Tax time is one of those Annual Mandatory Cartooning Occasions, but, while a lot of cartoonists simply turn in a "shirt off my back" strip and take the day off, others get some funny stuff out of it.
Frazz manages to turn the vagaries of this year's calendar into a gag that combines a general joke about procrastination with, if not a direct salute to how hard teachers really work, at least something they can nod and laugh at.
The rest of us can leave it for the weekends.Teachers don't have weekends most of the year.
This being an election year, of course, the "only work half a year" barb thrown at teachers has largely been overwhelmed with grouching from the same people, who are somehow under the same impression about Congress: They think a teacher's job is to stand in front of the class and talk, and that Senators and Representatives are paid to sit in the Capitol and vote on things.
What's frustrating is that it's one of those beliefs-based-on-belief that people can't seem to shake.
It's understandable that, on first glance, someone who is paid by the hour feels any time not spent actually in your seat at your employer's building is not work.
But the second glance, the part where someone talks about grading homework, planning classes, doing grades and evaluations ... or, in the case of Congressmen, studying pending legislation, meeting with constituents, reading mail, attending briefings ...
They hear it, they understand it, but then they don't process it. It doesn't override their experience of what it means to be working.
A reporter from a paper where I once worked posted this story on Facebook the other day, about how newspaper reporting is one of the worst jobs, which drew some responses of jobs that were more miserable, including sewer worker.
It reminded me of a co-worker at a different paper who used to do a feature called "On the Job," where he would go off and do someone else's job and write about what it was like.
It's not a break-through concept, but it was a very popular feature, and what brought it particularly to mind was that the city where we worked had a continuously malfunctioning sewage treatment plant and, as we were discussing it in the daily briefing one time, someone joked and said, "There's a job for you, Joe!"
And he went and worked a shift in the sludge, interviewed the workers who do that every day and wrote a nice story about it.
Maybe we need a mandatory "Go Do Someone Else's Job Day" for everyone -- management and workers alike.
Speaking of career planning
Ed Stein has a new story up at Sleeper Ave, in which he recaptures the impact of the first manned space flights on a young boy in that era, and his childhood dreams of going into space.
Stein specializes in capturing the feel of being that kid again, and he hits the target well this time, not only recreating the hero worship for the first astronauts, but also the atmosphere of the Space Race, in which we acknowledged Yuri Gagarin as a hero, but regretted that he was Russian. It was the more benign part of the Cold War, but it was real and Ed portrays it well.
I don't recall having any real dream of being an astronaut, though it was fun to play. The Mercury astronauts were held up as such an elite corps of heroes that it probably seemed more practical to imagine playing alongside Mantle and Maris.
Which we imagined, and played at, but did not really dream of ever doing.
NASA has since switched gears, and is less intent on instilling "The Right Stuff" hero-worship. They now portray astronauts as fun, approachable folks who happen to satisfy their curiosity while floating around in space.
I really don't think it's that much easier to get into the program, but, hey, kid: Give it a shot.
You don't have to be Mickey Mantle anymore.
You just have to be Bobby Richardson.
And about those childhood dreams ...
Can't expect to get through a day without some political commentary, I suppose, but I'm going to leave you with, yes, some homework:
Dave Horsey's cartoon and his essay seem slightly out of synch, given that he retains the "Bernie Bro" graphically, but has a fairly clearheaded perspective on, as I have noted, the fact that both sides have their obnoxious, ambitious fringe advocates.
Which is to say that, while I like the cartoon, to the extent that they diverge, I like the essay more. You should read it.
And where I particularly agree with him is that the danger to Democratic chances in November is not so much that Hillary supporters would refuse to vote for Bernie, but the opposite.
That's not so much a difference between the candidates as it is the fact that Bernie has brought people into the tent who were not there before, while a greater proportion of Hillary supporters would be voting in any case.
In another year, those newcomers would have been off working for Ralph Nader or another dream candidate, and perhaps they are a constant. It could be that the real anomaly was when they rallied around Barack Obama and it worked.
Those other times, their argument has been "my vote would not have turned the tide," and the counter is, "but if you'd put the enthusiasm into promoting (Mainstream Losing Candidate) that you devoted to promoting (Dream Candidate), your efforts might well have made the difference."
In this case, those efforts appear to have created an important dialogue, or, to put it in more partisan terms, forced Clinton to address less establishment issues and get down to some of the things the Sanders supporters care about.
Which, whatever the odds, is a pretty good argument in favor of not letting up.
Still, there will be a lot of sweeping up to do on the Democratic side of the aisle between the Convention and Election Day.
On your "Go Do Someone Else's Job Day": I read once that Volvo (I think) made sure that everyone worked on every assembly area for a while, to ensure that they understood how their normal work affected others, and vice versa. And I, as a hockey goalie, once traded places with a defenseman for a lark, and at the end BOTH of us came away with "Whew, there's a lot more to your position than I ever thought."
Posted by: Ed Rush | 04/16/2016 at 06:35 PM