CSotD: Tension and Contention

Brace yourself, Willie. Here comes a flood, and it’s not just special sauce.

Granted, I posted a David Rowe version yesterday, but that’s the advantage he gets with a 15-hour time difference between Sydney and New York: He slipped in ahead of the crowd.

Jack Ohman — Smerconish

Pat Bagley

Phil Hands

Nick Anderson — Tribune

I suppose that — besides confirming that if an idea comes to you quickly, it will come just as quickly to other cartoonists — this is an affirmation of the healthy diets most political cartoonists maintain, because I think it’s been years since McDonald’s clerks tried to upsell customers by adding an order of French fries to a burger. People who want fries order one of the combination meals.

The annoying question at the drive-thru these days is “Are you using our app?” because if I wanted to play computer games, I’d go inside and use the kiosk.

Though I guess if I wanted cold fries, I’d text ahead so my order could sit out for awhile, and if I wanted them ice-cold, I’d have Grub Hub deliver them.

Clay Jones also took the French fries up-sell line from the ancient gallery, but he used it as a chance to make a different point, and then he hammered home the bogosity with his essay.

BTW, these cartoons all assumed that Trump was handing out full meals to real customers. In fact, he was only handing out fries, and those to a small, preselected group of pretend customers who volunteered to be part of the photo op.

His record of never having worked a day in his life remains unblemished.

Meanwhile, in other Juxtapositions …

Matt Golding

David Rowe

Pat Hudson

Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet, Charlie and his consort have sort of been visiting Australia, and I could attach a long string of “So what?” cartoons that have followed, but will limit myself to these.

Golding references an ancient poem by Thomas Ford, the first stanza of which goes

There is a lady sweet and kind,
Was never face so pleas’d my mind;
I did but see her passing by,
And yet I love her till I die.

Bring an umbrella and a raincoat to this cartoon, lest you drown in the dripping sarcasm.

Charles and Camilla are making a short series of touch-and-go visits, ostensibly because he remains under treatment for cancer but perhaps also because the crowds greeting them seem divided between gushing monarchist groupies on one hand, and republican and aboriginal protesters on the other.

Rowe comments on their visit to Admiralty House, home to the governor-general, who told a television network that “she didn’t think they’d be having long conversations about the potential for Australia to become a republic but instead wanted to ‘show him a modern Australia’.”

I’d think “modern Australia” would be a republic rather than a monarchy, but as Rowe suggests, it’s a lovely little gigantic seaside bungalow, innit?

Speaking of modernity, Hudson references a condescending, colonial attitude towards the locals. The only aboriginal member of Australia’s senate was “removed” from a parliamentary reception after shouting a few traditional greetings like “You destroyed our land. Give us a treaty. We want a treaty in this country,” “you are not my king” and “f*** the colony,” though without the asterisks.

Golding outlines the King’s schedule.

In other Antipodal news …

I don’t know why the Aussies seem so much more tuned in to climate change than those of us up on the topside of the world, and don’t say it’s because we’ve been oohing and aahing over the Northern Lights because they’ve had lovely displays of the Southern Lights and it apparently hasn’t distracted them.

Jess Harwood puts the whole thing in focus, and this certainly has reverberations up here because we’ll rebuild all our destroyed real estate and pretend it isn’t going to happen all over again even sooner than before.

Someone will likely propose new building codes to minimize future damage, but someone else will likely announce that it’s too expensive and rally legislators to shoot it down, and isn’t it strange to leave everything up to the insurance companies to regulate?

But just because Australian cartoonists are aware of how things are developing, Megan Herbert says, and just because emergency services and affected citizens and climate experts are all aware of it, that won’t stop the government from approving new coal mining and coal-fired development.

Note, too, that the Aussies are good citizens of the world and, as First Dog on the Moon indicates, they’re bright enough to realize that decisions made in one place can have ramifications in another.

And First Dog realizes that Climate Change Denial is only one of many truly stupid things people believe and not just “people” but Americans who are about to elect someone who may try to help or someone who may make it all worse.

He’s right that there is a significant risk in allowing people to vote who believe in chem trails but not in climate change, and that there isn’t much (fair) that the US can do about it.

It doesn’t help that voters are being potentially misled by partisans like Gary Varvel (Creators), who claim Harris — who is on record as advocating religious freedom but not theocratic laws — shut down hecklers because they shouted in favor of religion-based legislation. Their yells were hard to understand and she may have simply recognized their hostile tone.

Anyway, she didn’t call for her supporters to beat them up.

Sigh. What an ugly, ugly world we’ve built for ourselves.

I watched the 1978 Superman with Christopher Reeves last weekend and was struck by what a fun, gentle movie it was. The superhero was a nice guy and the villains were clowns. The movie still had action and suspense, but it wasn’t dark, twisted and hostile.

Maybe we were naive (and overly commercial) to put those kids on a hill in 1971, but isn’t that part of letting your reach exceed your grasp?

Jen Sorensen remembers a better time in a better place, and it struck a chord because I was also born in Pennsylvania Dutch country, less than 30 miles from her hometown.

Maybe her memories are a bunch of bologna, but it’s a bunch of really good bologna.