Comic Strip of the Day

CSotD: Saturday Short Takes

Skip to comments

Mike Peterson Published: July 2, 2016 1 minute 1 comment

We'll start today with the front end of a four-day weekend with this Doc and Raider salute to Canada Day from friend-of-the-blog Sean Stephane Martin.

The four day stretch between July 1 and 4 was a big deal when I lived in Plattsburgh and I assume still is. We were less than an hour south of Montreal, but the border made enough of a buffer that, for them, it was an easy way to get out of the city and our beach was considerably less crowded than anything in the Eastern Townships, Montreal's other lifestyle safety valve.

It was also fun, from this side of the border, to be able to go hang out in one of North America's most fun cities without paying the price of being in the suburbs of a major city. We were able to remain rural because the border protected us from the normal sprawl you'd expect.

Another benefit was being within range of Canadian broadcasting, which was more intelligent than the least-objectionable-programming swill being ladled out down here, and I wound up absorbing enough Canadian culture that American jokes about them fall kind of flat.

For instance, they don't say "a boot" for "about." 

That's not a "Canadian" accent anyway. It's a "Torontonian" accent.

And it's not "a boot" so much as "a boat."

Which plays into the politeness stereotype Martin cites here. Canadians do not constantly say "Sorry."

They constantly say "Soar-y." 

We'll play our "moment of zen" at the start today, in order to address more issues of what it truly means to be Canadian:

Back in the USSA:

Here are the opening panels of Bruce McFadden's commentary on the recent Supreme Court decision that said it was okay to use evidence discovered in the course of an unconstitutional stop. You can read the rest here.

There's a good deal more to the case than that, and, as this Scotusblog analysis suggests, it doesn't entirely undermine the Fourth Amendment or the idea that you can't use illegally obtained evidence in a trial. It just adds a few "usuallys" and "unlesses" to the rule.

And McFadden is exaggerating, as comics are wont to do, when he suggests that it simply legalizes unconstitutional searches of minorities, though he echoes a point Justice Sotomayor made in her dissent. 

As noted before, having long hair, and particularly having long hair near Chicago, in the Sixties was an eye-opener for white kids because of the regular ill-treatment you got from people sworn to serve and protect. The difference being that you could cut your hair and it would stop. And it was mostly just being hassled.

Usually.

I wish this had been a 4-4 tie reaffirming the use of the evidence, with Justice Kennedy joining the women, because it would make for a much stronger warning against letting Donald Trump replace Scalia, almost certainly Ginsburg and likely Kennedy over the next four years.

Still, three Scalia/Thomas clones would have made it 7-2, and so the point remains that he who names the justices controls the Constitution.

Short Takes

 
Deflocked has been riffing on "Farm Camp" this week, and it's worth pointing out that the summer camp movement was, in fact, started to give city kids a chance to reconnect with nature, albeit at a time when all but the most sheltered had at least seen live chickens at markets.

Today's strip reminds me of the Farmington Fair in Maine, in which one day was set aside for schools to bring kids, and among the things they would see was a cow (well, a series of them), with the opportunity to line up and each take a grip and a quick squirt into a pail.

(Unlike the one in this strip, the cow at the fair was in a metal frame such that an errant flick of the hoof would clang into a pipe rather than stoving in the coconut of a young would-be milkmaid, but that takes all the humor out of it.)

Which is quite a step up from the cow in the Lincoln Park Zoo, which a friend and I were laughing over until a group of inner-city preschoolers came by and revealed that not only had they never seen such a thing, but had no idea it was where milk came from.

You know, "milk." That stuff they were deciding they would never, ever touch again.

And I have no segue for today's Tank McNamara, but can't let it go unremarked upon because, boy, many a truth is spoken in jest.

Though if there is any margin for hope, the current presidential campaign proves that True Believers are undeterred by facts, however well buttressed. 

I foresee extended blog postings patiently explaining the flaws in whatever equipment is developed, along with video pointing out that, while the goal/touchdown/whathaveyou was indeed scored as proven, a player on that team had an untied shoelace, a clear violation of uniform regulations that should have stopped play before the winning shot.

And, at Half Full, Maria Scrivan offers a related gag, in the form of "If it wasn't properly logged and recorded, did it really happen at all?"

The answer, of course, is "No."

I lied. Here's your moment of zen at the end after all:

(It's Canadian and about milk!)

Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.