CSotD: New Week, Same Stories
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First Dog points out that, indeed, the whole world is watching. That wouldn’t be so bad if we were some obscure country nobody really cared about, so they could watch what we’re up to, snicker and shrug it off.
But ever since WWII we have set ourselves up as the Keystone of the Free World, so nobody can afford to snicker and shrug us off.
And note that First Dog posits a scenario in which “the USA collapsed and had to stop interfering with the rest of the planet’s business.” That’s really the only way we’d stop being a keystone, and no matter what happens Nov 3 and in the 2028 elections, we’re not collapsing.
We’ll still be a large, powerful, dominant nation, and the problem is that, even if we wiped Trump’s name off everything, tore down that stupid ballroom and went back to feeding the hungry and tending the sick, there’s no reason for anyone to think it couldn’t all come roaring back in 2032.
We need to clean up our act, but we’ve already permanently lost any trust the rest of the world had in us. As well as any we had in each other.
Jimmy Stewart doesn’t live here anymore.
I was impressed with the number of Gen Z’s who registered for the primaries here and expect to see even more when I work the general. Since they all chose the same party, I think Spaulding is off the mark in thinking any of them are still trying to make up their minds.
But as noted before, I decided a few years ago that, since I’m now retired, I’m released from a journalist’s ethical restrictions and joined a political party. This unleashed a flood of junk mail, and though I de-registered two years ago, it’s still coming and my phone is now getting texts urging me to donate to candidates from all around the country.
My phone suggests STOP as a predicted response to these texts before I even type the S, which is what makes it a smartphone.
I bought my first peck of apples and jug of sweet cider last week and have stocked up on sharp cheddar. It’s early in the season and the macs are so crisp that you risk gum recession if you bite into them whole, so the best move is to pare them into pieces, do the same with the cheese, and eat them together.
But it’s a seasonal delight, because no matter how well they are stored, apples quickly go from crisp to mealy, and while Granny Smiths hold their texture, they’re not as flavorful as macs, northern spies and the rest of the best.
Oh well. Don’t be sorry that they’re going to become mealy. Be glad that, for a brief, shining moment, they were crisp.
I got a personal laugh out of this because shortly after my mother moved out of the Adirondacks, she asked me to pop back there and retrieve the contents of her safe deposit box. My name wasn’t on the papers, so there was a lot of bureaucracy for me to get permission and she didn’t have the key, which required them to drill the lock.
Which they did, only then realized they’d inverted two digits and had drilled into the wrong box. This meant they had to summon a witness from their staff, then contact the owner of that box and confess that they’d not only drilled into the wrong box but had (gasp!) glimpsed its contents.
When I say “confess,” it hardly meets the level of prostration involved, and when I say my needing to get into Mom’s box triggered a whole lot of paperwork, it paled beside the mountain of bureaucracy their error set off.
Double-check your numbers and don’t lose your key.
More of a sigh than a laugh at the memory this touched off. Small-town journalism often reveals stories within stories, and I ran into a case where two young fellows were busted for stealing a bicycle. I knew one of them, who was being raised by an uncle up our way, since he’d become too much for his grandmother to handle down in the city.
He was an awfully nice kid but not high on the genius scale and explained to me that he hadn’t stolen the bike. He’d just held the door open for his friend who wheeled it out. But they were both convicted and sentenced to a stretch in the local lockup.
One of the sheriff’s deputies told me that as they processed him, he asked what time the bus would come each morning to take him to school.
Yes, it does explain recidivism, but, as said, more in a way to make you sigh than to make you laugh.
Juxtaposition of the Day
Bernard Pillsbury did not become wealthy by playing the sucker, but he goes well beyond explaining the astronomical numbers by providing a down-to-earth example of the foolishness involved. Citing the multimillion-to-one odds doesn’t help because the numbers are too large to comprehend, but his example can be grasped, and then Clyde brings it into even sharper focus by pointing out the number of idiots involved in the enterprise.
And Pearls goes after the growing predictions market, which combines the foolishness of gambling with the foolishness of playing a game that can be hacked. Pastis may have been inspired by the case of the White House employee who did basically the same thing, placing bets on Trump speeches which he’d seen while loading the TelePrompter.
I bought a few football slips from a kid whose uncle was connected, but although the profits weren’t going to the Little Sisters of the Poor, the game was just predicting winners and losers without odds or point spreads. And it helped me as a journalist because I got to know the uncle and gain some insights into the local mob.
But the more complex world of fantasy football and, now, predictive gambling, frequently puts you in the position of rooting against your own team, which completely alters the reason to watch the games.
Speaking of rooting against the home team:
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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