Borrowing from Lent

Lent is arriving a couple of days late here, but that's okay, because I'm feeling like the fellow in today's Pros & Cons.

Unlike him, the problem isn't boredom but rather a lot of unproductive stress. However, it leads to a debilitating sense of anomie that I think can exhibit as either rage or lassitude depending on the moment, so it's really a distinction without a difference.

And, while he's probably wrong about the cause of his distress, it's right in my case.

Last year, I gave up political cartoons for Lent, which meant I could only feature them on Sunday. I'm going to repeat that discipline, because, between the stress of being at Ground Zero for the New Hampshire Primaries and the outpouring of politics in general, I think I've had enough for awhile and possibly you have, too.

Even two days late, Larry the Lent Llama is just in the nick of time.

I'm still trying to figure out if I also have to step away from Facebook, but it seems likely.

One of the biggest stressors I'm finding in political cartoons is not the differences between value systems. I can take that.

No, it's the illogic and laziness, and Facebook is a never-ending festival of lazy, illogical certainty.

For example, I would be less disturbed by people who reject the idea of helping the less fortunate, as well as by people who keep insisting on injecting Christian doctrine into politics, if they weren't so often the same people.

Promoting a state religion would be far less offensive if it were not one whose every major, clearly stated principle you reject.

Similarly, the people who most talk about supporting our troops seem also to be most eager to promote a totally unnecessary, unwinnable war with Iran, a nation they have not made even the slightest effort to learn anything about.

They support our troops the way they support an athletic team: Eager for the next game. But they have no idea what sport is being proposed, and are utterly indifferent to the human cost.

Not to mention that they also trumpet the need for fiscal restraint but are happy to dig deeper into debt in the interests of what they apparently think is some kind of video game.

With political cartoonists, you have the luxury of thinking perhaps they are purposefully lying in order to promote an agenda they are paid to favor.

Facebook, by contrast, seems only a prolonged, redundant exercise in "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak up and remove all doubt."

 

Even if you could filter your newsfeed to only show non-political postings, today's Pearls Before Swine would remain true, and darkly funny.

Political foolishness is motivated by deep fears that, however irrational, demand a little pity.

But not as much pity as should be lavished on the shallow vanity of the serial selfie poster.

And vanity is but the tip of the iceberg: Watching people repeatedly fall for like-farming stunts like "Name a vegetable that is not a carrot!" or "Like this if you remember spoons!" is just sad. 

And it all returns to politics anyway, because, if they can look at a posting that says "Bill Gates wants to give you all his money!" and hit "Share" without suspecting a scam or noticing the raft of comments underneath denouncing it as fake, they'll fall for anything, which brings us to the familiar "and they vote" issue.

Whether or not you watch it happen, they'll also still be sharing, and spreading, the equally dishonest nonsense that leaves children hungry, threatens public health care and leaves young Americans lying face down in the desert sand, or coming home to cheers and banners followed by neglect and indifference.

Maybe we should charge a penny for each selfie and earmark it for disabled veterans. We'd raise millions!

But then Congress would simply lower the VA budget by that much, the same way state legislatures work the "lottery funds help our schools" scam.

 

Speaking of tips of the iceberg

Politics do tend to drift into the funny pages, and I guess I'll have to refrain from commenting on things like today's Non Sequitur.

At least, I would have to refrain from Wiley's point about economic foolishness.

I could still note that some guy with too much money is building a second Titanic and plans to sail it from China to Dubai, uniting two places where the millionaires can't fork money down rat holes fast enough.

It's going to be just like the Titanic! Well, sort of just like the Titanic.

The only difference will be that the Titanic II will be wider, have a welded and not riveted hull, and have more lifeboats.

"The new Titanic will of course have modern evacuation procedures, satellite controls, digital navigation and radar systems and all those things you'd expect on a 21st-century ship," James McDonald, the global marketing director of Palmer's company Blue Star Line, told the publication.

So, it'll be just like the Titanic the same way that putting some hoops and a canvas cover over the top of a minivan would make it just like a Conestoga wagon.

Which brings us dangerously close to discussing Wiley's point about economics and tying it into all those banking and investment reforms that have made it all completely unsinkable.

 

Also this

Dammit, I'll even have to watch myself around the Dogs of C-Kennel.

Yes. Yes, we certainly broke it.

That is, if you ask every scientist who knows anything about climate, the cartoon dog is right.

If you ask, however, the cartoonish watch-dog who heads the House Committee of Science, Space and Technology, it's just God's way of punking us.

 

And, in parting ...

A bit of a cheat: John Deering actually posted this Strange Brew panel yesterday. But I offer it to make the point that not all the quasipolitical pseudologic comes from one end of the spectrum.

Now, go quarrel amongst yourselves.

For the next 40 weekdays or so, this is going to be the deepest question I ask:

 

Comments

[Jan]

I think it's a very good thing for you to give up politics for lent each year. And advent, also. Of course, it's difficult in a voting year. I've been apolitical most of my life. It's better for me not to try to figure out what each potential candidate is lying about (almost everything). But I vote. Fear me.

[Bookworm]

I'm the opposite of Jan: I probably won't vote. Hillary will ruin internal affairs, Donald will ruin international affairs, and Bernie and Ted will ruin both in opposite ways. Yes, that's over-simplification, but not much. Lots of things need changing, but no one has anything close to the right combination for me to support. This election scares the H out of me.

[Lost in A**2]

Bookworm, please vote, if only for the lesser evil.