Birdbrained

The natural habitat for editorial cartoonists is a gloomy forest of bleak news, which we share with an ever-evolving population of invasive and evasive species: kudzu-like deficits, reptilian public servants, creepy-crawly world leaders and all manner of bottom-line feeders. We digest a diet of depressing stories about environmental ruin, war, famine, pestilence, energy shortages and testimony from the Michael Jackson trial.

As illustrated here, we also keep a wary eye on a number of birds of prey, including the Right-Winged Buckpassers, Wall Street Fundsuckers and both the Iranian and North Korean species of Warheaded Worldwreckers.

On rare delightful occasions, a miraculous interloper appears: an undeniably positive news event, like last month’s announcement in Arkansas of the rediscovery of ivory-billed woodpeckers, a species thought to be extinct for 60 years. But we’re always able to adapt and put a negative spin on it. It comes instinctively to us Jaundiced Naysayers.