Comic Strip of the Day: Getting up with the fleas

This just in: Comic Strip of the Day is now projecting Dave Brown as the winner in the “Truth Isn’t Truth” category.

Admittedly, not all precincts have been counted, since a lot of cartoonists are still closed in observance of the death of Aretha Franklin, but I like the horror element, with the weasel, the Pinocchio nose and the forked-tongue Giuliani, and I particularly appreciate that Liberty is appalled but not wimpish.

Given her response, this is an insult, it is terroristic and it is appalling, but it is not a victory.

 

Though for the full Alien experience, we must turn to L’il Donnie, and I note with approval that, once more, the observer is less intimidated than disgusted.

Which fits into my view of Dear Leader as like one of those animals whose ferocity is entirely in the display and who, if pressed, will run up a tree or play dead.

The more I see of him, the more I see him as the bully who gets away with it, not because he can actually beat up a determined opponent, but because he surrounds himself with friends who, for whatever reason, accept his dominance.

Which not only summons up understandable toadies like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, but the bewildering specter of Jeff Flake and Bob Corker.

The former at least gain power (and presumably lucre) by playing up to the Godfather, while the latter seemingly have nothing to gain and make bold statements of disagreement, until it’s time to put their cards on the table.

 

As it happens, we just shipped some 95-year-old version of Louis Renard home to Germany to explain his choices, but I’d also note that, until the Klaus Barbie trial spread France’s dirty laundry out for all the world to see, we pretty much accepted that merde-de-cheval about everyone there having been in the Resistance.

 

Meanwhile, Andy Marlette turns in a brilliant piece, and we’ll find out in November how well all the local sucking-up to Deplorables pans out.

Until then, as the old joke goes, we’ve established what you are. Now we’re just haggling over the price.

 

And, as Grantland Rice wrote and Nick Anderson illustrates, “when the one Great Scorer comes to write against your name, he marks not if you won or lost, but …”

Sorry, wrong poem.

The line I’m looking for was: “and with that the pig got up and walked away.”

 

Jeff Stahler persists in thinking that people still give a damn about our national mythology, bless his heart, and I like this, but I think it does more to comfort the believers than to sway the Deplorables.

After all, the ones who bleat loudest about “heritage” are the ones who wave the flag of the traitor and want to go back to the good old days when “those people” knew their places.

 

And while the tales of Parson Weems are well-intentioned myths intended to bring us together, the Deplorables are more ready to believe the fictions of talk-radio hosts, intended to drive us apart, such that, as Mike Smith suggests, they distrust a long-time national servant who has the backing of 60 military leaders and intelligence community members, but are happy to entrust national secrets to the undisciplined screwball who blabbered classified information to Russians.

They’ve no idea why former intelligence people and others retain their clearances or what that really means, even though even Fox News is willing to tell them.

The question is, does Dear Leader know, and then, once again, we find ourselves in the age-old question of whether he is lying or a fool, the answer to which is, “At this point, what difference does it make?”

Hm. That has kind of a familiar ring to it.

 

Meanwhile, back at the Marketplace

I still have an Amazon link that will provide me with a commission when people use it, and I do a lot of shopping on Amazon myself.

But I have some misgivings and the current Joy of Tech doesn’t make me any more comfortable. They were thoughtful in that they didn’t just fling eggs and run, but provided this link to explain what they were talking about.

When Amazon first started — and everyone said it was a stupid idea and they’d never make money — I lived in a city where the only way to buy new books within 100 miles was to take an expensive ferry ride to Burlington, VT, or, literally, drive to another country. Where half the books were in another language.

The bookstore in Burlington was staffed with people who knew books and were very helpful, and it was large enough that the times they didn’t have what you wanted, you had walked in knowing you’d probably have to special order it anyway.

Granted, I started buying books on-line rather than spending more to get them a few days later than Amazon would deliver. But I don’t think that made the difference.

What made the difference is that both Borders and Barnes & Noble descended on Burlington, built their Big Box stores and blew them out of the water, with teddy bears and coffee bars and a staff that knew no more about literature than they’d known about feet the week before when they were working at Footlocker.

However, based on the well-documented accusations here, well, maybe the world would be a better place if Amazon had stuck to books and left us to buy other things from other places, perhaps even in person.

Though I still live in a small enough place that finding something your size in the color you want in a brick-and-mortar store is a matter of very good luck.

And I know that even city folks shop at some soulless corporate megastore more often than they do down at Mom & Pop’s.

Also, while it may be hip to patronize the scabdrivers at Uber, leave us not bullshit one another: That’s just a megastore on wheels.

At least I haven’t heard of booksellers killing themselves in significant numbers.