CSotD: Regrets, I’ve got a few to mention
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Brewster Rockit (Tribune) gets to lead off for a second day in a row, having shifted from the informational back to the absurd.
As noted, I stayed home rather than driving the four hours to my old digs in the Adirondacks, and I missed both totality and a good party, but we had a nice picnic at the dog park with a little over a dozen dogs, none of whom looked up at the Sun because they were too busy panhandling.
But it wouldn’t have been a four hour drive. My son popped up to a clear spot 117 miles away and it took him six hours to get home, most of it bumper-to-bumper on the Interstate.
My intended destination was another 74 miles farther away, so I’m okay with the party I went to, which wasn’t in the totality but was only seven miles from the house.
Today, my social media is full of eclipse snapshots, which are repetitive, but it also contains quite a few postings from people bragging about being so doggone cool that they didn’t go anywhere or even look up.
It’s funny when Brewster, a noted bonehead, misses something by happenstance, but it’s decidedly uncool to decide to be too cool.
It reminds me of back when everyone in college was talking about The Graduate, so I made a point of not going. But I was 18 years old and entitled to think I was cool.
Once I outgrew it, I went to, and enjoyed, that movie.
Bill Bramhall does a nice job of capturing the double-talk and con games that emerged from Trump’s statement/non-statement about abortion. Too bad so much of the press missed the fact that Trump didn’t say it should be up to the states, but, rather, that it will be up to the states.
In other words, he simply restated the result of Dobbs, added a lie about Democrats murdering babies after they were born, and shifted the pea from under Cup #2 to inside the palm of his hand.
As Oliver Darcy reported in Reliable Sources:
Those of us whose memories go back beyond last week recall that there was a time when he was, to paraphrase the old man from Catch-22, “fanatically pro-life.”
The idealistic Natelys of this world never seem to catch on.
Spoiler: Nately died on his next mission.
And speaking of spoilers, Lisa Benson (Counterpoint) laughs off the notion that Bobby Jr could be a spoiler, his poorly organized, erratic campaign taking votes away from the sleek, well-financed Biden campaign.
Except that what financing Bobby has comes from millionaires who are also helping finance the Trump campaign, and the other day Bobby’s NYS campaign head said the quiet part out loud: This farcical, hopeless race for the presidency is simply intended to drain Biden votes, with the goal of putting Trump back in the White House.
The question is, does Bobby know he’s being exploited as a stalking horse, or is he genuinely wedded to positions that will attract middle-of-the-road voters away from Biden?
Steve Brodner points out that he’s echoing Trump in several key ways, and it’s certainly worth adding that he’s an anti-vax fanatic, which you would expect to take votes from Dear Leader.
On the other hand, we’re talking about low-information voters, like the college kids who plan to not vote for Biden because of Gaza, but don’t realize, first of all, that while Biden is playing games attempting to bring Netanyahu in line, Trump is a hawk who would advise Israel to get in there and finish the job.
And, of course, there’s the matter of Dear Leader’s promise to do away with reproductive freedom — both abortion and birth control — to build concentration camps, to end birth citizenship, to restrict freedom of the press, to execute drug dealers …
I remember being a young idealist, but they make Nately look like Metternich.
Juxtaposition of Say What?
BC — Creators — Friday, April 5
BC — Creators — Tuesday, April 9
On a far less critical level, these two were not part of a continuing story arc, just the same gag four days apart. Perhaps a flaw in having a strip done by two people? I’ve got to think that, if they’d been submitted for the same week, an editor would have caught this, but perhaps they arrived in two different batches.
When two different strips use the same gag, I suspect a ghost writer who didn’t let one client know another client had bought the idea, gagwriters being one of the unspoken factors in comic strips.
When the same strip does it, it seems more like a brain fart.
Patrick Marran did an excellent job of both combining the eclipse with the Pope’s condemnation of trans kids and surrogacy, and getting this Francis up on GoComics in a timely manner.
I can’t claim neutrality: I wrote Pope Paul a letter in 1970 asking him to give Catholics clear guidance on the war in Vietnam, since he had the authority to declare it either just or unjust. If he was against the war, Catholics could claim conscientious objector status, while, if he was for it, well, we’d know where we stood.
I got a response several weeks later asking me to pray for peace, but not addressing my request.
Now he’s insulting a member of my family.
In matters of sex and gender, you might as well ask the rabbi how to cook an Easter ham.
A Retraction, with an Admonition for All
In yesterday’s collection of eclipse cartoons, I included this Michael de Adder cartoon.
Several hours later, someone on social media posted this photograph of a long-ago eclipse:
Had I seen the photo first, I would not have included the tracing. I wish I’d known.
And there’s more to it. I like memes and used clipart to make one the other day. But memes are not cartoons, and I am no cartoonist.
And here’s the crucial point: Cartoonists can’t complain about Artificial Intelligence if they’re going to pull stunts like this. An homage to well-known art is fine, done freehand with meaningful adaptations. Most cartoonists include “apologies to …” in the corner, acknowledging the original.
But never mind those warnings about staring at the eclipse.
Just don’t stare at your lightbox. It’ll destroy your vision.
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