CSotD: Good dogs, hard problems
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Start with the easy one: Brian Anderson's Dog Eat Doug, starring Sophie the Chocolate Lab and Doug the Be-diapered Pre-Toddler.
I'm a cynical and hard-nosed critic, but, despite that, I really love this strip. Which is okay, because Brian also does this kind of thing and so neither of us is as simple in outlook as we would have to be in a cardboard, two-dimensional world. Or even a Bristol board one.
I liked this one in part because I'm always amazed at how readily dogs understand the limitations of toddlers. Of course, Sophie lives with Doug and so this unpleasant encounter is not outside her realm, but even dogs who rarely if ever encounter little ones seem to get it.
For instance, I had started to take a picture of my dog lying in the sun before a granddaughter toddled over and planted herself on said dog. Note the quiet "damn" expression on the dog's face, bless her patient heart.
And Jack London's portrayal of sled dogs as half-wild semi-lunatics takes a serious blow when you see this musher's crew being harnessed up for a race in Oquossoc, Maine with the aid of a four-year-old:
On the other hand, it's foolish to rely on a dog's judgement and restraint. The other day, someone brought a five-year-old to the park and let her wander over to where our group of a half-dozen dogs were running around, 'rassling and fetching balls in the river.
Not that anyone was going to purposely hurt her, but she ignored repeated requests and increasingly sharp orders from the dog owners not to get in the middle of the dog scrum and, in particular, not to grab one of their balls, hold it up and wave it around.
And the parents were oblivious: They'd clearly brought her down there to get a little time off from their duties, assuming they ever acknowledged any.
Had the dogs knocked her down or caught a tiny finger in the course of getting the ball, of course, we know the ramifications. Fortunately, the dog owners had better judgement than the kid's parents.
As did the dogs.
Good dog, Sophie. Good girl!
Priorities and economics:
Some panel cartoonists use Sunday to expand the canvas, others use it to offer more gags. Mike Baldwin does a little of both with Cornered, doubling the pleasure and using a little more space. I sometimes ponder if it's fair to crop to a single gag in these cases, but it's not necessary today because I like them both.
The sailboat one needs little commentary from me. Epictetus tells us, "If a man drinks much wine, do not say that he drinks badly, but that he
drinks much. For till you have decided what judgement prompts him, how
do you know that he acts badly?"
Fair enough. I will simply say that I know people who work a lot.
The Stoic sensei also counsels, "What is the price of a lettuce? An obol perhaps. If then a man
pays his obol and gets his lettuces, and you do not pay and do not get
them, do not think you are defrauded. For as he has the lettuces so you
have the obol you did not give. The same principle holds good too in
conduct. You were not invited to some one's entertainment? Because you
did not give the host the price for which he sells his dinner. He sells
it for compliments, he sells it for attentions. Pay him the price then,
if it is to your profit. But if you wish to get the one and yet not give
up the other, nothing can satisfy you in your folly."
Again, fair enough: I do not have a sailboat. But I still have my time, and my leisure.
The other panel is more challenging. First of all, it is very funny on its own merits, because those front-yard lemonade stands are, indeed, heavily subsidized and depend for profit on not repaying their costs. If a kid were going to cover cost of materials, plus be compensated for both time selling lemonade and time building the stand, well, seven bucks would be cheap.
Every Thursday in summer, the city hosts a Farmer's Market about half a block from my house, and if a head of lettuce is one obol at the store, it's at least three or four at the Farmer's Market. Yes, it's fresher and it's tastier and the farmer deserves a profit.
But, first of all, if you were just mentally praising me for not working a 60-hour week in order to buy a sailboat, don't criticize me for not working 60-hour weeks so that I can eat expensive food.
And the key is the line between "fair" and "expensive." It's not simple.
I'm not insensitive to fairness: I went several years without table grapes or lettuce to support Cesar Chavez, I worked an informational picketing on behalf of poultry-processors and I helped set up a fundraiser for striking farmworkers in the San Luis Valley.
More recently and relevantly, I found a source for affordable free-trade coffee. I'm not above paying a little more to feel better about where things come from.
But if I lived outside town, I'd be able to get fresh, free-range eggs for $2.50 a dozen at a roadside stand, instead of paying four bucks a dozen at the Farmer's Market. In fact, there's just such a place about 12 miles from here, which … given the price of gas and the mileage I get … is not worth it.
It's an issue of scale. There is a co-op store here where the prices are a little higher but the karma is a lot better, and that's fine. But until that is scaled across the board, here's the problem:
Food is one piece of the Jenga tower, and you can't just yank it out and expect nothing else to fall.
A century ago, we had more pesticide-free food, hormone-free milk and antibiotic-free meat. But most people still lived out in the country where the stuff was being produced, and even in town, most homeowners had yards large enough for a truck patch and a few chickens, if not a cow.
Most city people who didn't have that kind of direct access to food were either named Astor or were seriously malnourished.
Read Jacob Riis. Read Helen Campbell.
It was not an organic, free-range, fair-trade paradise, and if a girl could afford a nice egg for breakfast, she might eat it in the morning before going to work at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory.
So today she works in Dakah, yes. And, if we're not willing to pay a little more for clothing, her blood is on our hands.
Which is fair: Most people could pay $7 or $7.50 for that $6 T-shirt. But making her work safe and increasing her pay should not turn a $6 T-shirt into a $12 T-shirt.
Four dollar eggs are food for people who can afford four dollar eggs. They're delicious and healthy, but the problem is more complex than that.
But it still feels like a stop-gap. It's still a matter of not making the kid cover the cost of lemons.
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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