CSotD: Humor: Seasonal, treasonal and romantic
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Maybe the kind of random nature of Arlo & Janis humor is why it strikes me so often — ping pong balls in a roomful of mousetraps or something — but the cost of rabbit happened to be on my mind the other day.
Rabbits are easy to raise, famously prolific and do indeed taste like chicken, but rabbit is considered exotic in the US and is frightfully expensive, even at farmer's markets where you'd think it would be like rhubarb, something that could just go from coop to co-op.
When then-wife and I were considering going back to the land at least to the extent of jobs in town and a small spread in the country, I read in Mother Earth News that rabbits were less prone to disease and sudden unexplained death than chickens, but she was horrified at the idea of eating Thumper, and I suppose that's the issue.
And it's not helpful to point out that rabbits are nearly rodents and that the objection should be that it's like eating rat.
As for cute, anyone who eats lamb should make a concerted effort never to meet one, you'll pardon the expression, in the flesh.
Meanwhile, in that last panel, Janis appears to question his sense of culinary iconography.
Indeed, better a pagan rabbit than a paschal lamb.
Or simply stick to bread and a nice chianti.
Now Some More Seasonal Humor
I'm in no hurry to file my taxes, but it's because I owe money, not because, as depicted in Bug Martini and many other strips, I find the process itself particularly burdensome.
Being self-employed does bring in a lot of paperwork, because you have to track your business expenses and fill out forms for your self-employment tax, which is to say, we pay out of pocket not just the FICA sorts of things that people with straight jobs pay but the additional taxes that their employers pay.
Here's the thing: It's a lot of writing but it's not a lot of thinking, and the answer these days is to get some software and avoid all that filling out of forms.
And not only does technology make that part easy, but the fact that we don't use cash or checks anymore makes tracking expenses easier, too: I have a separate debit card for deductible purchases.
One more thing: My father was always annoyed with people who purposely set their withholding high so they'd get a big refund, calling it an interest-free loan to Uncle Sam.
I wonder how he'd feel about his self-employed son not making the required quarterly tax payments, because the penalty is less than the appreciation those funds gain in his IRA over the course of a year?
And speaking of clever tax-cheats:
Jimmy Margulies brings the charge home as our stable genius attacks Amazon for … well, for being owned by the guy who owns the Washington Post, but let's pretend not to know that.
Dear Leader criticizing a tax chiseler is like Joan Rivers mocking someone for having plastic surgery.
It's hard to figure out his point, because Amazon pays property taxes to state and local governments, as well as payroll taxes and whatever they pay when they purchase trucks and robots and fork lifts.
What they don't pay is tax on their own sales, because the seller doesn't pay the sales tax, though, in states where they have a physical presence, their customers do pay it.
Good thing he didn't mention federal taxes. I doubt he has a major donor that pays those.
And while it can be, and has been, argued that their bulk-rate postage rate is less than it costs the Postal Service to deliver a package, that's an accounting trick: They're not showing up at the window with unsorted, unstamped packages, and it's not as if letter carriers were being diverted from their normal routes.
Whatever Amazon pays is underwriting USPS's existing costs.
And if you're so concerned, how's about you tell your fat cat buddies in Congress to back off the effort to put the Post Office out of business to privatize it for their pals?
Which bring us to his sudden concern for those poor shopkeepers, which indeed is deeply touching. I'm sure he'll be turning down campaign contributions from Wal-Mart, Rite Aid and any other corporate juggernauts that dare to assume that Donald Trump, the People's Hero, approves of their parasitical operations.
Never mind. He's beyond satire. It's enough, as Margulies has done, to simply point out his insane contradictions.
Sadly, the 25th Amendment was written for Wilson's stroke and Eisenhower's heart attack, not for Nixon's talking to presidential portraits.
Though Dear Leader has taken steps to forestall that possible crisis.
Expecting logic and consistency from him is a fool's game, as Ward Sutton points out in a multi-panel delight that you should go read.
Recommended without have read it
Michael Cavna has a write-up on a book I immediately ordered from Amazon, and here's why I didn't need more than the names:
In 2013, I went to a convention at the Billy Ireland and wound up having dinner with Eddie Campbell, whom I had seen speak, and his GF, whom I didn't know at all.
We had a fascinating conversation about plotting and character development, and she added a very great deal more than the usual spouse/GF, so I asked her what she did and Eddie burst into laughter:
"You don't know who she is, do you?" he crowed. "She's somebody! She's really somebody!"
I already knew she was brilliant, but knowing that her boyfriend was in such awe of her made me think how fortunate they were to have found each other, because it was clearly mutual.
Cavna's article is excellent, but he had me at "Eddie Campbell and Audrey Niffenegger."
I've read several of their separate works since that evening and can't wait to see them together again.
Here are a few sample pages:
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
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