John Deering gets the Fortuitous Timing of the Month Award for dropping this Strange Brew from a distance of several weeks and having it land just as Rush Limbaugh was holding up the Donner Party as a model for how we all have to deal with Covid-19.
To which I would add that, when you’re getting called out by the Washington Times, Rush, it’s time to look within.
And Friday is for comic strips, not politics, but today’s Prickly City reminds me of what a great, articulate young American president once said:
Possibly it’s one of the reasons — certainly it’s one of the very big reasons trade and things related to trade that I got elected in the first place — I’ve been talking about it for a long time, along with many other subjects, frankly.
Not that Stantis is promoting the Donald, I realize, but we’ve passed this way before, and the narrative that Biden is mentally deficient is gaining strength, just as the “Al Gore lies” narrative did, and the “John Kerry faked his war experience” also did.
It could have been a Juxtaposition with today’s Candorville.
The Internets are indeed a hotbed of both intentional and unintentional misinformation, but they’ve also made it much easier to track down the truth.
But you’ve got to want to find it.
Enough politics. Here’s the best
Juxtaposition of the Week
Obviously, there’s a difference between the pleasant nostalgia of Red and Rover and the gonzo exaggerations of Wallace the Brave, but what strikes me is that, while Rover is often the voice of sanity, and thus covers his eyes in this episode, there is no such voice in Wallace’s life.
Spud is a willing accomplice mostly because he won’t speak up even when he does realize what he’s being led into, while Amelia is the pal we always needed to help get us into trouble.
To which I would add that, while my own childhood didn’t include the breathtakingly foolish things Wallace gets into (for the most part, but no details because my mother reads this), it did include a number of Spuds and a few Amelias, though none of them were girls because it was a different time.
Still, if you’re going to live your young life somewhere between the two, I’d recommend shifting that needle more towards Wallace’s end of the spectrum.
Looking back, I had several friends whose big brothers might have been sources for deer urine, had we only thought to ask, though I’ll bet our mothers would have noticed when we came back into the house.
Certainly our dogs would have, which carries its own risks.
And speaking of bright young boys in the comics, I don’t know where this story arc in Edison Lee is headed, as he has befriended a now-stranded alien.
As a general rule, I’m disinclined to favor adding talking animals or supernatural characters to realistic strips, and Joules the Lab Rat seems quite enough.
On the other hand, I have a lot of faith in John Hambrock, such that I’ll enjoy this storyline while trying not to worry about its long-term implications.
And, going back to Wallace, I’d note that Edison also has a willing-and-credulous sidekick in the person of his young cousin, as well as a well-grounded, intelligent female friend.
Which still doesn’t invoke nostalgia for me, since, though I was well-stocked with credulous sidekicks, I was a bit short of well-grounded, intelligent female friends until considerably later in life.
The current Vintage Buz Sawyer having completely neglected that “well-grounded” element.
I have a feeling ol’ happily-married Buz is going to end up exploiting Sultry to help get him out of his current predicament, which adds an element of real suspense.
On the one hand, his wife Christy is one of the true babes of comicdom, someone you would crawl over broken glass to come home to.
On the other, I’ve always felt that Tom Destry should have wound up with Frenchy instead of dependable, boring Janice Tyndall.
I don’t want a tramp-with-a-heart-of-gold who will take a bullet for me. I want a tramp-with-a-heart-of-gold who will hand out a few bullets on my behalf.
(Some people get $100 an hour to listen to this kind of stuff.)
Which observation segues neatly into this Pardon My Planet.
Back before streaming video services, I had an old laptop over the sink and would watch DVDs while I did dishes. Now that I’m on Fubo, however, I can watch regular TV there, which puts me in the path of Daytime Television and more quackery and pill-pushing than I’d have believed, back in the days when the TV never went on until 5 pm.
Daytime and Prime Time are two different worlds, and Daytime TV advertisers prey upon those who are home at those hours.
It reminds me of the early days of cable, when Big Sur Waterbeds sponsored late night movies on a distant California station, the obvious strategy being that people awake at that hour might want a more comfortable bed.
But Daytime advertisers are much more exploitive, selling prescriptions your doctor might not recommend and dubious insurance policies an old-school attorney general would have shut down, or offering to abscond with the structured settlement someone gave you because you weren’t responsible enough to handle a lump-sum payout.
If they could find a way to televise three-card monte, I’m sure it would be on Daytime TV.
And a major ratings triumph.
Still on the topic of foolish people, this Arctic Circle hit close to home because our local post office recently had to put up notices asking people not to kick the button for the automatic door opener.
Which has an icon of a wheelchair on it, not intended as a clue, but, still, you’d think, wouldn’t you?
But if people thought, who’d take all those advertised pills, buy health plans that pay for nothing and sign over their structured settlements?
And so Bizarro leaves us pretty much where we started.
Ever.
Our local post office has posted a sign during the pandemic asking patrons not to throw mail at the postal clerks.
My mind reels at the thought of angry and/or frightened citizens avoiding the Corona virus by flinging envelopes at terrorized clerks. Just as disturbing is the realization that something happened that necessitated these signs.
“Blinky the Wonder Wombat” is an awesome moniker.
Rush is still portly enough to yield quite a repast.
Former student of mine whose last name really IS Donner drove his wife nuts by going into the restaurant and telling the hostess: “Donner – party of 45.” (Of course they aren’t going to restaurants lately.)