The original plan for this week’s column was to be as snarky as possible. However, the death of a beloved fur-nephew (/fur-son; his mama called me his other mom) over the weekend brought me pause (rest in peace, sweet Tomkin).

Tomkin, though, wouldn’t want me to dim my light any more than he would want his human parents to dim theirs. In his honor, I’ll try to muddle through with some answers to questions from readers. Dear Tom-Tom, may you have all the warm garden spots, chest time and head bumps you want.

📬 Why haven’t you printed my letter, you [expletive deleted]?

Whoa! Do you kiss your mama with that mouth? I would hope that you don’t treat all women this way.

Anyway, most likely, there might be problems such as these (most of which are outlined in the policybox that appears every day on the Voices page): You didn’t sign your letter or respond to requests for your name and town (no anonymous or pseudonymous letters); you used profanity or obscenity; you’re not from Arkansas; you sent something far too long (our northwest edition takes longer letters from northwest Arkansas residents only, but for the statewide edition, try to keep letters to around 300 words, which is about what fits in roughly 7 inches of column space); you sent in something about a personal, legal or business dispute (which is a huge can of worms legally, since we have only your side); you libeled someone or stated something as fact that isn’t objectively true (there is leeway for opinion, but you have to be careful how you state something; attribution of something to its source can help); you encouraged violence; you name-called a specific reader/letter-writer (there’s leeway for general groups of people, and for public figures such as elected officials, within reason); you sent a form letter, poetry, copyrighted material, etc.; you sent in a handwritten letter that was illegible; you insisted that your letter not be edited (everything is edited, and everyone needs an editor); you sent in something too soon after your last letter or guest column was printed (30 days is the established cooling-off period); etc. It could also be that you might need to learn some patience, like the guy upset over the weekend that I hadn’t printed his letter sent Friday afternoon, after all the pages through Monday were put to bed. We don’t work on the weekends like the news folks, so don’t expect a quick turnaround, nor are we obligated to put in every letter you send, and bullying behavior won’t endear you to anyone.

Yes, liberal letters are fact-checked just as much as conservative letters, and there have been times I’ve wondered of both sides just where they’re getting these things. Wanna help? Send me your sources, because if I have to spend too long trying to find something, it’ll be cut out and/or I’ll move on to the next letter. Remember, I’m the only one processing the letters, and when outrages accelerate (note to new years: please stop saying, “hold my beer” to the preceding years), there’s only so much I can do.

😵‍💫 Why are you such a radical left-wing nutbag?

Uhhhh … my mom and my church raised me to care about other people. If that’s radical left-wing nutbaggery, Jesus, Dale Bumpers, John Paul Hammerschmidt, Dwight Eisenhower, and a whole host of people with whom I share beliefs would like a word. Besides, I’m moderate in my views (which range from conservative to liberal depending on the issue: fiscal issues, conservative; social issues, somewhat liberal), as are the majority of people. But the people on the fringes are louder, convincing some of them that their aural volume makes them the majority.

A reminder: “Radical” refers to something extreme, which in real-world politics means the fringes, which are not and never have been the majority. Please stop categorizing everyone slightly to the left or right of you as “radical” because in most instances they’re not; more than likely, they reside somewhere in the center. Is the center, where we tend to weigh things more seriously beyond partisan labels, really radical?

Gallup’s last poll on partisan affiliation showed a new record of 45 percent of people surveyed identifying as independent (such as me, always and forever), with 27 percent each identifying either as Republican or Democrat. Gallup wrote: “In most years since Gallup began regularly conducting its polls by telephone in 1988, independents have been the largest political group. However, the independent percentage has increased markedly in the past 15 years, typically registering 40 percent or higher, a level not reached prior to 2011.” In addition, Democratic-leaning independents have increased by the same amount Republican-leaning independents have decreased (gosh, can’t imagine what might have precipitated that …). Whether that translates into change in Arkansas is anyone’s guess, especially as we are, in John Brummett’s words, “cussedly independent.”

In saner times, the members of the two major parties in Arkansas weren’t all that far apart philosophically, and could easily work together in most instances because they understood that Arkansas politics weren’t national politics. Now, though, it’s like the other side has cooties (forgive me for using that example, but the way politicians act now is increasingly juvenile, soooo …).

😐 Why don’t you have any conservative columnists?

Uhhhhh … what paper are you reading? The Voices page has Dana Kelley (very conservative), Rex Nelson (longtime conservative/center right) and Bradley Gitz (libertarian/conservative) in addition to John Brummett (center left), Tommy Foltz (center left) and Philip Martin (left). There’s also Steve Straessle, but he doesn’t really show a political leaning, and myself, who has never been affiliated with any party. On the editorial page, most of the syndicated columnists we run are conservative (George Will, Bret Stephens, David Brooks, Cal Thomas, etc.) with the occasional Michelle Goldberg thrown in there, as well as local columns from Nelson and Robert Steinbuch (very conservative/Federalist Society). Plus, our editorials skew to the right.

So again, what paper are you reading?

📨 Why are the majority of the letters printed liberal?

The main reason they seem to track more liberal (though the bulk are moderate/liberal-leaning) is because those are the majority of the letters we receive (and can you really blame those writers for having an opinion on the state of the nation?); we can’t print what we don’t get. This isn’t a problem just at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, but across the country (other letters editors have reported the same critique, but we don’t control who sends us letters. Some have suggested quota systems, but they don’t conform to the reality that fewer conservative people write letters to us overall; we have to work with what we have, and sometimes, that’s gonna be a lot of criticism of Republicans in power, especially in instances like the president’s posturing over Greenland, Arkansas’ disaffiliation with PBS, the governor trying to push through a prison at an unsuitable site for far more than estimated, etc. If it were Democrats doing these things, you can be sure Republicans would be writing in about them.

I don’t care where you fall on the political spectrum; as long as you follow the rules, I’ll print your letter if I can. I’ll also chuckle every time you call a longtime conservative writer a flaming liberal because they’re not MAGA (seriously, Rex Nelson has worked in multiple Republican administrations and campaigned for Republicans, but because he’s not MAGA you denigrate him???).

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Writing a column opens you up to all sorts of attacks, ranging from fair (didn’t mention such-and-such, though we still have word limits because we do a replica edition, and we just can’t mention everything; no one really wants to read endless rambling … the people who like to make comments such as this are usually anonymous commenters with apparently no experience in news or column writing/editing) to outrageous (claiming things that were never said or done by the writer and others, libel, borderline and outright threats, etc.).

But the ones that always amuse me are those that no reasonable person could look at and say, “Well, that’s a valid point.” Tomkin is looking at that person right now (that’d be the dude once known as General Mac on the newspaper’s comment board) who equates someone saying “fur-nephews,” “fur-nieces,” “furkids” and the like with bestiality. (And by the way, dude, all these pics are just for you!)

Pretty sure our sweet Tomkin just rolled his eyes from kitty heaven. Good boy.