CSotD: In Honor of the Day(s)
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Today is National Cartoonist Day and Jonathan Lemon has a nice lineup of cameos. He’s not the first to feature guest stars on May 5 but he’s done a particularly nice job of drawing them.
Lalo Alcaraz managed to combine Cinco de Mayo and National Cartoonist Day. I get a sense that a number of Mexican-Americans feel about Cinco de Mayo the way I, as an Irish-American, feel about St. Patrick’s Day, which is that I’d like to celebrate it except that it’s become such a weird misunderstood drunken co-opted affair that I’m more inclined to hide under a rock for 24 hours.
Hiding under a rock might be wise this year, because speaking a foreign language and having brown skin is risky, and if you do get busted, it won’t matter if your name is O’Brien or Padjakowski or that Spanish was spoken here before any of us spoke English.
As Dear Leader has explained, we’re throwing people out of the country at such a high rate that we haven’t got time to put them in front of a judge and let them explain anything.
Which reminds me of how back in the days of the great William “Tariff-Master” McKinley, Mr. Dooley explained our policy in the Philippines, which is close to our immigrant policy here today:
An’ now, ye mis’rable, childish-minded apes, we propose f’r to larn ye th’ uses iv liberty. In ivry city in this unfair land we will erect school-houses an’ packin’ houses an’ houses iv correction; an’ we’ll larn ye our language, because ’tis aisier to larn ye ours than to larn oursilves yours. … We can’t give ye anny votes, because we haven’t more thin enough to go round now; but we’ll threat ye th’ way a father shud threat his childher if we have to break ivry bone in ye’er bodies.
In any case, I’m sure DD Degg will have more coverage, but he’ll have to dig in to do better than he did on this date a year ago. Go have a look.
Juxtaposition of the Day
Another thing Mr. Dooley promised Filipinos was a nice meal of army beef, since at the time we’d just been through a food-poisoning scandal that marred the glorious homecoming of our troops who had just gloriously triumphed over Spain to expand our glorious territory.
Soon thereafter, Upton Sinclair published the Jungle and the one-two punch of the scandal and the muck-raking best seller motivated Congress to pass the Federal Meat Inspection Act and several other regulations to keep people from being poisoned.
But that was then and this is now and, as Wiley notes, we’re doing away with all that nanny-oversight nonsense, because if you can’t trust Big Business, who can you?
As for young Michael MacFarlane, we’re protecting him from food poisoning by eliminating as many meal programs from schools as we can, because kids don’t need to eat, they need to learn.
And because they need to learn the government-approved politically-correct religious doctrines, we’re going to take the remaining money away from the public schools and set up evangelical schools where they won’t be protected by the FDA but by divine miracles.
Though somehow I think that, when Jesus asked “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?” he was not expecting a show of hands.
Juxtaposition of the Day #2 (which is appropriate)
Judging from this synchronicity in today’s comics, it’s also National Bird Poop Day, and if you’d like to celebrate, drive out to the Naval Base in Coronado where you’ll find an available parking space by the BX. It’s always available because it’s under a palm tree where pelicans perch.
A pelican weighs about nine pounds and eats fish.
Overthinking the Funnies
It’s not unusual for a strip to have one continuity Monday through Saturday and a separate identity on Sunday, but Connie Duncan got a job as a counselor at Jeremy’s high school in January and we haven’t seen much development of the possibilities there in either the dailies or the Sundays.
And the possibilities are rich, given that, first of all, that would mean she’d be hearing things from Jeremy’s friends that would put her in some tight ethical spots.
Also I had a classmate whose father was our principal and whose mother taught junior high English, and they volunteered to be chaperones on our senior trip. Jeremy’d love that.
Which, as I ponder possible plot lines, starts sounding less like Zits and more like at least Sally Forth if not Judge Parker. Which I’ll get back to in a minute.
But let’s assume that Jeremy took his sweet time getting home, giving his mother not only the chance to get there well before him but to whip up a salad before he came in the door, and would also explain why his dad is home from the dental office, which seems odd, given how much of an orthodontist’s clientele come in after school.
Anyway, Jeremy doesn’t play a sport, so if he’s not home until just before dinner, either he was out goofing around with his friends or he was on detention, and, either way, I wouldn’t be dumping my backpack out in front of Mom for fear of what might fall out of it.
Yes, I’m overthinking things. It’s something I do best.
But pairing Judge Parker and Sally Forth leads to the obvious connection, which is that they’re both written by Francesco Marciuliano.
And I meant to say that, but when I was looking for a good link, here’s what I found, which would be my closing video if it were three minutes long, but it’s a half hour interview.
Y’all are going to tell me I’m the only person who didn’t know it, but the PBS station at UNC Pembroke has been producing this award-winning program long enough to have seven years of interviews online.
I know about it now and I’m gonna start binging episodes before Dear Leader wipes PBS out, and all that’s left for cartoon coverage is this:
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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