The number of attempts to tie Star Wars into other topics is ... well the number is overwhelming, the attempts themselves, largely under.
Fortunately a few people were doing other things:
John Branch's comment on the GOP debate came in after I'd covered that, else it would have been featured then.
Clean lines, good caricatures and a simple, solid comment. I particularly like the contrast between Christie, Bush and Cruz, eagerly awaiting their turns, and Rubio strutting off feeling like a tough guy for having had his. Yeah, thass right, we bad!
As for Fiorina, she's been savaged for her inaccuracies, though, in the debate, she only revealed what she doesn't know about the past decade or so.
Here in New Hampshire, we're getting radio ads in which she goes into further detail, laying out what she doesn't know about the past two and a half centuries:
My story, from secretary to CEO, is only possible in this country. And that is because our founders knew what my mother taught me. Everyone has God-given gifts. Our founders build a nation on the belief that here you have the right to fulfill your potential. That is what they meant when they said life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. They said you have right to fulfill your potential, and that right comes from God, and should not be taken away by man or government.
Apparently we could have skipped over the Women's Suffrage Movement and that whole unpleasantness in 1864 after all. If only someone had told us!
She was right that the moderators were marginalizing her in the debate, but she wasn't the only one, and I don't think the debate could have gotten anywhere if every one of them were given the same exposure.
Though if the Republicans want to talk about how it's not fair to deny people equal airtime, I'd be happy to hand them the can opener.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle, as Gary Varvel suggests, the Democrats have taken a much more efficient approach to the primary season:
Announce the winner at the beginning and put her 2008 campaign co-chair in charge of things.
'No, no!' said the Queen. 'Sentence first—verdict afterwards.'
'Stuff and nonsense!' said Alice loudly. 'The idea of having the sentence first!'
'Hold your tongue!' said the Queen, turning purple.
'I won't!' said Alice.
'Off with her head!' the Queen shouted at the top of her voice.
So, in keeping with royal decree, while you're out wrapping up your Christmas shopping or watching the aforementioned Star Wars film or seeing if the New York Jets can defeat the Dallas Cowboys over on the other channel, there will be a show trial debate on CNN.
It's just too bad Julius Hoffman isn't still alive to chair the thing.
The lighter side of deception
Having watched Greg Cravens interact with kids at the Kenosha Festival of Cartooning (which you can support and should certainly attend), I wasn't surprised at today's Buckets, but I was delighted.
I noted my dislike of the "Elf on the Shelf" the other day, and it's not just the "preparing kids for life in a police state" part, though, as I noted then, it sure turns the somewhat mystical "he knows if you've been bad or good" thing into something genuinely creepy.
But this gag points out the other part: Keeping things vague not only keeps the magic alive, but it's the difference between telling a story and telling a lie.
To start with, you have to know what you are being asked, which goes back to the old joke where the kid asks where he came from and gets the full when-two-people-love-each-other lecture, after which he reveals that he was asking because his friend Tommy came from New Jersey.
But more than that, when your kid asks, "How does Santa get in here, since we don't have a chimney?", the answer is "What do you think?"
The kid is inviting you to make believe, not asking you to lie.
So I'm with Greg on the Santa thing.
On the elf, I'm with this sensible mother and, of course, the Bloggess. I always agree with the Bloggess.
In any case, if you are going to lie to kids, don't screw it up.
Unless somebody has your back.
Comments