CSotD: Sunday Short Takes
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Chip Bok makes a valid point about Jeff Sessions' recent decision to crack down on pot: He's the Attorney General and he should be enforcing the law. You can't blame him for the fact that federal law has not kept up with social trends or science or medicine.
Though at that point the argument divides.
Bok is right that Congress could sweep the anti-marijuana laws off the books and I think they could do it by voice vote without a lot of committee hearings or back-and-forth. Marijuana laws are in near-universal disrepute, and I doubt there'd be much pushback.
The other side of the argument is to ask why Sessions has decided — of all the obsolete, ignored laws on the books — to crack down on this one, particularly in light of the opioid crisis, but, even moreso, since the urge to enforce a law that most states are actively legislating against is an afront to states' rights, which conservatives supposedly believe in.
Well, a look at how conservatives view the Second Amendment pretty well abolishes their claim to protecting "states' rights." Congress shall make no law and neither shall anyone else because the states are supposed to regulate their own militias as long as it doesn't involve regulating their own militias.
And ditto with reefer.
"States' Rights" have generally been interpreted as the right to keep women and minorities from voting and being uppity, and so a cynic might suggest that the whole anti-Reefer Man move is a ploy to start throwing African-Americans and lib'ruls in general into prison so they can't vote. Or act uppity.
This would be in line with Trump administration thinking except that it involves thinking two or three moves ahead which is hardly a hallmark of this crew of stable geniuses, who are more adept at playing "Chutes and Ladders" than chess.
I'm coming up with what you may call "Peterson's Law," which states: "Never attribute to clever planning that which arises from somebody simply being an ass."
I haven't quite nailed the final phrasing yet, but you can guess which word won't be coming out.
Juxtaposition of the Day
( 
(F Minus)
I wrote fewer than two dozen checks last year, a dozen of them to my landlord. I did use a bank service that sends money to people, but that's not "writing a check." It's more of a personal PayPal transaction.
When I moved from Maine about a decade ago, I kept my Bangor Savings accounts because they offer free ATM access from any machine anywhere, and because I already had some direct deposit and direct payment things set up on them. I only opened a local account in case someone sent me a paper check, and I know you can scan and deposit, but I didn't have a smart phone then.
And I hate my smart phone, but that's a different topic.
I don't mind being in line behind someone who writes paper checks, except that they know goddam well what store they are in and they know their name, so they could get that part filled in while the checker is totaling their purchase — and yes it is possible for a reasonably stable genius to keep an eye on the totals and write his own name at the same time — and they surely don't have to balance their account while we're all waiting for them to finish up and get the hell out of the way.
(And I skipped pointing out that they could just sign their name and let the cash register fill in the rest because my god how could you trust a machine to do that?)
Anyway, people who write paper checks don't deserve a fresh, hot slice of pizza straight from the ATM, and I'm a little annoyed with Tony Carrillo for revealing that secret.
It took me weeks, by the way, to find a bank that used real bulk sausage in their ATM instead of that textureless sliced crap. The trick is go to a local, community institution instead of some BankofAmerica Dominos machine.
Juxtaposition Under the Sea
(Sherman)
(Vintage Mandrake the Magician)
I honestly can't remember whether Jim Toomey brought up the issue of candles when I interviewed him or whether that was already a well-known touchstone of the strip when we spoke, but Sherman's Lagoon readers have an odd way of accepting that two talking sharks could sit at a table eating with plates and silverware, but then objecting to the idea that candles would burn underwater.
I thought of that today because I was particularly tickled when the punchline of Megan's desire for walls hit so out of the blue — because I was totally accepting of the idea that a pair of talking sharks would sleep in a bed, and presumably one with dry linens and also there's that whole thing about if they stand still they die which I guess isn't actually true either (oh, well, la-dee-da) …
… and then I got to Vintage Mandrake, and, while I've been following this ridiculous storyline for several Sundays, today's just kind of juxtaposed itself with the candles and the bed linens and made me think that, while I'm supposed to be laughing at Sherman, I think I'm expected to take this Mandrake shit seriously.
I even bothered to question whether an orca could have 12-foot jaws, which, given everything else happening in the strip, is way beyond the issue of whether candles can burn underwater. (Didn't find out, either, even when I asked Satan).
But what really bothers me is that, as noted in that interview, it's older readers who can't get behind Sherman's Lagoon.
Dammit, they grew up on Mandrake.
Though maybe they just want an explanation for the candles that a Mandrake fan could accept as plausible.
Okay: The candles aren't actually burning.
Hawthorne simply gestures hypnotically.
Welcome to the new normal
Wiley Miller declines to gesture hypnotically.
Putting the "stable" in "Stable Genius"
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