I am disgusted with the opinion page cartoon by syndicated artist Jeff Stahler in the Saturday, Oct. 14, edition which made light of smokey wine from Napa. It was extremely distasteful and displayed a complete lack of discretion and compassion. The fire events in the Napa and Sonoma wine country are a worse-case scenario that will take at least a generation or more from which to recover.

In my close to 40 years of working in the wine industry, I not only feel humbled at the loss and devastation for my wine brethren, but also with the horrific loss of property and life in the general population of the affected area.

With 40 confirmed deaths, hundreds of people still missing, 200,000 acres scorched, 3,500 homes and businesses gutted, massive loss of wildlife, entire towns evacuated, interruption of the world’s fourth largest wine economy (producing close to $60 billion in direct and related revenue) — at the very least there will be a temporary loss of thousands of jobs and a chaotic ripple effect in the revenue and supply line which extends all the way to Maine and the rest of the world.

There is absolutely nothing humorous about any of that.

Audie Conrad, Auburn