Technical Problems plus simple cluelessness

Let's begin with either a tip or a complaint: An increasing number of web sites, for reasons I cannot fathom, heap up a bunch of old material at their top, either on a deep "Showcase" banner or, in the case of Facebook, in the form of a collage of old pics.

The result is that you greet visitors with an array of stuff that they've already seen.

Seems quite a gamble to assume that their response will be "I think I'll scroll down and see if there's anything new here." Especially if you don't update every day.

I'd put my money on their response being: "Seen it" followed by Ctrl-W and on to something they haven't seen.

Put your new material on top. Why should I even have to suggest this?

 

And while I'm complaining about technology, here's a salute to technical genius Darrin Bell.

It's not the gag -- though I like both the crossover and the way it applies to their particular relationship -- but the fact that Bell appears to be about the only current cartoonist who understands that tin-can telephones don't work unless the string between them is taut.

I would say that it's due to the decline of Scouting or the decision by comic book publishers to turn away from kids and market to kid-like adults.

But I remember both Boy's Life project suggestions and the filler pages in comics telling you how to make tin-can telephones.

I guess nobody does that anymore, which means that nobody under 60 -- except, apparently, Darrin Bell -- knows how the damn things work. 

It's the tree-falling-in-the-forest thing: If cartoonists draw kids with slack-string tin-can phones, but readers don't know what they are anyway, does noise need to travel through them?

And, while I'm on the overall topic of "Things Anybody Should Know," cartoonists need to print this out and post it over their drawing boards:

Okay, rant mode mostly off.

Okay, rant mode not off.

 

I won't repeat the entire "empty coffepot rant" again, not simply because I just ranted it last week, but because Existential Comics does it so much better. 

Go read the rest. And, while any nitwit should know that lobsters don't turn red until you cook them and it doesn't take much more worldly experience to know that tin-can telephones only work if the string is taut, you barely have to even know who Machiavelli was to get a good laff out of this.

Though I'll give extra credit if the little bonus gag on the left makes you giggle. 

Or I'll take off a letter grade.

Haven't decided yet.

 

Juxtaposition of the Day

(Between Friends)

(Adult Children)

Whether or not it is apparent from my writing lately, rationing my Facebook exposure has had very positive results on my overall mood and worldview.

As Between Friends suggests, Facebook can be a bit like getting a dozen or more of those insufferably chipper Christmas newsletters every day.

As for Adult Children, the trick isn't to have the job where you can play around on Facebook so much as it is to have the desk where it's not apparent what you are up to.

But ferchrissake you also need to have the sense to cover your tracks.

One of my rookie reporters at the last paper where I worked would leave the newsroom without closing out her Facebook page. I was less upset about how she spent her time than I was over the insult to my intelligence.

Or to hers.

Maybe both.

Back in the day, we had to get caught coming out of a movie theater or down at the laundromat during work hours. Now you can slack off without having to leave the building.

Which reminds me of a rare time when editors came to an intelligent national agreement on something, which was that, Slats Grobnik not withstanding, man-on-the-street interviews should not always, perhaps not ever, be man-in-the-bar interviews.

 

Which leads to ...

I like Keith Knight's piece on the Women's March, but I'm starting to see pushback by rightwingers who seem mostly to illustrate talk-radio lunacy rather than actually research, ponder and create anything on their own.

Not sure listening to Limbaugh for half an hour and drawing what he said really counts as commentary or even cartooning. I think it's more like hanging out at the bar when you should be working.

Their "commentary" -- such as it is -- is not in the least political and makes no point except that they don't freaking get it on any level, and labeling it as "misogyny" barely scratches the surface. 

It's not even "shame on them." It's "WTF?"

They are like that uncle who embarrasses you not because he's so hateful but because he is so utterly, painfully clueless.

At which point my earlier reference to Slats Grobnik pinged a memory of a column I wrote a quarter of a century ago and that I wish were no longer relevant but ... well, here it is.

And I stand by every single word in it:

 

 

 

Comments

[Jim Short]

The seemingly live lobsters in the big glass tank in my fancy schmancy grocery store are, uh, red. I always thought they were from Maine but maybe not.

[Mike Peterson]

"The Cape Lobster, found in the seas around South Africa, and in fact only recently included in the Nephropidae family, is actually the only lobster variety that is red whilst alive."

You may be seeing orange, but I swiped that sentence from a pretty informative page:
https://lobsteranywhere.com/seafood-savvy/lobster-red/

[Mark Jackson]

Great column. I enjoyed reading Royko (I lived in Illinois for 7 years during the Real Mayor Daley era) but he could be profoundly silly on occasion. (These days if I feel like punishing myself by reading something profoundly silly I turn to David Brooks - he's dead reliable.)

The slack string mistake is evidence that the cartoonist lacks curiosity, or knowledge of the simplest physics, or both. Sound is a vibration, which has to be carried by some medium. You can't get anything out of plucking a limp guitar string. (And that was neither a metaphor nor a simile.)

[Bud Simpson]

Meanwhile, Andrews/McMeel (GoComics) has, since January 9, stopped feeding comics via RSS. I use feedly for Chrome. Now my daily reading list is a convoluted session of going down the list of subscribed feeds and manually clicking through to their website. Pain in the butt.

[Ed Rush]

When I lived in Chicago, my choice of newspaper was the Daily News, partly because they carried Mike Royko. On TV, I enjoyed Len O'Connor.

[Mike Peterson]

Royko was Royko and, as Mark says, could really be silly when he wasn't on the ball -- there's always the danger of a groove turning into a rut, whereupon you fall into self-parody, the journalistic equivalent of John Wayne or Al Pacino.

My Chicago days, the late 60s early 70s, were good for columnists, but the three that spring to mind sure went in different directions -- Royko simply didn't keep up with the times, Bob Greene became a sanctimonious twit and Roger Ebert just got better and better and better.

[mudduck]

Link to most comic strips, Go and King:

http://www.stus.com/3majors.htm

Knight Life is missing, so it's not perfect.

[mudduck]

The new GoComics is cluttered and frustrating. Is a paid version any better?

[Mark Johnson]

Well that was fun. I hadn't thought of Slats Grobnik in years. You, Mike, might remember my girlfriend from way back when, Hanke. She went on to work for Royko and ultimately wound up city editor for the Chicago Trib

[Mike Peterson]

And, of course, the response from a journalist is, "Oh? And what's she doing today?"

Seriously, I hope she's managed to either hang on through the avalanche or find something fun in a more stable industry.

Or, at our age, retire.

[Mike Peterson]

... and I just Googled her and she chose Door #2. Good for her!

[Mark Johnson]

Mike
Haven't talked to her in 40+ years but her career was somewhat public. Sam Zell, a real estate developer. bought the Trib 5-10 yrs ago and there was an exodus of talent. Not sure why other than newspaper people did not like him. She wound up in some non profits I think. Her husband is a columnist for what was a competing paper, Chi Sun Times, Mark Brown by name