CSotD: Monday Roundup
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Before I forget: We’ve had a couple of additions to our list of Patreon and similar fundraisers for cartoonists. If there’s someone whose work you appreciate, here’s where you can find out how to show that appreciation.
Now, on with the show:
I mentioned recently that it’s hard to produce a multi-panel political cartoon that doesn’t include dubious filler-panels or drift off point entirely, but Tom the Dancing Bug nails the current state of things brilliantly.
And while other cartoonists do three or more cartoons a week — some daily — here are seven well-seated panels that form a linked commentary, which is worth waiting for.
The flip side of that being that a cartoonist who does a number of single-panel pieces can phone one in with little overall impact, but when you string them together into one piece, a single clunker can undermine the whole thing.
As someone who posts seven days a week, I count on the idea that, if I’m less than inspiring on Tuesday, I’ll make it up by being brilliant on Wednesday. Bolling wads it all up into one roll of the dice, like archy’s moth.
And, like archy, I admire his passion.
Juxtaposition of the Balance Sheet
This juxtaposition isn’t pure, since Ramirez is pursuing the conservative concept that using tax money for the public good rather than building bombers or funding ICE raids amounts to “free giveaways”, while Darrin Bell is refuting the media obsession that Bloomberg is (inevitably) buying the nomination.
But the overall topic of campaign spending is worth addressing, because there are countries that not only don’t consider corporations to have the same rights as individual citizens, but who also feel that elections should be paid for — at least in large part — by the government that calls them.
Specifically, what Bernie has said is
The reason we’re going to defeat Trump is because we tell the truth. And we talk about issues that other campaigns choose not to talk about. We talk about the fact that we have today a corrupt political system that allows billionaires to buy elections. Now I may be old-fashioned, but I kind of believe in democracy and one person, one vote.
And that is why together, we will overturn the disastrous Supreme Court decision on Citizens United.
Why together we will end voter suppression in America. We will end extreme gerrymandering in America. And we will move this country to public funding of elections.
For my part, I like the idea of a nation with good health care, school lunches and honestly-drawn voting districts.
Modest, publicly funded elections fits that vision.
I also think you can’t expect to slide reforms past a Congress that benefits from opposing them.
But then Candorville raises the concept that the media is pursuing a ghost in the notion that Mike Bloomberg can buy an election, given that they cite the notion that purported millionaire Donald Trump did the same thing in 2016.
The funny thing being that, when I went to dig up the facts Lemont is citing, I found them in a Bloomberg article written a month after Trump was elected.
I guess Mike didn’t read that one.
Now let’s have an
Unintentional Juxtaposition of the Day
If anyone needs proof that Trump never sees the critical cartoons drawn of him, here ya go: Bennett posted his take on that goofy photograph a couple of days before Trump posted the original.
To which I will add nothing, since I had already juxtaposed it when it first appeared last March.
Well, except to note that Dictapator Popeye was driven from office shortly thereafter, being only a hooman.
Age-old Issues
I’d quibble with xkcd’s first set of figures, except that he admits it’s a rough estimate, and it’s hard to quibble with self-described bullshit.
But in 1970, I had a friend named Jason. One. One friend named Jason who had never met another Jason in nearly 30 years on the planet and suddenly found himself surrounded by mini-Jasons.
And my son, born in ’72, grew up surrounded by Chads and Jasons and became a grandfather nearly two years ago.
Which brings to mind this Baby Blues from 2007, which was about the time I gave up on names anyway, less because they were all the same but because parents had shifted to differentiating them by “creative spelling.”
Which makes me a slow learner, since Steve Martin had already covered that topic in 1991.
However, SanDeE* had done that to herself. I had to compile honor rolls from two dozen schools every quarter, which let me see that the SanDeE*s had grown up and were making sure their kids would have to offer a similar explanation to everyone they met every day of their lives.
But two factors, one of which is that “Jordan” may have to do with Michael, but a lot of Crusaders named their boys after the river, from which they had carried water for the baptism, while “Tiffany” is equally ancient, being a nickname for “Theophania,” which means “The Manifestation of God.”
The other factor is that what is bizarre in one decade becomes normal in another. An expert I interviewed on the topic in 1990 warned against what he called “bimbo-starlet” names, saying
The idea of giving cutesy-poo names is bad enough for poodles, but, if you’re going to do it, do it to pets, not to children. If she grows up and wants to be district attorney, she’s not going to make it with a name like “Bambi.” When she grows up and wants to run for the presidency, nobody is going to vote for her; nobody is going to take her seriously.
Now, there’s a theory asking for an OK Boomer in response, though he wasn’t a Boomer.
And, even if he were born in those years, he would have had more class than to let Madison Avenue pin a marketing tag on him.
The guys in today’s Loose Parts weren’t born in those years, either, but they seem to have mastered the role.
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