CSotD: Wednesday Rants
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I wasn't planning to revisit the topic of civility so quickly, but here we are and I like Joe Heller's commentary for a number of reasons, the first one being that the owner of the Red Hen is its owner, not its caretaker. So there's a contrast right there.
Another is that Heller distinguishes between denying people because of their race, sex or ethnicity, and denying individuals.
Not every commentator does, so that, in their view, asking a table of loud drunks to leave is the same as refusing to serve black people. Either they haven't thought it through, or they are racists, or they are liars.
The other thing I'm seeing is a form of whataboutism that equates Maxine Waters with Donald Trump.
With all due respect to her long service, Waters has said some damn silly things over the years, no doubt. But she is hardly a powerful force in Congress. The Democrats have Waters, the Republicans have Ted Cruz, not to mention Steve King.
Sometimes a Waters quote leaps into the headlines, just as Santorum quotes did, in his days. There seems no particular reason except that you get clicks, which is okay for the daily news but I'm not sure we need to drag it out into a major issue among the commentariat.
Bottom line being, if Republicans don't have to justify Steve King or Ted Cruz, Democrats surely don't have to justify Maxine Waters.
Anyway, I said my piece yesterday.
Clay Jones has a most excellent rant on the topic today, to go with this cartoon, and, if you get more laughter than horrific sense of dread from reading his thoughts, I'd suggest you go here and read what Fintan O'Toole thinks of it all, because I promise you won't chuckle over that.
In fact, it might make you need your teddy to sleep with tonight.
On a much lighter matter
July marks the 50th Anniversary of the release of "Yellow Submarine" in Britain, and, while the animation makes it somewhat relevant here, I wouldn't have mentioned it if I hadn't stumbled across this absolutely brilliant article in the New Statesman.
I enjoyed the film, but, as noted in that article, it came along well after the Beatles had moved on from light-hearted piffle into more heady work and were, in any case, on the brink of breaking up anyway.
Boy, weren't we all?
I've always thought the British Invasion was wonderfully well-timed, coming along as I was turning 14 and thus in the target zone for the jangly fun rock of the early Beatles, Kinks and Dave Clark Five, and just turning self-important enough for the snarling blue-collar attitudes of the Animals, Yardbirds and Stones.
Which, as Tom the Dancing Bug declared in 2007, means that this is the best music that ever there was, though he was two years off. It's 14, not 12.
I can prove it, because I was 14.
However, by the time Yellow Submarine came out over here, I was on the verge of 19 and, like the Beatles, had put the days of piffle behind me.
Wikipedia describes it as a children's film and that was how we saw it: As a children's film that was fun to watch if you were really stoned.
And I will confess that the phrase "My little glovey-dovey" has remained in my repertoire of things to say to the dog when no-one else is around.
The New Statesman piece, however, tracks some cultural references that resonated in Britain but went over our heads in the USA.
It makes the film more impressive, but the bottom line, in my mind, is that it was a fun, frothy light show and a lot of people thought Peter Max was somehow involved but he wasn't.
My major problem with the film not being its lack of substance but the way it turned a reasonably thoughtful song, "Nowhere Man," into the theme of a Jar-Jar Binks level character such that, like Opus, a song I once liked now drums up some really stupid, irrelevant images.
Oh well. The Beatles have not aged as well as those other groups anyway. I think you had to be there.
And 14.
As long as I'm in "Old Man Reminiscing" mode, it seems Wal-Mart has made an agreement to sell affordable comics to small people, and it's causing some uproar in the industry, as I've been watching at ComicsBeat, here and also here, and that DD Degg has tracked in even more places.
First of all, let me say that Superman looks really stupid in this cover. I don't mean it's a stupid way to depict him. I mean he looks like he'd turn to Wonder Woman and ask her to tell him about the rabbits again.
Beyond that, I think putting comics in the hands of young readers is an excellent idea, particularly since these are apparently "best of" compilations, so that, when the kids are hooked and want to spend more money on the real stuff, they'll have to go to the comics stores.
Anyway, I grew up on cheap comics from the spinner rack, dagnabbit, and it did me good!
Finally, now that we're older than in the days of Yellow Submarine and spinner racks, we can go to the Hays-Adams Hotel in Washington, DC, and order a "Mueller's Trump Card," a trendy new drink (they say) that is "a combination of a Moscow mule and a Dark and Stormy," proving that bartenders like to come up with clever names and that their customers will drink anything.
Well, I gave the kids next door 50 cents for a small glass of Country Time Lemonade yesterday, and that's my limit in terms of overpaying for bad drinks.
But it comes on this coaster by Kal Kallaugher, and I'd happily ask the bartender to set a Manhattan atop one of those.
And then I'd explain how to make a Manhattan.
Damn kids.
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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