CSotD: Art imitates life
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Sometimes comics offer commentary on the news and sometimes they don't. Given that Scott Stantis pays attention to what's happening in space, it's possible today's Prickly City was inspired by the discovery of Earth's second moon, a story that quickly fizzled into cosmic trivia under more careful scrutiny.
Turns out that our "second moon" is a bit of space flotsam that is temporarily caught up in our gravitational field such that, while attempting to orbit the Sun, it keeps getting pulled back into an orbit of the Earth, which could make it a "moon" except that it's a tiny rock by space standards on a pretty erratic orbit, all happening quite a distance from us, and it will very likely break free at some point and go wandering off on its own again.
And apparently there's other bits of natural space junk out there doing pretty much the same thing.
Still, the interesting-but-disappointing story may have inspired the strip, which, after all, only speculates on the overall idea.
And then there's today's Arctic Circle, a strip that often comments on climate change and environmental issues. I haven't heard about anyone doing this particular thing, though recycling plastic into other plastic items is certainly happening.
But the problem with trying to scoop up the millions and millions of tons of discarded plastic in the oceans with nets is that you scoop up all sorts of things you didn't want to, plastic nets being one of the more destructive types of garbage out there.
Specifically, abandoned fishing nets end up trapping and drowning sea turtles or getting wrapped around whales, in addition to simply catching fish that then die.
And trying to scoop out the trash commits fuel and work hours that make it both expensive and futile, given the volume of garbage.
However, a 19-year-old Dutch kid has developed a floating system that could trap, remove and recycle half of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in a decade without significant damage to marine life.
It's a relatively simple concept that starts with the inflatable booms used to trap oil, but combines them with a sort of curtain that goes down two meters into the water.
The thing is anchored, and deployed in a V-shape so that drifting plastic is diverted into the crux of the V where it can be collected, a process so slow and gradual that any fish, turtles, whales, etc. who wander in can readily wander back out again.
It won't do the whole job — a fair amount of plastic garbage lies too far down in the water to be trapped by it — but its passive nature not only protects marine life but means it doesn't have to be constantly tended, cutting the cost, while the inventor and his foundation expect the value of recycling to not only pay for it but return a profit that can be plowed back into more of these booms as well as provide motivation for the project.
It could also be deployed near the mouths of major rivers, helping to cut the estimated 8 million metric tons of plastic that enter the world's oceans each year.
Right now, the Dutch government has funded a year-long test of the system in the North Sea, to see whether it can stand up to rough seas and storms.
If it can hold up in the rough North Sea, it should have no problem holding up in the Pacific
One of the five cartoons in this Sunday's Lockhorns spread gives me a chance to rant about radio, and, specifically public radio.
I'm a little worried about NPR because I see warning signs that it's heading down the path that has all but killed PBS, which now seems to be a few hours of actual original programming, with the rest being infomercials and 20-year-old British comedies.
NPR currently runs "Best of Car Talk," but I'm glad to learn that Garrison Keillor's retirement will not turn into repeats of "Prairie Home Companion," though I'll admit I didn't listen to it anyway, putting that sort of humor in the bin with Mark Russell and the Capitol Steps of things that were clever and innovative a generation ago.
Even Stan Freberg, great as he was in his era, was just kind of sad and tiresome in his later attempts to come back.
Perhaps the new fellow at PHC won't simply follow Keillor's pattern. He's said to be more interested in the music than the comedy, and we'll see where that takes the show.
But NPR feels like it's trapped along with PBS in following the money, which means catering to a demographic in which I am a fresh-faced kid and anyone born after 1970 has no place at all.
Leroy and Loretta will get some use out of that radio, however, since I don't picture them as the "All Things Considered" and "On the Media" types to begin with.
Lord knows there's plenty on the radio for people who aren't looking for anything fresh, new and challenging.
And here's one where you don't have to wonder what inspired it, as John Cole neatly sums up the GOP strategy, and I suppose it's okay to switch horses in midstream if the one you were on is well and truly dead.
Though I'm not sure Benghazi is "well and truly dead" given that the Republican candidate is a birther so indifferent to truth that the Guardian has launched a weekly feature to keep up with his contradictions and fabrications.
On the other hand, you don't have to work hard to come up with credible lies when a lazy, knee-jerk press is willing to snicker over whatever you toss them without examining it. Let's not forget Al Gore being unfairly branded a liar, or Kerry's war record being trashed by unfounded gossip.
So Bill Clinton runs into an old friend and they chat a bit and OMG wrap the tin foil tighter!
Sigh. You'd think they met in a black helicopter, not a small jet.
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