Every year the Oregonian re-evaluates the content of its comics page(s). After requesting feedback from readers, the editors inevitably kick out a few bland, inoffensive strips in order to replace them with all new bland, inoffensive strips. On the proposed chopping block this time around are Sylvia, Judge Parker, Peanuts and...Cathy.

The decision to axe the first three make sense. Peanuts creator Charles Schultz passed away five years ago, Judge Parker is so long in the tooth it's hitting the floor and Sylvia, as even the editors point out, nobody likes Sylvia. Sylvia just plain sucks.

That's not to say Cathy hasn't worn out her welcome but at least her strip is relatively new. It debuted in '76, making it practically an infant in the land o' daily comics. With insufferable, older than dirt strips like Blondie, Hagar the Horrible and Hi and Lois still taking up valuable real estate with their repetitious gags, Cathy's slot and her water sprinkler-esque sweat pores should be secure until they're given the boot.

I'm not about to stage a hunger strike outside of the Oregonian's offices in defense of a comic strip I never read, especially one that will inevitably be replaced by another starring a sweat-soaked office worker, wacky Garfield knock-off or slightly dysfunctional but not too slightly dysfunctional family. In fact, I'm just as shocked as you are that I even wrote a post defending Cathy.

Is it too late to ask that the Oregonian finally start running the Boondocks? I thought so. This post should have ended before it began.

"ACCK!" indeed.