CSotD: Truth, myths, hackery and other comic fun
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But first, one of my excursions into barely semi-relevant commentary, because today’s Speed Bump reminded me of the last dogsled race I went to.
Dogsled races are basically an excuse to stand around, drink hot chocolate and talk to your neighbors, and in snow country in February, you don’t have enough of those.
You send all the dogsleds off and then wait for them to come back. (You can go into the fire house if you’re cold.)
So somebody in Rangeley decided they’d gone too long without a dogsled race, but the problem is, you can’t announce a race three months before it happens because the racers have made commitments a year in advance, so only two teams signed up.
One was an experienced team that normally gave tourists rides around the frozen lake. Here is an expert dog race assistant helping to get the fierce Jack-London wolfdogs into harness.
The other was a fellow who had just started his string. This was his, and their, first race.
So off the two teams went, about three minutes apart, and, being a journalist, I drove off to intercept them on the lake and get some photos. There were about 30 of us out at this midpoint.
Which was irrelevant to the first team, which whipped past us, in harness, fully engaged, with the happy intensity of a team of dogs doing what they were born and bred to do.
The second team, not having the experience to be in the groove, was more like Larry in today’s Speed Bump. It was an entire string of Larrys, so surprised and delighted to find a crowd of people standing around on the lake that they stopped to have a good look. And a scratch. And perhaps a roll in the snow.
So even though there were only two teams in the race, they finished about an hour apart, so the race itself lasted about as long as it would have if they’d had 30 or 40 teams.
Plus it provided a lot more laughs.
Okay, enough fun stuff. Let’s get into character.
Juxtaposition of the Day
It’s not that I’m blown away by this “To the Moon, Alice!” concept, but I’m very much amused by the different perspectives of whose absence would best improve the planet.
And the contrast between bragging, boasting and promising in one panel, and using your brains and talent to accomplish a goal in the second.
I also like the fact that Schrank has Pressley actually handling the controls. When they made their four-person statement the other day, it was the first time I’d seen her give an actual mini-speech, and I thought, oh, that girl grew up going to church. She’s got that traditional black-preacher cadence and delivery and I could listen to her all day long.
Yes, as opposed to Stuttering Don, but also just in general anyway.
Juxtaposition of Revenge
Admittedly, when Wiley Miller grouses about this younger generation, it’s entertaining but not necessarily groundbreaking. He’s one of the best complainers in comics, but, my gosh, he’s nearly my age.
He’s right, of course, that each generation thinks they’ve discovered breakthroughs. The Stones (and Marianne Faithful) sang, “Doing things we used to do, they think are new” back in 1964, when I was 14 years old and doing things my parents used to do, and you were statistically most likely waiting for 17 years to do anything at all.
And the phrase “teaching your grandmother to suck eggs” goes back much farther than that.
However, I remember prefacing my newly-acquired wisdom with “Did you know?” rather than “You’re doing it wrong!”
The “Did you know?” approach provoked more laughter than resentment, and, by the way, one misapprehension about my generation is the notion that Benjamin Spock did not recommend spanking.
However, he probably wouldn’t have approved of a quick back-hand in the face to someone who said, “You’re doing it wrong.”
He’d have understood. He just wouldn’t have approved.
Anyway, Darrin Bell, who is only about half a decade over median age, well-captures the arrogance that makes all this public parading of common knowledge so damned annoying.
Disclosure: I’ll admit that the thing about pinching the bud-end of a banana instead of trying to tear it open at the stem is a good idea. And it may even be “a better way.”
But it’s not “the proper way.” It’s the way monkeys do it. Which is not how I judge propriety.
Nor is it transformative. It will change how you peel bananas and little else.
So it’s a “handy hint,” not a “life hack.”
Unless you feel elevated terminology will prove that you are more intelligent than a monkey.
I saw a guy in the airport last week, flying in his doctoral robes and floppy hat.
He probably calls everything a “life hack.”
Anyway
Apparently, Mike Luckovich figures that, if Martin de Porres came back to Earth, it would surprise Trump and I suppose it would, if he had the slightest idea of who Martin de Porres was.
However, Martin de Porres was indeed everything that Trump hates: Mixed race, generous, kind to the poor, even providing medical care to them.
Though I suppose Luckovich might mean someone else and is tapping into that Hollywood theory that fictional characters can be of any race.
In which case, I’m not going to stand near him in the next thunderstorm.
The Irish recognize Bull
Finally, Martyn Turner cuts through the bafflegab, evasions and outright lies to portray what happened as what happened.
Although, to be fair, Trump has recently befriended a negro, so we know he’s not racist.
And, he says, he disagreed with that chant:
He says he didn’t like it and, in the same tweet, he forwards a message of praise and joy from someone who did.
Still, it’s not his fault a racist lynch mob is motivated by love of our country.
He did nothing to lead them on:
They go crazy! I tell them she hate America and they go crazy!
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