CSotD: Friday Funnies come on a Friday this week!

I recently realized how much the tumult of the past four years has caused me to focus on politics rather than funnies, so much so that I had to set aside Friday Funnies as an escape.

I’m hoping — when we’ve finally won the War of the Presidential Succession — to go back to a greater mix of politics and humor.

Meanwhile, it does not help that RNC Blatherskite Ronna McDaniel has issued a press release claiming a “major victory” for the Army of the Pretender because a relatively small number of Pennsylvania ballots were tossed on a technicality.

Which would be “politics” except that not only is the number far too short to change the overall results, but they had already been set aside and so had not even been counted as part of Biden’s insurmountable lead.

Which makes it farce.

I’ll be glad when Ronna is swept from the stage so I can stop thinking her last name is McDonna. She’s a clown all right, but hardly my McFavorite.

Fortunately, we’ve still got humor to pull us through.

While we’re sidetracked at the intersection of politics and farce, set a reminder for Sunday, 4 pm EST, for a YouTube special featuring Bill Mauldin biographer Todd DePastino, discussing Mauldin and his new book on the man. (h/t to Mike Lynch)

Anyone who pissed off both George Patton and Richard Nixon fits my current mood splendidly.

Now how’s about some funnies?

 

Bliss (Tribune) reminds me to warn my family that they may think I’m sending them dog treats for Christmas this year, because, having a new puppy in the house, I’m awash in Chewy boxes, which are, as the cartoon demonstrates, boldly branded.

Small-city shopping is a minefield of ethical choices.

I feel a little guilty about shopping online instead of locally, but, while we have a small local pet store, they don’t have a huge selection and waiting two weeks for a special order is problematic when two weeks is 12.5 percent of your dog’s current existence.

We do have a PetSmart with good selection, but that money just goes to Bentonville.

We’ll finish the housebreaking, then deal with the ethics.

 

Pros and Cons (KFS) reminds me of my time on jury duty a couple of years ago, though, in our case, we’d have found the poor fellow not guilty about that quickly.

Two things prevented it: One was that, while I’d have started off with a straw vote, our foreman insisted on reviewing the evidence one more time.

The other was that, while we were having the bailiff haul that stuff in, they also delivered a platter of sawed-off submarine sandwiches, which we felt obligated to eat, given that the taxpayers had already paid for them and it was lunchtime, after all. It was part of our oath.

The not-funny part was that I spoke to the guy’s excellent public defender when the 30 day no-contact barrier had expired and he said there are all sorts of poor saps in jail because lazy PDs let them be bullied into guilty pleas to lesser charges when they weren’t guilty of anything in the first place.

But that’s politics. We do lunch on Friday, not politics.

 

Even this Frazz (AMS) has a political side, citing the eagerness of some heartless SOBs to cut the support that provides kids with three daily meals instead of one, and then the heartlessness of other SOBs who want to cut school food budgets, too.

A new broom should help. I keep seeing people hoping Betsy DeVos will be sent packing and it makes me wonder if they realize cabinet secretaries are not like Supreme Court justices.

Granted, Moscow Mitch could block Biden’s nominees, but an Ed Dept with no secretary would be an improvement, and I’m pretty sure the USDA would likewise be happy to continue breakfast programs, not to mention SNAP and WIC and suchlike.

Back in the olden days of Clinton and W, I ate a lot of school lunches, and I was suspicious of teachers who took me out to fast food places: I wanted to share what the kids were getting and, when I could, I’d pull up a chair at one of their tables.

I remember one editorial cartooning presentation to juniors and seniors — my usual crowd — where I was making a point about cheap, obvious targets and said that they, for instance, could make a joke about school lunches, and a kid in the front row piped up, “Actually, our lunches are pretty good.”

Fortunately, that fit the narrative of dumb jokes about false targets, but he was also right. In hundreds of school visits, I only had one bad lunch, and the kids at my table assured me that things were usually at least a little better.

That might sound political, but it’s actually an opportunity for conservatives to put religion back in our schools.

What man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? — Matthew, 9-10

Though I suppose that, today, Jesus would have to explain that his questions were rhetorical.

 

Juxtaposition of the Day

(Free Range – Creators)

 

(F-Minus – AMS)

Shel Silverstein’s “The Giving Tree” has recently become a target for people who, I gather, might hand their kids a stone or a serpent if they didn’t feel they were getting enough in return.

Bill Whitehead satirizes the complaint and Tony Carillo offers an answer, while, if you want to be political, you can look to the White House for a child raised by a father who demanded a fair return for whatever he gave.

Again, if you consider the Bible an ethical guide rather than a history text, it’s in there, too, in the story called “The Prodigal Son” but also known as “The Loving Father,” since the latter was its point: Not that kids screw up — of course they do — but that parental love doesn’t reckon the cost.

Or shouldn’t.

Or something.

 

(Granted, brothers and fellow workers often need to be reminded not to be assholes.)