CSotD: From the Political to the Personal
Skip to comments
We'll repeat yesterday's process of beginning with the inescapable political stuff and then going to the Laffs Section, and Jack Ohman leads off with this compete analysis of the "Undecided Voter," which also does a good job of commenting on the nitwits who think it makes them sound wise to say "They're both the same."
Honestly, if you can't detect a difference, you probably should righteously piss away your vote on a third-party candidate.
Which, as Prickly City reminds us, is relatively harmless in terms of the impact of your support for the Very Silly Party, though it's a vote taken from the more intelligent choice you might have made.
Which concept, in turn, relies on an assumption that such people might, in fact, make a more intelligent choice, which isn't backed up by the evidence, since any appreciation for Clay Bennett's commentary not only requires that you be conversant with the James Comey debacle, but asks a deeper question: Why was this mean-spirited, bullying program able to last on the air as long as it did?
I might suggest it's related to the fact that we like mean-spirited programming, which I think of now that Norman Lear is making the talkshow rounds talking about what a breakthrough his comedies were a generation ago, when he made a folk hero of Archie Bunker in order to make a bunch of money demonstrate what a truly bad person Archie Bunker was.
My solution is that, in the final three minutes of "The Apprentice," they should have had Rob Reiner come in and say, "Oh, Donald! You're such a fool!"
If it redeemed 23 minutes of racist jokes, surely it would redeem a programful of bullying.
In any case, if you think there is an argument that will sway Trump supporters to think again, I would suggest you flip through your TV dial, see the programming that is on the air because it draws an audience, and ask yourself how anyone can think twice who obviously hasn't thought once.
Though it's not just what they see, and ignore, that could sway the election. Gary Varvel plays on a story that they won't see in the first place, given that Trump's pals at the National Enquirer bought up the rights to a Playmate of the Year's story of her year-long affair with Trump and then spiked it, having sworn her to not tell the story to anyone else.
Yes, Donald, the media is rigged. And aren't you grateful?
(And if I weren't so mature, I'd comment on the appropriateness of the name of the CEO who buried that story for Trump.)
I guess we'll find out Tuesday how many people are that easily drawn into Trump's vision of a nation where there is no First Amendment to protect either religion or the press, where women are playthings not to be respected, where international law is something you can just change by executive order, and where civil rights belong only to the majority.
I still don't expect him to win the election, but that popular vote is going to reveal a lot about the soul of America.
Starting with whether we have one.
Juxtaposition of the Purely Personal
These are only related in my mind, because yesterday I went to do some research at the Saratoga National Battlefield, which has not been left in its original condition because it only became a state park in 1927 and a national one in 1938.
But they've done a nice job of fixing it up, and, if 150 years or so of farming on the site rearranged the plant life, it's coming back to what it might have looked like, minus some forest, particularly given that there was already some farming there at the time.
The juxtaposition being that the NPS allows dogs, as long as they are leashed, and the park has a nine-mile-long self-guided tour, in which you drive on a one-way loop road between 10 spots where you park, get out and walk to whatever you are supposed to see next.
The dog thought this was a terrific thing: Over an hour of miniwalks with different smells to check out. (He was on leash the whole time; I was off-leash occasionally while photographing.)
And I enjoyed it because it was the most walking I've done since all my medical adventures this summer, and I impressed myself, ignoring the fact that I got to rest by driving between each half-mile (or less) wandering.
And that he did his part to slow things down, bless his heart and nose and bladder.
Here's the political part that ties into the above political cartoons: Aside from seeing the terrain where the battle itself took place, the best part of visiting Saratoga is seeing one of the oddest and thus most famous memorials in America.
Like Ticonderoga and other historic sites of any size, the battlefield is full of plinths and plaques marking one hero or another, but Saratoga has the distinction of recognizing the heroism there of He Who Must Not Be Named.
He did, after all, rally the troops with a heroic charge that turned the tide in the battle that turned the tide of the American Revolution.
And nearly lost his leg to a musket ball in the process. (They wanted to amputate, he declined and walked with a pronounced limp the rest of his life.)
But the whole "offering to sell West Point to the British" thing a few years later took some of the sheen off his reputation.
So the monument is there, but simply a boot with no inscription, and enclosed in an iron fence presumably to prevent easy vandalism.
Perhaps one day, since we are required to maintain lists of our past presidents, we'll remember one of them in the same discreet, dignified manner.
But let's hope we don't get the chance to find out.
Comments 3
Comments are closed.