CSotD: Weekend roundup

If we’re going to have a round-up, we might as well start with a round-up, and, besides, any excuse to feature Dog Eats Doug is worthy.

I’m not sure anyone as young as Doug would have a fantasy this well planned out, or that kids know anything about cowboys anymore anyway, but I’m also pretty sure dogs can’t really talk to each other, so I’m gonna suspend disbelief and remember what my eldest said, in later life, of the finest dog I’ve ever known: “The best thing was, when we played monkeys, Szabo was a monkey!”

It could happen because it has happened.

 

On a vaguely related note, I’m often puzzled by Ted Rall‘s nihilistic take on things, but I’ll confess to a ray of understanding on this one, mostly by happenstance.

Yesterday, a friend and I were talking about all the things you’re supposed to boycott these days, and I admitted that I never buy Arizona Iced Tea, which goes back a thousand years to a time when they announced they were bringing out “Crazy Horse Malt Liquor.”

Crazy Horse’s family objected because he had been a holy man who preached against what alcohol had done to the Oglalla, but they weren’t able to stop the company and so I stopped buying their goddam iced tea.

Since then, the company has been sold several times and the management I so objected to is long gone and, by now, probably dead, too, and also the malt liquor didn’t happen or is gone, too, or whatever.

Point is, my boycott of Arizona Iced Tea has become a personal thing with no anchor in reality, but I still don’t buy the damn stuff.

Similarly, Joe Biden wasn’t the only person fooled by the lies of the Bush Administration, and his vote to give W permission to attack Iraq is long ago and doesn’t by any means represent his overall record.

But I guess if I can boycott Arizona Iced Tea as a personal crochet, Ted can oppose Biden for similarly outdated, personal and — from a rational point of view — absurd reasons.

Differences being:

1. I’m not telling other people not to drink Arizona Iced Tea, and, even if I were,
2. Their only alternative beverage is not Red Devil Lye.

 

So while we’re talking about personal choices and situations, let’s look at our

Juxtaposition of the Day

(Anne and God)

(Matt)

I’ll admit that, when I first read Anne Morse Hambrock’s latest conversation with God, the “for my safety” seemed attached to her request to the Deity, not to the disregard. That is, that she was asking Him to restrain her for her own good.

That wasn’t a matter of her phrasing — which is perfectly clear — but of my own sense that confronting these dimwits puts you in physical jeopardy with very little payoff.

In my reckoning, shaming one anti-social idiot isn’t worth getting punched in the face.

Or even worth ramping up a momentary annoyance into a five-minute exercise in bad karma and high blood pressure with no appreciable benefit.

Except.

Except if you raise enough hell in the aisles, maybe management will decide to take a more proactive stance in preventing such things.

Which brings us to Matt and the idea that stores can compete for business by declaring that they don’t give a damn about your health or the well-being of the community and, ladies and gentlemen, I give you Winn-Dixie, a grocery store chain that offers fresh weasel.

More thoughtful stores have declared a must-mask policy for its own sake, while some small bistros have either canceled sit-down dining or shut down entirely rather than force their staff to have to deal with belligerent, anti-social pigs.

Anyway, while I sympathize with Anne asking God for the gift of patience and restraint, I wouldn’t object to a few well-targeted lightning bolts.

 

And let’s finish the day with a

Three-Way Juxtaposition of the Day

(Kal Kallaugher)

 

(Mike Luckovich)

 

(Kevin Siers)

We’ll certainly be returning to this topic, because these three are among a growing number of outraged, on-target commentaries, and the issue goes beyond the denial of states’ rights.

And, to return to Ted Rall’s enduring hatred of Joe Biden’s vote on Iraq, I’d say that, at least when Dick Cheney wanted to invade that country, he provided something of a credible fig leaf, not so much in Condoleezza Rice’s announcement of aluminum tubes but in sending Colin Powell, a man of high credibility, to the United Nations with a packet of deliberate lies to present to the world.

 

Granted, their fan-dance didn’t fool Madam & Eve, but it fooled a great many other people, and Ted is right: It led to far too many unnecessary deaths.

I don’t see nearly that level of clever planning and credible claims arising out of Trump’s domestic invasion, but, of course, one advantage W had over Dear Leader is that he surrounded himself with people who were smarter and more experienced and then he listened to them.

On the other hand, times do change, and the growth of the Idiocracy bandwagon — no longer hobbled by the Fairness Doctrine and the sense of decency it reflected — has made credible arguments unnecessary.

In 2006, the White House Concubines Dinner caused a kerfuffle when Stephen Colbert dared to criticize both the administration and the concubines themselves, but 14 years later, we’ve absorbed Kelleyanne Conway’s concept of “alternative facts,” about which she wasn’t joking.

And now Chad Wolf, acting (i.e., “pretend”) Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, is asking us to accept the concept of “pro-active arrest,” which means arresting people who have not yet committed a crime because perhaps they might.

People say it’s “Orwellian,” and they’re right, but not based on “1984.”

Rather, it’s out of “Animal Farm,” in which the pigs keep re-painting the slogans on the barn wall and, while some of the animals are puzzled by the changes, the sheep willingly accept that it’s always been that way.

Here’s a chance to relive a simpler time. Better watch it before it’s declared disloyal and taken down: