CSotD: Weekend wrap-up

Bruce Plante lays out the top issue of the day. As noted yesterday, the Trump Administration has a self-inflicted lack of credibility, but we’ve managed to lie our way into several wars, and the two World Wars we entered honestly, we entered late and mostly when cornered.

 

However, not everyone has the same doubts as Plante and several other cartoonists. Michael Ramirez seems to see an inevitability to the next round of death in the Middle East. At least, he sees intention on the part of Iran.

During Vietnam, I said I felt that, if people wanted to volunteer to go to war, it was fine with me, but that the draft was wrong. I’ve completely reversed on that and wish we would go back to a time when the Great Mandela would spin and select the sons — and the daughters, dammit — of wealthy and influential people.

I took a student deferment then, as about half of my male counterparts did, but I wouldn’t want that system again.

We’ll always have the rich, spoiled cheats among us who get the family doctor to lie about their fitness for service, but we’d hear a lot less rah-rah from the Halls of Congress if their children, and the children of their constituents, and the children of their major donors, were at risk of having to pay for all that cheerleading.

I suspect some flag-waving commentators might also tone it down if their kids were at any risk.

 

John Cole addresses the Census issue, which got him some pushback on social media from someone who insists the Census should only count citizens.

The Republicans claim that they only want the information in order to guarantee compliance with the Voting Rights Act, which wouldn’t pass the laugh test even if nobody had uncovered correspondence directly asserting their interest in repressing minority votes.

You might even get suspicious because the GOP has blocked bills to protect voting systems from hacking and to require reporting of offers of foreign collusion in our elections.

Particularly in light of new evidence suggesting targeted interference with liberal enclaves in North Carolina.

But, first of all, census data is used for far more than counting the number of potential voters (or why count the kids?).

And if you really want to make sure our voting system is on the up-and-up, perhaps voters should have to have read the Constitution, at least to the extent of not making ignorant misstatements about what it says.

Or intentional ones.

 

On which topic, I like Joy of Tech‘s latest mostly because it makes a nice counterpoint to all the rightwing snowflakes who claim that Facebook and Twitter are censoring conservatives.

Facebook and Twitter have decided to cut down on lies and racism and unhinged, irresponsible hate, and if conservatives feel that puts them at a particular disadvantage, well, I can’t help you, pal.

But so far, as Nitrozac charges, they’re doing a pretty lousy job of it. I’ve seen several cases where a cartoonist, for instance, criticized racist hate, but because their piece included a picture of a Klansman, it was taken down and they were either warned or suspended.

Meanwhile, instances of outright bigotry and hate speech not only get by, but, if reported, are let through as not violating community standards.

Now, it’s fair to point out that the incredible volume of postings on these social media sites makes it hard to police each one.

But that incredible volume of postings translates into incredible advertising revenues, and it seems you could hire a proportional number of gatekeepers to maintain some decorum without having to sell off your yachts, or, at least, not all of them.

Nitrozac uses the phrase “little moneygrubbing shits,” and I wouldn’t go quite … well … yeah, okay, in fact, I would.

 

Happy Father’s Day

I pulled up this Father’s Day cartoon from a half century ago, because Father’s Day cartoons are pretty much the same each year.

Bud Blake stopped drawing Tiger in 2003, two years before his death, but it’s still running, and not in the Vintage section but in the regular funnies with its date and copyright updated.

I had to go through Sunday newspapers of more than 200 pages to find it, which points out the pressure on living cartoonists to find a space for their work. I don’t know many papers that print 200 pages in an entire week anymore.

Tiger was a well-done strip, and, back in 1969, when this strip (first) ran, a necktie was a present a father could use.

I saw a Father’s Day necktie gag in today’s paper, too, however, and, gosh, you might as well give the old man a pair of spats. I realize there are still guys who have to wear ties to work, but it’s a fading fashion.

When I moved East in 1987, I was told by my new boss that jackets and ties were required for anyone meeting the public, and, he added, no “dungarees.”

I’d been living out West for 16 years and hadn’t heard the word “dungarees” in all that time, but was used to wearing a tattersall shirt, tweed jacket, knit tie, jeans and boots.

Welcome to the East Coast.

However, in 1999, I took a job at another Eastern paper, but with a publisher from Pocatello, Idaho, and there I kept a jacket and tie in the office for emergencies, and my next paper’s publisher was from Oklahoma, so things didn’t change.

I last wore a tie two years ago, and I’m kind of hoping nobody dies because, if they do, I’m going to have buy a dark suit to go with that old tie. (I realize that hoping nobody dies seems futile.)

But dressing up is admittedly kind of fun, and the less often you do it, the more fun it is when you do. I wore a tux to my younger son’s wedding in 2002, a mere quarter century after the previous time I’d worn one.

Putting on a tux makes me feel like Kid Shelleen.