CSotD: Hooray for Stupid, well, usually …
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One of my favorite sources of stupid humor is Monty, who continues to make the tired old "hapless guy looks just like the killer" gag even more ridiculous than usual, and thus justifies dragging it out in the first place.
It either takes a lot of confidence or a lot of gall. Today's installment speaks for itself: Meddick's grasp of stupidity and his resulting willingness to pile idiotic-Pelion upon moronic-Olympus is breathtaking.
Best of all, it only made me think of Bob Hope. Other stupid gags today were not quite as free of intellectual after-taste.
Okay, no, wait, Brevity was. Really, really stupid, and no lingering effects other than that now I'm going to think of Irving whenever I hear Hugh Jackman's name, which is better than thinking of Hugh Jass. Which, of course, I still will.
"Cathy" ended its 34 year run three years ago on October 3, so I'm gonna assume that, if this were a tribute and not simply a stupid gag, Dan Thompson would have scheduled it to run on Thursday.
And that, once he recognized this missed opportunity, he said "Ack!"
But, see, Pearls Before Swine, which is normally a running font of intentional stupidity, has the unfortunate timing to run the day after I got sucked into an unintentionally stupid discussion on Facebook, based on that John Fugelsang quote which goes around mis-attributed to Jimmy Carter, "If you don't want your tax dollars to help the poor, then stop saying you want a country based on Christian values, because you don't."
There ensued a spirited (though certainly not in the sense of "Holy Spirited") discussion of what Jesus really meant.
That's not the kind of stupid I find amusing, and, if they turn out to be right about going to heaven, then I only want to go there if I get to punch people.
Which brings us to the next normally dependable source of stupid jokes, Pros & Cons, which is entirely too thought-provoking today.
The Pros usually provide the smart, with the Cons providing the stupid, but the guy is right: He should get his lawyer involved. I have respect for the overarching concept of law and I have had friends who were cops, so I don't have a paranoid fear of them.
But, aside from being aware of how the Birmingham police and others like them behaved in the Deep South a half century ago, and of the deep corruption of the partisan police force in Northern Ireland a quarter century ago, I've also seen and experienced first-hand the abuses of the Chicago cops in the 60s.
And I keep up with the news enough to know it hasn't ended.
So, yes, once you are at the police station, shut the hell up and get a lawyer and don't expect the Roberts Court to protect you if you don't.
Having said that, timing once again is an issue, since I just saw a particularly over-extended example of those whiny, self-congratulatory cartoons in which millenials explain how my generation makes fun of them based on idiotic stereotypes, and then justifies their own status by employing idiotic stereotypes about "Boomers," whatever those are.
And I'm still contemplating John Lewis's graphic memoir, the March, and how the sit-ins were not intended to provoke but simply to, as the word says, "demonstrate" the unfairness of the system. If that turned out to demonstrate unjustifiable, horrible over-reaction by police, well, that was certainly worth demonstrating. But it was not sought out.
Maybe it's an unfair stereotype, but there's quite a contrast between that and the dishonest acts of provocation being immortalized on selectively edited videos by both left-wing and right-wing propagandists.
And it's not so much that, in my day, we didn't have to make up this kind of stuff because it was really happening.
It's that you don't have to make it up today, either, and you weaken both your moral standing and the power of your work when you substitute fraud and clever editing for meaningful investigations.
Freedom is certainly undermined by abusive law enforcement, but it's also undermined by lies and deception, especially when there is so much truth just waiting to be uncovered by someone willing to invest a little shoe leather, patience and cunning.
And sometimes stupid is just irredeemably stupid
The Detroit News, in its infinite wisdom, has become the latest newspaper to decide that the one thing people in a community don't want from their local newspaper is discussion of local issues.
But rather than simply fire their local cartoonist like the other papers, they've decided to keep paying him but have him stop drawing regional cartoons. (Hat tip to Tom Spurgeon.)
There's got to be more to it than either of those linked stories tells, because, while it makes no goddam sense in the first place, it also makes no sense in Beancounter World, unless Payne is taking a pay cut or else being loaded up with so much non-art-related editorial page work that he's taking the place of two people, one of whom used to be him.
I suspect the latter.
When a paper I worked at wanted to harass me into quitting so they could replace me with a part-timer, they made it impossible for me to do the work I liked and had been hired for by piling on additional duties. It worked: After about six months, I was able to find a gig where I was wanted and respected.
Until that paper was sold to a chain, and then it was Finnegan Beginnegan.*
I've said before that working for a newspaper in this age is like being the chef at a steakhouse where the owner decides to fight declining profits by purchasing lower quality meat. It is pointless to argue with him that serving people fat and gristle in place of prime steaks is not a sensible plan to fight decreasing patronage.
They know that. These people are not stupid. They're not looking for a way to help their papers survive. They are looking for ways to keep the stock price up long enough to cash out their options and bolt before the house of cards collapses.
Staying in business takes investment and costs money, and they'd be stupid to try to stay in business when pump-and-dump is so much faster and easier.
That's not the kind of stupid I find amusing.
*If you have children under 8 in your household, you should be sure to click on this link.
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.
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