CSotD: Silliness of all sorts
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Let's warm up with a little outright foolishness, courtesy of Bizarro.
A couple of things to note here: One is that, while good art won't sell a bad gag, it can sure enhance a silly one. Dan Piraro's ability to draw the crowd under the feeder with a modicum of realism is much of what makes the gag work.
The second, related thing, is that Piraro is not only sympathetic to counterculture tastes but frequently works them into his cartoons, and, if I have a criticism of Bizarro, it's that he can be snobbishly dismissive of omnivores and the average middleclass in general.
His attitude and his artistry combine here with a picture of passive crunchy-types that come across as individuals rather than a blanket condemnation of a stereotype. These are particularly silly people and it is a particularly silly cartoon, not some quasi-political statement.
I like silly cartoons, and I particularly like particularly silly cartoons.
So here's another one:
This is from Sheldon, by Dave Kellett, whose work on the new movie, Stripped, seems to have distracted him in recent months, but not to the point where he doesn't do some good work at his regular hangout. Subject matter aside, the timing here, the way he forces you to read down until you hit the punchline, is particularly excellent.
But let's talk subject matter.
There have been a couple of times when, desperate to get out of a bad job and once assured there was nothing nearby available, I've looked at some gigs in paradise: Places like Hawaii and the Virgin Islands, and also near Yellowstone and up in Alaska.
However, there are reasons that paradises are paradises, and money is an issue in both the major categories, for any journalists who, not being trust-fund babies, are going to have to subsist on a journalist's pay:
1. Remote and beautiful places like the Yellowstone or Alaska are for natives and orphans. They're gorgeous, but, unless your family lives there, you're never going to see them again. The addition of Puddlejump Airlines to your itinerary ratchets up the price of a ticket beyond what any reporter or editor can afford to spend more than once in two or three years, and you wouldn't have vacation time enough to drive back from there.
2. You can't afford to live in the more resort-oriented paradises, like Hawaii or the Virgin Islands. Part of it is the need to import so many basics, and you won't have the time — never mind the skills — to catch your own fish and climb trees to cut down coconuts.
But the other part is at the heart of Sheldon: When I lived in Colorado, we called it being "paid in scenery." They don't need to lure people to these places.
When I graduated from college and moved there permanently in 1972, I had a sit-down with an editor at the Post. I was hoping to be a copyboy, a typical entrance position in those pre-computerized days, but he told me he had solid, experienced reporters from papers in Kansas City and Chicago and Detroit applying for those low-level, low-pay openings simply for the chance to move out to the mountains.
The fact that I stayed for 16 years suggests that the economics sorted themselves out eventually, but scenery was definitely a part of the pay-package. Fred Bonfils, founder of the Post, said "T'is a privilege to live in Colorado," and he was certainly right, though it's not clear he meant "privilege" in the sense it soon came to mean.
There were still plenty of "Woo-hoo!" moments. Even Uncle Duke admitted that, despite the increasing number of flatlander immigrants.
Speaking of annoying interlopers …
Friend-of-the-Blog Richard Marcej's blog, the Blabbing Baboon, is basically a journal of his daily life, and, as with well-done journals generally, his insights, even on mundane matters, are often worth pondering.
His point here is well-taken: There are plenty of people for whom AM radio is not some sideshow but a main media resource, and the dismantling of the equal-time provision — plus corporate centralization of the medium — has allowed genuine dishonesty, hate-mongering and the spreading of paranoia to become the default on AM radio.
You can't blame all the ignorance of the age on the Internet, and pandering to greed, hate, stupidity, fear and ignorance has nearly always been a solid marketing strategy: Politics aside, look at the deceptive, mind-numbing sewage spewing out of cable channels in the form of bogus "documentaries" and scripted "reality" shows.
You may think it's funny, but there are way too many people who take that stuff seriously, and, even when it's not political, it helps break down their ability to understand how the real world operates.
Which brings us to a more loveable moron …
Sherman just happened to come up with this display of reasoning on the same morning I stumbled upon this new, free e-book on logical fallacies, which is also illustrated with cartoons.
Unfortunately, while it's very entertaining and could be useful for bright high school students, it's not likely to reach those people who listen to AM radio and are desperately in need of instruction in how to recognize bad arguments, which is itself probably an example of the "No True Scotsman" fallacy.
But, if so, it's one I'm willing to stand behind.
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