eye is how stupid are the researchers.  20 million facebook users and their sample size is only 219.    Now let’s say the researchers where just referring to the population of Ohio State University Students (60,000), the would need almost 400 students in their sample to make it more accurate.  But I go off on my statistics rant.

The Daily Cartoonist reports that Association of American Editorial Cartoonists president Ted Rall has now penned an even stronger letter to Newsweek Magazine for their picks of Best cartoons of 2008.

a. Rall seems more irritated that Newsweek would continue to print “safe” cartoons rather than controversial or more thought provoking. But this is an argument to make about all the cartoons they run throughout the year not just their “best of” because,
b. Newsweek seemed to only pick from what cartoons they ran during the year so it only seems right that those would be the choices.
c. With all the cartoonists being put out of work, isn’t it nice someone is still printing anyone’s work?

The article doesn’t link to Newsweek’s choices so I am providing it here.

Newsweek Magazine Best Cartoons of 2008

Michael Cavna of the Washington Post thinks that the selection was made with their eyes closed. And Association of American Editorial Cartoonists president Ted Rall even fired off a letter to Time Magazine showing his own disgust saying “In 2008 hundreds of brilliant political cartoonists produced thousands of hard-hitting, thought-provoking and hilarious cartoons…and all you could come up with was this phoned-in crap?”

Now looking through the Time list, I would have to agree that most of the selections I wouldn’t include in a top 100 of my own list. And this is coming from someone who thinks his own stuff is mediocre at best.

But I find it amusing how invested people get in others “Best of” lists. Someone even suggested that the AAEC create their own best of list.

Here is how I responded:

“what I was thinking was to submit a list of the 10 best editorial cartoons to Huffpost.�

And what makes you think your picks would be any less biased? Any top 10 list I have ever seen is full of crap and obviously biased or not well thought out. I just read Entertainment Weekly where they list the “Top Ten Most Notable Events of 2008″ Three of them are movie premieres. Seriously, the premiere of Sex and the City is one of the top ten of 2008?

Even if you post nominees and have people vote, what you end up with is still not the best. ie. Just because someone wins American Idol doesn’t make them the best singer in the competition.

Maybe it’s that people get hung up on the terminology that if someone creates a best of list that it is absolute and therefore insulting to anyone not on the list. Instead, maybe you create a post of “Ten Editorial Cartoons of 2008 that I Liked Best�

Maybe instead of Best of Lists, people should start creating Worst of Lists. I can’t see anyone complaining that they didn’t make the list.