“Where’s your social consciousness?” Abbie Hoffman screamed, and then broke into giggles at the humorless politicos who decried anyone who dared to have fun while a war was going on.
This three-way Juxtaposition sums up my current mood: I share Mo’s despair, but I agree with Kate that there is a limit to how much immersion in the issues you can tolerate and so Arlo’s got it: A little bit of Beverly Hillbillies can be good for you.
Of course, yesterday it was football playoffs, but same thing.
Point is that, if you’re a member of Congress, you should be in full 24/7 mode right now, keeping our country from committing war crimes. Absolutely.
Just as firefighters in Australia are working without breaks.
For the rest of us, there needs to be a balance between active, productive involvement and maintaining a sane personal life.
I have an unusual advantage, I suppose, in that I devote the first four or five hours of my morning to rallying the troops, for whatever good it does. I don’t know how many people this blog reaches — and, by the way, it helps more if you “share” or “retweet” as well as “like” — but even if I’m only preaching to the choir, keeping the choir’s spirits up is a contribution.
I was frustrated the other day that Andrew Yang was holding a rally a block away while my replaced hip is still at a point where a block might as well be 10 miles, but they had a good crowd that included some of my progeny, as did Elizabeth Warren a little later.
She even signed a photo of my granddaughter taken in front of the Capitol at another rally, urging her to persist.
Living in the Granite State gives us unusual access to the candidates, of course, but they’ll show up in Virginia and Minnesota and California and my kids there will show up for them, too.
I don’t advocate procreation simply for the purpose of producing young activists, but, on the other hand, if you’ve got them, you should raise them right, and even that doesn’t take 24 hours every day.
People can have values and still have time for the Beverly Hillbillies, or the NFL playoffs or just wrapping up in a blanket with a little Jane Austen.
And Maeve is Canadian, so she can’t donate to American candidates, but she could take a look at what she spends on coffee and muffins and not deprive herself of that, but maybe do a little matching for causes she cares about.
It’s not a matter of devoting your entire life, or budget, to political activism. It’s a matter of integrating your values and your daily life.
With the occasional letter to a Senator telling them what you’d like them to do. Even if you live in a district whose Congresscritters are already on board, it helps to drop them a thank-you note.
And if someone says something ignorant or racist, remember that silence implies consent.
At the moment, several cartoonists are drawing escalators, in part because “escalation” is what Trump is doing and in part because he announced his presidential campaign while coming down an escalator while a crowd of paid extras applauded.
But only Ben Jenning‘s version came with pre-written commentary:
The whole world is watching.
Which doesn’t relieve any of us of responsibility, but it seems encouraging.
Now come and listen to my story ’bout a man named Jed:
Over on the fun side of the world, Frazz reminds me of a moment when a pair of large hounds involved in a chase game took the legs out from under me from behind.
I’d say “accidentally,” except that one of them was mine, and ridgebacks have an established strategy of scraping their pursuers off on trees, posts or, yes, human beings.
So, like Mr. Spaetzle, I had the opportunity to contemplate the relationship between time and gravity.
I’ve always assumed that hockey goalies live in a different time reference than the rest of us, but I discovered that day how to simulate it for a few seconds, because, as my legs appeared in front of me, I had time to think about how much my landing was going to hurt, and even a moment to be grateful I’d landed on my shoulders and my head hadn’t clunked on the ground, just before it did.
I don’t have any profound commentary on the phenomenon except that Frazz is right.
Well, wait a minute. There’s this: In Catch-22, Dunbar is convinced that, by making his life as boring as possible, it will seem longer. Perhaps he’s got it backwards and should live his life, as Yossarian does, in a state of perpetual panic.
(See? You can have fun without losing sight of the current political climate!)
And speaking of dogs and apolitical issues to ponder, Tank McNamara is starting to collect nominations for Sports Jerk of the Year, which is always fun, and I’m noticing that Nick and Kate from Hinds’s gone-but-not-forgotten strip “Second Chances” have been sneaking into Tank more often, which is good because I really miss them.
My point, however, is that Tank recently got a dog and it occurs to me that “walking the dog” is a nice conversational setting.
Today’s strip has nothing to do with dogs, that is, and they could just as well have been sitting at a table having coffee or at a bar having a beer, but here they are.
More cartoon characters should adopt dogs, simply to expand the narrative possibilities.
Meanwhile Red and Rover, which is specifically about dogs, brings up the mystery of how average-sized dogs know that those little purse-pups are also dogs and not groundhogs, raccoons or other chaseable critters.
I suppose the answer is that they’re more guided by scent than vision, and that, for all the maniacal Dr. Moreau procedures we’ve put them through, dogs remain dogs.
Which I find inspirational at the moment.
No matter what they do to you, stay human, okay?
Our local radio station, which Mom always had on in the house, used to play the New Christy Minstrels’ version of that song. Head-smackingly awful daily experience while it lasted, made even worse by the fact you could -hear- them grinning while they sang. I prefer the 78 by Byron G. Harlan with the American Quartet, which is merely head-scratchingly bad (available at archive.org).
As a hockey goalie, still playing in my late 60’s, I can tell you that the slowed time reference diminishes as one gets older! …or maybe those pucks are just getting a lot faster!
Don’t underestimate the speed of gravity.
I was still in my early twenties when I was helping Dad put the big star up on the chimney, and he asked me whether he had it on straight. I stepped back for a better look, and had only enough time to wonder why the garage was blocking my view before I hit the ground.
“even if I’m only preaching to the choir, keeping the choir’s spirits up is a contribution.”
Yes. Yes it is. Thank you !
Dunbar, of course, when challenged with “But then why would you even *want* to live a life that way?” replied with “But what else is there?”
We’ve got what we’ve got.
I’m about 80% on Team Dunbar, myself. (And can only dream of the glorious days when I could just be bored.)