CSotD: Oh fiddle-dee-dee! I’ll think about that tomorrow!
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As it happens, the first "oooh, I like that one!" of this morning's trip through the funnies came at Rhymes With Orange. Little did I expect RWO to set the agenda for the day.
Hilary Price specializes in wry, observational humor. This is not funny, but it's a very good observation and needs to be said.
Often.
And David Horsey picked up the ball and added a partisan political element and more specific analysis in his comments, including this:
Judging by Obama’s two election wins and the aggregate congressional vote totals in 2008 and 2012, the majority of Americans already lean toward the Democrats and that advantage is growing. But until that majority shows up for more than presidential elections, Republicans will cling to power in Congress and in state legislatures and they will continue to impose policies — such as unfettered access to high-powered firearms — that, according to polls, a majority of Americans do not support.
Yes, it's mean of him to play on the vacuous slacker stereotype, but the key to stopping him from doing it is for that demographic to show up at the polls.
That's the bare minimum: Show up.
And, by all means, those who care should keep up the heat on social media. But somebody also needs to dig deeper, to be out there registering voters, particularly when the opposition is busily de-registering those they perceive as harmful to their cause.
These battles can only be won with clipboards and telephones and people sitting at card tables in public places and people organizing to give people rides to the polls.
The rest — the marches and demonstrations and be-ins and die-ins and media stunts — is a combination of consciousness-raising and window-dressing: Necessary, yes, but not even remotely sufficient.
Meanwhile, in World War III
Speaking of social media, Rico Schacherl of Madam and Eve remarked on Facebook about a historic parallel that made me wonder why nobody had done this simple graphic commentary.
So I took all of 10 minutes and put it together in Photoshop, which would make me wonder even more why nobody had done it, except we pretty much agreed that nobody would get it.
Of course, there was a big fat clue already established, because Hillary Clinton had publicly accused Putin of just this, but then everyone got all flustered and pissy about it, because, you know, she had used that other N-word. And she then backed off, because, y'know, y'gotta.
And, besides, since then, the Crimeans have had a vote and it turns out they want to be part of Russia. So there you have it.
And I very rarely agree with Dana Summers, but why are so many in the media behaving as if the vote was in any possible way legitimate?
It's not like we feel some journalistic objectivity is violated when we doubt the legitimacy of North Korean elections. Why on earth is everyone so timid about voicing the same skepticism over this transparently bogus dog-and-pony show?
Start with armed men in no-we're-not-Russian uniforms keeping international observers off the peninsula, then add the fact that polling places were monitored by Russian soldiers and, in one case, by members of a motorcycle gang Putin has ridden with and you don't even have to get as far as Jon Stewart's point, which was that the Kurds are certainly going to be delighted to find out you don't have to have your own country in order to vote to have your own country. (Comedy Central has totally hosed recently redesigned the Daily Show website, so I can't link to it, but he said it.)
In any case, response from cartoonists has continued to be pretty blah, either pointing out the obvious — yes, he is a bully and yes, he does pose for pictures with his shirt off — or bashing Obama without offering any alternative idea or even any coherent criticism beyond "Ooooo, I hate that Obummer!"
With the exception of Clay Jones, who offered an amusing and pointed commentary on the puzzlingly limited set of sanctions announced yesterday.
And to be clear: What makes his commentary stand out is that he goes beyond railing against general ineffectiveness and hones in on the limitations of what has been done. There is, in his mockery, a suggestion that sanctions are a legitimate response but that the ones which are going into place are not sufficiently sweeping or punitive to be more than a petty annoyance.
I don't expect a political cartoon to project a 12-point plan, but Jones has done more than others. Which is good, but it does still kind of make him the pony under the pile.
At least there was a pony.
Incidentally, Clay is back after a period of inactivity following his layoff from his newspaper, and is not only actively self-syndicating but has got a spot at GoComics. Good news for him, yes, but also encouraging for the medium as a whole.
(Anyway, as long as the locals are happy …)
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