CSotD: A Variety of Snow Jobs

Our impending political disaster is grim enough that Andertoons (AMS) manages to mine it not so much for an actual laugh but, more appropriately, for a grim smile and nod. And he’s right: Once we, or our children or their children, emerge from all this, there will be a rush of people explaining how bad they all felt about it.

And the ones with real nerve will tell us how hard they fought, behind the scenes, where we couldn’t see them.

I remember when Klaus Barbie was brought to justice in France in 1983, nearly 40 years after the war, and how, in the course of the trial, we learned that not everyone in France had been an active member of the Underground after all. Quelle surprise!

Stay tuned. It’s all part of the process. But that’s as political as I plan to get today.

At times like this, it’s safer to talk about sports, and I’m giving Wiley Miller center stage for this Non Sequitur (AMS) as an antidote to the number of political cartoons expressing shock and grief at the firing of Patriots’ coach Bill Belichik.

Grief maybe, but what shock? The firing has been rumored for the better part of a month, though Wiley had the sense not to put it in a cartoon he surely did some time ago, but had no problem pointing out the collapse of the storied franchise and timing the thing to run when, for failing teams, the season was over.

He moved out of Patriots country some years ago, but for those of us living here but with other loyalties, the schadenfreude is sweet.

I fear, however, that Paul Fell got ahead of the story in his fury over the NFL’s agreement to let Peacock put the Chiefs/Dolphins game on a subscription-only streaming site, because, while that was how it was announced, the league did, somewhat quietly, let the game be broadcast in Kansas City and Miami.

It was also broadcast on CTV in Canada, which meant Yanks in the borderlands could pick it up, which, in Buffalo, meant watching on Toronto stations. It was reportedly the fourth-coldest game in NFL history, which I doubt, having stood under the heaters in the men’s room at Ralph Wilson stadium during a Bills game.

I was also visiting Buffalo for the Blizzard of ’77, and this is what the Thruway looked like between Tonawanda and Fredonia when I volunteered to retrieve my stranded sister and brother-in-law.

In any case, the Pittsburgh/Buffalo playoff has been postponed until Monday and we’ll see how things look by then. The hourly forecast calls for snow over the next 48 hours plus some, which won’t matter on the field half so much as it may for anyone trying to get to the field.

Which depends. In ’77, Then-wife and I flew into Toronto and drove on bare roads until we got just north of Buffalo, after which we were lucky to make it to the house. The term “lake effect” means a lot more to people who have dwelt amongst it.

I don’t expect things to be quite that bad, but, as a Bills fan, I’m sorry they’re not playing a California or Florida team. It’s not like the Stillers haven’t seen snowflakes before.

Juxtaposition of the Snowy Day

Crabgrass — AMS

Lio – AMS

Meanwhile, Crabgrass and Lio remind us that snow is not a disaster for everyone, though I’ll admit that we were more inclined towards Monopoly and hot chocolate when it got nasty enough to close the schools. And, no, our parents didn’t let us play hooky.

In those ancient days, they didn’t always announce closings of country schools on TV or radio, and I well remember lying in bed waiting, hoping to hear the phone ring in the kitchen to let me know I could roll over and go back to sleep. There were about 1,000 of us, kindergarten through 12, but a lot of big French-Canadian Catholic families, so I guess it didn’t take too long to notify everybody.

Pooch Cafe (AMS) inspires this public service announcement: I’ve been seeing those Farmer’s Dog commercials and being dubious, and by-golly, the Washington Post looked into things and reports that fancy dog foods aren’t any better for your dog than a reasonably good kibble, with the proviso that, if your dog is fussy and won’t eat kibble, maybe it’ll eat the expensive stuff.

Granted, the Far Side used canned dog food in this classic discussion of canine fussiness, but kibble will do, particularly if that’s what you put in the bowl. Far Side also famously pointed out that most animals don’t have opposable thumbs, so they’re pretty much at our mercy when it comes to can openers and menu selection.

To which I would add, wit all doo respeck to millions of cartoonists like Scott Hilburn at the Argyle Sweater (AMS), that few dogs can lift toilet lids. My experience with real dogs in the 40-some years since Grimm first drank from Mother Goose’s porcelain urn is that they look for water there when you’ve neglected to fill their bowls.

But only if you leave the lid up, which raises a different question: Do wives complain when they accidentally sit on a closed lid? On accounta, if they don’t look, it must happen.

Come to think of it, that probably explains those fuzzy toilet lid covers.

Wallace the Brave (AMS) captures winter childhood, right down to how much of the cold weather involved hats and mittens and boots but bare ground, which is where we’re at in southern New England at the moment, though this is about when the snow moves in, which it is supposedly about to do.

But things certainly flew off at inopportune moments. It was usually gloves, because wool gloves would stick to a snowball, but, yes, boots as well. Part of the reason was parents’ sensible rule that “If it doesn’t fall off, it fits,” which works for outfitting children, but means that Spud needs to keep his head on a swivel if he doesn’t want to find it on the ground.

That penultimate panel is breath-takingly brilliant. Usually it happens the instant before the neighbor’s window shatters, but well-depicted here, too.

(Grown-ups have a different response to bad weather)