CSotD: Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool
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No April Fool’s gags as such today, given how predictable they are each year, but Dave Coverly has managed to stumble onto a case of “It’s funny, ’cause it’s true,” which will do just as well.
Behold the 30-meter hollow concrete head of Fernando Marcos, which rose over a planned golf course and resort in the Philippines until he was overthrown along with his wife’s collection of 3,000 shoes and other wretched excesses.
As silly as the gargantuan head seems, it also had a non-silly aspect as a small native group was forced to sell their homeland to make room for it, at an indefensibly cheap price.
One of the Great Truths of History, and of life itself, is that you don’t get to go through it in two different ways and then pick the one you like, but it’s still tempting to wonder how things might be different in the Philippines if we’d let them become independent in the wake of the Spanish-American War.
Instead, we beat down their nationalist movement and held them as a colony, cementing into place the lesson taught by colonialism: Whoever is in charge gets to take everything.
Following the overthrow of Marcos, the giant head was first vandalized and then blown up completely, but the happy ending — well, for the family anyway — is that Fernando and Imelda’s son Bongbong is now in charge, and his biography seems like a satire of someone else’s, except that Bongbong dropped out of Wharton.
He has declined to restore his father’s statue.
And as long as we’re being vaguely political, I got a laugh out of this Rabbits Against Magic strip partially from the politics but also because my son was barred from donating blood because he’d spent time at his mother’s farm in England during the mad cow times, despite their going through stringent cleansing whenever coming and going. And that he doesn’t eat meat.
Someday we’ll find that balance point between being too careful and being in the hands of RFK Jr.
One more overtly political piece, which stands out because the movie is currently bombing amid controversy that a character who got her name for being white is being played by someone brown and who publicly differed with her costar over Gaza policy.
Add that it began as a live-action remake of a movie that didn’t need to be remade at all and you’ve got nearly everything gone wrong except, as Brodner depicts, an ICE raid.
To be clear, there’s nothing at all funny about the kidnappings and abductions happening in real life, but there’s something positive in mocking the budding dictatorship that is carrying them out.
Which reminds me of an old Soviet joke about Khruschev being driven through the countryside when a pig steps out into the road and his car hits it.
Khruschev says to his driver, “I suppose we should compensate the farmer,” and waits in the car while the driver goes up to the farmhouse.
After a time, the driver returns laden with gifts, and says, “I don’t understand it. I just told him ‘Khruschev is in the car and I’ve just killed the pig.'”
Laughter doesn’t necessarily unseat tyranny, but it can make life under a dictatorship more bearable.
I’m going to agree with Leroy, though I recognize that humor doesn’t necessarily translate into competitive rates, excellent service or good compensation for damages. On the other hand, it has some bearing on how the executives see themselves, and when I was writing and producing local TV ads, I learned that some people take themselves way too seriously.
If nothing else, a person who can laugh may also listen when you have a problem.
Jeremy is right, but I suppose with unemployment at 4% we can’t really expect companies to ramp up to meet demand, except perhaps for those call centers located in prisons.
There was a spate of call centers being built here in the ’90s, but then everything got outsourced overseas, leaving a lot of empty rooms full of computers. One of the papers where I worked had a call center and there was only one person who worked there for more than two or three weeks.
Three weeks might be an exaggeration.
When you’re losing people to Burger King, there’s something wrong with your business model.
There’s a lot of this going around, too. Though, to be honest, much as Pig may want to sit cradling his red stapler and listening to his radio at a reasonable volume, my experience was that the people who had been there forever were the only ones in the building who knew how things worked.
But since they had seniority and were compensated accordingly, they were the ones being offered buy-outs so their places could be taken by clueless newbies who had previously worked at call centers and fast-food emporia.
My dogs have always been deeply chagrinned when first sprayed, but given how long it lasts, it’s good that they learn to accept it as the New Normal, though I have to think it plays havoc with their three-parts-per-whatever ability to gather information.
For all the magical potions on the shelf at the pet store, all you need — and all that works — is to mix a quart of hydrogen peroxide with a quarter cup of baking soda, and 1-2 teaspoons of liquid dish soap and let it sit on the dog for a few minutes before rinsing it off.
The dog will still smell, but it won’t stink and you’ll get over it.
Speaking of country matters, Harry Bliss points out that cats are predators, and the idea of a cat keeping a journal should remind us that they are also an invasive species, and, yes, they wreak havoc on native birds, as the Oatmeal documented several years ago.
I don’t dislike cats, but they need to stay inside where they can knock precious items off of shelves. After all, it’s your vase and your cat, right?
The nuthatches belong to everybody.
Ah, Rory, you’ll feel better with it off. And if the shearer tears and pulls, we’ll send him home in a British ship.
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