Friday Short Takes

Tina is not normally so naively optimistic.

"Last chance" and "last offer" mean "last one until the next one."

A few years ago -- maybe four or five -- the ACLU offered a bumpersticker that I can't even remember. Something about protecting the Constitution. So I sent in my donation and they thanked me for becoming a member (?) but they never sent the bumpersticker.

But they have sent me "last chances" to renew my membership ever since, which means I am torn between supporting their mission and being aware that the money I sent has long since been pissed away sending me "last chances" and "final notices."

And during my eight months of unemployment six years ago, I was forced to pull the ripcord and declare bankruptcy, which did kill all the "you have been pre-approved to apply and be turned down" letters from credit card companies, except for Barclay, which has dutifully sent me invitations about every two weeks ever since.

To which I responded by not responding, because, as Groucho Marx, MBA, said, I would never do business with a company that would do business with me.

But if you're paying them 23% on your card, that's what they're doing with the money.

Which actually helped me with the guilt of going Chapter 7, because I knew that I had long since paid back the principle and all the card companies were losing was continued interest, which, by golly, one of them showed three years later by offering to give me a card.

Which they then did.

No hard feelings, and would you like to try once more to guess which of these cards is the Queen of Hearts?

I took them up on it, and I have used it responsibly, because I'm empty nested and have cut expenses to the bone, not because I became a responsible person.

Which I demonstrated last month, when I forgot that I had an expense on it I could have sworn I'd paid with my business-only debit card and so I didn't make a payment.

Which they let me know in a letter.

Not demanding payment. Doubling my credit limit.

Because I was that much closer to picking out the queen!

What's in your post box?

 

So many cartoons, so few bull's eyes

The anti-vax/measles thing has launched a lot of editorial cartoons, but the majority are bland, to put it kindly, and, while a few make the connection between laws that protect children and the folly of leaving them vulnerable to disease, it's not clear the intent: Are they proposing stronger mandates, or simply pointing out parental inconsistency?

Mike Luckovich, however, brings forth the social irresponsibility of this anti-science nonsense better than anyone else.

For all that MADD may have become preachy now and then, the pressure the group brought not simply to enact stronger drunk driving laws but to bring home the social pressure of not endangering others on the road is exactly the opposite of the anti-vaxxer movement, which weakens social safeguards and all-but-celebrates a "too hell with your kid's safety" attitude.

The idea of a group called "Mothers for Drunk Driving" is a solid hit, center target.

Literary update: I finished "Good-bye to All That" last night. In the last part, set in the late 20s, Graves notes that his four children caught the measles and that the disease left his youngest son permanently, profoundly deaf.

 

Torque's song

Mark Parisi is spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of comic humor. 

Those guys are only looking for an open-ended relationship. After she gets a little oiled and strips, they'll bolt, leaving the little wench to sing, "What a tool I was!"

Save the art, Mark. You'll be able to pencil in new punchlines pretty much indefinitely.

Meanwhile, here's what's playing at that party: 

 

(Apparently, the Drells didn't want to dance all that good.)

 

Comments

[Theophylact]

"Spanning" is good for a roomful of spanners.

[Mike Peterson]

I owe it all to John Lennon, who introduced that particular pun to America.