CSotD: A Pause in the Unfunny
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Opening with one political cartoon, largely because I disagree. Trump’s clodhopper interference in the World Cup didn’t destroy the integrity of soccer. It merely pointed out the lack of integrity of FIFA, which — as has been noted here and everywhere else — wasn’t in doubt to begin with.
If the red card kerfuffle made anybody lose faith in FIFA or Trump, well, as the man said, “You had no faith to lose and you know it.”
Anyway, we’ve all got bigger fish to fry, but it’s Humpday and politics will have to wait until tomorrow.
Cynthia walks a tightrope in Barney & Clyde, sometimes worldly wise and sometimes totally spoiled, and this is one of the latter cases. I enjoy crowd shots, but football tickets are pricey enough and World Cup is way more expensive, which makes it surprising that anybody is there beyond potential clients of wealthy corporations and people with way more money than anyone ought to have. Perhaps I repeat myself.
When normal people plan exotic, expensive vacations, a common question is whether their kids are old enough to remember the event. Cynthia likely is, but, then again, the World Cup will blend in with all sorts of once-in-a-lifetime experiences that are a regular, recurring part of her life. Which is kind of sad.
Jonesy reminded me of a vacation I’ll bet my older sister remembers. We were in a store in Atlantic City and she, at the age of about 13, was called out of the crowd by a huckster telling hair treatment. He worked it into her hair as he announced its virtues and said, “And it isn’t a bit greasy, is it?” to which she agreed.
As soon as we were back out on the boardwalk, she announced to us that her hair was now completely greasy, oily and disgusting and she wanted to go right back to the hotel and wash it out. Smart fellow to pick a kid of her age.
Best not to try demonstrating your greasy hair tonic on a grown-up woman, and especially not one like Pam, who is second in command on the R.U. Sirius but seems to outrank Brewster on most fronts, including intelligence and assertiveness. She’d have told him exactly how it felt and what he should do with the bottle.
However, she, like all of us, is the unwilling pawn of the mysterious powers that do things like upgrade your operating system without warning you. And without testing it internally before installing it throughout the fleet.
Yes, these guys. They’re distant, but they’re not always unreachable, and I did have the pleasure of testifying against a former employer in front of the Federal Trade Commission, back in the early 70s, before fatcats bought the FTC.
And I still own a fragment of a share of another former employer, accidentally left intact when I cashed out. It’s only worth about 15 cents, but they have to keep mailing me proxies and I keep sending them back, postpaid.
In the words of the Pirate King, “Revenge is sweet, and flavors all our dealings.”
It is, it is, a glorious thing, to be a Pirate King!
Bizarro set me back on my heels this morning, because I hadn’t thought of the phrase “laughing hyena” in a very long time. In my childhood, so many nature films relied on Disneyesque manipulation and happy talk that we mostly knew hyenas by that expression, based on their odd calls. It was not only a world in which lemmings were thrown off turntables but in which we rarely if ever saw a carnivore have success in a hunt.
I imagine most kids today think of hyenas as powerful, brutish villains, though I hope they also recognize that the beasts have a place in the ecology of a vanishing world.
At the Denver Zoo, they have a display with two housings, one for the hyenas and one for the wild dogs, and an open-air space in the middle that the animals can occupy in turns, because you can’t let them loose upon each other, but they like having the odor of a strange animal present and stimulating their minds is part of good husbandry.
Berbers are great storytellers. When the lion, hyena and jackal teamed up for hunting, they amassed a pile of meat and Lion told Hyena to divide it. Hyena made three equal piles and explained “This one is for you, this one is for me and this one is for Jackal.” Lion then tore into him and sent him limping, bleeding and fleeing away.
Lion then told Jackal to divide the spoils, but Jackal said it was already done. “This one is your breakfast, this one is your lunch and this one is your dinner.” Lion asked how he had become so wise and Jackal said, “I saw what you did to Hyena.”
Jackal is the trickster who often sparks laughter.
Juxtaposition of the Day
Love is in the air for a pair of prepubescent little lads, and they’re getting just the type of fatherly advice little lads have gotten for ages. The most practical thing I remember ever telling one of my sons was that, if I’d messed up at his age, I’d just be making my last child support payment now. I counted on his thinking that I was very old and so he’d better be careful. This was, however, very much a post-pubescent bit of advice.
My advice was generally as useless as father’s advice generally is, starting with the fact that the girls I thought they ought to go out with were never the ones they did. Now that they’re grown and gone, memories of my advice make for laughter at holiday time.
I have considerable more sway with my grandchildren, but since they’re all girls, matters of the heart don’t come up, which may be why they value my advice. It’s usually about buying cars and suchlike.
Anyway, I’m beyond yearning and lusting these days. I still look at pretty girls, but they mostly inspire nostalgia.
The only romantic advice I have now is to make sure you’ve got a few things to be nostalgic about.
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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