Nick Anderson (Tribune) with the only hammer cartoon you need. Or, at least, the only one you’re going to see here, because they’re gaining on the corgis for numbers and for lack of new insights, though I guess if someone drew Fox News beating a dead horse with a hammer, I might buy into that, given how they continue to support moronic, disproven partisan claims about the story.
Though at the moment, both sides appear astonished that, with 1800 cameras to monitor, the Capitol Police were not fixated on the one focused on a building 3,000 miles away from which the protected public figure was absent, and which local police seemed to be doing a good job of serving and protecting.
Mostly, I appreciate Anderson’s point that, in stepping in to shelter the former somebody from due process until after the midterms, we might want to focus on other threats to democracy.
The Capitol Police may not have been watching out for Paul Pelosi, but John Roberts was sure watching out for Donald Trump.
I’m sure Lindsey Graham wishes all judges were as accommodating to their pals, but, as Ann Telnaes illustrates, there are still courts who believe that the ladder of justice has no top and no bottom.
Geez Louise, if you can’t count on the clubby confines of the Potomac Swamp to keep you safe from laws clearly intended for the peasantry, what’s the point?
Meanwhile, Peter Broelman agrees that Biden is deeply mistaken to think that having the Fed raise interest rates is any way to fight inflation.
What’s that? Broelman is in Australia and talking about a rise in interest rates down there?
Well, I’m sure it’s Biden’s fault anyway. It’s like his cunning plan to impose high energy costs on the entire world.
Anyhow, we can’t vote for any Australian politicians next week and we need to take it out on somebody.
And as long as I’m in rant mode, I wonder why it is that, while we’ve all been raised on fairy tales in which a common fellow heroically rescues some princess from a royal trap, we can’t reverse sexes and celebrate Meghan Markle for having broken the spell that had poor Harry captive in a bizarre-but-well-furnished castle keep?
But here’s Gary Markstein (Creators) mocking him for having torn loose from a pampered, pointless golden cage and making some attempt — having been given no job skills at all — in making his way in the world.
Granted, it would be more romantic if the two of them were making a modest, anonymous living by re-caning vintage chairs, but this is real life and the poor fellow has never encountered real life.
I’m no fan of Tom Brady, but I am divorced, and, unlike Steve Breen (Creators), I doubt the breakup of his marriage has nearly as much to do with his current athletic failures as does the fact that he’s 45 years old and isn’t surrounded by sufficient talent to make up for it.
As the athletes say, “Father Time is undefeated.”
I’d also be more than a little surprised if a superstar athlete and a supermodel had married without a super-air-tight pre-nup. I’m sympathetic with the pain that comes with any family break-up, but I doubt they’ll be quarreling over whether she should be buying name-brand peanut butter for their kids rather than the cheaper generic stuff.
But let’s transition to topics less fraught, with a post-Halloween gag from Mt Pleasant (Tribune), which raises the question “Did Tootsie Rolls always suck?”
Tootsie Rolls were never top of my list, except that they not only tasted okay but lasted awhile, especially the big ones that were four or five inches long. Haven’t seen one of those in years and, given how they taste now, that’s probably just as well.
I blame Fidel Castro for declining quality, because the sugar embargo not only raised the prices of candy bars and soda, but led to swapping of corn syrup for sugar. If you can’t wait for Passover cola to hit the shelves and you’re not near the Mexican border, you can at least score some “throwback” Pepsi and Mountain Dew once in awhile, to remind you of how well they used to make their products back when they gave a damn.
But I haven’t seen Hostess Cup Cakes or Tootsie Rolls market throwback versions of their stuff so that we could see if what they call chocolate today really tasted like chocolate back then.
And why would they?
Meanwhile, Agnes (Creators) has scored a faux bologna. Around here, pretend meat is more expensive than the real stuff, but maybe the fake meat that doesn’t come out right gets processed into bologna. I had a friend who worked in a turkey plant and warned us against ever buying turkey loaf, so the theory’s not far-fetched.
It reminds me that back in the ’70s, about when rising beef prices sparked open protests, they came out with a combination of burger and soy that was less expensive. It didn’t make terrific hamburgers, but was okay for meatloaf and meatballs.
However, it disappeared, perhaps because you can’t lure those housewives back with free coffee at the front of the store and then fob them off with crapola meat substitutes at the butcher’s counter.
Or, at least, you couldn’t then. I don’t know many stores that still hand out free coffee anymore.
I guess the Lord must not be in New York City after all, because, in this New Yorker cartoon, Jeremy Nguyen describes a situation I’ve never seen out here in the hinterlands. We just put the reusable bag on the belt or toss it down to the bagging area and it gets filled the same as a store bag.
While, as described in this Free Range (Creators) we fuss with the damn card and don’t worry about bagging.
Finally, Wallace the Brave (AMS) brings back memories of my high school class, in which we had a coterie of girls — including the grounded-once-a-week one I mentioned the other day — who were as prone to hell-raising as the guys.
Man, the faculty was happy to see us graduate. The Classes of ’66 and ’68 were much better behaved, at least by comparison.
(Don’t forget to vote)
The very few grocery stores that provided free coffee stopped due to the pandemic. Of course, the practice will never resume.
Can you get Mexican Coke up there? Made with real sugar…. I don’t have the most refined soft drink palate, but I can tell the difference from domestic Coca-Cola, and Hecho en Mexico is much tastier.
In the long list of people whose health and welfare I’m concerned about, Harry and Tom and Giselle are not near the top. I expect they’ll be just fine.
“Father Time is undefeated” is the answer to just about any question, isn’t it?
Fox Network (Not News) viewers, Republicans, and all other right wing types need a new chant and signage that will honestly communicate their approach to political messaging while resonating with everyone else:
MAKE IT UP! MAKE IT UP! MAKE IT UP!
We have to wait for Passover, Brian, though I’ve had Mexican Coke in Brownsville, TX, which is about as close to the border as I’ve been.
We do see Goya sodas, but — politics aside — they come in flavors rarely encountered in Nuevo Hampshire, so it’s hard to compare.
I’ve never been a cola drinker, but I agree about theTwinkies. It seems like ALL brands of snack cakes have these chemical aftertastes.(Little Debbies are especially horrible) The textures were lot different, too. I wish they would do throw-back. right now we have throw-UP.
You can find Mexican Coke in some of the supermercados hereabouts. In glass bottles, no less.
We’re not big on Jewish delicatessens, but if you have them, that might be somewhere else to try.
groceries sell Mexican Coke here in northern Virginia, but we have a big Latina/o population. Inca Cola sells pretty well here too.
I suspect if I drove a few miles south into the hinterlands I’d struggle to find places carrying Mexican Coke, but I’ve never tried.
I wonder how many DIA agents have read Mike’s post because their search engine hit on “Mexican Coke”???
BTW, I did serve a three-day suspension senior year for smokin’ in the boys’ room.
The corn industry was making an effort to promote the use of sugar from corn as early as the 1940s. The “Corn Products Refining Company,” a conglomerate of the leading refiners formed about 1940, ran full page ads in Life Magazine in 1946 thru ’48. (I don’t know about years before or after.) Dextrose was ballyhooed, and it was mentioned that they were a producer of dextrose. And that dextrose was a natural sugar. And that it was wonderful.
Their ad in the Sep/15/1947 issue shows how much dextrose your body consumes per hour, for 18 different occupations. The ‘winner’ is the chauffeur, who needs 4.5 ounces of dextrose every hour.
Add to that the full page ads sponsored by the “Sugar Research Foundation” and the “Council on Candy of the National Confectioner’s Association”.
The latter trumpeted, “Candy’s Dandy … Keep it Handy.” Later that changed to “Candy is Energy Food / Enjoy Some Every Day.”
The New Yorker cartoon doesn’t depict a situation that ever occurs in real life—unless you’re in a self-checkout aisle (and you shouldn’t be if you have more than three or four items). If there’s no bagger, the clerk fills the bag, even if it’s the customer’s. Or, ideally, the customer begins self-bagging while the clerk’s still ringing up the order. And if you didn’t bring enough bags, the overflow goes in store bags.
Free Range, however, did depict real life. I laughed out loud at the second panel. The third and fourth weren’t even necessary.
Bob, there’s a Price Rite near us with self-bagging on lanes with checkers. I believe Aldis is similar. As I recall (we rarely shop there) the checker puts scanned purchases into a cart, which one rolls to a separate bagging area so as not to interfere with the next order, but for an express lane the arrangement could well be as depicted in the cartoon. (Note the absence of rolling carts.)
Hey, Mike. Agnes is one of the strips I color for Creators. I worked hard to come up with a color for the tube of Ted’s near meat. Edible, but not appetizing was the challenge. Meatish Mauve is what I settled on. It’s sure to become all the rage in carpet colors for 2023.