CSotD: Visions and revisions

In today’s Between Friends (KFS), Maeve has been awarded the Cardboard Box and ambitious suck-up Jim is feigning surprise. But, to repeat something I’ve said before, I never lost a job I still wanted, which is relevant since Maeve was on the brink of resigning.

I was fired twice, which isn’t bad over 40-some years, and in both cases, I knew it was coming and just waited them out so I’d get unemployment. The second time, I even had my cardboard box by my desk and nearly full. I had the fatal cup of coffee with my boss, then swept a few last items into the box and left.

But I had a friend who had won awards and generated significant revenue for a major paper, and she was blindsided. The boss called her in and while they spoke, her phone and Internet were disabled, after which she was frog-marched out of the building without the chance to fill a box. She had to ask coworkers to salvage her personal items for her.

However this came down, Maeve looks pissed and I can’t wait to see what happens next. In fact, I’m surprised that Sandra Bell-Lundy didn’t stretch things out so that this episode would land on a Saturday and make us all wait.

Then again, I trust her storytelling, which makes me even more anxious to see tomorrow’s episode.

Juxtaposition of the Day

Loose Parts — AMS

Rhymes With Orange — KFS

Parents know the rule discussed in RWO, but for others, you are not supposed to guess at what your kid drew, because you could be wrong. You probably shouldn’t guess at what Marc Chagall had in mind, either, but I don’t think he’d care and, to bring in Loose Parts, I doubt your kid is Marc Chagall.

To return to the topic of getting fired, I failed a one-day job trial at a child care center because the director was a Summerhill fanatic who not only believed in letting the kids do their own thing but refused to interact with them at all. She caught me playing with them outside and explained that I had been “structuring their dramatic play,” which became a family catch-phrase but was her reason not to hire me.

What I remember relevant to today’s Juxtaposition is a father picked up his three-year-old. She had glued two cotton balls to a piece of construction paper and he was obviously itching to ask her about it but was afraid of having the director kick his family out for being too directive, and having to find daycare elsewhere.

I’m all in favor of letting kids find their own way in life, but there’s a difference between encouraging them to be creative and just turning them feral.

After all, as Bizarro (KFS) records, not every youngster has the clear vision of the future and relentless ambition that Seaman Apprentice Crunch exhibited in his early days as a deck ape.

Better cut back on the milk, shipmate. It makes you soggy.

Science Under Attack

Not sure Mr. Boffo’s “time to worry” is a slam on destructive women. Perhaps it’s about kids who pay so little attention to current events, and whose science texts are so out of date, that they still think hurricanes are routinely named after women.

Naming hurricanes began in 1953 and they used women’s names then, the joke among 8-year-olds being that otherwise they’d be called “himicanes.” But in 1979 they began alternating male and female names, so she’s correct that “most” have been named for women but only in a Zeno’s Paradox sort of way in which the ratio will continue to diminish but cannot ever disappear.

The Flying McCoys (AMS) offer a different challenge, which is to suggest that believing in science is sacrilegious. I wasn’t aware that you couldn’t believe in science and still enjoy and follow morality in the form of folklore.

It’s like asserting that, if you don’t believe in Santa Claus, you can never give gifts to anyone and that the calendar will leap from Dec 24 to Dec 26.

It’s all part of Izzard’s Paraducks.

Bliss (Tribune) touches on a couple of canine issues here and I hardly know how to rank them.

First is that those retractable leashes are a disaster waiting to happen. They’re actually dog-casting reels, the purpose of which is to let your dog go up on someone’s lawn and pee in their flower bed while you yap on your phone and pretend you don’t notice, which is the second issue: Hang up and be in the moment. It’s psychologically healthier for you and your dog.

It’s not so bad that those stupid leashes tangle around trees, but they trip people and they don’t work when you need them most. They can rip your hand if you’re trying to pull your dog out of traffic or stop a dog scuffle by grabbing the cord itself.

Well-run dog parks ban them, and a lot of leash laws specify a six-foot length. (For training puppies, you can get a tracking lead. Much safer.)

But the dog isn’t entirely innocent here. I don’t know why, but dogs who get into it with porcupines go through excruciating pain and yet can’t wait for a rematch.

There’s way too much chatter about Steamboat Willy slipping out of copyright. As noted here before, the effect is fairly minimal, given that Mickey is trademarked and about 99% of everything he ever did remains copyrighted.

Most of what you can do now would likely have fallen under “fair use” two weeks ago, and so I like Jeremy Banx’s take on it all. Crooks are still crooks, thieves are still thieves and I don’t know where they got their masks but Disney has licensed such things for decades.

I do believe, BTW, that bank robbers should be required to label their bags as containing swag.

Getting the Big Picture

Here’s a snippet of Nick Anderson’s bravura takedown of the interface of cryptocurrency and the great state of Texas. You should go read the entire thing on his Substack.

And then go see the rest of Steve Brodner’s massive, detailed explanation of the political hacks who, like dogs re-engaging a porcupine, can’t help wanting to take another shot at destroying American democracy.