Little to add, not that it stops me

For some reason, I've managed to stumble across a bunch of cartoons, each of which amused me, none of which triggered a major rant.

You'll have to get by today with a series of minor rants. Be strong.

 

A few roses grew out of the steaming pile of ACA commentary today. Drew Sheneman sums up a lot of the criticism: Yes, the malfunction is real, but let's not forget what the system behind it replaces.

I'm not even sure how much I like this cartoon on its own and how much I like it in comparison with the many that are selling the notion that, if the website fails, the entire program is a Commie plot.

I do know that I'm probably more amused by what I bring to Walt Handelsman's cartoon than the simple gag he intended.

I've bought computers from Best Buy in the past and there was a time when their techies would happily repair your old computer at a reasonable rate or, for example, swap your old hard drive into the new one at no cost. 

And then they instituted the Geek Squad, whose mission appears to be, once you've taken the thing home, to explain why they won't fix it without overcharging you to even look at it in the first place. 

And their "set up" for new computers includes adding a button to summon their own expensive service option and, in the case of the Asus laptop I bought from them a few years ago, removing the manufacturer's flyer that tells you where to get free tech service from an 800 number.

It's like the buddy from work who fixes your personal computer by adding all his own favorite bits of scumware, based on some notion of avoiding what "they" think you should have. "They" being the nefarious corporate villains who designed the computer to run best on what "they" built into it.

All of which makes me fear that whoever is called in to "fix" Healthcare.gov will turn a repair job into a permanent gig, fixing the original problem by adding a dozen new ones.

 

The more I see it, the more I like it:

Today's Non Sequitur tells a lovely little story, but you have to think a bit. Rod Serling meets Baba Ram Dass.

 

Juxtaposition of the Day

(Overboard)

(Pooch Cafe)

 

Juxtaposition from awhile ago:

If you don't have "Origins of the Sunday Comics" on your reading list, you're missing some fascinating history, though, if you are really into the details, you'll shell out for the 1:1 ratio color book of these bygone pieces.

My first response today was "There's the old stereotype of the ignorant, brawling Irish underclass," but then I remembered Outcault's creations include "Hogan's Alley" where the Irish are the plain simple expressers of truth, not unlike their near-contemporary, Mr. Dooley.

And I also wondered what the response would have been with some other ethnicity portrayed here. Ethnic characters were a feature of comedy, not just in the funny papers but on the vaudeville stage, and you almost couldn't tell a joke without using an accent.

The latest response to the "Redskins" controversy from the cloth-eared crowd is to ask why it's okay to have Apache helicopters but not Washington Redskins. (I've seen that exact example enough times to suspect Rush or Glenn or someone launched it.) The answer, of course, is that "Apache" is the name of a tribe and "redskin" is a racial slur. Duh.

And if some sportswriter had taken to calling Notre Dame's team "The Mackerel Snappers" or "The Fighting Papists," I don't think the college would have adopted and embraced it.

Rather than go into my own rant on the topic, however, I'll direct your attention to William Shannon's book, which is on my shelf and honored.

This passage is worth clicking on and I think you'll be able to scroll down from there and read more. 

Meanwhile ...

The juxtaposition that caught my eye today was this entry at the DailyInk archivist's blog, in which he talks about the predecessors to Bringing Up Father, a cultural touchpoint in the building of the Irish-American image that debuted a century ago. (You'll have to enlarge your own screen there: They don't blow up.)

Shannon mentions it specifically in that chapter on the Irish image in media:

The general image of the Irish, however, was still in transition, as the comic strips in the new mass journals demonstrated. The Hearst papers, for example, which from their earliest days attracted a large Irish readership, featured divergent comic strips -- "Happy Hooligan," which looked back toward the raffish shanty Irish, and "Maggie and Jiggs," which broadly satirized the social climbing of an Irish matron and her rich husband. Maggie is always trying to make her way to the opera with the Van Snoots, while Jiggs aches to take off his shoes and enjoy corned beef and cabbage with the boys at Dinty's.

I am reminded of a discussion I had, back when I was doing a re-issue of Sid Couchey's history of the Champlain Valley, with the superintendant of a school district that included much of Akwesasne, the Mohawk community. I was asking if it even made sense to offer the booklet to his teachers, given the humorous treatment Indians got in it.

I pointed out that Sid also lampooned Scots, French and British, and none of it was particularly hostile, but he replied that much of the innocence of such lampooning comes from mockery of those who have made it. It's hard to laugh at these images of your own people when you are still at the bottom of the social ladder.

Which is why the Irish can differentiate between the drunk jokes -- which remain insulting unless they are being told within the community -- and the more affectionate spoofs. And that makes the emergence of Maggie and Jiggs a positive moment. 

Comments

[Mary in Ohio]

Speaking of comic links you've given us, do you know what's up with Lost Side of Suburbia? Or was that how the story ended?

[Mike Peterson]

According to the comments he posted, he's got a lot of his plate and is taking a hiatus to catch up work and maintain the teaching job that pays his bills. There's one more chapter of this story and then he'll do another and then we'll see I guess. Here's the scoop:
http://www.gocomics.com/lostsideofsuburbia/2013/10/10#.UmiBlhAufJF