CSotD: Gullibility

There used to be a thing floating around the Internet about how no two nations that had McDonalds had ever gone to war. A more serious observation was that China had such major holdings in the American bond market that, if they ever cashed out or called them in, our economy would fall to pieces.

Kal Kallaugher offers the more measured observation, that the economies of our two countries are so intertwined that neither one of us can simply decide “Enough!”

Though, as he also points out, we sure can posture.

Kind of like a professional couple who stay in a loveless marriage because the property settlement would be such a nightmare.

We’re staying together to spite the lawyers and accountants.

 

And, while we’re keeping things light, I like Joe Heller‘s cartoon even though Coach would be drawing a 5 yard penalty for an illegal formation (unbalanced line).

Mostly, I like how the NFL is approaching the coronavirus, spurred by significant prodding from the players and their union to come up with specific guidelines. They included an option for players to sit out the year on greatly reduced pay, while word on Twitter is that those who stayed are taking the distancing rules very, very seriously.

Meanwhile, a lot of players have pitched in to help their local communities, and Houston Texans ownership just dropped a million on the local food bank.

Moreover, the NFL’s TV network devoted nearly half its nightly flagship program over the past weeks to discussions of race and gender issues in the league, and Washington finally dropped their racist mascot.

 

Now they’ve added this newest effort. Granted, I pay attention to football and let most other sports flow by, but I haven’t seen another pro league step up like this.

 

 

In a less cheerful corner, Pat Bagley doesn’t add much context to this cartoon, so I’ll supply my own, and it’s both annoying and disquieting.

Asked about political disagreements between Cuban and Venezuelan immigrant communities, Biden replied

Unlike the African American community, with notable exceptions, the Latino community is an incredibly diverse community with incredibly diverse attitudes about different things. You go to Florida, you find a very different attitude about immigration than you do in Arizona. So it’s a very diverse community.

This is absolutely, incontrovertibly true, but the Trump campaign leapt upon it as “racist” and, for some reason, liberal SJWs picked up the thread.

Which is why we can’t have nice things. For people who are ostensibly against Trump to allow him to white-guilt them into attacking their own candidate is quite the head-scratcher.

Particularly since these same purists are so opposed to anyone claiming a black friend as a sign of tolerance. If they had more Latino friends, they might know that some Latinos would rather be called Hispanic and that a lot of Latinos think “Latinx” is stupid.

And for instance that, while for a time Spanish-speakers in Colorado were universally known as “Chicanos,” the term fell out of favor because it’s like “Brother” among African Americans: Something they call each other that shouldn’t fall out of a gabacho’s mouth.

But Tejanos never felt it applied to them anyway.

While on a Sesame Street bit from many years ago, Maria and Luis sparred gently over various objects that had completely different names in Puerto Rican and Mexican Spanish.

When I was selling children’s stories to newspaper educational systems, I had a client in the Rio Grande Valley that handed them over to someone for translation so they could run in a bilingual format.

My deal with them was that they could have the story for free if I could have the translation, and it worked well as long as we stayed west of the Mississippi.

But I was warned that, using Mexican Spanish in the East would draw fire from Caribbean and Latin American immigrant communities, so I began commissioning my niece, who grew up bilingual in English and Old World Spanish, to do translations.

At which point I was further warned that written Old World Spanish is so formal that it’s like Shakespearean English and would be unfathomable to most New World Spanish speakers, particularly kids.

So she would translate the story into idiomatic Old World Spanish rather than formal written OW Spanish and that seemed to work.

Quarrel with it if you’d like, but, while you’re boycotting Goya, just walk down that aisle and see the difference between the mix of products in the Goya and Old El Paso sections.

Mexico is not Cuba is not Honduras is not Chile is not the San Luis Valley. (Do they all look alike to you?)

Mostly, don’t let Trump lead you around by the nose. Clay Bennett explains the upcoming election in terms anyone can understand.

Biden wasn’t my first choice, either. Or my second, third … maybe my fourth, I forget, but sometimes you vote FOR and sometimes you vote AGAINST and this isn’t like those ballot initiatives where it’s unclear.

If you can’t figure it out, maybe you’re the one whose cognitive faculties are slipping.

Let’s wrap up with a

Juxtaposition of the Day

 

(Bill Day)

(Jimmy Margulies)

We’re not featuring any of the “cold dead hands” cartoons because they’re all the same and they’re all too obvious, but mostly because, while the problems at the NRA are about greed, they’re also, and mostly, about betrayal.

Margulies may be cynical about it, but, yes, the NRA was supposed to be lobbying for gun rights, and whether you are giving money to the NRA or Planned Parenthood or the Sierra Club, you expect it to be spent to help further the cause.

It may be fun to mock Wayne LaPierre and to dance on a grave that has not yet been filled, but you won’t convert anyone that way.

If your goal is persuasion rather than further division, pointing out that gunowners were cheated and betrayed is a more productive approach.

Take it from me. After all, I was a Sharpshooter Bar Four, back before they all went nuts.