CSotD: Friday Funnies Come on a Thursday This Week
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No politics today, in part because I’m at the airport getting ready to catch a plane and in part because I want to wait for the Super Tuesday cartoons to catch up. I’m still seeing new work featuring people who are no longer in the race.
But Mike Luckovich‘s latest can’t wait in large part because I want him to put it on a real bumpersticker so I can put it on my real car.
And in part because one of the things that came out of exit polls on CNN was how angry voters are, and, if you don’t believe in polls, look how long they stood in line to vote.
In the words of Padraig Pearse, “Beware of the thing that is coming, beware of the risen people.”
And, no, they aren’t all under 30 despite all the social-media bloviating, and in fact the vast majority are over 30, but we’ll deal with that tomorrow.
On with the Funnies:
Okay, a little more politics, because I’m still seeing 401k gags among the editorial cartoons, but I think Pearls has the topic covered here.
It’s funny in a gallows-humor way, but it’s also kind of how I planned my own retirement: On the theory that, if it didn’t work out for me, it wasn’t gonna work out for a whole lot of people and something would have to happen.
So far, so good.
That’s also how I’ve addressed the whole Eternal Redemption and Life After Death issue as well. We’ll save that for another day, too.
Meanwhile, xkcd is addressing my immediate approach to the coronavirus.
Every year about this time, the molds come out from under the snow and my nose, sinuses and throat react, only, of course, this year I’m running around the house like Fred Sanford, shouting “I’m comin’, Elizabeth! I’m comin’!”
And then I remember that I’d have to catch it online because I don’t ever get within six feet of anyone.
Though I caught a half a news item about some dog in Hong Kong who tested positive, though apparently the pup didn’t have the disease and was just contaminated by its owner.
Which lines up with another news item people were sharing on Facebook that said the McDonald’s ordering kiosks — coincidentally mentioned here the other day — test positive for fecal coliform.
To which I would add (and did) that everything in the world tests positive for fecal coliform. And you can self-isolate and wash your hands and boil your dog and everything will still test positive for fecal coliform.
Not to be confused with Fecal Colorforms, which are sold to Japanese children along with manga, in which fecal humor is greatly prized.
But I digress.
Meanwhile, in the world where people talk to each other, Betty‘s friend Alex has been complaining about her new high-tech TV, which her husband programmed to show allegorical 19th century paintings instead of the usual cute animals and spectacularly retouched landscapes.
The story arc begins here; today’s was, I thought, particularly funny and apt.
There were women art students in “Of Human Bondage,” which is set in the 19th Century, but the main one wasn’t terribly talented, which was a plot point, suggesting that the field was as open to them as to anyone.
In fact, Mary Cassatt’s entry in Wikipedia includes this:
She was described by Gustave Geffroy in 1894 as one of “les trois grandes dames” (the three great ladies) of Impressionism alongside Marie Bracquemond and Berthe Morisot. In 1879, Diego Martelli, compared her to Degas, as they both sought to depict movement, light, and design in the most modern sense.
However, being respected within the academie is not the same as being celebrated by the public.
And I suspect that, if you wander through MOMA or the Chicago Institute or even the Louvre, you’ll see more pitchers of nekkid ladies than of fellers in the altogether.
At which this conversation splinters off into more directions than I want to follow today.
One of which is vaguely connected to this Mother Goose & Grimm, which in turn made me think of a social-media complaint about people using “partner” to mean heterosexual main squeeze, which apparently diluted the importance of otherwise or something.
Which in turn reminds me of about a decade ago, when my son was working on a floor where one of the other nurses often spoke of her “partner,” until the day they were all planning some get-together and she said she’d have to check with her partner because he might be busy.
At which point my son, whose social skills are equal to my own, blurted out, “Wait a minute: Your partner is a GUY?”
Which was not simply funny, because the other nurses were having the same reaction, but revelatory of where we have come as a society.
Hell, I’m old enough to remember when a coming out party was called a “Debutante Ball.”
I always wanted to go to one and, as each deb came down the aisle, shout bids in the form of horses and cattle.
Which is why people like me never got invited to Deb Balls.
Or even close enough to a deb to catch the coronavirus.
And this Macanudo combines male nurses and people with partners, as well as my own ancient upbringing, because for all that we were told to conform, the heroes they held up to us did just the opposite.
Television was flooded with Robin Hood and Zorro and other such rebels, but when we got older and started challenging the evil sheriffs and capitanos and alcaldes, everybody got all pissed off and told us to go cut our hair.
I mean, “Zorro” was on Disney and they wouldn’t even let us into the amusement park.
Go figure.
Deplane! Deplane!
I’m going to have to get into character and start boarding, which reminds me that I hear they rebooted Fantasy Island which I didn’t watch the first time around.
So I’ll be searching for that one.
Meanwhile, I let the Lockhorns explain and excuse my failure to come up with a whimsical closing.
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