CSotD: It’s funny ’cause it’s true

Graeme MacKay starts us out easy, with a supply chain gag that, for some reason, doesn’t depict a broken chain with some politician in the middle, hanging on by the broken ends.

Perhaps he didn’t get the memo.

 

However, he hit me at the right moment, because I bought my Halloween candy the other day and just broke into it to discover that the Hershey’s people are already decorating for Christmas.

Or “still,” since the store had a pretty good price on this stuff. So I tested it, and it seemed fresh, so I tested some more.

One can’t be too careful.

 

Clay Bennett (CTFP) offers more sarcasm than outright humor, but it made me laugh on several levels, starting with the simple reversal of suburban book clubs in which women — it never seems to be men — drink wine and discuss some best seller.

There’s nothing wrong with that, beyond Sturgeon’s Law, in this case that 90% of what’s published and praised these days is extruded according to the rules of style set down by writers’ workshops and MFA programs.

Nothing new there: Nobody’s ever quite known what to make of brilliant books that don’t fit current style, like “At Swim Two Birds” or, for that matter, “Moby Dick.”

Joyce made fun of both popular style and his uneducated wife by having Molly Bloom gush over best-selling Paul de Kock, but, then, Joyce made a fetish of writing books he didn’t expect anybody to read.

Joyce had a lot of fetishes and Nora was a saint for putting up with him. But I digress.

Bennett not only capitalizes on the notion of the women burning books they only pretend to have read but also on the idea that any group that includes the word “Liberty” is certain to be against it.

Another matter of excellent timing: My Facebook feed has recently been full of ads for groups that offer free curricula to teach children the truth and they all have either “Liberty” or “Freedom” in their names but not in their hearts.

 

As long as we’re beating up on suburban hypocrites, here’s Joel Pett on the resistance to affordable housing and yet another chance for me to feel superior, in this case on behalf of my neighbors.

We’ve had two major turnouts for zoning board meetings in the past year. One was to support conversion of an six-unit apartment building next door to me into housing for developmentally disabled adults, at which more than one neighbor reminded the board that the building had housed Section 8 tenants and that the project, while admirable and wanted, was displacing some people who needed affordable housing, a rare commodity in these parts.

The other was to oppose a monstrous five-story, 40-unit project that would have not only overshadowed our residential neighborhood but appeared to be geared for Yuppies. We got it whittled down to a more sensible size but I haven’t seen any shovels go into the dirt, so maybe the developer decided she couldn’t make enough money.

I suspect it’s a matter of who turns out for these meetings, which may be part of that larger issue of progressives fixating on the White House while the conservatives seize control of local school boards and city councils.

 

Juxtaposition of the Day

(David Fitzsimmons)

(Michael de Adder)

There are, and certainly have been, all sorts of very serious discussions of what keeps Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin blocking their party’s legislative plan, and it all matters and we should certainly ponder it.

But we ought not to lose sight of the power of plain old mockery, and Fitzsimmons — whose home state is represented by Herself — takes a break from Deep Thoughts to pun on her name and come up with a trio of appropriately altered film titles.

Perhaps taking a silly approach to a serious issue won’t win him a Pulitzer, but, then, what does these days?

And, anyway, Sinema has done very little to make anyone take her seriously.

As for Manchin, he has issued denials of a report in Mother Jones that he’s switching parties, though he also told Fox News that he thinks party affiliation is somewhat irrelevant.

It reminds me of the old war movies where the informer spills his information expecting a reward but, instead, is taken out and shot, but de Adder not only offers a better laugh but a more realistic payoff.

McConnell will continue to need Manchin’s vote but whether it comes with a (D) or an (R) isn’t likely to translate into respect.

(This is a good time to direct your attention to the excellent college-journalism piece on editorial cartoons to which DD Degg linked.)

 

Pat Bagley depicts a carrier whistling past the graveyard of newspapers bought and gutted by Alden Global, his own paper having escaped the trap.

I’ve noted the danger of ownership more interested in its stock price than its product, and that it’s a problem in more sectors of the economy than this one.

Which, as said as recently as yesterday, puts quotation marks around “local,” because so very little is actually local anymore, including “local newspapers.”

Then again, the few that are genuinely local are doing all right, while we’re seeing serious news websites pop up in Colorado, in New Hampshire and, as a reader pointed out, in New Zealand that push back against dead-eyed chains.

Our local paper even features stories from the New Hampshire Bulletin, which seems like a good semi-partnership to serve those who cling to print.

“Local” news matters and perhaps we’ll see more along those lines.

 

Bagley’s cartoon reminded me of this 1971 Mauldin piece, which he’s likely too young to have seen. Life is no longer a weekly publication, though they drag it out for grocery-line “specials” from time to time.

Honestly, I’m gobsmacked that magazines exist at all. It’s hard enough to sell yesterday’s news in the current market, never mind last week’s or, lord, last month’s.

I subscribe to one of those magazines where, if you support the on-line version, they send you a print copy for your bathroom, presumably to shore up their print advertising revenue.

 

Might as well print “I feel happy!” on the cover.