CSotD: TGIFF

But first, this …

Having used Chip Bok‘s cartoon yesterday to illustrate conservatives who dismiss the revelations in the Atlantic because of (fairly standard) anonymous sources, it’s only fair to note that he posted this that morning.

Fair enough, Chip. Now let’s dispense with politics and enjoy some Friday Funnies.

 

Granted, Candorville often riffs on politics, and Lemont is quite correct that our current woes began with Gingrich and the Contract With (or was it “On”?) America.

Though you could trace it farther back to the Nixon/Agnew appeal to the Silent Majority, which puts it in Pat Buchanan’s lap, what with his coining of terms like “nattering nabobs of negativity” and “effete snobs” for Spiro to throw around.

But I’m glad to see Steve Urkel called out for being the decade’s true lowpoint.

 

Even Monty is riffing on politics, with a story arc on an approaching hurricane whose path young Sedgewick hopes to alter with a Sharpie.

Now here’s our

Juxtaposition of the Day

(Arlo and Janis)

(Madam and Eve)

Amid all the fear of Covid there remains the fact that people still get colds and allergies, and this summer seems to have been particularly brutal in the area of mold and pollen.

Though it seems an oddity that Janis is getting a cold as fall approaches, while, in the Southern Hemisphere, Thandi complains of hay fever at the end of winter.

But I’m sitting here dabbing at my eyes and blowing my nose, and there aren’t many reasons I miss working in an office, but one of them is that I knew who I could check in with to see if I had a cold or if the allergies were hitting them hard, too.

Now I have to guess, and the on-line pollen counter is of no use at all, leaving me to suspect the worst and to stagger around like Fred Sanford, shouting “I’m coming, Elizabeth!” and then realizing that I pretty much feel this way every year about now.

And while I don’t know if Covid backs up your sinuses, I’m pretty sure it doesn’t make your eyes itch, so, like Old Lodge Skins, I just get back up and get back to business.

I went in for my annual physical last week, and my regular doctor wasn’t available, so I was scheduled with what I assumed would be a recent graduate of Dr. Suess Medical School (based on his book, “If I Ran The Medical Center.”)

I like it when a brand new doctor comes my way, because they’re up-to-date on all sorts of things the established medicos may have only read about in passing.

Example: Some time ago, I was in the ER for one of those things that seems scary but turns out to be inconsequential, and as the medical student was taking my vitals, we were talking about flu and I said something about vaccines based on llamas, a brand-new research topic at the time.

He paused and said, “Oh, yeah, because their DNA is on one strand,” and I asked how on earth he knew about that. Turns out he was constructing antibodies as part of the undergraduate work that had gotten him to where he was.

Anyway, I didn’t get a brand-new doctor but just a regular old one, and she didn’t even poke a stick up my nose, much less come up with a revolutionary new miracle solution to my allergies.

 

I did get a laugh out of this Deflocked, but I realize it wouldn’t make any sense much of anywhere except the United States.

I know. More politics sneaking into the funny pages. Sorry.

 

Grand Avenue raises an issue I’ve seen cited on-line, though I’m not sure it’s entirely valid.

Thing is, if the snow is bad enough to close school, it’s probably bad enough to also bring down your Internet access, though perhaps that will simply update the old gag about the absence excuse signed “My Mom” to encompass a kid emailing his teacher to tell her his Internet’s out.

There have been several political cartoons (yeah, here we go again) about the problem of poor children not being able to participate in Zoom classes. Last night, I saw ads on the football game from both Xfinity and T-Mobile saying that they’re doing something about it, but not saying what.

Mobile phones are not simply the tool of the future but of the present, and wired Internet seems a fading technology as mobiles are increasingly used throughout the world. Nigeria even sends lesson plans and instructional materials to teachers in remote villages by phone, though the kids are still taught in person.

One day we’ll have to explain to our grandchildren how expensive connectivity once was, just as we now have to explain the concept of long-distance phone rates.

 

While we wait for that day, Harry Bliss is right-on. In 1995, when a blowdown took out trees and powerlines in my old hometown, someone with a cell phone went to a particular spot on a particular hill so people could take turns calling their families.

Most of us thought the refusal to allow cell towers in the Adirondacks was taking the “Forever Wild” thing a bit too literally, but after a couple of auto accidents that were only fatal because nobody could call for help, the city folks decided a frankenpine here and there wouldn’t mar their vacation landscape too much after all.

But it’s not just there: Even a decade ago, I had to deal with the fact that, whether in NH or at a paper I edited in Maine, when reporters were out of town, they were out of touch.

Farmers got electricity easier in the ’30s than folks are getting phone and Internet access today.

 

Finally, Non Sequitur takes a comically cynical look at the afterlife.

I don’t know what happens when we die, but there are a lot of self-proclaimed pearly gatekeepers who make me feel that, if they’re right, I don’t want to go there.

Not that they’d let me in their little club anyway.

Wherever Laura went, that’s where I want to go.