CSotD: Wednesday Short Takes
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I welcome the chance to do a "Short Takes" posting, and today's Pros & Cons pretty much tells why. Yes, there are some big important questions out there.
But how 'bout those Mets?
Or, more specifically, how 'bout those Tigers, because that's what I was watching last night, and this was absolutely awesome, and I don't mean "great" or "fabulous" but, rather, "awesome" as in, leaving you dumbstruck. Not just the catch, but the excited, unalloyed joy that followed.
Not that she provided the only "wow" of the tournament for Auburn fans.
Afterwards, on Facebook, a fellow high school alum commiserated with me over what a different world we'd have lived in, had women had these opportunities in our day.
Well, the NCAA Softball Championships end tonight and then we're back to those other less palatable topics.
Yeah, no kidding, Joe Heller.
On the other hand, if Hillary steps up in the next phase the way she stepped up in San Diego, I might forget that I don't like her very much.
I know, Matt. I know. We've had more inspiring choices.
But we do have to. Enthusiastically or out of self-defense and love of country.
Relatively right-of-center cartoonists like Chan Lowe are acknowledging the threat.
Lowe has been hammering extremism for several weeks, and he's only very moderately right of center, perhaps simply even "right of left," to start with, but, in any case, we're going to find out who is truly conservative and who is just a party hack.
True in cartooning, true in the halls of Congress.
It will be interesting to watch the choices of cartoons that newspaper editors make over the next few months, guided not only by their political ideology but by the degree to which, and intelligence with which, they embrace the idea of presenting "both sides."
Presenting "both sides" of climate change may only have been a warm up.
More interesting, though, will be to see how the Republicans themselves handle it, and how that will, in turn, impact the down-ticket aspects of the race.
We're already seeing holdouts from the fringe, in both cartoons and among politicians, focusing on how much they hate Hillary rather than on the toxic clown at the top of their own ticket, but, then, I've seen holdouts from the other edge of the whacko fringe, too, where the insults and invective between Clinton and Sanders extremists still flow.
It's a bit like a table of loud drunks in a restaurant. They aren't a majority, but they sure can ruin a good evening.
We need to ignore the whackos on each edge and focus on intelligent commentary.
And, between intelligent comments, focus on sports.
And on gardening: "'Cela est bien dit,' répondit Candide, 'mais il faut cultiver notre jardin'."
Which is a lovely segue to a French-but-translated book ostensibly for kids that Johanna Draper Carlson noted at Comics Worth Reading.
I say "ostensibly" because it even comes with teacher's guides in France, but it looked awfully attractive to me, too: Kind of a gentler, more accessible version of xkcd or Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.
This is not the first Benjamin Bear volume published in English, but it's the first I've heard of him, so thanks, Johanna!
It made the gift list for at least one of my grandkids. Maybe two, but the second one might discover that her copy appears to have been pre-read. Shhh.
Second woman named Draper I've singled out today as a source of inspiration.
First bear.
And here's a follow-up to my earlier rant about cartoonists who don't get it. Gary Varvel nails the best Muhammed Ali tribute I've seen, not only with no butterflies and no bees, but with an appreciation for both aspects of Ali's melding of life and career.
Varvel is just old enough to have witnessed Ali in the ring and out, as literal fighter and as metaphorical fighter.
And he got it. And he passed it on.
Meanwhile, Edison Lee discovers the limits of political power for the not-yet-enfranchised.
This happens to hit me on the heels of an on-line reminiscence from a college classmate about 1968, when we were "old enough to kill, but not for voting."
Well, we didn't end the war that year, but we managed to get the voting age lowered by the next presidential race. It's your deal, now, young partners. Hello? Hello?
Ol' Eddie Cochran still speaks to young Eddie Lee, who has a valid excuse for not heading for the polls this November.
"Love to help you son, but …"
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