CSotD: Of Shoes and Ships and Sealing Wax
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Bob Gorrell poses a question, and, while I don't think he's headed my direction entirely, it's an opportunity to make a point about gooses and ganders and the appropriate sauces for each.
There has been a lot of criticism of Trump's visit to Texas, some merited, some meretricious. He did well to go, and he did well to avoid Houston, since his presence there would have diverted first-responders for a photo op.
And I heard his remarks and his self-satisfaction over the turnout was not the main point, but, still, he did say it, and it was extraordinarily tacky and, alas, fully in character.
Some defenders have said he was praising those who turned out to help but they weren't all first responders, and, even if they were volunteers who had gathered to help, they were, at the moment, there to see the President.
Show me that the bulk of the crowd had ceased their relief work to have a glance if you can, but I'm not buyin' it.
That said.
I objected to right-wingers going after Michelle Obama for sleeveless dresses and so forth simply because they hated her husband. I'm not impressed with people who go after Melania's choice of apparel simply because they hate her husband.
Especially if you criticized her for several months because she wasn't by his side playing the dutiful spouse, and now are unloading on her because she is. (BTW, it's not unprecedented: Bess Truman was not wild about Harry and spent as little time in DC as possible.)
And especially since she changed into more practical footwear en route to Texas, so any cartoon showing her in stilletos in Corpus Christi is … um … "poorly researched."
And, by the way, the highest heels I've ever worn were on a pair of Frye boots, but I did know the difference between riding boots and walking boots and I'm not a fashion illiterate anyway.
If you wear high heels a lot, your tendons don't appreciate it when you switch to flats. True of cowboy boots, doubly true of truly high heels.
So wearing stilletos out to the helicopter makes plenty of sense if you generally wear stilletos. Which is her choice, right?
In any case, given the unending list of horrors Trump offers up for criticism, going after his wife's shoes seems like sitting down at a banquet table spread with garbage, and then raising hell because the parsley garnish is a bit wilted.
Really?
That's all you got?
For instance …
If you want to point out elitism, here's Dan Wasserman with a lesson on how.
It's not about shoes.
It's the economy, stupid.
It's about more trickle-down doctrinaire nonsense, it's about abandoning all his promises, it's about betraying the people who put him in office.
Here's an excellent explainer on where Trump is spinning and where he is outright lying, and I don't think the people who elected him will ever realize it.
The explanations make no sense as long as they persist in thinking that national budgets and family budgets are put together the same way.
Even though they know that, if your family sits around the table and realize you don't have enough money, you get a second job. You don't simply stop feeding the kids and giving them medical care.
But they believe that, when the government sits around the table and comes up short, it shouldn't look for sources of additional income.
And that, while plenty of people buy houses and cars on time, the government should never borrow money.
If they don't get that, they aren't going to understand the betrayal of trickle-down.
Oh, and while the GOP may decline to build a wall for Dear Leader, I'm less confident of their willingness to oppose him on tax cuts for the wealthy.
Not, mind you, that I'm opposed to ridicule …
… as long as it's on point, which this Bruce Plante cartoon definitely is.
I've heard some buzz from people who genuinely don't understand "racial profiling," perhaps because they only take in Breibart and suchlike, but also because they genuinely don't get it.
And, even if they kinda slightly get it and are basically good folks, I don't think they realize that there are a lot of folks in Arizona whose families have been there since the days of the Conquistadors and some other very tan people whose ancestors were here to greet the Spanish immigrants.
Pulling them over at random is asking the fundamental question Plante suggests here:
What does an American look like?
Nor does it stop on our shores
You'll have to go to Cartoon Movement to see this, because it's only the first panel of an interactive piece about the Barcelona attacks by Spanish cartoonist Elchicotriste.
It asks a very simple question.
The answer is either simple or not, depending on who you are.
And what you want the world to be like.
… And Whether Pigs Have Wings …
I wrote this 10 years ago. The faces have changed, the issues have not.
The Speaker and the Demagogue
Were walking near the reef;
They wept like anything to see
So many on relief:
"If they would only go away,"
They said, "t’would cure our grief!"
"If tax breaks for the upper class
Could last beyond this year,
Do you suppose," the Speaker said,
"These poor would disappear?"
"I’m certain," said the Demagogue,
And shed a bitter tear.
"It seems a shame," the Speaker said,
"To play them such a trick,
After we've led them on so far,
With promises so slick!"
The Demagogue said nothing but
"Their health care makes me sick!"
"I weep for them," the Speaker said:
"I deeply sympathize."
With sobs and tears he sorted out
Those of the largest size,
Holding his pocket-handkerchief
Before his streaming eyes.
"O Listeners," said the Demagogue,
"You've had a pleasant run!
Shall you be tuning in again?'
But answer came there none–
And this was scarcely odd, because
They'd eaten every one.
Now here's your moment of zen
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