CSotD: What’s tall, white and scares teenagers?

Today’s headline is an old joke; the answer is in Ann Telnaes‘ cartoon.

The stork ought to still scare them, because, as Telnaes points out, we’re heading back to the pre-Roe days when a pregnant woman’s choice was between giving birth or possible death, and I say that as someone old enough to have been a young single sexually-active person in the bad old days.

I remember toxic substances, back alleys and coat hangers, and, while I don’t know anyone who actually died, I knew someone who very nearly did.

It’s not an abstraction for some of us, and now, thanks to anti-choice fanatics, it’s come back to threaten women, including some who are married and want to become mothers.

Clay Jones gets his sarcastic humor fix by seemingly playing along with Lauren Boebert’s joyous announcement, though I suspect there was a little yelling behind closed doors.

Then he doubles down by mocking Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders for signing a law that eases child labor protections.

Jones is kidding, of course. It’s not American kids who are being exploited in American factories. (Don’t click on that if you like children.)

Still, the outlook is bleak enough. Gigi-to-be Boebert dropped out of school when the stork came early for her, and eventually got a job at McDonald’s, which makes you suspect she was getting some help at home, since you can’t wear a paper hat and pay for child care, too.

This furious article from the Guardian lays out the grim prospects for teen mothers, though I would note that, if you are pro-choice, keeping the baby is a perfectly valid decision. But you do have to realize that you aren’t apt to wind up with a seat in Congress.

When Sarah Palin’s son did the same thing, she also had to be open about it. But she didn’t giggle and make a joke about it, nor was she on the record as actively attempting to kill sex education.

Anyone who is both anti-abortion and anti-sex-ed is a damn fool.

Here’s another old joke:

Q. How long does it take to have a baby?
A. The first one can come anytime. After that, it takes nine months.

The only thing that’s changed is that now they wield AKs instead of shotguns.

Political Juxtaposition of the Day

It seems odd that Lalo Alcaraz (AMS) echoes Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in blaming Americans for taking Fentanyl rather than blaming Mexico for tolerating its production, though at least Alcaraz notes that it is made in Mexico: López Obrador even denies that.

Still, it seems as fatuous to blame people for taking drugs as it is to expect teenage lovers to remain virgins, and doubly foolish to think you can hand out enough free condoms and Narcan to solve either problem.

López Obrador is correct that Mexico is hardly the only source of fentanyl, though it certainly is one. It is also important to point out that the smugglers bringing it in are not desperate migrants seeking a better life in the United States.

Republicans should be ashamed to promote a racist lie that has been refuted by, of all people, the hyper-conservative Cato Institute.

As the Cato Institute says, “Instead of attacking immigrants, policymakers should focus on effective solutions that help people at risk of a fentanyl overdose.”

Bearing in mind that “Just Say No” won’t stop drug use or teenage sex and that your kids don’t know who either of these people are.

If you’re going to be hooked on something, try maple syrup, by which I mean the real stuff, not Mrs. Butterworth’s delightful combination of water, corn syrup and 2% or less of cellulose gum, cane syrup, salt, caramel color, sorbic acid, sodium benzoate, aspartame, phosphoric acid, acelsumfame potassium, natural and artificial flavor, lactic acid, molasses, sodium hexamataphosphate, mono and dyglycerides.

I mean the stuff that comes out of trees and gets boiled down into syrup, earlier and earlier each year. As Greg Kearney notes, farmers are keeping an eye on climate change. While maple trees still have an annual sap run, it’s not clear that maple trees will continue to be able to live in a changing New England climate.

The place I buy my syrup is now primarily run by a young third-generation couple each of whom has a relevant four-year degree and one of whom — I forget which one — has a masters in agricultural science. This game never was for dummies, but it’s getting more sophisticated all the time.

Maple Weekend is coming up and you can go to the sugar house of your choice, watch them make the syrup and then pour some over a stack of pancakes right there.

That’s what we call shopping local.

One thing about farming is that it’s an eight-days-a-week operation. There’s no down time: Those folks I get my syrup from also raise beef cattle and, when the syrup isn’t running, they’re operating a tree service.

However, for those of us who don’t pursue such a demanding vocation, First Dog on the Moon recommends a four-day week, and I agree that the benefits are bleeding obvious. If work expands to fill time– and it does — there’s little reason it can’t fit into four days rather than five.

There was a time when workers put in 12 hours or more, six days a week, but a combination of unions and the same machines that put many of them out of work have let the others cut back to an eight-hour, five day schedule.

Well, we’ve invented more machines since then, and, while a lot of four day weeks still encompass 40 hours, it’s more a habit than a necessity.

Don’t think there’s slack in the schedule? Robert Half Accounting used to put out a yearly press release moaning about how much time workers waste on the NCAA basketball tournament each year. Now they’ve switched to promoting what a great office morale booster it can be.

So is a permanent three-day weekend.

Lead Time Test Results

It’s interesting to see how quickly strippers can respond to news items. There are cartoonists who work a year or more in advance, but they miss out on being at all topical, beyond noting holidays.

Others work tighter. These are all from today.

You might say that …