CSotD: Very Short Takes
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Let's start at the end: Edge City is in its final week and is having some fun with the concept.
I like the idea of actually signing off rather than just stopping, and being up front with readers. I'm sorry the strip is ending, but I'm glad to see them go out with a little class.
Voter Suppression Continues
Keith Knight points out a Tennessee law on Voter ID that seems foolish, though it's really just an extension of the foolishness of Voter ID in the first place, which is a solution in search of a problem.
The notion that masses of fraudulent voters are swinging elections is part of the paranoia that is poisoning our system, and an excellent example of something people believe despite massive amounts of evidence to the contrary.
But it also ties into a much older and thornier voter suppression issue, that of college students who live in a community but remain legal residents of another, and that gets into more interesting philosophical grounds.
After all, we don't ask anyone else how long they plan to remain in town, and, given the Tennessee accepts military IDs as identification, they aren't entirely against people voting who may have a limited, short-term investment in the community.
Including handgun permits among the acceptable forms of ID may simply be a matter of listing all state-issued photo IDs, but it does open them up to ridicule.
QED
Stalking points
Wumo cracks me up with an example of how privacy has disappeared largely through our own efforts.
You probably don't get this joke, because you would never behave like that on Facebook, and certainly I wouldn't either, but, my goo'ness gracious, it turns out there are people who check out their ex and their ex's new squeeze by rifling through their Facebook accounts. Shocking, yes, I know.
And this brings up a question: "What do you want to find?"
If the New Lover seems to be a great person, that would be a good thing. After all, it's evidence that your ex has always had good taste.
Though I suppose if the New Lover seems like a goof, you can reconcile yourself that you were wasting your wonderfulness on someone who couldn't appreciate it.
That seems like a harder sell.
Dumb joke, but I like it
The Flying McCoys touch on one of my favorite myths.
I'm perfectly willing to accept that the Indians had a use for every part of the buffalo, but it's a huge leap to assume they put every part of every buffalo to every possible use. It's part of that whole "Dances with Wolves" mythology of the Noble Savage, Yoda in buckskins.
Granted, they were a lot more respecting of the bison than to shoot them down in droves, harvest their pelts and tongues and leave the rest to rot.
But even before they had horses, when bringing down a buffalo was harder, there were times you simply didn't need another teepee cover, and, certainly, when you had a buffalo jump and ran a whole bunch of them off a cliff, the micro-harvesting of each sinew didn't take place.
Oh, and Chief Seattle? He didn't say that.
It reminds me of a time I called the tribal historian at Standing Rock to ask him about a piece of equipment I'd seen in a George Catlin painting. He answered that question, and then I said, "Let me ask about something else: I've read that religion was so fully integrated into Lakota life that there isn't even a word for 'religion' in the language. Is that true?"
And he chuckled and said, "No, we've got a word for religion."
Oh well. It was a lovely thought.
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