Dave Kellett on what may be the most annoying feature of an increasingly annoying Internet. As it happens, I ranted about LinkedIn almost exactly a year ago. I signed up because everyone said you had to sign up, then realized there was no real point in it and tried to escape, but, like Sheldon’s grandfather, I […]
Pardon My Planet is a flashback not just to my days in an office, but to a particular set of them.I’ve mentioned more than once (including recently) a situation in which my employer began what might be, under the right conditions, termed “constructive dismissal.”The details don’t matter a whole lot, except that I was given […]
(Joel Pett)(Jen Sorensen)These takes on Rand Paul have been on the pages of Jen Sorensen and Joel Pett for several days and on my mind as well.I’ve wanted to feature them but wasn’t sure what the mutual resonance was and didn’t want to simply plop them in as a “Juxtaposition of the Day.” I […]
My day begins around 4:30 with a dive into the day’s cartoons, during which I pull out, on average, a half dozen nominees. Then I go back and sort through them to come up with some sort of coherent overall theme or, at least, a sensible order in which to discuss them.So today I had […]
My freshman year, I had a history course taught by the department head, which consisted of two very entertaining and informative lectures by him and a test section by his teaching assistants that had nothing to do with the lectures but was based instead on reading assignments.The history course I subsequently took in summer school […]
Jen Sorensen has become something of the standard bearer for the Affordable Care Act, which is okay with me. I like my standard bearers to have some passion for the standard they bear, and I’m also glad she’s received some credit beyond the alternative comics world for her advocacy.(Before we go any farther, I’m going […]
Joe Martin doesn’t do political cartoons, but today’s Willie ‘n Ethel pretty much sums up the current situation and does it better than the “on the one hand, on the other” political cartoonists who simply repeat the same tired “Congress sucks” blame-sharing cartoons. We are media prisoners of the moronically “even-handed” approach to coverage ably […]
This is like being stuck at the airport. Not like being stuck in an elevator. We’ve got access to bathrooms. That makes a big difference, but we’re still not going anywhere for awhile. And I’d rather sit here than have Capt. Obama feel pressured to take off into a blizzard so I could be part of a […]
Jeff Stahler’s cartoon would be funny if it weren’t so sad, scary and infuriating. In my lifetime, America has gone from “The War on Poverty” to “The War on the Poor,” and health care is one of the main battlegrounds.Health care matters on a number of levels, including highly pragmatic ones, which is probably why […]
After yesterday’s conceptual extravaganza, I’m resting my brain, with the help of this silly “The Flying McCoys” panel.One of the questions anyone in the arts faces is “Where do you get your ideas?”There’s no real answer to that, because the really complex ideas start and build and grow … but the dumb ones, at least […]
Jeff Danziger is a hip old guy.Most artists think of themselves as pretty hip, but let’s be honest: There is a difference between the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and the paintings in hotel rooms, and the fact that you draw stuff to make money does not make you an “artist” in the spiritual sense […]
Jen Sorensen, on our new depths of heartless Darwinism.I realize that, over the course of history, humanity has sunk to some pretty low levels. But when you study those periods in history, the narrative is “for awhile some bad people did horrible things … “And then, given the triumphalist nature of history textbooks, it goes […]
The Reubens were last night, and, while I don’t think much of awards in general, I do like the idea of people getting together, particularly people who tend to otherwise work in well-lighted garrets, in isolation from anyone who does what they do.And, while even a Pulitzer won’t protect you from the beancounters these days […]
Jen Sorensen picks up on an oddity of the burgeoning Chinese economy.What’s odd about it is that it’s kind of a flashback to our own industrial revolution. In the 19th century, there were two levels of getting away from it all:One was simply the country retreat, and a lot of upper middleclass people spent time […]
Jen Sorensen on the imminent demise of the postal service.The USPS faces a combination of factors similar to that which has been so hard on newspapers: Genuine financial issues compounded by fashionable disdain (“snail mail” — Oh, how terribly clever! How whimsically amusing!).Well, except that — as she notes on her blog — the “genuine” […]