CSotD: Thank Goodness for a Warm Memory
Skip to comments
Bliss (Tribune) comes to my rescue. It’s been extremely cold here, but it’s also been extremely necessary to get out with the dog and away from the idiots, which sounds like an arrogant judgment, but it’s actually the most polite and charitable.
After all, we’re not just seeing our incoming president insult and threaten our major trading partners, and offer to wage war on a NATO country, but he’s responding to the tragic fires in California not with compassion and offers of help but as an opportunity to insult their Democratic governor and spread false information about the fires.
Meanwhile, major publications are not simply kissing the ring but are discussing his asinine plans to invade other countries as if they were perfectly sensible and might even be a good idea.
It’s more charitable to question their intelligence and judgment than it would be to question their honesty, decency and commitment to the national interest.
The speaker in this Royston cartoon is right, of course, but, as Royston suggests, you are entitled to use a little bit of common sense and discretion and the brains God gave you.
I’m not in the mood to argue whether certain political leaders are idiots or deliberate liars, but perhaps they could answer the question by releasing their grades instead of threatening to sue anyone who does.
Meanwhile, a good way to cover up your lack of intelligence and good judgment is to ask people who really do know things for information. Another is to simply be quiet, on that old principle that it’s better to remain silent and be thought a fool rather than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
For instance, there is no lack of water in California. Rather, the tanks that supply hydrants could not be filled as fast as the many, many fire engines drew water in attempting to put out the many, many fires. It has nothing to do with river usage and it has nothing to do with preparation for normal needs or even for above-normal needs.
And it has nothing to do with the party affiliation of the governor of a state undergoing a horrific tragedy, which any decent human being would view with pity rather than as an opportunity for political posturing.
But as I write this, it’s 13 degrees Fahrenheit outside and I hope it warms up because I’m going to need a long walk this morning, my one positive thought being that there’s a good side to the fact that the hatred and stupidity are coming so hard and fast, because we’re going to need to get through to people before the 2026 midterms.
It doesn’t help that, as Nicola Jennings shows us, one of the major venues for discussion has been converted into a place where “free speech” means free of dissension. This shouldn’t be a shocker: Zuckerberg visited the White House in Trump’s first administration.
Though at least it’s not as if Facebook were running political cartoons but entirely shutting off people’s ability to comment on them, so that distortions and falsehoods can be presented without being challenged or debated, as is the case on a Certain Syndicate Site.
You can still voice your opinion on Facebook, though the algorithms may consign those opinions to the virtual oubliette.
As Fiona Katauskas has it, you need to read the fine print. But as long as you do, you can still find ways to challenge that which must be challenged, and I have no more intention of quitting Facebook than I do of quitting Xitter.
I plan to stay and raise as much hell as possible, given the constraints they impose, even if the only one who really benefits is the dog, who will be getting that many more walks in the forest.
And here’s an odd memory: My sophomore year in high school, I had so many conflicts with two teachers in particular that when I came home at night, I’d go out into the woods behind the house, find a dead tree and cut it down, the blows of the ax helping drain my frustrations and make me human again.
I’m in better control these days. A walk with the dog will do the trick.
And here’s another memory to remind me that, while dealing with stress is necessary, keeping up the good fight is important as well:
Joe Heller offers this farewell salute to Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary. Yarrow was not a perfect man, and I’d note that he did not pretend to be, but Heller and I agree that he co-wrote and left us with an immortal song.
I met Yarrow at an educational conference about 20 years ago, where he was presenting an introduction to Operation Respect, an anti-bullying program for schools he had helped to establish.
A conversation that began in an elevator sparked an exchange of emails afterwards, and one of the things I said to him was a reflection on Jackie Paper, who I insist did not die but simply grew up:
In July, I’m going to a reunion of our coffeehouse gang from the 1960s … A couple of the guys are still in music, but not many. But they are teachers and doctors and social workers and EPA administrators and people who, without even making a conscious decision, have dedicated their lives to leaving the world a little better than they found it.
If you asked them, who were your musical influences? They might say Dave Van Ronk or the Rev. Gary Davis or Gordon Lightfoot or Dylan, but they would never have thought about folk music without you. The Jackie Papers are everywhere … and if there’s a happy ending to Puff, it’s that Jackie didn’t come back to the cave because he was too busy out in the real world, doing just what Puff had taught him to do: Roaring out his own name to frighten those damned pirates.
Here, Peter discusses the famous moment he and his partners roared:
And here’s what they roared …
Comments 7