CSotD: Odds and ends, mostly odd and neverending
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Least weighty comment of the day: I always enjoy Red and Rover, but was struck today not by the gag but by the middle panel. Clearly, Brian Basset has seen a dog stretch before, and the toes and tongue are perfect.
As I said, that's not a profound comment, though I do find it proof that you don't have to have the realistic style of a Stan Drake or Alex Raymond to pick up on detail.
Nice work.
And as long as we're talking dogs, this Steve Sack cartoon has been in my files a little too long — which is to say, he's done others since — but it brings up something beyond the toadie factor which is important enough in itself to warrant comment.
First, though, the way Trump surrounds himself with family and friends and people who have no freaking idea of how to do their jobs is striking, but, then again, might be the key to getting us out of this mess. Imagine how dangerous he'd be if his staff were competent?
But note that the toadies Sack depicts are not White House staff but members of Congress. I've been tempted recently to go through old newspapers and see how Congress responded to the first murmers of Watergate, and I do remember some defense of Nixon from conservatives on various committees.
But not on this level, not from committee chairs, not to the extent of compromising investigations.
However, let's move beyond that for the moment to talk about Presidential Dogs, which has become a Thing.
There are so many valid reasons to dump on Trump that I'm annoyed by the Presidential Dog Thing, which contends that Trump is a bad president because he doesn't have a dog.
As noted here before, Bo didn't join the First Family until several years into Obama's presidency, nor was Buddy part of the White House in the first years of Clinton's time there. Trump has barely arrived and it's not fair to use dogs as a measure of his worth as Leader of the Free World at this stage.
Besides, as Nick Anderson notes and circling back to Sack's point, he does have a loyal little lap dog.
And as for the actual Leader of the Free World, she's reportedly fearful of dogs ever since being attacked by one about 20 years ago.
Moreover, after growing up in East Germany, she's probably also a little leery of Russians, which would further distinguish her from Dear Leader.
While we're on the topic of pointless obsessions and wasted outrage, here's an interview with the designers of Comic Sans, which hipsters have decreed the most horrible font ever created.
I don't get it. Only one font has ever annoyed me, and it wasn't the font but its misuse that rankled. That was a Celtic font often seen in Ireland and in Irish themes, which suddenly sprang up on posters and ads that had nothing to do with Ireland.
So, given that the creators were simply making a fun font for informal usage, I can understand someone similarly cringing when Comic Sans pops up in a formal setting where it's not appropriate.
But goo'ness gracious, it's hardly worth the expenditure of vitriol it attracts. One more example of how hipster bullies can get a mob behind them, just like back in middle school.
Juxtaposition of the Day
The shower of empty promises continues, but the coal jobs one really sticks in my craw, and I do hope even Trump's loyal deplorables will wake up and hold him accountable for this lie.
It's not enough that he promised jobs in an industry that, whatever else might be going against it, simply cannot compete against other energy sources in the open market rightwingers praise so highly.
If he'd simply said it to miners kind of quietly while visiting their communities, and tied their lack of work to those horrible gummint regulations, well, a certain amount of bluster and spin are part of the system.
But he not only made a big, national deal of promising those jobs — and to hell with the quality of their drinking water and let's bring back acid rain — but made a further big, national deal out of Clinton's words, when she told them that the industry was fading and promised to assist them in training for jobs that do have a future.
So they're getting neither, though I'm seeing ads from the natural gas industry bragging about the jobs they create.
The oil people should get on board with that approach, too: Think of all the jobs we'll see when they're no longer hampered by government restrictions on productivity!
You could have a bright future in the growing field of duck washing!
Elsewhere in the battle …
So, as Chan Lowe notes, North Carolina's Bathroom Bill is over, repealed, gone, and the governor made a nice speech about tolerance and equality as he signed the legislation that outlaws making people use the wrong bathroom in public places and also carefully makes sure discrimination and hatred and bigotry are still permitted in restaurants and stores and other privately owned places of public accomodation and that municipalities toe the line and don't go off promoting decency and humane behavior on their own.
The governor added it wasn't about the loss of tourism or of conventions or of job expansions or of sports tournaments.
It was about doing the right thing.
Because part of public speaking is throwing in a joke.
Well, there's an interesting question of when you call off a boycott, and this "repeal" certainly raises it.
It smells to me like those diners where they'll let anyone sit at a table and look at a menu, but you might find a discrepancy in how quickly the waitress comes to your table rather than someone else's.
Kind of a tradition in some parts of the country, I guess.
I just hope the NCAA and others recognize baloney when they see it.
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