CSotD: wotthehell wednesday
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While we wait for the rest of the Take A Knee cartoons to drift in, here's today's Prickly City, which is less entertaining for the particular strip itself as it is for the look inside the mind of a thoughtful conservative.
"Thoughtful Conservative" sounds like an oxymoron but is more of an endangered minority. Granted, if you place emphasis on "reluctant to see change," then being a conservative carries a strong element of thinking everything is okay the way it is, or that it can be fixed by tinkering and adjusting rather than through major changes.
But that's where thoughtful conservatives and liberals have always not so much clashed as each had to stop, think and compare their ideas, and see what the real barriers are, rather than those that are merely not wanting to back down.
That last panel would make a lot of liberals gasp, for instance, but the biggest objection to Mike Pence at the moment is that he has gone along as a sort of political beard for Trump, and so one has to question his intestinal fortitude.
His personal morality, which he would want to impose on the country, is troubling to liberals but at least it's internally consistent, which would be a welcome change from the lunatic, shifting, irrational tirades currently offered.
Better to fight a Golden Gloves champ than a drunk: At least you have some idea what he'll do next.
The Tea Party has declared open season on thoughtful conservatives, and even on some, like McConnell, who don't fit that definition.
Now Bob Corker has announced his intent to retire from the Senate just as Alabama Republicans have chosen a Senate candidate who is even farther out on the lunatic fringe than the rock-ribbed conservative Trump journeyed there to promote.
Meanwhile, back in his chair as editorial cartoonist for the Chicago Trib, Stantis portrayed the choice parents face in light of more evidence of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy from football, while I've spotted a couple of rightwing cartoonists who think it's funny to make jokes about how the NFL players who took a stance in favor of the First Amendment are obviously suffering from brain damage.
Cruel jokes promoting fascism are neither thoughtful nor classically conservative.
The 2016 elections were a wake-up call, but they also served as a rallying call.
"Whose side are you on" may not be a Republican/Democrat question much longer.
War on the Poor
Meanwhile, the One Percent's War on the Poor continues, and Darrin Bell is a thoughtful enough liberal that I rarely research one of his claims without finding confirmation.
Rudy Park has established Rudy's boss as a conniving cheat, but it's not always necessary to invent his plots. This one is genuine: The Republicans are scheming to make the Earned Income Tax Credit so burdensome that the working poor will not claim it.
Having taken the EITC in the first few years following my divorce, I'm taking this personally. First of all, I truly needed it. Second, I only needed it for a few years and then I became a good lower-middleclass taxpaying single parent, fulfilling its intended value.
The EITC matters to the working poor, and now the Party of Family Values wants to take it away.
"Shame on them" doesn't begin to cover this cruel plan.
As that Washington Post article mentions, a lot of us who scrape to get by are getting at least some of our income in the gig economy, though in those days we didn't have a hipster term for "doing odd jobs."
It was necessary, of course, to keep records of what I made and my work expenses, but to maintain every receipt in the format required to survive a formal examination?
I don't want to sound elitist, but even as a fairly sophisticated college graduate, it would have both taxed my organizational abilities and intimidated the hell out of me.
Plus, as a writer, my odd jobs were done for companies that wanted invoices and paid with checks.
I can only imagine how many deserving, righteous poor parents who have been mowing lawns, babysitting or painting houses have that kind of paper trail, and how many would walk away rather than go through the ordeal of proving that a scribbled note on a scrap of paper is a legitimate receipt for services rendered.
And it's not like the GOP is proposing to beef up IRS staffing. They're content to divert regulatory efforts towards the bottom end of the earning scale.
Historical Marker: April 17, 1931
On a lighter note — though it would be nice if some rich sailor were currently handing out money to the poor — today's Vintage Thimble Theater appears to mark the first use of what would become Popeye's personal slogan.
Not to be confused with the entirely accidental use of a now-familiar phrase that popped up in yesterday's Vintage Radio Patrol. (I think he's talking 'bout someone else.)
Juxtaposition of the Day
(Pickles)
These are both pretty funny, but I've got to admit I can identify with them more now than I might have once.
Pickles aims for an older crowd in an unusually straightforward way. It's not just a series of outdated cultural references, nor is it a lot of shopworn gags about old folks. Brian Crane does a good number of "how things have changed" jokes, but he often lobs in a grenade like this.
I'm not as old as Earl, but I've had that conversation with myself. It can be depressing to realize how fast the previous decade flew by, knowing that you're not guaranteed another.
And that, as both he and Rat suggest, maybe you don't want too many more anyway.
Not that you would turn them down.
But, at least for me, it's less fear of an uncertain afterlife than curiosity to see what happens next in this one.
In lieu of music, a bit of cockroach blank verse zen:
(Don Marquis, w/George Herriman)
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