CSotD: Wednesday Short Takes
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Let's warm up with a little Sally Forth, in which Hilary's off-again-on-again garage band has been booked to play a school dance.
On first take, it reminds me of college radio, in which there seems invariably to be disk jockeys intent on playing the most obscure stuff they can dig up, on the apparent premise that their mission is to eddicate the peasantry about real music, when said peasantry thought the radio station's mission was to play music they might like.
Which then, ratcheting down to Hilary's demographic where you can at least blame puberty for some of that attitude, reminds me of when I was invited to visit a high school to advise a group of students planning to launch a school paper.
I really deflated the budding rock columnist when — carefully not asking him his plans before I said this — I pointed out that what readers wanted to know was not what he personally thought of then-current pop princess Britney Spears but whether people who liked her last album would like her new one.
Not that you couldn't also introduce them to Nine Inch Nails, who were just emerging. But you had to cover Britney, and not in the sense of simply dumping on her.
I also pointed out that the sports columnist would have to cover sports he didn't like.
Same thing, really.
And speaking of sports, I appreciate that Jonathan Lemon backed up a Dr. J gag with the right colored ball. I don't know how many of his readers know who Dr. J was, but the ones who do would also remember the old ABA ball he played with for the first third of his professional career.
Having complained about political analysts who are too young to remember Vietnam and Watergate, I've got to give props to someone who gets this sort of old-timey thing right.
Which leads us to this Kevin Siers cartoon, in which he eviscerates poor Sean Spicer, the man tasked with trying to explain how we know when the President is speaking truth from the bully pulpit and when he is simply talking out of his ass, the connection being that Dear Leader is old enough to remember Watergate and the Pentagon Papers, but then states that it's illegal to publish stolen documents.
Which it, of course, is not, once more raising the important question of whether the President of the United States is a moron or simply a congenital liar who thinks we're morons.
Though we should not dismiss the possibility that it is a blend of the two.
I don't suppose it would matter so much if the GOP leadership — who do not come across as unintelligent — were not also peddling nonsense to the gullible.
Mike Thompson captures the potential ah-ha moment brilliantly here, the mobile home and campaign poster clearly and sympathetically identifying the victim of this cruel charade.
And I would add this: The opposite of "gullible" is "cynical," not "smart." There are very smart people who are trusting and can be flummoxed by dishonesty under the right mask.
I would also add that "cynical" and "smart" are not synonyms. Distrusting everything can be the mark of a truly stupid person.
One of the great harms of the "alternate facts" universe we've concocted is not that people believe things that aren't true, but that, having learned the hard way that they were fooled by lies, they now disbelieve things which are true.
Which brings to mind Mark Twain's quote:
We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it — and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again — and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.
And if it all weren't depressing enough, there's this:
Yes, folks, over at Cartoon Movement, Cuban cartoonist Ramses Morales Izquierdo has Trump pouring out of the mouth of Dutch bigot Geert Wilders.
While we were arguing over whether it was fair to compare Trump and his merry band to Hitler, the rest of the world has begun to use him as a benchmark for anti-democratic intolerance and hatred.
I'm so proud of what we've become.
As Walter Sobchak so eloquently put it, "Shut the fuck up, Donny."
Political Movements to Watch Out For
Alison Bechdel has resurrected her Dykes To Watch Out For gang to promote the Ides of March postcard movement, and you can see the rest of this at Seven Days. Might have been more effective a week ago, but you've still got time and I'm sure the White House won't be checking each card and only paying attention to the ones with March 15 postmarks.
It's also possible they won't be paying attention at all, but a good mountain of paper pushback has to have some impact.
I think of LBJ's agony over demonstrators chanting "Hey, Hey, LBJ: How many kids did you kill today?" and of pathetic ol' Nixon sneaking out of the White House in the middle of the night and going over to the Lincoln Memorial to talk football with Moratorium demonstrators.
Given Trump's fragile ego, this could be another nibble at the foundation. Who can predict what is going to set him off?
Or, as Abbie Hoffman said of the Chicago Eight Seven Trial, there was no hope of a getting a fair hearing — "That was the only trial where even the defendants didn't know if they were innocent or guilty" — and so "our whole strategy was geared around giving the judge a heart attack."
A postcard isn't much of a loss if it doesn't work, and, hey, you never know.
Friends, they might think it's a movement.
Which leaves us this juxtaposition:
(Bill Day)
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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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