CSotD: Come Enjoy a Frolic
Skip to comments
One political cartoon today, because it’s an example of what I’d like to see more of.
Trump, Musk and the loyal oligarchs continue to lie to people about what tariffs are and how they work. There was a ghastly but typical example of blatant lying at the press briefing the other day when Karoline Leavitt disputed the facts with an AP reporter, accusing him of insulting her when he had it right.
To respond by calling her “either tragically uninformed or lying,” as Nicolle Wallace did, is accurate but accomplishes nothing, because the faithful will see it as a political attack.
Two Bulls, rather, explains how a tariff works. He’s not picking a fight with Leavitt or Musk or Trump. He’s just stating the facts.
I’m not suggesting that every political cartoon become a classroom lecture, but it doesn’t hurt to offer information once in awhile, assuming you aren’t just preaching to the choir and would like to change some minds.
A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger. The tongue of the wise useth knowledge aright: but the mouth of fools poureth out foolishness. – Proverbs 15, 1-2
We’ll get back to politics tomorrow, but we’ll let Harry Bliss coax us gently into humor with this reminder of the world we’re introducing our children to.
I don’t remember knowing much about politics as a little kid. I knew my folks were Republicans and JFK wasn’t, but I didn’t pick up on the nuances until I was older, by which time the folks were what was called “Rockefeller Republicans,” which admiration ended abruptly at Attica, but by then I was 21 and had been politically active for several years.
However, I suspect politics is one of several adult topics that reach children earlier today than they did two generations ago. The old caution “Little pitchers have big ears” has never been more applicable nor less often considered.
The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee has often had an undercurrent of politics, which was much more dominant in the early days of the strip but has since mellowed into more social commentary. But he does run into the Senator from time to time, and the old gent comes across as more concerned with preserving his job than serving his constituents, much less his country.
I like the fact that Hambrock is content to set a four-panel mood without straining for a boffo punchline. There are any number of comic strips in which the punchline blunts the political statement. Note that some of the most classic political cartoons don’t even feature dialogue, and, in this particular strip, the final words are bathos rather than a laugh line.
Speaking of boffo gags, Joe Martin specializes in bathos and the name of his main strip — he has several — is ironic, because his style of humor is quite the opposite.
I spent a very long time on hold yesterday, or maybe I didn’t. But it sure felt long because they had some artificial tune going that cycled and recycled often.
I would think a company could strike a deal with the local public radio station to stream their Classical Jukebox as hold music. It would still be annoying to be on hold so long, but not as annoying as endless looping techno junk.
And, what the heck, they could add to the menu “To make a pledge, dial 8 now.”
Today’s Big Nate got an extra laugh from me, because while I never cleaned out my locker, I did have an unfinished, barely started, novel among my jumbled papers.
It was a bit of historical fiction, set in colonial times, with Jericho Pyke and his Indian friend, Syosset.
That was pretty much it. I never got past naming the characters.
The world of literature is poorer for it.
Hold the cookie higher, Lola. Getting a dog to sit for a snack is about as easy as training gets, because as they crane their necks up, their butt tends to go down.
The only training I ever gave my dog was housebreaking. Everything else she figured out on her own, because she’s bright and eager to please.
She comes across as well-trained but she’s self-trained, which includes the fact that when she sees me putting on shoes, she knows we’re going somewhere. I’ve never asked her “Do you want to go for a car ride?” because it would be a dumb question.
It doesn’t make her a genius. The dogs I had before I retired knew that if I slipped on my loafers, I was headed for the office and they would not react, but if I put on sneakers, they knew they would be included in whatever happened next and would start jumping around.
Anyway, the dogs at the dog park all know who the soft-touches are and will gather around them and sit without being told to.
The real trick is to teach them to quit panhandling and go frolic, dammit.
Most of the people walking their phones seem to do it on the sidewalks in town; Our park isn’t pure wilderness but you do have to keep an eye on where you’re stepping. The other factor is that driving to the park suggests a choice of spending time with the dog rather than performing a chore.
When I was a kid, our dog couldn’t be trusted off leash, so she had to be walked three times a day and I drew the last walk at night as a chore. That was how I first got to know Gemini, Orion, Taurus and the Pleiades, because I spent the time looking up instead of looking down. Caught the Northern Lights a few times, too.
But I’ll give the folks with phones this: Watching a dog pee is not all that fascinating, and, if you live in a place with street lamps, you don’t get much of a lightshow.
Boy, no kidding. I miss the days when I could have a brilliant idea and act on it without recognizing all the reasons it was a mistake.
And when I was flexible enough to turn mistakes into adventures.
Comments 2