Bloom County blooms anew online
NEW YORK – Opus the Penguin and his comic strip world of “Bloom County,” absent for a quarter-century, are back along with the ridiculous times that suit them, creator Berkeley Breathed said.
The popular character from “Bloom County” made an unexpected appearance in a strip posted Monday on Facebook by Breathed. In it, Opus awakens after what he discovers was a 25-year nap.
In an email, Breathed said the time is right to revive “Bloom County.”
“Bloom County operated on far less bile than people suspected, and far more whimsical effervescence. The last two decades were not the most conducive to stirring the latter,” he said. “Ridiculousness has settled in again, so it feels safe for a gentle penguin in Jockey briefs applying bikini wax.”
Obama commutes sentences for 46
WASHINGTON – Calling America “a nation of second chances,” President Barack Obama cut the prison sentences of 46 non-violent drug offenders on Monday in what the White House hopes will be just one prong of a broader push to make the criminal-justice system fairer while saving the government money.
Fourteen of those whose sentences were commuted had been sentenced to life in prison and the vast majority to at least 20 years, the president said in a video released by the White House, adding that “their punishments didn’t fit the crime.”
“These men and women were not hardened criminals,” he said, promising to lay out more ideas on criminal justice changes during a speech to the NAACP on Tuesday in Philadelphia.
Since Congress enacted mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes in the 1980s, the federal prison population has grown from 24,000 to more than 214,000, according to Families Against Mandatory Minimums, a group seeking sentencing changes.
Associated Press
