Cartoon Saturday

Another week down ... and I mean really down ...

In the town of Moore, Oklahoma, 24 people - including ten children - were killed when the town was all but destroyed by a monster tornado that left another 93 people injured; in London, four men are in custody after brutally murdering a British soldier on a public street with a meat cleaver, claiming it was "because Muslims are dying daily;" in Washington state, a bridge on busy Interstate 5 collapsed, dumping cars and people into the frigid Skagit River - amazingly, no one was killed; in the penalty phase of the Jodi Arias murder trial, the jury deadlocked in tense deliberations, forcing the judge to call for a retrial in July; and in the South Korean town of Busan, a five year-old girl was killed when a man jumping to his death from an eleventh-floor apartment landed on her.

Some weeks, even the cartoons have a tough time lifting your spirits ... but we'll do what we can.

For this week's collection of theme cartoons, let's take a look at "apps" - those marvelous little programs that turn our telephones and tablets into high-tech wonders ...

Sometimes, this is how I look at it as a geezer-in-training ...

It's an obvious, but still gawd-awful pun ...

A little science fiction, anyone? ...

And Moses may have gotten those tablets just a couple of millennia too soon ...

My friend Dave, living in Germany, sends me great cartoons occasionally. Earlier this week he sent this one, which pretty well summarizes my attitude of late ...

 

It's summertime, and our children want to play outside. And they want us to play with them. And it's not always easy to fulfill their requests ...

Speaking of children, if you have any, you know that they'll repeat whatever they hear, no matter how  inappropriate it might be. Sometimes, that vow of silence can be a good thing ...

A few weeks ago we went on an outing to Linden Vineyards with our friend Nadja, and bought a nice selection of good wines. For my part, I love the Linden wines, but find them a little pricey ... this store is more in my price range ...

This week began the furloughs of some government employees, a result of the colossal act of Congressional cowardice and stupidity known as the "sequester." Many federal employees will take a pay cut of about 20% for this year as a result of the unpaid furlough days ... but of course (and as usual), Congress has exempted itself from the worst of the pain. Sometimes, though, it pays to remember that people were being furloughed and losing their jobs long ago, too ...

And finally for this week, another of those cartoons that's blindingly obvious, but nevertheless very funny. As it happens, there are a great many people active in politics* that this could apply to ... and it makes life interesting ...

And so goes the last edition of Cartoon Saturday for the month of May. This weekend is the three-day (for some of us, anyhow) Memorial Day weekend, on which we remember those who have paid the ultimate price in our nation's wars. Take a few minutes between trips to the pool and the barbecue to remember our fallen heroes, and to honor the country and the ideals for which they died ... even if Congress often insists on making a laughingstock of the country and a mockery of those ideals. 

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* For example, much of the Tea Party, Mitch McConnell, Code Pink, Nancy Pelosi, and the amazing colossal wingnut who has been selected as the GOP candidate for lieutenant governor of Virginia, E.W. Jackson.