And, if you're headed for Amazon, please enter the site through the widget in the right rail (or here). It costs you nothing extra but gives this blog a commission.
12/04/2024
CSotD: Truth and Humor and Sometimes Both
The timing of this morning's Carpe Diem (KFS) got a laugh, because its commentary on computer security came hard on the heels of an article in Forbes, which said the FBI is warning people about texting from iPhones to Androids or vice-versa.
It seems Chinese intelligence has found a way to intercept these messages. Tulsi! Save us!
It's actually okay as long as your texts are encrypted, so that's a comfort, I guess.
But mostly it falls into my standing opinion that the more they gather, the more they have to process, and if Xi Jinping wants to know when I'm leaving for the dog park, he can intercept my text saying so and thus will fall Western Civilization and suchlike.
There are 1.43 billion people in China, and if they were all put to the task of sorting through the drivel we text to one another, they wouldn't have time to pose any other sort of threat.
Speaking of the dog park, these canine epicures in Bliss (Tribune) are behind the times: Tennis balls have become declassé in recent years, in part because they are so easily destroyed. My little pup can skin and split a tennis ball in minutes, and will, happily.
The ball of choice today is the Chuckit, which comes in many forms which have in common that (A) they are all but indestructible and (B) dogs like them so much that they are referred to at our park as "crack balls" on the theory that the Chinese manufacturers have added an addictive drug to the rubber.
Alex always goes on about bonuses at this time of year, and I don't know if that's because they're in Britain or because they're in the financial sector, but I only had one job at which I got a Christmas bonus, a $75 gift certificate at a local jewelers.
However, the trend to get workers back into the building is apparently universal, and I admire the logic of the youngster who has figured out that it costs more for him to commute than he'd get in his bonus. I also think that, if coming in to the office is voluntary, you should be able to write off that mileage on your taxes.
Of course, I also think you should be able to write off the cost of neckties and the IRS never seemed willing to bend on that, either.
The compensation there being that what you spend on neckties to wear for Zoom meetings, you recoup by not having purchase trousers.
Literary AlertMacanudo (KFS) is running Jaberwocky as a daily serial. He just started Monday, so you can catch up.
Juxtaposition of the Day
I saw an Elf on the Shelf display in a store yesterday and it once again occurred to me to wonder what sort of twisted, manipulative control freak would do that to a child?
My mother was traumatized to learn that Santa wasn't real, and her response as a parent was to let us believe but not to foster the fiction. When I asked how he got down the chimney -- since we didn't have a fireplace -- her response was "Well, what do you think?"
We were a little more directive with our boys, but when they figured it out, we laughed and celebrated it as a sign that they were smart and were growing up.
The kids in Grand Avenue are right: The whole thing is creepy and goes against the other cautions parents give kids.
And that cat deserves a nice piece of fresh salmon.
Yesterday, I placed Anselm in the Dark Ages, which someone corrected in the comments, because historians place him in the high middle ages.
I think the problem is that philosophy and art were not joined at the hip and what artists and musicians were doing was well beyond what theologians and scientists ("natural philosophers") were doing. So there were Dark Ages of Art and Dark Ages of Thought and they did not run in strict tandem.
By happenstance, Existential Comics provides a quick guide to Enlightenment metaphysics and its development and conflicts.
We studied Locke more as a political theorist, but I remember finding Spinoza refreshing in both his theories and his writing.
As for James, I get him confused with Charles Peirce, which I think is probably justifiable, but remember our seminar on one or the other degenerating into an argument about drawing cards and flipping coins.
Perhaps someone should have knocked our heads together.
Different kind of pragmatic philosophy in this Andertoons (AMS). I spent my 20s and 30s in Colorado, where most people were from somewhere else, so most people at a meeting had, at some point, thrown it all in the car and split. Solving a problem by starting all over was in their blood.
In my 40s, I moved to Northern New York, where most people were multi-generational natives. They sought to solve problems with the least change possible, because they were rooted like trees.
Both approaches can work, but, man, did I have to adapt my expectations!
Not laughin' at this David Horsey piece, despite my general loathing of bro culture.
But bro culture seems like a case of empty wagons making the most noise and providing the best copy for reporters and commentators, though if you flog it enough, young followers will pick it up.
I was, however, in a conversation the other day about the number of young successful businesswomen who marry college boyfriends who haven't got their acts together. They muddle along and then divorce approaching their 30s and often remarry successfully, but to someone also in mid-thirties and thus with two feet finally on the ground.
Juliet was engaged to Paris, who was considerably older and established, as was the practice in those days. I'd suggest that she'd have been more chattel than partner in the marriage, and that the point of the play is two young people head-over-heels in love. I don't believe either is a good choice.
"Marry in haste, repent at leisure" remains a wise saying, and I honestly think that, if more couples waited until they were both grown up, there wouldn't be so many 22-year-olds at the altar or 28-year-olds in divorce court.
11/16/2024
01/24/2024
CSotD: Fun with Franchises
So this happened yesterday. You might have seen something about it on TV.
They don't really ask that question, but Christopher Weyant has the situation pretty well in hand, because voting in primaries is more tactical than voting in regular elections.
That's particularly true in states with open primaries, like New Hampshire, and it goes back a long time: I voted in a primary in Colorado back in 1974 against a particularly toxic candidate in hopes of keeping him off the general ballot in November.
And it can happen in the general: My vote for George McGovern in '72 was a vote against Richard Nixon. I'd been a Muskie supporter and so by then I didn't have a candidate to vote for. But it was clear who was going to win and I just hoped to trim the mandate a little.
Though imagine how different our world would be if McGovern had won.
Steve Kelley (Creators) indicates that this was his first New Hampshire Primary. Someone should have taken him aside and assured him that, first of all, the NH Primary has always been deeply tactical and has always involved both independent and crossover voters.
And they might also have told him Will Rogers famous line, "I am not a member of any organized political party — I am a Democrat," though one would think it would be obvious anyway. And moreso in this case, since the national party was punishing us for following our state law by having our primary first.
The Democratic Party couldn't conspire to order a pizza.
Juxtaposition of the Day
Kallaugher posted his cartoon a few days before the primary; Danziger's appeared this morning, though likely drawn in advance, and both are predicated on a Trump victory.
The difference is that, despite Haley's defeat, Kallaugher may be closer to the significance of the outcome, because she didn't lose by that much, all things considered, and could remain in the race as a gadfly. I think Danziger is dismissing her too early, and, though she's not likely to defeat Trump for the nomination, she may do an effective job of outlining his shortcomings.
Robert Reich is overly optimistic about the meaning of yesterday's primary, but I agree with him that Trump is a long way from sewing up the general election in November.
While we wait to see, let's talk about something more pleasant.
Juxtaposition of the Day #2
I don't think the NFL is profiting at the moment from the fact that one of their biggest stars is dating one of music's biggest stars. TV revenues for football are already going through the roof at such a rate that the NFL is adding broadcast and streaming games, and, specifically, the Chiefs/Bills game set an audience record.
It wasn't because of people tuning in for a two-second shot of Trevor Kelsey's girlfriend in the stands.
And they sure weren't tuning in to see his big brother Jason rip off his shirt and bellow.
However, after he finished blocking the snoopy cameras from spying on little brother's GF, Jason went down into the stands below their skybox and lifted an eight-year-old Swifty up to the window so she could show Taylor her sign and get a smiling wave she will never forget.
It was a sweet gesture that went viral and the little girl ended up on the Today Show telling of her adventure.
It's a heart-melter anyway, and the sort of thing football fans would expect of the Kelce brothers, who are a class act, if a bit hirsute.
But Zyglis and Stahler could be right that, as irrelevant as the relationship may be to the game itself, it has an appeal to little girls who, not all that long ago, wouldn't have sports in their collection of interests. But times are changing and, for the past half century, girls have been putting their ponytails through the back of a baseball cap and tossing gym bags over their shoulders on the way to practice.
They didn't have commercials like this when I was a young impressionable kid. I wish they had. I wish our world had been more like that on a couple of levels.
As for football itself, I don't know that a lot girls will be attracted to playing the game, though there are already girls playing in high schools and women working as NFL referees, plus the NFL is actively promoting flag football, which will be an event at this year's Pro Bowl. They even had a brief exhibition flag game between two girls' champion teams at halftime of the Chiefs/Bills game. But it would be nice if they were like the girl in Stahler's cartoon and could spend an afternoon watching with dad.
The world contains a lot of things that simply never occurred to us.
By some sort of contrast, this is the world I grew up in. Vintage Buz Sawyer (KFS) is at the start of a new adventure, with Buz investigating suspected Russian spies checking out the new Polaris submarines.
Roy Crane was a good artist and terrific storyteller, but he was also very much a Cold War warrior who alternated light adventure stories with more political material like this. He wasn't alone; at roughly the same time, Efrem Zimbalist Jr was chummy with J. Edgar Hoover and his TV show, the FBI, was very positive about the work of J. Edgar and his people, who checked each episode before broadcast.
Not sure how effective it was, given the number of Republican leaders who grew up when I did, presumably read the same comics and watched the same shows, but are now on the side of the Russians in the Great Game.
For that matter, we all grew up watching The Untouchables, and Dave Whamond doesn't need to exaggerate to make his point: Donald Trump really did compare himself favorably to "the great Al Capone" and honestly was pleased to cite Sammy the Bull as a character witness.
Well, it's hard to predict how kids are going to turn out, which was the topic of the latest Sufi Comics, a source of wisdom I look forward to:
That last panel is a good example of Sufi wisdom: It sounds good but, like a lot of simple solutions, can be very hard to put into practice.
Still, we do what we can.
12/30/2023
CSotD: Year-End Clean Up
There's a lot of Year-End and New Year's material this weekend, most of it pretty much the same, so I went instead to Australia for Jess Harwood's take on the changeover, which I heartily endorse. Not only are the most well-adjusted happy people I know dogs, but nearly everyone I know in three dimensions is someone I've met at the dog park.
I intend to continue to debate big, important things and I certainly intend to vote, but I particularly intend to hang out with my dog and her friends and their humans.
And to go by the prayer of St. Francis to change what I can change, bear what I cannot change, and attempt to discern the difference, not because he was the patron saint of animals but because he was a good stoic.
The Nikki Haley cartoons are all over the place this morning, but I did all that yesterday and I believe both Bob Dylan and Satchel Paige about not looking back.
On the other hand, one shouldn't be too rigid and when Steve Brodner manages to drag both Margaret Mitchell and Carol Burnett into the debate, I'm not inclined to pretend he didn't.
This is a lovely way to say that, while she's loyal to her Confederate roots, she's also completely ridiculous. And that those two factors seem perfectly compatible.
I'm also not passing along "best of" pieces from overseas because so much of their best work for the past year was about their own national news.
So don't look at Ben Jennings' piece because you won't recognize everyone in it.
Or just look at the ones you do recognize.
Or dig the whole thing because it's so well done.
Your call.
I'm also skipping all the cliched "Old 2023 and Baby 2024" cartoons, except that I'm passing along Jeff Danziger (Counterpoint)'s because he's managed to rise above the usual and make it not only relevant but even touching.
It sums up my overall attitude that I know I can't do much to change things, but I can't just sit back and watch, either.
And I'm sorry if you think I'm antisemitic because I don't approve of firing on clearly marked UN relief vehicles driving negotiated routes or picking off Christian women in churchyards or killing people who wave white flags and cry out for help in your own language.
If you want a balanced look at what's happening in Gaza, Ann Telnaes has collated the work of two cartoonists there, one Israeli and one Palestinian, and here's a link to her thoughtful, on-the-spot coverage.
It's very much worth your while and I've used a gift link so you needn't fret over the WashPo's paywall. Go have a look.
We'll feature another political/New Year's piece, this from Lalo Alcaraz at La Cucaracha (AMS), and, like Danziger, he's managed to take the Baby New Year cliche and turn it into something relevant and thought-provoking.
I'd note, BTW, that for all the rightwing bloviating about an open border, the Biden administration has indeed been in negotiations to tighten things up. But Mexican president Lopez-Obrador suggested we extend some aid and recognition to Cuba and Venezuela in particular and Central America in general so that people might be better able to stay home.
Which would depend on a Republican majority that claims they want to get a handle on this issue, but seems more fixated on walls and punishment than on effective cures.
And a tip of the hat to Tom the Dancing Bug for pointing out that the first step to solving problems is to face them, which is why we haven't solved all that many problems in this session of Congress.
It's been hard for the past several months for cartoonists who rely on exaggeration and satire, because the Freedom Caucus is beyond either, but Ruben Bolling scores here. It would be nice if, in the coming year, our legislators could quit competing to be more absurd than the cartoonists.
But I ain't gonna stand on one foot waiting for that to happen.
Man Overboard brings us back to this past week's holiday with a reminder of why it's doubtful policy to lie to your children.
It's entirely possible to take a Jeffersonian view of God and Jesus and such, admitting you don't know everything and accepting certain aspects of the story as folklore while still accepting the moral teachings. But saying so in public can get you in plenty of trouble, because there are a lot of people who live in a dual reality in which looking up reveals stars and galaxies on the one hand, and angels with harps on the other.
And who want to embed that quality in our government.
When I was a kid, we had a book of stories about saints, and, in the introduction, the author explained that some of the stories were of things that didn't actually happen, but the point was that they could have happened, if God had wanted them to.
Which I bring up in connection with this xkcd because one of the more folkloric saints was Patrick, who certainly did a lot of preaching and monastery-establishing in Ireland but didn't actually drive out the snakes. Though he would have, if God had wanted him to.
But when I read this cartoon this morning, it occurred to me that Iceland probably popped up out of the ocean relatively late in the game, just as Ireland did. So I did some Googling and, sure enough, there are no snakes in Iceland, either.
Though I suppose there would be, if God had wanted them to be there.
FWIW, my favorite folkloric story about Padraig is that he was baptizing one of Ireland's Norse immigrants and stuck his crozier in the ground to free up his hands, after which he realized he'd jammed it through the fellow's foot. He apologized profusely, but the Viking said it was okay and that he had just assumed it was part of the ceremony.
Which is more believable than the stuff about snakes.
Finally today, Cornered (AMS) offers a year-end reflection on life and mortality and suchlike.
Mostly, it offers a prompt for a good song from a truly great singer and composer who once worked with my second-favorite Richard Thompson.
12/29/2023
CSotD: Knaves, fools and dropped balls
This first bit of folly may be yours.
Kirk Walters offers a variation on a familiar end-of-December theme: The crush of Christmas bills that arrive in the new year.
But unike Ramadan or Hannukah, Christmas doesn't wander around the calendar and pop up at unexpected times. It's always December 25 and New Year's is always January 1 and as the man said, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, won't get fooled again." Or something.
That Walters builds the crushing ball out of credit cards is appropriate, because a few generations ago, it was much harder to spend what you didn't have. You could put things on layaway, but that only saved them for you in a storeroom. You still had to come up with the money before you could take them home and put them under the tree.
Banks also used to have Christmas Clubs, where you deposited a small amount each week so that, by the holidays, you had enough saved up for presents. If they still offer this service, they don't promote it like they used to. (Ignoring the fact that you always had the option of saving in a regular account, a piggy bank or a coffee can. But the Christmas Club added a sense of obligation, I suppose.)
But the advent (no pun intended) of credit cards in the past century made it easier to spend money you didn't have and, in fact, never really would have. A benefit for consumers but a much larger benefit for merchants and banks.
Mencken said "No one in this world, so far as I know—and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me—has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people."
Or, one might add, their ability to budget. And while "It's a Wonderful Life" is uplifting and all, you really can't count on your friends and neighbors pitching in to bail you out when things go cattywumpus.
That's the microeconomics point of view. The macro view is a little more complex:
Lisa Benson (Counterpoint) is apparently of the opinion that Joe Biden is lying about the economy. There are some economists who are predicting a real recession in 2024, but they're a distinct minority, and a reminder of the old wisecrack that, if you laid every economist in the country end to end, they wouldn't reach a conclusion.
The consensus is that the economy is doing pretty well, certainly better than expected. There could be a slight shudder in the New Year, in part because there always is and in part because we're still shaking out from the pandemic and from global inflation. But very few experts are concerned and there is, if not a giddy sense of anticipation, at least a calm attitude towards the year ahead.
Oh, and as most of the US looks out at bare ground this Christmas, the Weather Channel's incoming major system is barely predicted to deposit enough snow to cover the ground.
If you want to find a problem with the economy, you might check with your local ski hill:
I don't know that "the weather's fine," but around here it's only a slight drizzle, and we don't have to shovel that.
Juxtaposition of the Day
Luckovich gets a laugh out of Nikki Halley's absurd answer to the question of what caused the Civil War, while Murphy is horrified at her ignorant dismissal of the "peculiar institution" over which 750,000 Americans died and for which countless men, women and children suffered.
It was a question she should have been able to swat over the centerfield wall for a home run. As has been said by her critics, it's not a matter of opinion: South Carolina gave the preservation of slavery as the first and foremost reason for their secession, and teaching that is now mandated in their school curricula.
Halley is now complaining that the questioner was a Democrat intending to set her up, but, first of all, if she becomes president, she'll meet all sorts of Democrats, not just on Capitol Hill but everywhere in America. Second, it might have been a "gotcha" question, but the easy, obvious answer would have earned her points with the opposition. As it is, her answer confirmed the opinion that the Party of Lincoln has been transformed into a white supremacist organization.
The truly bizarre part being that there was some hope that Halley would leapfrog over Trump and offer voters a conservative-but-not-insane candidate in November.
She not only damaged her chance of overtaking him, but the hope that she'd prove more acceptable if she did.
Juxtaposition of the Day #2
The posters used to say "War is good business: Invest your son!" but these days, people who want wider wars can send both their sons and daughters to the battlefield.
If not in Europe after Kyev falls, perhaps we can return to the Middle East for a return engagement there.
Meanwhile, the idea that the US is doing nothing about Houthi attacks on merchant shipping in the Red Sea requires staying away from the news entirely, while saying that we're not doing enough seems like a desire to see more open warfare involving American troops.
There are experts who want the US to step it up, but that's a matter of going from knocking down rockets to hitting launch sites, and we're about an inch away from that escalation.
But just as sending a few troops over to topple the Taliban or to root out Saddam was not as easy as the chickenhawks assumed it would be, the options in this case, with its roots in the Israel/Hamas violence, are equally tangled and perilous.
And, BTW, we did hit back at Iranian forces. I know: Details, details.
But to suggest that we're doing nothing is not simply ignorant but an insult to the American troops already engaged.
But, gosh golly, it's still Christmas time, and Tim Campbell (Counterpoint) reminds us that we should continue to celebrate our Lord's birthday in the proper mood for which our leader, a stable genius, has provided a good, Christian example in which I think he was quoting his favorite book of the Bible, Galoshes 2.
It truly is a Wonderful Life!
07/23/2018
CSotD Part MMMXC -- A New Beginning
Adjust your bookmark, because the blog is moving in order to become a feature on The Daily Cartoonist, a site newly re-energized with the addition of DD Degg, whom some of you will know from rec.arts.comics.strips.
I hope you'll stick with the shift. I'm going to continue to blog daily and the only major change should be more exposure and more readers.
Meanwhile, in the interests of transparency, it will, unless it goes delightfully viral, replace and slightly surpass my Amazon link income, but I still have a couple of dozen coffee mugs, so please don't be shy. (Details above)
And I'll see you over there, every morning by 9 Eastern.
07/22/2018
A potpourri of the unneeded
My town has been replacing an outmoded sewer system, which will improve the cleanliness of the Connecticut River but has played hob with trying to get from one place to another, since it involves very large pipes under very important streets.
This has given me many opportunities not only to contemplate how they could have done it better but the times I've had to listen to people go on and on about projects and particular jobs that could have been done better. Like the esteemed and very important J. Barnard Pillsbury in today's Barney & Clyde, their expertise comes mainly from not knowing how the job works.
I don't know how far back the term "sidewalk superintendent" goes, but the more visible your work, the more you can count on getting advice from people who don't, as Clyde suggests, explain all the experience they have had doing your job.
So they complain about "shovel leaners," which might mean they've never used a shovel and honestly think you can keep it up from 8 to 5 with only a half-hour break for lunch, or they can't see that the guys are waiting for the pipefitter in the bottom of the trench to finish his specialized job so they can fill in the trench.
And that pipefitter then has to stand around waiting for the next chance to do his job because you can't just drop people off the clock and send them home for the moments they aren't needed.
Construction isn't the only place you can watch and comment, though it's one of the most clear-cut examples.
Meanwhile, one of my favorite things about being a business reporter was getting to tour factories and get the inside skinny on how they do things, especially if you were doing it with someone like Susan Collins or Gerry Ferraro, who swung enough weight that, if they wanted to stop and get a particular worker's view on how things were going, well, that's what we did.
Sen.Collins, by the way, grew up in Caribou, Maine, as the daughter of a prominent family, but it was one that owned a building supply company, which added a blue-collar tone to her POV, while, like all the other kids in Aroostook back before automation took over, her school shut down during the potato harvest and everyone went out and got some dirt under their nails quite literally.
She didn't offer a lot of advice on factory tours, but she sure asked some interesting questions.
Pajama Diaries hits on an issue very much alive (no pun intended) for people of my generation in a sort of sandwich way -- we're coping with our own parents' mortality, and starting to consider sparing our kids the same process.
It starts with downsizing. I've been empty-nested for decades and currently have a livingroom, bedroom, kitchen and bath, so there won't be a lot of furniture.
Most of what my kids will have to sort through is old clippings. If I were some literary tyro, the researchers would want it all for their doctorates but I suspect the outcome in my case is that a half dozen major pieces will remain for great-grandchildren to puzzle over and the rest needs to go.
And my progeny can be grateful that the old man was a writer and not a sculptor.
Things to read that I didn't write
Speaking of the boxes of clips I've got under my bed, this Graeme MacKay panel is a commentary on recycling limitations, and, while it is specific to the Hamilton, ON, area, what he describes is happening in a lot of places.
Recycling used to be kind of complex and not many people did it, and then it got super-easy and everyone was doing it and now a lot of places are re-thinking whether "easy" was an approach that works.
It's not plain to me whether China's rejection of dubious recyclables is true economic necessity or part of the gathering trade war, but even before that, I heard pushback on no-sort recycling.
To start with, you can't recycle pizza boxes because they're greasy, and that's just the tip of the list of things you shouldn't put in the rollout bin. But even people who know that can accidentally leave a little beer in the bottom of bottle, the spillage of which will contaminate any paper or cardboard and make it unusable.
And, if you know all that, it doesn't matter because your neighbor doesn't, so his unsorted recyclables will make yours unusable.
Having to rinse things out, remove labels and check the numbers on the bottoms of the plastic things was a pain in the ass that meant only a small number of people bothered. But the stuff they recycled could be recycled.
We're close to a situation where we're just sending out two garbage trucks, one that knows it's full of garbage and one that pretends it isn't.
MacKay lays it out in more detail. As for the cartoon, I love the phrase "feel-good social engineering," and I support recycling, except for the extent to which it destroys my faith in the trainability of hairless apes.
Plus this:
I featured this Bizarro the other day, and in his current weekly wrap-up, Wayno goes into some detail about its inspiration.
I don't know what the second album I bought was, but the first was the Yardbirds' "For Your Love," in 1965, and I bought "Sgt. Pepper" along with "Fresh Cream" and "Absolutely Free," on my way to college, six months before "We're Only In It For the Money" was released.
So I'm not any hipper than Wayno, just a little older.
Anyway, he's right that The Chrome Plated Megaphone of Destiny is probably not the moment of zen to unload upon an unprepared audience, and I like his alternate offering which does not require familiarity with Kafka.
And, being older, here's something from my first album, which does not require familiarity with Eric Clapton, but it's how we first met him (and Jeff Beck):
07/21/2018
Picking up the pieces
So yesterday's debacle included a crash that lost two hours of work and then, when I started up again, some second wave of technical gremlins that brought things to a quick exit because I had a meeting to get to.
"Gremlins," that is, not to be confused with "Femlins," one of whom appears in Andy Marlette's latest cartoon.
I've been so tied up with work for the last few days that I can't comment on this latest thing, except that if the tapes don't show that he actually shot someone on Fifth Avenue, I can't imagine how they'll derail Trump at this stage, since -- as far as I know -- he's never denied the payments under oath, so there's no perjury, and revealing that Donald Trump is a liar is, well, not much of a revelation.
Nor is revealing that he's an adulterer or a tomcat or whatever. Keep it straight, folks: The Nixon tapes tied him to a criminal conspiracy. Clinton was not impeached for adultery but for lying about it under oath. Neither of these apply here.
Marlette has it right: It's an embarrassment.
But even that has to be understood in light of the President's inability to be embarrassed.
We've got a lot of questions yet to be answered, but I think we all know the answer to "At long last, have you no sense of shame?"
Next question?
What I had realized before I hit the road and got busy was that Trump was becoming hard to satirize because not only is he shameless, but he has been operating at a level of erratic, inexplicable malfunction that you can't really exaggerate for comic effect.
Dan Perkin's remark (worth reading again) that, rather than a source of constant inspiration, Trump is like asking for a glass of water and getting hit in the face with a fire hose is often quoted, but I think Mike Luckovich's current lineup of cartoons he didn't bother drawing illustrates the actual difficulty.
First of all, how do you exaggerate it? And, second, how do you find new ways to attack the same, repeated lies, distortions, cruel attacks, nonsensical declarations and relentless flow of folly?
As Gary Varvel suggests, there is a ridiculous element to the carny-barker cries of "Breaking News!" with which Wolf Blitzer lures viewers into his tent, and, when everything is an emergency, people eventually decide nothing is, and they tune out.
And yet you can't simply go silent or declare that this is "the new normal" or go back and site other low moments to justify what is happening.
To put that fire hose metaphor into a more specific usage, the fact that we've seen buildings burn in the past is no reason not to fight the fire in front of us.
The challenge for editorial cartoonists is to continue to keep the public informed without either losing credibility with unwarranted panic or lose their attention with a relentless drumbeat that fades into the ambient noise of our lives.
However, it's not impossible to make sharp points, and Matt Davies offers a view of that private conversation. I think the Congressional effort to subpoena the interpreters is folly, though I'd love to know what they discussed. On the other hand, I think that, if he doesn't have the specific transcript, Davies has captured the process.
And Luckovich, in turn, points to the reason Trump is able to get away with being a Russian stooge. As inconceivable as it is for Trump to buddy up to Putin, it's even moreso for the Republicans, supposedly the voice for American conservatives, to not simply ignore his antics but to justify and enable them.
Trump at least has the double excuse that he's an amateur and so can be flummoxed by Putin's attention, as well as the darker excuse of possible financial tangles or even that semi-mythical pee tape, to explain why he is so loyal to the Russians.
But you have to wonder if he somehow found a tape of the entire Republican party cavorting with hookers in a Moscow hotel?
What explains the fact that they continue to actively support this incompetent, disloyal nitwit?
Well, Nate Beeler is no bleeding liberal, and he seems to be willing to break ranks with those who pretend to believe as many as six impossible things before breakfast.
Nor is Scott Stantis a leftist by any definition, and he's willing to confront the evidence that seems to add credence, if not specifically confirm, long-bubbling rumors of Russians channeling money to Republicans through the NRA.
As said before, November is going to tell us a lot. The Republican leadership can count on the unswerving loyalty of the Deplorables, but it's a very open and interesting question as to how big a portion of the electorate those people actually represent, and you won't get an answer by only meeting the public at Deplorable rallies.
We'll see.
People get the government they deserve, and we're in "Fool me once" territory.
Meanwhile, in less fraught matters: And on a slightly related topic, Jimmy Margulies offers this take on his former governor, Chris Christie's, forthcoming book.
Not that we expect politicians' memoirs to be anything other than self-serving, of course, and, whether or not Christie has a sense of shame, I'm not sure many people outside the NYC/NJ Metro area give a damn about him, or -- except during his brief flail at the presidency -- ever did except as a source of amusement.
And it's fitting that, whatever the merits of his autobiography, the man has decided upon an irresistible straightline for a title.
My response being, "We thought you had."
Plus this:
This F Minus would have run yesterday if not for the gremlins, and I'm off to a workshop now where one of the things I'll tell my young writers is that not every book and movie contains a message.
Much of my mentoring is in getting them to write for themselves and their young readers, after years of being taught to write for the teacher.
Teachers want you to find messages. Other kids want to know if the book or movie was any good.
We once had an issue in which we reviewed an ice show and a movie both of which were called "Dream Big."
I'm trying to teach them to wake up.
Here's all the message you need:
07/20/2018
Friday Funnies
Bizarro got a laff the other day, but then it became strikingly relevant as I hit the road and, as I went through airports realized how many people have, indeed, been transformed into Bros.
It's a sort of uniform, and it goes beyond the backwards ball cap and goatee. Wayno has captured it quite well, in fact.
It's not the only uniform out there. I also see a lot of the extended goatee of the white-supremacist/militant-libertarian, and I have also begun to notice Old Duffers.
The Old Duffers strike me in particular because they're not that much older than I am anymore and I wonder where they find clothes.
Perhaps there's a store called "Old Duffer"in the mall where they sell the stuff.
Though maybe I don't have to worry about it, this being one of those things where, yes, you just wake up one morning and find that it has happened.
This Heart of the City, in which a small girl eats paste mixed with tomato sauce, brought back a funny memory.
I'm no Mrs. Angelini, but I do know how to fix Ragu on short notice and I certainly never foisted any canned pasta on my kids. But one day when the boys were in junior high and high school, we were shopping and they said they wanted some Franco-American.
There was a brief "the hell you do" conversation, but the stuff was about 50 cents a can, so I let them each pick out two cans.
When we got home, they each dug into their first choices. And then a few months later, we dropped the other two cans into a Food Drive bin.
Sometimes the best way to win an argument is to give in.
Both boys today are excellent cooks.
And I hadn't planned on such a short blog but my site has just gone cattywumpus and I've got to get ready for a day of work here in Denver, so I'll have to call it a day and we'll pick up on this theme tomorrow, the good lord willin' and the software havin' restored itself.
07/19/2018
The Critics Raved
Kevin Siers proves that you can breathe life into any tired trope if you are clever and the facts align.
The Pinocchio gag may, like Hitler references, have been rolled out too early and used too often, beaten into cliche before we realized how much we were going to need it. Or maybe it's just that calling someone a Pinocchio because he's been caught in a lie is tired to begin with.
However, you can't be afraid to reach for the right gag at the right moment, and the would/wouldn't pun, combined with Pinocchio's wish to be a real little boy instead of one made of wood, makes this irresistable, and the liar aspect of the story adds to the commentary instead of forming its center.
That is, if Pinocchio weren't remembered as a liar, the story of the puppet who wanted to be real would not be enough here. And we've all seen Pinocchio the liar as commentary far too often. But the blend works really well.
Almost at the opposite end of the wit scale is RJ Matson's commentary, which manages to be silly and well-conceived at once. Once again, the idea is familiar: Rewriting the slogan on a MAGA cap.
But had he done a Do Make Don't Make gag, it would fall flat, because it's not a DMAGA cap and, to work, you have to play with what you have been given.
That might cause a cartoonist to back away, because there's no negative form of "Make." But, then again, Trump's defense of his alleged "misstatement" is so shallow and unbelievable that a ridiculous, made-up word is a good way to express not just doubt but rejection of an equally silly attempt to explain away what we all saw.
Clay Jones makes another joke about changing a positive to a negative, but it works on another level, because it's more about what we should have heard and what we've come to realize.
People have talked about "treason" and "high crimes and misdemeanors," but I don't think we're there yet, at least not based on the verified accusations. If he handed over the American diplomats Putin would like to question,we might be closer, but, for now, we seem more mired in "dereliction of duty," which is certainly as impeachable as lying about a blow job but, then again, that impeachment failed, so it's hardly a model.
It's that moment in "All the President's Men" when the wise old editor throws cold water on eager young reporters.
It's not that they aren't on the right track. They just don't have it.
Yet.
The question before us is why Trump seems so beholden to Putin that he would make such an ass of himself and turn his back on our traditional allies while embracing a tyrant. Mike Marland offers a humorous suggestion, or, at least, one that will remain a joke until someone produces the pee tape, if it exists.
Several things in that bundle of data have panned out, but the infamous pee tape remains pure conjecture and will likely remain so. If it exists, it's almost certainly being held as the ace in the hole, to be played only when absolutely needed, and, at least for now, confusion seems more useful to our enemies than an actual impeachment.
And Tom the Dancing Bug has a longer cartoon about the confusion caused by Trump's bald-faced lies, which, yes, do seem like the lies we tell, and eagerly stretch to believe, in a failing marriage. Go read the rest here.
I think Ann Telnaes gets down to what Putin really has hanging over Trump's head, because, even without knowing everything the investigators know, it's becoming clear that the tangle of business dealings has left the Trumplings vulnerable.
Which leaves the fascinating question of how much Papa Strompf cares about his kids, because his willingness to throw others under the bus in order to save his own skin has never been tested quite to that degree. On the other hand, his level of rank narcissism has also never been fully probed.
Another question being can the kids fall without taking down the old man?
It's an interesting question. If I were one of the kids, I'd be particularly interested, because, sheltered and pampered as they may have been, they're old enough to know who they're dealing with. If nothing else, they have their mother Ivana's example to ponder.
All of which leaves us here, as shown by Clay Bennett.
And, of course, even the release of Mueller's report will yield a chorus of "Did Not!" and "Fake News!" from Trump loyalists. One question is how many of them there really are.
If you take out the ones who were simply voting against Hillary, the ones who expected him to lose but wanted a strong showing to shake up the system and those who wanted him at the time but have since recanted, it may not be a huge number.
Another question is how much do his allies in Congress have invested in retaining power, and how far are they willing to dive into muck in order to preserve it?
Again, the mid-term elections will tell the story and perhaps moreso than anything Mueller reveals, in a world in which nobody knows what truth is anymore.
Meanwhile, in lieu of a musical moment of zen,
here's a podcast of yesterdays 1A radio show in which Rob Rogers, Ann Telnaes, Pat Bagley and Scott Stantis had a 47 minute discussion of editorial cartooning in the current atmosphere. 1A is one of the brighter new shows at NPR and it's worth a listen.
What's so funny?
- I read some 175 or more comics a day. Each day, I post a strip or two here that made me laugh, made me think or impressed me with its artistry. It's my hope that you'll see some new strips here and decide to follow that artist's work, and perhaps even to support that work by purchasing a collection of strips. But, mostly, I hope you'll find this a place to get a laugh or share a thought each day. After all, comic strips are a very demanding art form, but the ultimate point of all that work and all those deadlines is to give readers a little pleasure each day. If you find a comic hard to read, clicking on it will open a slightly larger version. (You may find that right-clicking and opening in a new tab produces a better result.) All comics here are copyrighted by their creators. -- Mike Peterson
The Prime Directive
- The Prime Directive is that we don't single out comics for snark and abuse. This may change once I've won a couple of Pulitzers and a Reuben or two.
How to conduct a "comics survey"
Twitteronomy
- Want a daily reminder and link? My Twitter handle is @ComicStripOTD and I promise that you will never hear about what I had for lunch or the cute thing the dog said.
Search
Independent publishers
- Independent comic collections
Not all cartoonists market their collections through Amazon. Here's where cartoonists can list their independently published, and marketed, collections and where fans can find, and buy, them.
Blog Roll
- Comics Worth Reading
Independent Opinions by Johanna Draper Carlson and friends News and reviews of graphic novels, manga, comic books, and related subjects - Comic Riffs
Michael Cavna's Washington Post column on comics and related media news. - Mike Lynch Cartoons
Cartoonist Mike Lynch's blog: Fascinating archival stuff he's found and scanned, tips on how cartooning really works and progress reports on his garden (in season). - The Comics Reporter
Tom Spurgeon's Web site of comics news, reviews, interviews and commentary - Cartoon Movement
An international site with sociopolitical cartoons from around the world, curated by Dutch cartoonist Tjeerd Royaards. A real mix of impressionistic panels and short-form graphic journalism. - Africartoons
Cartoons from across Africa, which has an extremely lively cartooning culture. Most of the material requires you to be on top of African current events and political personalities, but even when you're not sure of the specifics, there's some creative stuff to envy in the lively nature of the art form as practiced there.
GoComics.com
- GoComics.com
Universal Press Syndicate's page. You can click on each strip and read for free, but for $11.88 a year, you can create your own page of strips and also avoid pop-ups. It's worth it.
Comics Kingdom
- Comics Kingdom
King Features' site, with free comics if you don't mind a truncated service, or a very good paid site for $20 a year. Some of the benefits, including Vintage strips, require that paid subscription. It's worth it.