CSotD: Variety Pak
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Apparently, we can take one crisis off the docket. Dear Leader has decided to stop having the taxpayers pay for his self-promoting political ads. As the articles covering it say, he got some serious pushback on the practice, some of which may have been warnings that what he was doing was illegal, but I particularly like this one, because it manages to cover issues like “Will he pay back the $10 million?” but doesn’t take a stand on the legality.
In his announcement of the change, he even calls them advertisements and promotional in nature, but consider the source: Perhaps he really doesn’t know the difference between an ad and a public service announcement. We already know he can’t tell facts from opinions, except that his opinions are facts and facts he doesn’t like are hoaxes.
It’s important for voters to know the difference, even though, in the end, the choices they make are based on opinions. Those opinions should be shaped by facts, which makes it a shame that my local paper has stopped running political cartoons.
I don’t know if it is an editorial decision or an issue of budgets. However, I’m sure that, if they recognized the value of political cartooning in helping frame responsible opinions, they’d find room even in a tight budget.
Assuming, in this world of corporate ownership, that they’re making their own decisions.
I don’t pretend to be neutral here with my commentary, though I try to be accurate when I’m not being an obvious wiseass, at which point I expect readers to recognize satire.
But I certainly agree with Sorensen that columnists get away with a lot. Constant Readers know my opinion that editors can parse text far better than they recognize the meanings in cartoons, but I would add that they are easily impressed by someone being a member of the Institute for Extremely Serious Thought.
Mostly, I believe that, in both political cartoons and columns, a diversity of viewpoints matters, but if you think “diversity” is a dirty word, well, there ya go.
Here’s diversity of opinions: Ken Griffin, CEO of a hedge fund, just dropped $3 billion on Carnegie Mellon University, and Bok says this means Bernie is wrong to think billionaires have too much money in a world in which a lot of people don’t have enough.
It’s an issue worth pondering. Robert Reich is renowned for pointing out that the ratio of income between workers and owners has gone way out of reasonable proportion, and he doesn’t seem to think this is fair. Another economist, Justin Wolpers, also points out the growing contrast between labor and ownership income, but wrestles more with the morality of the matter.
Wolper’s analysis of this issue includes plenty of exhibits, including a discussion he had with Stacey Vanek Smith, whom you may know from Marketplace, and an analysis from the Atlantic based on the Simpsons, whom you may know from living on this planet.
Putting more money in the hands of workers would help them and, as Wolpers and others have pointed out, once you have $100 million, you run out of ways to spend it.
For instance, Ken Griffin is worth $57.2 billion, so his gift to Carnegie Mellon comes to about 5.25% of his net worth. It may be a record gift in dollars, but I’m sure it’s not a record in proportion of worth.
While guys like Bernie would say your worth can’t be measure in dollars.
If you really want to know how not to use extra money, certainly don’t spend it to build a baseball stadium in the Grand Tetons. It’s an idea that is both ugly and asinine.
History tells us that Theodore Roosevelt tightened the rules at Yellowstone to halt the building of a railroad into it, a project intended to let more tourists visit a place that would no longer be worth seeing. He also championed the preservation of the Grand Canyon to prevent planned hotel and mining projects, and established wildlife reserves to prevent the extinction of birds with the plumes fashion wanted to put on women’s hats.
A ball park in the Tetons? If you build it, they will come all right. They will come haul your soul into the fiery pit.
So long, it’s been good to know you
The frightening terrorist-driven bomb attack at RAF Fairford in Britain appears to have fizzled out, the perps being released on bail and there having apparently been no explosives in their vans.
But the cartoonists there seem satisfied to see the departure of the US bomber wing that had been using the base as a launch site for a war few British want.
Jennings offers a visual opinion of the mighty warrior who had sent his planes there while complaining about NATO countries that wouldn’t join the fight, including those who wouldn’t even let him fly over their territory, much less set down there.
Morland reports that the intelligence work that uncovered the plot was not the work of Bond, James Bond, or even Smart, Maxwell Smart.
“If you see something, say something” often leads nowhere, and let us not that there was a report that was ignored some years ago about some fellows who wanted to learn how to fly large jets but weren’t interested in learning how to land them. That would have been worth examining a little more closely.
Still, looking into a report does not require public announcements, and declaring a major incident before you’ve confirmed much at all starts to sound like crying “wolf!” and we don’t want that, either, do we?
It risks making us look to the public like Fife, Barney Fife.
Yanks may be happy to depart, but it could have been worse. They could have been stuck on the Abraham Lincoln, where even jellied eels and beans-on-toast would have sounded good.
And while the others are giggling, Lewis voices a fear that it’s all a bit of political mummery and that neither they nor Iran have seen the last of our testosterone-rich, battle-hungry warriors.
As the saying goes, “War is good business. Invest your kids.”
Though that opinion, too, begs for diversity.
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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