I saw one political cartoon this morning that actually referenced something in the State of the Union speech, and a couple that were clearly drawn before it. Let’s wait a day and see what other commentary pops up.
Too Much Coffee Man (AMS) did well to get this one up before mask mandates disappeared, and the kids in the background brought a bit of Police Squad to mind:
I’ve just had several doctor and dentist appointments, which also marks a decline in the pandemic, but they still suggest that, if kids wanted to play doctor today, it would sound like this:
I’ll be the doctor and you be the patient. We’re currently booking out to mid-May. Now, would you prefer to schedule a video consult or a phone call?
Which would be pretty funny except that I had a temporary filling put on a cracked tooth last month and I can’t get it extracted until next month. You think mask-breath is bad, try combining it with dead-tooth breath. I’m thinking of buying stock in Altoids, simply to take a profit on my own use.
Susan offers Lemont some excellent advice in this Candorville (WPWG): He’s young enough that the value of his stocks doesn’t matter and he should stop checking them.
I don’t gamble on sports, cards or the stock market, in part because it’s not my thing and in part because I’ve lost nearly every time I’ve tried. There was a point when I was about 40 when I decided to play in the market. I bought one stock because I believed it was an up-and-comer, and another out of pure sentiment. I simply liked the company.
You can guess the result: My carefully researched purchase tanked and my happy-happy-joy-joy purchase rose enough to offset the losses. I cashed out, walked away and never looked back.
Well, until the past couple of years. At retirement, I converted my 401k to an IRA, the plan being that I’d draw from it once a year to square things.
But that means I watch the market at the end of the year, so my withdrawals occur in a fresh tax year. My IRA was healthy in late December, but has tumbled about 13%, which, as you see, is more than the Dow’s overall fall.
So it goes.
Still, Lemont needs to be cool and, as Susan says, put away his phone and quit checking his holdings for another 25 years or so.
By then, even Putin’s portfolio should look better than it does at the moment, though I’d say Vlad is a whole lot closer to retirement.
“Than Lemont,” certainly, but also “than he suspects.”
Okay, no politics until tomorrow.
Maybe just a waffer-theen mint of politics and markets and such, since the current Monty (AMS) story arc happens to coincide with a bit of news.
Young Sedgewick has managed to acquire something approaching super powers, and, having demonstrated them, now demonstrates his grasp of what they’re good for.
The synchronicity being that Disney owns Marvel, and there is no company in the world better situated to put Sedgewick’s version of the motto into action. As reported here,
A number of Marvel series that originally streamed on Netflix, such as “Daredevil,” “The Punisher,” “Luke Cage,” “Iron Fist” and “Jessica Jones,” will be heading to Disney+ on March 16, Disney announced on Tuesday.
I’m not going to worry about Sedgewick’s retirement plans. He seems to have a solid grasp on things.
Spurious Juxtaposition of the Day
I was surprised to see this Satchel Paige quote pop up twice within 24 hours, though it’s a direct quote in Frazz and paraphrased in Between Friends.
Like Susan, I measure my years in whatever seems more relevant at the moment, and I note with some dismay that, when Satch was my age, he only had three more years left, which is a surprise because I’ve always thought of him as someone who lived a long time. Turns out he packed a whole lot into a normal-length life.
Which is the point of the quote, related to Indy’s well-known line from Raiders: “It’s not the years, honey, it’s the mileage.”
Indy was being weary, while the intent of Satchel’s quote is that he was constantly celebrating a full life well-lived.
Much like Ruth Gordon, who not only celebrated a full life well-lived but is apparently the person who attributed the quote to Satchel Paige, who didn’t say it, a very rare whiff for Frazz and Caulfield.
But it’s okay, because, before Betty White became everyone’s favorite feisty old lady, Gordon filled the role.
Besides, like Yogi Berra, the things Satch really did say were so wonderful that it’s understandable he’d get credit for some others as well.
Like this one, which belongs under last night’s photo of the Piglet Sisters:
There ain’t no man can avoid being born average. But there ain’t no man got to be common.
Okay, no more politics.
Speaking of being old
A bit of autobiographical humor from an aging Stephan Pastis in today’s Pearls Before Swine (AMS).
Eldest granddaughter once kept me up-to-date on things I was too old to know, including that she had her phone set to a mosquito-buzz ringtone that kids can hear but adults cannot. She said all her classmates in high school did that, so they could keep their phones on without the teachers catching them.
Anyway, if the kids don’t pick up, you can leave a message, although they never check their messages and their boxes are usually too full for more anyway.
The good thing is that said granddaughter is now too old to be able to hear that mosquito-buzz, and not only does she answer the phone, but she’s got a young distraction in the background who, a few years from now, will stop responding to her.
Cosmic payback happens.
You just have to be patient.
Ellis Rosen (The New Yorker) points out that we can’t be hip forever, but, then again, people who know who all these people are have no idea who Ruth Gordon was.
Their loss.
Thanks, Mike!
An honest whiff, but probably not my last. To quote one of the greats first-hand, Richard Thompson once told me that the Internet has made it impossible to be original anymore, even if you are. And I guess Quote Investigator has made it pretty hard to give someone else credit for originality.
“It’s Not The Years, It’s The Miles” by Debbie Davis (a New Orleans singer) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hR8Q_j5gZYc
I like Mrs. Olsen’s answer better than I like Frazz/Caufield’s. 🙂
Jef – For some reason your comment makes me think of the Spyder Robinson short story Melancholy Elephants.
“And so it went, night after night, year after year. In fact, the Hansen’s had been in living hell ever since that fateful day the neighbor’s “For Sale” sign had come down and a family of howler monkeys had moved in.”
Couldn’t copypasta the artwork here for some reason, but tip o’ the pen to Gary Larson.