CSotD: Table Talk

Vladimir Putin has given cartoonists a gift with his long table, which seems to be linked to germaphobia, perhaps a symptom of OCD, perhaps an indication of actual poor health and vulnerability. Rumors about his health abound but are never definitively confirmed nor definitively disputed.

Man Overboard takes advantage of the iconic furniture to make a point not only about the progress of Putin’s war but also about the unfortunate fates that seem to befall bearers of bad news.

Guy Venables takes a different tack to make the same point about the progress of the Special Military Adventuristic Whatever, that the long table was made for a major celebration which has, a year later, somehow not come about.

There were, by the by, enough cartoons about cakes on the anniversary of the invasion that I dug around to see if there had actually been one. I found a lot of memes suggesting it, but little confirming it, though Putin gave Xi Jinping a cake when they met on the Chinese leader’s birthday.

And a Swiss baker prepared a cake for the Biden/Putin summit meeting. It’s not clear if she managed to get it in front of the leaders, but she got it in front of the press, and it put me in mind of a song:

Oh, Peace Cake sounding louder
Glide on the Peace Cake
Ooh-ah, ee-ah, ooh-ah
Come on now Peace Cake

Peter Schrank employed the long table in an anniversary cartoon that wipes away the grins and offers a prediction for where things are headed, or, at least, an alternative explanation of what Putin hopes to keep at a distance.

Not only does Kevin McCarthy not need a long table, Matt Davies (AMS) suggests, but it would hinder his desire to play footsie with Tucker Carlson, who giggles at the attention.

Dave Whamond is more direct in his accusation of, at least, hypocrisy if not an actual breach of security. The tapes to which McCarthy has given Carlson access are apparently not classified, but there are plenty of people in government who suggest releasing them will provide key information on Capitol security to the next gang of coup plotters.

To be fair, McCarthy hasn’t actually handed copies of the hours and hours of video to Carlson, but, rather, has given him permission to view them in a secure location, which suggests that either he is also allowing Carlson to deputize a large staff to do the actual viewing or that it isn’t going to actually happen, since it would take more that four and a half years to view all 41,000 hours of tape, assuming no sleep or potty breaks.

Still, a promise is a promise, and while Dave Granlund may appear to be speculating on the bargain made not between McCarthy and Carlson so much as between McCarthy and the Kook Caucus that gave him the Speakership, McCarthy himself justified the release by confirming that he had promised the move, apparently to Matt Gaetz in exchange for those vital votes.

According to that linked report, Gaetz hadn’t specified Carlson as the exclusive recipient of the material, but, while McCarthy calls it a matter of transparency, saying the tapes belong to the American people, the choice was made to let the Fox infotainment king decide where the sunshine should fall and where shadows should remain.

Carlson, that is, who has been shown through the Dominion Voting System case to be a deliberate liar, and who, as Adam Zyglis points out, has hardly reformed his ways, announcing that the Norfolk Southern train wreck would have been cleaned up quickly if it had happened in an African-American neighborhood.

As Zyglis notes, that would come as a surprise to the victims of Hurricane Katrina or the poisoned water system in Flint.

However, as Bill Bramhall says, it’s simply a matter of giving the people what they want: Hot garbage piped right into their living rooms.

And, as the little boy in this Mike Luckovich cartoon says, it most surely is what they want. The blatant, deliberate choice to promote and publish lies has received enough publicity that, even though Fox News itself hasn’t trumpeted the facts, only the most sheltered, blindered MAGAts could fail to know that they are being played as fools.

Though if they do choose to keep their heads buried in the sewer, Ann Telnaes suggests that they’ll find a pair of good friends there to help preserve the party line.

Can’t We Talk About Something More Edible?

In this difficult times, it’s good to know there will always be an England, and probably even a UK, if they don’t all fall prey to scurvy.

At the moment, they are suffering a shortage of fruits and vegetables there, and a surfeit of unwelcome advice on the topic, notably from the U.K. minister for environment and food, Therese Coffey, who recommended they enjoy local produce like turnips. Cartoonist Andy Davey is only one of many Britons who found the suggestion less than inspiring.

Stores are limiting purchases of what they are able to stock, leading Guy Venables to suggest a shady blackmarket. Or greenmarket. Or something.

And Dave Brown found a historic precedent, one that does not bode well for the future of either Coffey nor the government she represents.

The problem, according to official sources, is poor weather in North Africa and other areas where produce is grown, but unofficial sources wonder aloud, and often with a strong dose of glee, why this bad weather only impacts Great Britain while the rest of Europe, also known as “the EU,” has plenty of fruits and vegetables.

Most of the mockery seems to come in the form of photos of bulging produce bins from various countries, but this tweet goes more directly to accuse Brexit of the problem, and, having spoken with truckers about normal delays in getting from Florida to Montreal with perishable goods, I can only imagine how they are impacted by the major delays at Britain’s border crossings. (Note that, while Dover is currently less than three hours, the crossings from the Netherlands are, as of this writing, between 29 and 52 hours.)

As Matt points out, the whole thing is enough to make sensitive readers recoil in traumatic horror.

Though I suppose if they’ve got turnips, they’ve likely got rutabagas and perhaps even pumpkins.