CSotD: Thursday Short Takes
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Betty puts a thoughtful spin on the usual men-and-housework cliche.
Cartoonists have moved away, for the most part, from endlessly bashing women for overdrawing their checking accounts and smashing up their cars, with only a few old dinosaurs hanging on to those condescending gags.
But the incompetent, uncooperative hubby remains at the center of a lot of features.
In the past decade or three or more, things have changed, and not slowly. When my first son was born in 1972, we had to search for a hospital that would let me into the delivery room. By the time Son #2 came along in 1976, fathers who didn't want to be present had to come up with a damn good excuse why not.
Today, we've got pro athletes skipping important games because the birth of their child is that much more important.
And kids born in that atmosphere grow up with a sense that husbands and wives share responsibilities inside and outside the house, unless they've been carefully taught otherwise.
But one thing I noticed as a father — and moreso after I became a single, custodial dad — was a certain amount of turf-protection on the part of both sexes.
It wasn't just the "don't worry your pretty little head" guys who kept their wives from knowing how to check their oil, but women who, as soon as the baby began to fuss, snatched it away from a father who otherwise might have learned how to soothe it.
The scenario in Betty is slightly different: The impatience with teaching kids things they won't learn simply by absorption.
But it also goes both ways, because there's no reason a woman can't clean a sink trap other than having been elbowed aside by an impatient man who'd rather just do it himself than show someone else how.
And ditto with chores like floor care which look simple and which really aren't all that complex, but which, as Betty says, require a little basic know-how.
Times are changing, and I mentioned the other day buying some wiper blades from a young woman named Jolene who, I am sure, was handing her daddy wrenches as soon as she was big enough to lift them.
But we're not there yet, and I would bet that, if Bub has a sister, their mom didn't shoo her away when it was time for housework.
Joe Heller's cartoon brings to mind that one of the household tasks I had to learn after our divorce was doing taxes. My ex has a good sense of organization and does math well and had always just gathered up the paperwork and done'em.
It's not that hard, but you do have to grit your teeth and learn the basics. For an employee, it's ridiculously easy and can be done on a 1040-EZ in about five minutes, but those of us who are self-employed have a lot more paperwork to plod through.
My dog barks at the sign-spinner in our town as we drive by because dogs don't understand the value of not making eye contact. And because he knows when something isn't right.
So do I, and, if I were to hire someone to do my taxes, it wouldn't be the company that promotes its expertise by hiring a nincompoop to dance on the curb.
While we're on the topics of finances — and of dancing — Michael Cavna talks to Herblock Prize Winner Ruben Bolling, whose "Tom the Dancing Bug" nearly died when the alternative press sold out and shut down, but now lives on thanks to reader support.
There's lots of other stuff there, but it's an opportunity to remind you that comics don't just happen and that, as papers cut down on their funny pages, the money thing matters more and more.
If you enjoy comics, you really should pop for the twenty bucks or so a year to subscribe to the two major sites, GoComics and Comics Kingdom (see right margin), and you might also give a thought to supporting a few favorite features by picking up on their Patreons or whatever crowd-source mechanisms they offer at their websites.
Bolling will get a check along with his Herblock, but, as Jimmy Carl Black once asked, "What's wrong with getting two months in a row of this good money?"
Not that passion doesn't count for something, of course. But you've got to pay the rent.
Meanwhile, Herblock runner-up Marty Two Bulls Sr. is interviewed at Comics Beat and there's plenty of passion in his work, though probably not a lot of money, either. He'll get a little something with his Herblock award, and perhaps some more attention. It all helps.
Cartooning for natives is a niche, of course, but a lot of good work happens in niches and this is a really interesting conversation about his technique, his life and his work.
And it makes me flinch to realize that he gets more attention the worse things get for his people.
But it's better to get attention for pushing back than for going along, which brings us to …
Juxtaposition of Sean the Sheep:
Telnaes offers an explanatory link, but lets her cartoon speak for itself; Jones expands upon it in a furious column, but, in any case, the White House spin-chamber is spinning out of control.
Ron Ziegler was a weasel in service of a villain, but he at least cloaked it in a little dignity and professionalism. His obit is even a bit affectionate.
By contrast, Spicer comes across like some power-crazed hall monitor who spent junior high stuffed in a locker. I pity him on that level, but he's still a Quisling, and the only way he could sink any lower would be if Bannon handed him a Statue of Liberty costume and set him out in front of the White House to wave at people.
It's like that old line, "Please don't tell my mother: She thinks I'm a piano player in a whorehouse."
And I'll bet he can't play the piano.
No, no, we're laughing with your toupee
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