Peter Steiner makes fun of grumpy wet-blanket killjoys. The New York Times, by contrast, names them Deputy Editor of its Opinion section and turns them loose on a joyful world, hoping to quash the moment and make us all become very, very serious about very, very serious things. After writing this, he went down to […]
Frazz (AMS) starts us with a reminder that some things can’t be purchased, except of course that they can. As it happens, the strip ran just after the Boston Marathon, as likely planned, but also after a local news story here mentioned that they used to put the medallions indicating that you finished on a […]
Tom the Dancing Bug offers a bit of commentary on the Trump defense that lying in contract negotiations ought not to have legal consequences as long as you pay back the loan which you got at an interest rate based on your lies. It’s an interesting defense to claim that commercial real estate transactions are […]
I think Eric Carle — having faked his own death to escape the world of children’s books — has taken over the world of astronomy. Perhaps Neal DeGrasse Tyson was too technical, but Jeremy Banx is only touching on the ways in which complex ideas are being simplified for a general audience. It’s not just […]
Tim Campbell (Counterpoint) may be urging voters to make good choices, but, as noted here the other day, clarity matters, and this could easily be interpreted as a variation on “Don’t vote. It only encourages them,” which was witty when Scottish comedian Billy Connolly first said it. But we had more space for cynicism a […]
Arlo and Janis (AMS) make sensible preparations for Tuesday night. My apartment is at the back of the landlords’ house and so I don’t get trick-or-treaters, which is good because my current dog is not used to knocks on the door. But in days of larger dogs and a place with heavier traffic, I had […]
The report from San Francisco is that I’m here without much to report yet, since it’s mostly been a social gathering. Good for me to put faces to names but you have to be here for that to be a factor. Today will mark a day of sessions and I’ll report back. Meanwhile, Harry Bliss […]
My initial response to today’s Duplex (AMS) was to wonder just how old that movie is, and, when I looked it up, I found it was released March 28, 1963, making it 60 years old as of Tuesday. So perhaps Glenn McCoy is saluting its anniversary, but it still means that all but the most […]
Well, Arlo (AMS), the problem is that you’re celebrating the wrong saint. If you wait two days, you can have corned beef and cabbage on your St. Joseph’s Table at a heavily discounted price. Best of all, Festa di San Giuseppe falls on a Sunday this year, so you don’t need a dispensation to have […]
I sometimes feel that the kids in Baby Blues (AMS) have become a little too consistently bratty, but then I read Carolyn Hax’s advice column in the Washington Post and so realize that, indeed, there are bratty kids who grow up to be bratty adults. Hax is a lot more indulgent about it than I […]
Maria Scrivan — whom I will see in a day or two at CXC — offers a funny/not funny Half Full, the kind where first you laugh and then you sink into a reverie. Oh, honey, nobody reads the terms and conditions. Well, except for Robert Sikoryak, who found a way to make Apple’s […]
Brewster Rockit (Tribune) is a funny sci-fi spoof. Except when it’s not. Thursday, the January 6 Committee will present hearings in Prime Time, and there are many people who feel this will finally give Americans a look not only at what happened in the Capitol that day but at who may have planned, encouraged and enabled […]
Our comment feature appears to be broken beyond repair, at least for our current platform, which inspires (finally!) a redesign, which will take a while. In the meantime, we hope you’ll give us feedback on the social media where we announce our new postings. (Illo by Henry Justice Ford) There’s a lot of political […]
It’s appropriate for Tank McNamara (AMS) to lead off today, because sports coverage tends to drift between entertainment and politics, and the choice of whether to require vaccines for Broadway and sports is a bit of both. Start by saying that I’m not convinced I could catch much from the seats I could afford, but […]
Note the interplay in this Wallace the Brave (AMS): First, Rose is the right character to have a turquoise necklace, or, at least, she’s the right character to show it off to her friends. Amelia might have one — heck, even Spud has had one — but Amelia wouldn’t make note of it. And, of […]