CSotD: New Beginnings and the S.O.S.

(Rip Kirby)

(Big Ben Bolt)

Call this the “Juxtaposition of Nagging.” Over in the Vintage section at Comics Kingdom, Rip Kirby is just starting a new adventure, while Ben Bolt is at the climax of another.

Offering these classic strips to those who pony up $20 a year to subscribe is better than a tote bag and a whole lot less expensive. (My NPR station is offering a set of 4 steel straws, which is a cool idea, but you have to pledge $10 a month. For $120 a year, I can find another way to solve the plastics crisis.)

If you care about comics, you should have memberships in both Comics Kingdom and GoComics. It’s not even $40 a year total — only $39.98, or, as we used to say in sales, less than 11 cents a day!

Disclosure: When you support GoComics, you support this site, too.

 

While we’re on the Funnies Page:

I was supposed to read Swann’s Way junior year, but I faked my way through that semester, so today’s Bizarro kind of glanced off, except that the damn pun in going to stick with me and now any time anyone says anything about “the chickens coming home to roost,” I’m going to think of this stupid cartoon.

And hopefully now, so will you. Thus do we share our pain.

 

Juxtaposition of the Day

(Bill Bramhall)

 

(Robert Ariail)

I have lived next door to Bernie Sanders for the past 32 years except for two years in Maine, which isn’t terribly far from Vermont either. I love Bernie, I backed Bernie, I donated to Bernie.

And when he lost the primary and called upon us all to back Hillary Clinton I did so, as, I would contend, did nearly all his followers, despite what I’m quite sure the Russians planted in Facebook to rile up the Clinton camp and divide the vote.

But I do wish he hadn’t announced another run because most of his appeal last time came from the fact that the DNC had chosen their candidate before the primaries, and, as seen in Bramhall’s cartoon, that’s hardly the situation today.

Ariail’s cartoon is a little unclear, but I assume it’s a similar reference, suggesting that Bernie feels he owns those “far left” issues that aren’t so far left anymore.

Meanwhile, there are also some anti-Bernie rightwing cartoons that, if nothing else, distract them from their AOC hatefest. So that’s nice.

 

But I’d rather see clever stuff like this Walt Handelsman piece, because the Democrats are facing a whole lot of choices and it’s not so easy to pick out the differences.

That’s not a bad thing. Not only is it better than 2016’s “Here’s your candidate, now shut up and vote” approach, but the differences are, as the metaphor suggests, often pretty small and sometimes you have to ask the optometrist to go back and give you a second look.

Which would be pretty funny, and perhaps helpful, in the debates: “I’m sorry, but could you two please repeat your arguments?”

Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle, Ann Telnaes gives Lindsey Graham a dunce cap and a pig’s snout over his ridiculous statement that middle school kids should sacrifice their education so we can prevent an emergency that exists only in Dear Leader’s imagination.

Whenever some Scrooge wants to delay educational spending, I can’t help but wonder if he knows that kids age and grow?

Is Lindsey Graham planning for a middle-school that finally opens up with a bunch of oversized Jethro Bodines lined up at the door?

Dude, if I were from Kentucky, I wouldn’t play into that stereotype.

 

On a more challenging level, Andy Marlette questions the strategy of screwing Floridians over Trump’s ever-shifting promises.

Dear Leader only won that state by a 1.2% margin in 2016, and his fans are among those currently getting bad news from the IRS about that tax cut.

As said yesterday, the refund/withholding problem is kind of an illusion, but, then again, Trump’s entire appeal to the working class is an illusion.

Now he’s canceling construction contracts in the Sunshine State.

Though Trump addressed a crowd of Cuban and Venezuelan immigrants down there the other day and they seemed very supportive of him, which sure makes you wonder.

If there were ever a case of “Haul up the ladder, I’m in” …

 

And speaking of mean-spirited, selfish attitudes

I’ve seen some truly mean-spirited, hateful cartoons about the Jussie Smollett issue, but Darrin Bell boils it down to an intelligent, reasonable cartoon:

Yes, the story fell apart, but others are true. Many others are true, and using this one to disprove those others is not simply nonsense but bigoted, mean-spirited propaganda.

And I find it instructive that, while the right is crowing over the deception, Fox’s media lapdog, Howard Kurtz, reports that he felt most of the media reported the story with appropriate caution.

For my part, I had no idea who Jussie Smollett was and didn’t follow the story closely, but if the police reported it, saying they did is not lying or getting it wrong.

Saying it actually happened might be, but that’s why the word “alleged” is so popular in newsrooms. It was alleged, even if, after a while, it was only being alleged by Jussie Smollett.

I had a little tingling of the Spidey sense over two strangers calling him a “f*ggot,” but figured maybe he dressed splendiferously or was coming out of a place with a fabulous reputation.

But my main surprise is that the guy is 36 freaking years old, because this sort of thing usually pops up on college campuses (I know of two incidents personally), while among junior high and even high school kids, being threatened by members of another race has been used as a phony excuse for skipping school.

For my part, I wouldn’t be too hard on people with emotional problems that drive them to do these stupid things, assuming they seek treatment.

However, I’m all in favor of being hard on people who purposefully exploit these events, and these sad people, to advance a hateful agenda.