CSotD: Sometimes the cartoons aren’t where analysis is required
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Hard to know where to start today, but Matt Wuerker does a nice job of pairing a viral bit of popular trivia with a serious ongoing crisis.
The fellow from Alberta who was photographed calmly mowing his lawn as a massive tornado ripped through his community explained later that he was keeping an eye on it and that it wasn't headed his direction.
That's a pretty good explanation for anyone desperate to excuse his bizarre lack of concern, particularly if they're not aware of how quickly a tornado can shift directions. Last night on the NBC Nightly News, Lester Holt pointed out that taking the picture rather than getting to safety was probably not the best choice either.
All of which makes the political application even more apt.
As does the additional concept that, while the fellow in Alberta may have had no obligations beyond his own fenceline, the Republican leadership ought to feel some need to care even about destruction that doesn't happen to hit their own backyard.
To hammer the metaphor, if the Canadian were part of the local fire department, he'd be running for his bunker gear and racing to the station, and part of what makes that photograph — and the cartoon based on it — so compelling is the "I'm all right, Jack" attitude, the depraved lack of concern for anyone but himself.
The only thing that would make the cartoon any better would be to find out that the guy in Alberta owns a building supply store or a window-replacement service and is anticipating a huge profit from the destruction going on behind his back.
Because the guy in Wuerker's cartoon is probably going to come out of this all right, unless 2018 and 2020 produce some kind of massive voter backlash.
Rob Rogers points out one glaring example of how Dear Leader's inane commentary on the Paris Accord is utterly out of step with history and reality.
Pittsburgh went for Hillary Clinton in 2016, so, while his claim to represent them is correct, it's not on the most solid possible ground. Still, even if the city had voted for him, his ignorance of history and his nonsensical approach to science would be no different in this case than in the blatant garbage he foisted on the coal miners who believed in him.
As I've said repeatedly in the past, I don't think it's accurate to call him a liar, and this is a pretty good example of why.
He's simply relying on a Pittsburgh/Steel connection in the back of his mind, and, after all, they still call their NFL team "The Steelers" even with the industry all but shuttered and gone.
I suppose he also assumes that herds of lowing cattle still crowd the dusty, unpaved streets of Abilene from time to time, based on a movie he saw.
Well, Pittsburgh is justifiably proud of how they've cleaned up their city and their mayor is justifiably proud of how they didn't listen to the Big Nincompoop last fall, which brings us to …
Juxtaposition of the Day #1
So the story is that Dear Leader's insane, panicked, inaccurate response to the London attack was based on the apparent fact that he gets his news from the Drudge Report and Fox and Friends, those responsible bastions of Real News.
And that he ignores, for the most part, briefings from his own staff and from experts in the State Department and Intelligence communities who might have brought him up to speed before he began making a fool of himself — and, by extension, all of us — on the world stage.
A sane, responsible president would have checked in with his advisors, even if he didn't leave his living quarters and go down to the Situation Room to huddle with people who knew what was going on.
Though the point at which Dear Leader's bizarre overreaction goes from being embarrassing to being genuinely alarming is not when he uses Fox and Friends as his basis for misinterpreting Khan's statement about not panicking but later in the day, when he apparently thinks the Mayor climbed into a time machine, went back several hours and changed his statement with the specific goal of assisting the dreaded MSM in their goal of making Donald J. Trump look bad.
This is a level of self-absorbed, paranoid lunacy that starts with his assumption that he can't be wrong, so there's no need to go back and see what the mayor actually said, and then gets mashed up with his belief that he is the center of the universe and that everyone is actively conspiring against him.
It really makes you wonder how long that elephant is going to continue to calmly mow his lawn.
Where cartoons are part of a repressed press …
The dust-up between Qatar and its neighbors has inspired this panel from Moroccan cartoonist Mohamed Ajeg.
Apparently, the Saudis and their allies, who have had issues with Qatar in the past, exploded this week over a cartoon that appeared on al Jazeera, which is based in Qatar, and which, in the wake of Trump's visit, accused them (and Egypt) of helping him spread fake news.
There was also a statement seemingly from the Qatari government, which then disclaimed it as disinformation placed by a hacker, and al Jazeera deleted the cartoon and so here we are back at my oft-made point that there are parts of the world in which fiery rhetoric is prized above strict accuracy, a good, loud statement need not be backed by logic and blustering threats are not considered actual promises.
Having more disruption in the Middle East doesn't seem promising, but it's complex enough that I can't sort it out from here.
I just wish it didn't suddenly feel so familiar.
And on a lighter note …
(Luann)
Oh, gee, well, I see our time has run out for today …
Now here's your moment of make-of-it-what-you-will
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