CSotD: Have yourself a merry little Monday
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Indeed it is, They Can Talk. The bears got up a little early this year and started getting into the bird feeders, which is their equivalent of socializing.
We always get warned to take down our bird feeders this time of year, which I gather is because we don’t want to encourage the bears to socialize in our driveways and back yards. Sounds like a classic case of “It’s not you, it’s us.”
Bears, however, seem to have a limited sense of proportions and propriety. You invite them over for a little bird seed and the next thing you know, they’ve knocked over your garbage cans and are up on the porch giving your dog a heart attack.
At which point, you have to have The Talk, which could be worse, since the bear is rarely married to anyone in your family, but it’s still uncomfortable, particularly since they don’t seem to pick up on clues.
You have to be direct, and that’s never pleasant.
Blackies aren’t all that dangerous, but they’re powerful and of limited intelligence. Which is to say that, if you had to choose between running into a bear or running into a moose, pick the bear. Moose are powerful and of limited intelligence, too, but they’re also near-sighted and belligerent.
Which is to say that, if a bear messes you up, she meant to. If a moose messes you up, it was just a moose being a moose.
Not sure that’s an important distinction once it’s happened.
Bears make a conscious choice to socialize, at least to the point of checking out the bird feeders. Harry Bliss (Tribune) points out that living in the country becomes irrelevant if you don’t make a conscious choice not to socialize.
This is a good excuse to point out that, while Harry Bliss purchased the most antisocial house in America — JD Salinger’s former hideaway — he makes the apartment and studio available once a year so an artist with a plan can shack up in the woods for a month and still have access to the facilities of the Center for Cartoon Studies, which is 20 minutes away in the bustling metropolis of White River Junction.
It comes with an honorarium of $3,000, which I think means you make more creating your project than you’ll ever make by publishing it. OTOH, if you unplug your phone and look out the window, you’ll find that October is a fine time to be in Cornish, NH.
In fact, when I first moved here nearly 20 years ago, I was driving down the highway there and saw a spectacular sky. I said, “This is like a Maxfield Parrish painting!” and just about then went past a sign that told me I was on the Maxfield Parrish Highway.
Juxtaposition of the Day
The move to ban TikTok, or at least to get it to cut ties with Beijing, is beginning to inspire cartoonists, most of whom seem to be in the demographic of either not quite getting it or getting it all too well.
I agree with Mr. Boffo that there’s a lot of nasty, even sadistic, garbage up there, though the granddaughter who spent the most time on TikTok was exploring odd facts, which meant that you’d be having dinner and she’d suddenly drop some completely bizarre fact about otters or the Moon or something.
It was not only harmless but made her interesting company.
OTOH, that other stuff is up there and it reminds me of when I clamped down on violent, nihilistic movies and TV shows for my boys. And then sent them off to school to join all the kids whose parents had no idea what they were watching.
Gotta admit, I identified a lot with the grandfather in Boondocks.
But I also identify a lot with Hilary Price, and, back in 2006, got into an active on-line discussion over this 2000 Rhymes with Orange (KFS) and the privacy concerns Monte Wolverton raises.
I was against loyalty cards then, but I’ve come around since, which either means that I began to understand it all better or that I sold out. But I no longer care if someone knows how many bananas I buy.
More to the point, however, is that, if I use my card at Price Chopper, that data will be accessible in Schenectady, while, if I enter my number at Hannaford, they might be able to analyze my banana-buying patterns in the Netherlands.
TikTok data resurfaces in Beijing, it contains a lot more info than how many bananas you bought, and if you don’t recognize a difference, well, you’ll enjoy this globally interconnected world.
Still on the topic of selling out, Lola (AMS) brings up another case of the choices we make.
I smoked from 1962 to 1984, but that’s also from 12 to 34, and given the prevalence of smoking when I began, I’m not agonizing over it.
I don’t know if you’ll be able to read this, but it shows that, in 1997, more than a third of high school seniors had smoked a cigarette in the past month, and that, by 2023, it was down to 2.9 percent. I can live with that, though it strikes me as idiotic. But a less than 3 percent idiocy rate isn’t so bad.
I don’t have a bacon chart, but I went decades without eating that combination of salt, fat and nitrites, and then suddenly the bacon fad hit. We’re at the point now where you have to request “no bacon” in a whole lot of things we hadn’t thought to put it in 40 years ago.
It’s a major achievement for the National Marketing Council For Stuff That Will Kill You, though I don’t think it makes up for their having blown the tobacco thingie.
First Dog on the Moon points out that living forever may not be a particularly attractive goal, given that there’s no place to live and that the planet may not remain liveable anyway.
I particularly like his conclusion, which reminds me of the uplifting story of Theodoric of York.
Why don’t we try voting for people who will look out for the economic interests of people who cannot look out for their own economic interests?
Nah.
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