CSotD: Every Day is Humpday!
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Dear Leader will address the nation this evening, and Garth German has picked up on the timing. Apparently, the address will be about Iran, though it might also be about Sharpies or about the judge telling him to stop tearing down the White House.
During the Vietnam War, there were people who suggested we just declare victory and go home. We may find out how that strategy works, because I’ll bet Dear Leader won’t say “April Fools!”
However, April 1 seems honored in this
Juxtaposition of the Day
This April Fools joke is that the closing of the Strait of Hormuz is Iran’s fault, a theory that reminds me of a time my father came home from a school board meeting in some bemusement. Seems they’d dealt with a kid who was being suspended, and who explained that he’d been giving this other kid a swirly — sticking his head in the toilet — and when the kid pulled his head out, he shook it and got the filthy water on the bully, who naturally then had to beat him up.
Similarly, after the US and Israel bombed Iran and killed a couple of thousand people, the mullahs had the unbelievable nerve to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, so naturally we had to bomb them some more.
April Fools! We were gonna bomb them some more anyway!
For a more humorous April Fools gag, do this. No, don’t.
Whether or not you look it up, it’s going to come to you. Goris sidesteps the obvious gags, but others already have not. Yesterday was Kristi’s last day on the job and I don’t much care what her husband does, or if she even has one, since nobody mentioned the guy while she was jetting around with Corey.
In France, April Fools is “April Fish,” and, in this case, we should have bigger fish to fry.
Four months ago, Agent France Presse ran this photo of White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, her young son, and Waddle the White House turkey, but Karoline (center) didn’t find it flattering, so the White House asked AFP to remove the photo from its files.
Which they did, perhaps because there could be other occasions upon which Leavitt would be photographed next to a big fat turkey and it could cause confusion. Or something.
Shame on AFP and Getty for knuckling under on an issue of press freedom. On the other hand, WGASA?
Meanwhile, among the intentional foolery:
I tried to buy shoes locally this past week, but we’re a small city with small chain stores that don’t get a lot of inventory. I could find what I wanted, but not in my size, so I did the unforgiveable and ordered them from Jeff Bezos.
As she says, Amazon began as a book seller, back when I lived where the nearest bookstore was not only 40 miles away but included an expensive ferry ride. And Jeff wasn’t Jeff yet, so giving him money didn’t fill me with guilt.
If I went there for some other reason, I’d stop in at the wonderful independent bookstore and I never walked out without an armload. But then a Borders opened up and a Barnes & Noble, and they drove the indy out of business.
That’s not happening only to bookstores, either, making that last panel less of a random observation and more of a grim prophecy.
We used to see videos of people walking into fountains or careening off walls while they gazed at their phones, but I hadn’t seen one of those in a very long time when this Duplex ran.
Since I know people are more melded to their phones than ever, it makes me think that we’ve evolved the ability to read and watch where we’re going simultaneously.
Our great-grandchildren are going to look like chameleons, with independent eyes pointing in two directions at once.
But our descendants will be martial arts experts who can play the violin. I watched Golden Boy the other day, in which William Holden is a violin virtuoso who needs to make money as a boxer, based on the idea that he truly loved music but was desperate to help his family and become famous.
I can’t feel too sorry for anyone who ends up with Barbara Stanwyck in the end, but the more important dynamic is that we used to have an economy where in most homes, one parent — nearly always the mother — could afford to stay home while the kids were young, and if the kids were taking lessons, it’s because they wanted to, not because they needed a place to park after school.
Wallace’s mom stays home while Dad is a lobsterman, which works for them but it’s good they’ve already got their house and boat, because it’s hard for a young couple to get by on one paycheck. For that matter, it’s getting hard for young couples to get by on two.
Wallace and Rose and their crew are sure going to have to hit the ground with a plan when their time comes.
Along those same lines, baseball has a problem, because two kids can play catch, but you need a decent crowd to actually play baseball. We had modified games with complicated ground rules and ghost runners that would let four or five kids get something going, but you needed a decent crowd to play a real game.
In the 50s and 60s, you could do it, but part of the growth of soccer is how few kids you need to have a good time. When my boys were kids in the 70s, four was a crowd and more than that was unheard of.
The kids who played baseball then were doing Little League in place of karate and music classes, and playing sports with adults around isn’t nearly as joyful as playing on your own.
My mom was childhood buddies with Mark Harris, who wrote Bang the Drum Slowly and other baseball novels. When he died, they scattered his ashes on the lot in New Rochelle where they’d played pick-up ball as kids.
And where she developed skills she brought to college.
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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