Not gonna get into politics today, or, at least, not too far into them. Joy of Tech offers this commentary on the Spotify/Rogan/Young issue, and I like that they take a position without overreaching but one with teeth, and an answer to the anti-vax Brown Shirts who contend that Neil Young is old and (therefore) irrelevant.
The rust never dies, y’little jagoffs.
Some sources are reporting that Spotify removed his music, which is true but misleading, since they were just doing what he asked. He said “Choose” and they made a choice.
Young has been joined by several others, mostly of his (our) generation, like Joni Mitchell, but David Crosby said he’d have his music taken off, too, except he doesn’t control it, probably because he’s mostly recorded with groups rather than solo.
Still, it occurs to me that those megastars who sell their catalogs lose a lot of control over their music.
Which I suppose is okay. Picasso’s heirs don’t get a cut each time one of his paintings is resold.
Anyway, yes, Spotify is a Dumpster fire, but they chose the person who makes them the most money because that’s what faceless corporations do. The fact that his information kills people is not a box required to be checked or unchecked in their decision-making process.
Dealing with faceless corporations is becoming hard to avoid, but we can still choose which ones we climb into bed with.
One more brush with politics: There’s a lot to discuss in the Russia/Ukraine crisis, but this analysis by Cathy Wilcox both made me laugh and is spot-on.
I admire the concept, and also her wise, artistic decision not to add a caption or label things.
I’m sure we’ll be discussing this issue often in the weeks to come, but I’m sharing this today like a four-year-old who is so pleased with what he got you that he can’t keep it to himself until your birthday.
Everything beyond this cartoon is just filling in details.
Onto the mundane stuff:
Over in Reply All (WPWG), Lizzie seems to have found a good target audience for a major best seller. We know she’s already amassed a collection of vapid affirmations, each of which can be filled with even more hot air in order to expand and become a chapter in her book.
After selling a million copies of that, she should do a sequel for an even larger target audience: Introverts.
Judging from social media, there seem to be fewer than a dozen extroverts in the world.
And we hate them.
Juxtaposition of the Day
I had one dog who thought being dressed up was the height of hilarity, and another who thought he was being punished and would go into a deep funk. Most have fallen in the middle, but not a one of them has ever liked the cone or even tolerated it terribly well.
Fortunately, those Elizabethan collars are outdated. My last dog wore a post-surgical shirt after his tumor-removals, while my current sweetie had an inflatable collar after her spaying, which is better than a cone and still kept her from licking.
As for hard weather gear, we have an agreement that she only has to wear the sweater in single digits and below. In coming up with this, she has acquired several sweaters and jackets that she can wriggle out of, and one that she can’t.
It’s mostly to avoid criticism, not frostbite or even discomfort. She takes snow and cold with pure Scandinavian elan.
And while she’s carousing through the snow, she’s quite apt to find a set of prints like those seen in “They Can Talk,” an odd little strip that peeks into the minds of animals.
We don’t see a lot of owls at the wooded park, but, then, one doesn’t. The hawks, eagles and ospreys are far more visible, with the current raptor excitement being the appearance in Maine of a Steller’s sea eagle, which belongs in Northern Japan and Eastern Russia, not here.
“Here” being relative and, in terms of small animal safety, relatively far away. I’d like to see it, but I’d rather my little dog wasn’t seen by it.
Fortunately, it’s mostly pescatarian, because that sucker could haul off a beagle if it wanted to.
Leaving behind an eight-foot wide print in the snow.
Yikes.
Going back to the subject of not wanting to wear uncomfortable things, Mr. Boffo notes a benefit of having to wear masks, though I gather from watching Ari Melber and a few others that the Don Johnson scruffy look is definitely back.
At least not being able to grow an actual beard but thinking what you’ve got will do is back. I had a friend who coined the phrase “almost mustache” for the wispy attempts 17-year-olds sport, and I’m willing to extend the term to “almost beard” for splotchy facial failures.
Specific to Ari, I note that the women who appear on CNN, MSNBC and so forth not only have their hair and make-up just so but even wear false eyelashes, perhaps a necessity for television cameras but a sign of high maintenance anywhere else.
It makes me wonder how the non-shavers they work with justify going on air like that, while it also makes me wonder how the makeup people feel about having to be sure he doesn’t look like Nosferatu under the lights, but still comes across like a fashionable slob from the cheekbones down.
A generation ago, Country & Western music went through a phase where it was divided between well-dressed, fully made-up women with fabulous hair and guys who looked like they got their foot caught in the stirrup and dragged a mile, but C&W has now become Country Pop and the male stars not only shave their faces but their well-oiled chests as well.
Can’t call them metrosexuals, I guess, but “ruralsexuals” hardly seems right either.
Anyway, the Chippendales have taken over the Grand Ole Opry.
To which I say that, dammit, if you’re gonna be All Hat And No Cattle, you oughta play it for laffs and make it swing:
RE: the “cone of shame”. I’ve used the inflatable donut collar for our dogs for several years, but I’ve now seen that the ‘cone of shame’ is clear, rather than opaque, which makes it less threatening to the dog wearing it. I remember one of our dogs careening off the walls before I could catch her and calm her down. I wondered why it took so long for someone to come up with the idea of a clear ‘cone of shame’.
RE: Steller’s Sea Eagle: ‘Bird and Moon’ ran this comic earlier this year; I didn’t realize at the time that it was referring an actual event . . .
https://www.birdandmoon.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/stellers.jpg
Here in Fl, we have hawks, eagles, vultures, owls, alligators, coyotes and bobcats that could prey on our dogs, so they are NEVER in the yard, where there are also snakes, fleas and ticks. Three dogs under 15 pounds = too great a risk.
First thing I thought of when I saw this great “They Can Talk” (previously unknown to me, so thanks for the introduction) was that glurge about seeing only one set of footprints in the sand because that’s when Jesus was carrying you. This comic gives that a whole different and hilarious interpretation.
Thank you for the link to “They Can Talk.” What a great strip! I ended up paging through and reading all of them, the comics version of binge-watching.