Poetry Sunday

This past Tuesday we celebrated the birthday of poet, author, critic, and charter member of the famous Algonquin Round Table Dorothy Parker. She was known for her caustic wit and short, pithy poems ... like this one that summarizes her outlook on life ...

Observation

By Dorothy Parker

If I don't drive around the park,

I'm pretty sure to make my mark.

If I'm in bed each night by ten,

I may get back my looks again,

If I abstain from fun and such,

I'll probably amount to much,

But I shall stay the way I am,

Because I do not give a damn.

Dorothy Parker died in 1967, having actually given a damn about many things. I wish I'd known her.

Have a good day and enjoy the rest of your weekend. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

Cartoon Saturday

Boy, am I glad this month is almost over ...

Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin was killed on Wednesday in an airplane crash apparently caused by an explosion, after he failed to get close enough to an upper-floor window to facilitate defenestration; six children and two adults trapped on a dangling cable car in Pakistan were rescued in a 12-hour rescue operation that used helicopters and specialists in ziplining; eight Republican presidential hopefuls, not including Der Furor, took part in the first candidate "debate" of the 2024 election season; Der Furor, aka inmate #P01135809, was booked, fingerprinted, posted a $200,000 bond*, and had his ferociously-scowling mug shot** taken at the Fulton County, GA, jail; and in Los Angeles, a former law enforcement officer who murdered three people before killing himself was actually trying to kill his wife ... who, along with four other people, was injured but not killed.

The GOP presidential candidates "debate" this past week reminded me that the party is for the birds. And speaking of birds, that sounds like a good theme for this week ...

 I'm not sure that my HOA would agree to it, but it would be interesting to try ...

I'd probably be upset, too ...

A bird can dream, can't he? 

He'll spend the extra money on bird seed ...

Cue the sinister music ...

I would, too ...

I think they were hanging around my house ...

Canary practical jokes ...

Well, LA-dee-DAH ...

Another reason for Noah to rejoice ...

And that brings us to the end of this week's attempt at good cheer ... I hope it worked, even a little.

Have a good day and a great weekend. More thoughts tomorrow, when Poetry Sunday returns. See you then.

Bilbo

* You can be sure that not a single cent of it came out of his own money.

**No doubt designed to strike terror into the hearts of his opponents. You just know he spent hours practicing that threatening expression in his bathroom mirror while dialing down the readings on his bathroom scale.

The Left-Cheek Ass Clown for August, 2023

September is on the wane, as is our national tradition of consensus and good government. With that in mind, it's time to consider the second of our Ass Clown Awards for the month. As the presidential campaign season approaches like a threatening storm, the choices for our awards will become clearer and more numerous, even as the selection becomes more difficult as a result of the plethora of choices. But it's early, and this week's Republican candidate's "debate" has highlighted a worthy winner.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Readers, my choice for

The Left-Cheek Ass Clown for August, 2023

is

Vivek Ramaswamy

Vivek Ramaswamy is a wealthy libertarian businessman who made his fortune in the finance, pharmaceutical, and biotech industries. He is a full-throated defender of Der Furor and his policies, stating in the GOP debate on August 23rd that Der Furor was "the greatest president this century."

Unlike the other candidates vying for the GOP crown, Mr Ramaswamy has no government or foreign policy experience at any level. He has promised to pardon Der Furor for any crimes of which the former president is convicted, and believes that climate change is a hoax, claiming during the debate that

“Climate change is a hoax…The reality is more people are dying of bad climate change policies than they are of actual climate change.”

He also underscored his isolationist tendencies and unwillingness to continue supporting embattled Ukraine, saying

“I find it offensive that we have professional politicians who will make a pilgrimage to Kyiv, to their pope, Zelenskyy, without doing the same for the people in Maui or the south side of Chicago.”

Among other things, Mr Ramaswamy advocates: abolishing the FBI, the Department of Education, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission; raising the voting age to 25; forcing Ukraine to make territorial concessions to Russia in exchange for peace; and that the government has lied to the public about the 9/11 terror attacks. He also opposes a national abortion ban, because "the federal government should stay out of it."

One would think that the unfortunate outcome of our last experiment with electing a noisy billionaire with no experience of government service to the presidency would have served as a cautionary tale, but such appears not to be the case. Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Readers, Vivek Ramaswamy is my designee as The Left-Cheek Ass Clown for August, 2023 ... a designation he has earned with his noisy and unwarranted campaign for the most important political and leadership job in the world.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow, when Cartoon Saturday returns for its last appearance in August. See you then.

Bilbo

Musical Sunday

Competitive orchestration ... it's the latest thing.

Have a good day and enjoy the rest of your weekend. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

Cartoon Saturday

Where do we keep finding these verkakte weeks, anyhow?

Der Furor and 18 other persons were indicted by a Georgia grand jury on 13 felony charges over his attempts to subvert the 2020 election in Georgia; in an historic summit at Camp David, President Biden, and the leaders of Japan and South Korea agreed to expand their security and economic ties in the face of an aggressive China; hurricane Hillary, now threatening the Mexican state of Baja California, is poised to become the first tropical storm to hit Southern California in more than 80 years; Der Furor continues to relentlessly test the tolerance of the judiciary and to exasperate his own lawyers by spouting belligerent, threatening messages about prosecutors, witnesses and judges involved in the criminal cases against him; and in Germany, media reports indicate that staff members and clergy in the Archdiocese of Cologne frequently accessed porn websites on church-supplied computers.

Because the last time I ran a collection of cartoons riffing on song lyrics was a big hit, why not let's go once again with what rocks ...

There are days I can use Rhonda's help, too ...  

Inspiration sometimes comes from unlikely places ...

It may be too late ...

I'm glad they edited out the part about his poor hygiene ...

When you wear those bizarre glasses, you sometimes need an easier chart ...

At least he's not masked ...

He must be using the REMote control ...

Well, he does know what's important to make it a wonderful world ...

I thought he already knew that ...

And they can't hit them if they find them, either ...

And that's it for another week of Cartoon Saturday, with a look back at classic song lyrics. If there are any you didn't recognize, try YouTube.

Have a good day and a great weekend. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

Great Moments in Editing and Signage

Here we go again ...

I think maybe I'll try the taco place down the street ...  

Decisions, decisions ...

Glad we cleared that up ...

It's a very orderly TV news operation that can schedule criminal activity to report ...

Named after one of those transgender people, no doubt ...

Ummmm ...

I don't even want to know ...

In case you can't find your wife or girlfriend down here ...

If you're one of those people with a lot of pull, you probably shouldn't shop here ...

So, can Jews and Muslims eat this or not? ...

And that's it for this week's collection. As always, send me your finds (as my reliable nephew Ed regularly does) so that we can all enjoy them.

Have a good day, and come back tomorrow for Cartoon Saturday. More thoughts then.

Bilbo

Poetry Sunday

The way things are going in this country, with Der Furor and his rabid supporters ramping up hatred and mistrust, the political parties hopelessly divided, religious leaders discredited, the rule of law undermined, and a complete lack of any unifying person or institution around which Americans can rally, this classic poem by William Butler Yeats is more readable and applicable than ever.

The Second Coming

by William Butler Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

A great many rough beasts, full of passionate intensity rather than empathy and goodwill, are slouching toward November of 2024. Choose wisely.

Have a good day and enjoy the rest of your weekend. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

Cartoon Saturday

These weeks are starting to be a drag ...

Ohio voters resoundingly rejected a Republican-backed measure that would have made it more difficult to change the state’s constitution; dozens of people have been killed by wildfires that completely destroyed the city of Lahaina on the Hawaiian island of Maui; Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a Special Counsel to investigate the affairs of President Biden's son Hunter ... Republicans, of course, immediately objected that the move was a blatant attempt to subvert their campaign of rumor, innuendo, and whataboutism; four persons have been charged in a dockside brawl in Montgomery, Alabama, in which the black co-captain of a riverboat was beaten by a crowd of white persons; and a former CIA agent claims that government denials of UFO reports are part of a plan to prepare the public for the reveal - in 2027 - of the aliens who are now among us and ready to acknowledge their presence. 

This week, in honor of the vast amounts of paper being twisted into knots by Der Furor's endless suits, countersuits, motions, appeals, and other questionably legal attempts to evade justice, how about some cartoons about origami ...

At least the games don't take too long ...  

If a judge wears it, is it called a law suit? ...

Where would we be without rumors? ...

Maybe it wasn't such a good idea after all ...

Ba, dum, TISS ...

Everybody's gotta start someplace ...

Dumb question #5637 ...

Your call is important to us ... not ...

Another take on the first cartoon of the set ...

Charles Darwin's second book was less-than-successful ...

And now, it's time for me to just fold up my tent and steal away ...

Have a good day, and enjoy your weekend. More thoughts tomorrow, when things get serious on Poetry Sunday. See you then.

Bilbo

The Right-Cheek Ass Clown for August, 2023

I sometimes wish I'd never started with the Ass Clown Awards, because they're a depressing reminder of the worst of human nature and the sorry state of our world. But I also believe that someone needs to heap scorn on those who represent the depths of boorish behavior and the worst of what humanity has to offer, and so I keep stepping up ... at great risk to my sanity.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Readers, cue the flatulent blare of kazoos as we announce

The Right-Cheek Ass Clown for August, 2023

and the winner is

The Republican Party

The GOP has independently won a staggering eleven Ass Clown awards, including two Ass Clown of the year awards (in 2011 and 2017). It has shared the award with the Democratic Party* twice (in September 2011 and the Left-Cheek Award for October 2018), and the Republican National Committee and GOP groups or individual members of Congress have racked up a further five awards, for a grand total of seventeen awards between 2011 and today … a record approached only by Der Furor, who has earned fifteen individual or shared awards, including the 2015 Ass Clown of the Year designation and a Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017**.

Let me say up front, as I have many times before, that the nation needs to have a principled and vibrant conservative party to complement the liberalism of the Democrats. Sadly, today's Republican Party is not it. Today's GOP has completely rejected law, truth, common sense, empathy, and morality in its headlong tumble into angry authoritarianism, led by a man with no identifiable redeeming qualities***. 

This is my summary of the unfortunate qualifications of the GOP for today's award ...

- Using violent rhetoric without regard to its effect on public safety and order. Consider Florida Governor Ron DeSantis's crude, violent comment at a campaign function in Rye, New Hampshire, earlier this month, when he said “We’re going to have all these deep state people [members of the federal bureaucracy]. We’re going to start slitting throats on day one.” Mr DeSantis was, of course, speaking metaphorically, but in an era when many people have been spring-loaded to accept the legality of violent action by the ill-considered rhetoric of their political leaders, throats could well actually be cut.

- Claiming to be "the party of law and order" while GOP members of Congress openly support violent rioters imprisoned after the insurrection of January 6, 2021, calling them "political prisoners," and refuse even to consider that there might just possibly be real criminal activity in the upper reaches of their party.

- Ignoring court orders when they threaten Republican legislative dominance and future electoral prospects.

- Happily embracing the complete lack of gravitas and moral leadership demonstrated by the angry, self-serving rants of Der Furor. “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I'M COMING AFTER YOU!” compares poorly to  such famous presidential quotes as Kennedy's "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country" and Franklin Roosevelt's "We have nothing to fear but fear itself."  

- Failing to deliver on promises. Der Furor's repeatedly promised "Infrastructure Week" was finally delivered by President Biden; the replacement of the Affordable Care Act was never delivered; the "big, beautiful" border wall was never finished, and Mexico didn't pay for it.

- Ignorance of the Constitution and threats to "terminate" it. 

- Advocating a chaotic foreign policy that has real and potential allies wondering if the United States can be counted upon in a crisis. 

- "Weaponizing" the Federal Government against its opponents. Although the GOP thunders that legitimate investigation and prosecution of Der Furor and those who stormed the Capitol in the 2021 insurrection reflects unfair "weaponization" of the government by Democrats against "innocent" citizens, this is the same party that has relentlessly pursued - without evidence - private citizen Hunter Biden^† and subjected former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to repeated investigations that amounted to nothing.

- Lack of workable economic policies. The entire GOP economic program consists of minimizing regulations of any kind on business, cutting taxes on businesses and the wealthy, and eliminating spending which directly helps ordinary Americans.

- Unyielding endorsement of unrestricted ownership and public carrying of guns. The Second Amendment to the Constitution grants citizens the right to "keep and bear arms," but the party's rigid opposition to the least, most unobjectionable regulations on this freedom in the face of the enormous amount of gun violence across the country is unconscionable.  

- Focus on "culture wars" that just stoke outrage, rather than on bread-and-butter issues that affect citizens' day-to-day lives and economic well-being. 

- Denial, in the face of overwhelming evidence, of the effects of climate change, and a refusal to consider policies that would alleviate the worst effects of environmental changes. 

- A focus on eliminating the "administrative state" without rational thought as to how its functions can be carried out by a Congress that can't agree on anything more important than naming post offices, if that.

I could go on, but you get the idea.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Readers, the Right-Cheek Ass Clown award for August, 2023, is presented to the Republican Party ... a once-normal conservative party that has degenerated into a political mob which repeatedly shows itself unable to govern, and to thrive only in noisy opposition to those with actual ideas.

Have a good day. Think hard before you vote in future elections ... too many people won't.

More thoughts tomorrow, when Cartoon Saturday tries to lighten things up a bit.

Bilbo

* The Democratic Party has won the award on its own once, the Right-Cheek Award in November of 2021.

** That award, which made Der Furor ineligible for future awards, was rescinded when he was designated the Left Cheek Ass Clown for July, 2020. His degree of ass clownery was such that I could no longer justify giving him a pass, even after a lifetime achievement award.

*** And we haven't even discussed Ron DeSantis.

† To be fair, Hunter Biden is a deeply flawed individual who has engaged in questionable conduct; however, the emphasis of the GOP "investigations" has nothing at all to do with Hunter Biden's conduct but as something with which to smear his father. The open, arguably criminal business conduct of Der Furor and his children goes unremarked.

What Der Furor Wants

It's long been common knowledge that Der Furor does exactly what he wants, regardless of any advice to the contrary. Facts don't matter, truth doesn't matter, the decorum and gravitas we expect of our leaders don't matter ... he'll do exactly what he wants.

The latest example of his gleefully immature and self-destructive behavior came less than 24 hours after the judge in his latest indictment warned him against witness intimidation and jury tampering ... ignoring the judge's admonition, Der Furor sent the following message (in all caps, of course) on his "Truth Social" digital megaphone:

"IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I'M COMING AFTER YOU!"

Now, most rational people would view this as a blatant threat, and the Department of Justice has asked the judge to lower the boom on Der Furor for his action.

But this may well be just what he wants.

I read an interesting thread on Twitter (I refuse to call it "X") over the weekend, in which the writer suggested that Der Furor is actually trying to get the judge to jail him for ignoring her orders. As I think about it, it makes perfect sense ... Der Furor is always trying to play the victim, relentlessly stoking outrage among his gullible supporters in search of support and - especially - "campaign donations*."

In this case, though, he may be crazy as a fox. At the risk of being accused of the logical fallacy of Reductio ad Hitlerum, one could argue that Der Furor is playing a bad hand well, as Adolf Hitler did when he turned his imprisonment after the disastrous Beer Hall Putsch to his advantage. Sentenced to five years of "fortress confinement" (of which he served a mere eight months in relatively comfortable conditions), he used the time to write "Mein Kampf" and plan for his subsequent political career. He later turned his arrest, trial, and imprisonment to his advantage, demonstrating to his followers how he had willingly suffered for the sake of the Nazi movement. 

This is exactly what Der Furor appears to be trying to do. He is daring the judge to impose a gag order or (at best, in his fevered political mind) put him in jail. Dishonestly playing the "free speech" card for actions that would have had you or I in jail in a heartbeat plays to his crowds of deluded followers - and the Republican members of Congress who blindly support him out of fear of those crowds - who can't see his actions for what they are.

I absolutely believe Der Furor deserves to go to jail for what he has done to the nation and the world. But he doesn't deserve the ratings boost he would get from a threat his lawyers and enablers will earnestly spin as "protected free political speech." He's guilty of a lot worse.

Have a good day. Don't take the bait.

More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

* It would be uncharacteristically honest of him to admit he's milking the sheep for money to pay his lawyers. Or not, if history is any judge.

Musical Sunday

I feel the need to hear one of my all-time favorite songs again ...

There were few groups as wonderfully melodic and entertaining as The Seekers, and when Judith Durham passed away last year it was a huge loss for those of us who loved their music.

Bummer.

Have a good day and enjoy the rest of your weekend. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

  

Cartoon Saturday

And here you thought that August would be an improvement over July. Silly you.

Der Furor has been arraigned on four counts of criminal activity documenting his efforts to overthrow the 2020 election and remain in office; Fitch Ratings has downgraded the United States government’s credit rating from AAA to AA+, citing rising debt at all levels of government and a “steady deterioration in standards of governance;” Ukrainian forces attacked and badly damaged a Russian military ship near the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk; Tennessee State Representatives Justin Pearson and Justin Jones, who were expelled by the Republican majority for involvement in a gun control protest on the House floor, reclaimed their seats Thursday in a special election; and in Louisville, Kentucky, public meetings have been held to discuss the city's plan to conduct a controlled burn of the house of a hoarder whose trash trove included huge stocks of dangerous chemicals and materials.

This week, with all the hype and worry about the rise of robots and artificial intelligence, how about a collection of cartoons about robots and AI?

Robots are taking over a lot of traditional jobs ...

Just look for a central location with an open outlet ...

When robots die ...

Robots do dumb things, too ...

I've had jobs I'm sure AI would consider beneath its dignity ...

There's a shortage caused by the diversion of supplies to make linings for red hats ...

Looks like a storm's a-brewin' ...

Just write a prescription for Preparation A ...

Robot moms have their gripes ...

Do we really want to take its word for it? ...

And that's it for the first edition of Cartoon Saturday for August ... just click to save.

Have a good day and a great weekend. See you tomorrow for a mellow visit with The Seekers. More thoughts then. 

Bilbo