The forum in Davos has just concluded, but I don’t want to talk politics today. However, here’s a cartoon from Jason Adam Katzenstein, so I’m not entirely cynical about things. Not quite.
But I laughed, so I guess I’m close.
Yesterday, I saw a Fareed Zakaria Davos segment in which a pair of Ukrainian combat medics spoke to a panel about their dedication and their nation’s need for continued aide. The audience applauded and the people on stage seemed sympathetic, though neither applause nor sympathy solve things.
Then he interviewed Jane Goodall, whom I greatly admire, but I was doing dishes and missed the intro. I’m assuming she was also in Davos looking for sympathy and help for her chimps.
Maybe Zakaria was doing a themed show about the value of sympathy and applause.
This would not be a good day for me to discuss politics.
Betty (AMS) offers all the cynicism I’m prepared to deal with at the moment. I don’t actually think it was a bait-and-switch because I don’t think these folks plan that far ahead and I suspect they honestly thought that membership fees would cover their needs.
Granted, it’s possible to be cynical about their “needs,” but the bottom line is that they rarely see beyond the next quarter and so long-term planning isn’t a big factor.
There’s also the “oil tanker” factor, which is that they can’t change direction on a dime.
I mentioned yesterday how the Denver Post went from a doorstop to a pamphlet. Coincidentally, I ran into a piece later where some media genius was blaming newspaper owners as if they simply decided not to print so many pages.
It made me remember when, in my oft-cited week with Soviet executives, someone asked if my paper covered Gorbachov’s speeches and I explained how our space was constrained by revenues. They were flabbergasted. It never occurred to them that a paper wouldn’t simply print as many pages as required, with the subtext that it was the Central Government who set those requirements.
I see a lot of media analysts in this country who have just as slim a grasp on how things work here, and you should have sat in the newsroom back when the guys in suits were failing to deal with Craigslist siphoning off 40% of their revenue and, simultaneously, falling for some bafflegab about how we shouldn’t have paywalls because we’d all get rich from clicks.
Anyway, now you won’t have to hit pause when you need to go to the bathroom. Let us rejoice!
I enjoyed this Monty (AMS) because it’s good to find someone sharing my mood. I don’t read our local paper, because it’s gone up to a buck and a half and down to 16 pages, including 12 comic strips of which three are not either reruns or inherited from dead cartoonists.
(I do support our local on-line aggregator, New Hampshire Public Radio, three national newspapers and a magazine or two or three plus, of course, GoComics and ComicsKingdom. Go thou and do likewise.)
Today’s Half Full (AMS) brings to mind a commercial I’ve started seeing — on regular TV where commercials belong — that says you don’t need to worry about your milk going bad, because you can just call Door Dash to bring you some more.
I like Maria Scrivan’s idea, because dogs can’t drive, but I certainly hope I never get to the point where I’m calling someone to deliver a half gallon of milk.
Come to think of it, the Farmer’s Dog is, essentially, Dog Door Dash.
That’s what civilization has come to.
Mr. Boffo presents a prosecutor who earned her way through college waitressing. We know this because, if she were a defense attorney, she’d say, “Enjoy!”
And Pardon My Planet (KFS) reminds us that, whatever minor inconveniences we may experience, it’s certainly Joe Biden’s fault.
Except here in New Hampshire, where you don’t know whose fault it is unless you either have a TV or a phone. This morning I texted “Stop” a dozen times to various people who were intent on telling me whose fault things are.
Tomorrow’s primary cannot come soon enough.
Juxtaposition of the Day
A pair of cartoons about cliches.
The judgmental tree in Bizarro is correct but many decades too generous.
When I was a kid, someone would sometimes string up a tire and we’d give it a try, but it was uncomfortable and heavy and made a lousy swing. It was not until many years had passed that I realized that old tires probably did make a decent swing back in the 20s (the previous 20s) when they were narrow and stretchy. They sure don’t now.
However, growing up in a town with a pit mine meant we occasionally got inner tubes from Euclids, which were an absolute blast.
As for desert islands, I don’t want to be That Guy, but you couldn’t have a small sandy island with one tree. Either it would have real soil and a bunch of trees or no trees at all and would likely be submerged several hours a day.
However, a person stranded offers a lot of potential for gags and a guy alone in a garret someplace wouldn’t be the same. Carry on.
“Where’s Waldo” gags have also seen their best days. I’m with Brian Fray.
I do, however, have great affection for Frazz (AMS), a strip that isn’t afraid to make you pause and figure things out. I’ve occasionally had to Google an obscure reference, but I’ve long since learned not to check on him for accuracy because he doesn’t make many errors.
I particularly liked Sunday’s strip because a major role in my quitting was that I had a very young son with a tendency towards bronchitis, so I had to smoke on the back porch. It was fine in the summer. I had a folding chair out there and could sit and read and contemplate the world while I smoked.
But I agree with Mrs. Olson. I look back on winter, when I’d have to dress up and then huddle out there, at which point the required level of pathetic idiocy involved boggled my mind enough to make me give it up.
Like her, I’m embarrassed it took so long.
Thanks for the Tex Willims! I know that song but by Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen.
Unfortunately the link for the Euclid got somehow doubled and thus not linked to the image. Euclids were cool machines. The proper link for the image is https://hcea.net/page-1553666/10052905
And thanks for the link to the HCEA, I didn’t know about them, now I can revert to my childhood and stare for hours at the big machines!
We had a tire swing. The best were if you attached it with the tire vertical, or there was a way you could cut and fold a tire so it didn’t hurt your legs.
On the other hand, we had ours on a tree that faced a sloping depression, and the rope broke.
On the other other hand, I chained a swing onto our tree for our daughter, and the branch grew around the chain.
The Bizarro tree is saying “. . . two seasons ago”. That would be Summer, rather than Winter, so it is quite accurate.
There was one Farmer’s Dog commercial that was nothing but closeup shots of dogs drooling. If I wanted to see that, I’d have a dog. Personally, I found it disgusting.
Thinking of inner tubes reminded me of those horrendous “life preserver” knock offs made of some kind of thin plastic. They were awful because once you got your neck or whatever inside them, the sharp plastic seam scratched your skin & all you wanted was to get right back out of them. The good old days.
Those with access to a tire swing quickly learned, or were taught by veteran tire swingers, to get atop the tire straddling the rope instead of sitting inside the tire.
I never thought that about why tyres were used. Makes sense.
We used sticks back in Blighty. You could get each leg astride, or hang from them, swing and drop into the River Piddle. Yep, that was the name of my local river.
In all fairness “milk delivery” used to be a thing in the country.
And in the city as well, but it was a regular delivery with a scheduled route. Closest to “ordering” was a slip in the box asking the milkman to leave more or less than your regular amount on that particular day. You couldn’t just phone the dairy and ask them to run a bottle out to you.
Tires on pickups and SUVs are too big and bulky for tire swings.Tires for sedans and sports cars are a lot smaller. Smaller even that 20 years ago.So they would make a more comfortable swing.
I said “the” 20s, which were 100 years ago, the days when every driver carried a patch kit and got to use it often. Car tires then were more like fat bike tires today.