Cartoon Saturday

How the time flies when you're having fun. And even when you're not. Once again a week has swirled down the drain of history, and it's time for Cartoon Saturday ... so let's get to it!

The Syrian government and opposition rebels are trading accusations of responsibility for a massacre this morning in which 19 people, many of them women and children, were murdered; I'll Have Another, the horse that won the first two legs of the Triple Crown at the Preakness Stakes and the Kentucky Derby*, has had his racing career ended because of an injury; eighteen victims of a child pornography ring have been rescued in a series of coordinated raids by US law enforcement agencies; teen star Miley Cyrus announced her engagement to somebody or another; and actress and professional bad girl Lindsey Lohan has been involved in yet another traffic accident.

You may want to just stay off the highways and enjoy the cartoons ...

We lead off this week with two related takes on life in the high-tech era ...

And ...

I realized, while looking for cartoons for this week, that I have a great many on the topic of elevators ... so let's cue the Muzak and riff on that theme for a while ...

and ...

I think this one's for Mike ...

Appropriate for the right business, don't you think? ...

 This one might also have been a good terrible pun cartoon ...

And, finally for the elevator series ...

You may want to read the fine print in the latest GOP health care proposal ...

And to wrap things up for this week, I wonder if this is why I had some trouble landing my first job ...

And that's it for this week's edition of Cartoon Saturday. It looks like it's going to be a very hot weekend here in Northern Virginia, so maybe I should just work on convincing Agnes that it's too dangerous to mow the lawn under the broiling sun, and I should just go to the cineplex and watch Prometheus instead. 

Naw ... mowing the lawn is easier.

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

Bilbo

* For those of you who have never had the pleasure of hearing the Kentucky Derby announced as only Spike Jones could bring it to you, here you go ...

A Laughter of Bloggers

What happens when a group of people who know each other only via their blog posts, comments, e-mails, and screen names finally gets together in person? And what would you use as a collective noun to describe such a group?

Well, based on yesterday evening's experience, I would say that the word laughter works in both cases.

Yesterday evening we took advantage of the presence of Mike being in town on vacation to organize a bloggers' get-together at a local watering hole.  The group consisted of Agnes and I, Mike and his wife Claudia, Peggy (whose husband Rick, hopelessly mired in traffic, didn't make it), and lapsed blogger Gilahi (whose wife and fellow blogger Laura was kept away by work). We spent a delightful couple of hours trading stories, comparing notes on how we got started with blogging, and generally sharing a lot of laughs ... hence my recommendation of a laughter of bloggers as a collective noun.

Gilahi and I have often gotten together before and know each other pretty well, but getting to know the larger group was tremendous fun. Peggy is a delightful lady, as entertaining in person as she is in her blog, and the personification of what-you-see-is-what-you-get, and Mike turned out to be almost exactly as I'd imagined him from reading him on screen (speaking of on screen, it finally dawned on me that Mike reminds me a bit of actor Ernest Borgnine ... an observation which will no doubt horrify him).

Agnes managed to get a partial group photo of us (less Gilahi, who thinks his photo in the post office is good enough) ...

And a great time was had by all.

If any of you find yourselves in the DC/Maryland/Northern Virginia area and are interested in a bloggers' meeting, send me an e-mail (der(underscore)blogmeister(at)yahoo(dot)com), and I'll try to set it up ... because just trading electrons is no substitute for the energy and good cheer of a group of real people intent on having a good time.

Have a good day. Support your fellow bloggers. See you tomorrow for Cartoon Saturday.

Bilbo

Anybody Have a Number for a Good Editor?

I'm running a little behind schedule this morning, so let's just do something simple ... like take another look at some not-so-great moments in editing ...

Real estate agents are always good at accentuating the positive aspects of a home that may otherwise have its drawbacks ...

A little-known element of the health care reforms proposed by the GOP is their proposal to reduce health care costs by using aircraft no longer needed for rendition of terror suspects to fly old, sick people away for treatment in undisclosed locations outside the country ...

Where they will be treated by the very best-trained personnel ...

I think I know who wears the pants in this family ...

It's good to know that there are jobs available for the vertically challenged ...

Perhaps a bit more improvement may be called for ...

I'm told that this is a popular dinner option for men whose wives are out of town ... not that I would know anything about that ...

I think this fellow may have missed the point of the whole restitution thing ...

Who ever said that a motive had to make sense? ...

I think they may be expecting His Holiness to speak ex cathedra ...

This evening ought to be interesting, as Mike, Peggy, Gilahi, and I get together for a bloggers' happy hour (or two or three) at a local watering hole. After all, somebody has to start the process of solving the country's problems ... or, at least, drinking to forget them. Mike called me yesterday morning - it was the first time we've ever actually spoken with each other - and we mutually decided that neither of us sounds like what we'd expected ... which may require him to lower his expectations for our actual meeting this evening, because I sound a lot better than I look, especially after a long day at the office.

Details in tomorrow's post.

Have a good day. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

P.S. - You may have seen this opinion piece on CNN the other day: Why 'Amercia' Needs Copy Editors. It applies.

B.

Honesty Is the Best Policy ... Except When It Isn't

My friend Katherine sent me a link the other day to a fascinating article in the Wall Street Journal that she thought would be prime blogging material: Why We Lie.

The concept of honesty and integrity is an interesting and timely one, particularly in a major political campaigning season. We all think of ourselves as basically honest and trustworthy people, so why do we lie? What are the things that will make an otherwise upright and honest person resort to unethical behavior or lying? The article contains this graphic which summarizes some of the factors which will tend to increase either honesty or dishonesty ...

So, why do we lie? The article leads off with an observation (that was also one of my father's favorite sayings) that if you lock your doors and windows, it will keep the honest people out, then goes on to describe experiments staged to determine the conditions under which we might be more inclined to lie than to tell the truth. I won't bore you with all the details, but the results are captured pretty well by the graphic. The article summarizes it like this:

Everybody has the capacity to be dishonest, and almost everybody cheats—just by a little. Except for a few outliers at the top and bottom, the behavior of almost everyone is driven by two opposing motivations. On the one hand, we want to benefit from cheating and get as much money and glory as possible; on the other hand, we want to view ourselves as honest, honorable people. Sadly, it is this kind of small-scale mass cheating, not the high-profile cases, that is most corrosive to society.

We all tell little white lies for a variety of reasons, and many of them are harmless and arise from good motivations, such as to spare the feelings of another. No man, for instance, could be depended upon to give a consistently honest answer to a question like "do these pants make me look fat?" Most of us would be willing to fudge a bit on a tax return, on the theory that the tax system is unfair and stacked in favor of others, or to overlook an error in our favor on a restaurant tab. An atheist preparing to give testimony in court might well swear to tell the truth ... with his hand on a Bible in which he doesn't believe.

A political partisan will sometimes lie outright for political advantage, but more common is the tendency to not tell the whole story ... to use statistics and quotes out of context and to cherry-pick data to "prove" a particular position ... and most people predisposed to that political position will swallow the lie whole, without bothering to ask any questions. The other day, my brother forwarded me an e-mail that accuses the administration of trying to sneak in a particularly underhanded tax via the "Debt Free America Act," which would put a 1% tax on every single financial transaction of any sort. It gives the actual number of the House bill (HR 4646) and quotes from a Snopes.com article it claims proves that the allegation is true.

But it isn't.

The bill actually exists, but is one that has been frequently submitted by a single Congressman, has never gotten any support from anyone else, and has no chance of becoming law. The Snopes.com quotes are all taken out of context and arranged to make it look as if the story is true, when in fact Snopes concludes it is false. You can read the analysis here.

But who would go to the trouble of checking the veracity of that e-mail? I did, because I'm naturally skeptical. Most hardshell conservatives would swallow the story absolutely, as my brother did.

I like to think of myself as honest and ethical, as I'm sure we all do. But, sadly, the evidence shows that all of us are inclined, under the right circumstances, to step over the truthfulness line, or to unquestioningly accept the half-truths or outright lies of others. And especially in today's America, that's a very sad thing.

Have a good day. Honestly. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Here's Sniffing at You!

As I grow older, I find I am becoming sensitive to and aware of more things. For instance, I am much less willing to waste my time paying attention to morons (which puts severe limits on my political activity, let me tell you), I am making the personal acquaintance of joints and muscles I'd forgotten I had (particularly early in the morning, late in the evening, and after a few minutes of outdoor play with the grandchildren), and I have increasing concerns about being able to afford my retirement without making serious cutbacks in my lifestyle (such as eating twice a week and living in a large cardboard box).

And then there's the whole old-guy smell thing.

You may have seen this news story that was widely reported a week or two ago: Old People Smell Different, Not Worse. It discusses the perception that there is a certain "old person" smell that we take on as we grow older, generally thought of as a musty, medicine-y smell, perhaps overlying the aromas of ... um ... body waste, Lysol, and other unpleasant things. However, according to the article, quoting a study of body odors conducted by Philadelphia's Monell Chemical Senses Center and the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, the characteristic odor of the elderly is actually more or less neutral and "a lot more pleasant than the body odor coming from younger folks" ... young men, in particular.  According to the study,

"Women's odors were perceived to have about the same neutral smell and mild intensity throughout all three stages of life, while young and middle-aged men's odors were rated more intense and worse-smelling. But elderly men's odors were perceived to be quite similar to those of elderly women: mild and neutral."

You can read the whole study here, if you want to sniff around the topic a bit more.

I'll spare you the details of how the test was done (although it is similar to the concept of the Pheromone Parties that I described in a post back in April, which you can read here). Let us just say that if you have ever been around a group of young men who have been sweating heavily, there can be no doubt in your mind that you have been around a group of young men sweating heavily.

The point of the article is that the scent we often associate with elderly people is not the natural scent of the individual, but is often characterized by the results of disease or of poor hygiene, which is often related to physical disabilities.

It's sometimes hard to tell what we really smell like, living as we do in an era of deodorants, perfumes, colognes, powders, and other such things we use to alter our natural smells. We have (well, most of us have) an intense aversion to smelling like an ox in August in Northern Virginia. There are worse things, though, as you know if you have ever shared a seat on the bus or Metro with a woman who has marinated herself in cheap perfume, or a man who seems to have bathed in some expensive cologne advertised to attract women. As a ballroom dancer, I have a deadly fear of two things: bad breath and body odor, both of which can make a three-minute waltz a ghastly experience for an unfortunate partner. And as a geezer-in-training, I'm sensitive to the whole smelly-old-person stereotype.

So ...

I think I'll go take a shower, and then head off to work. It just makes ... uh ... scents.

Have a good day. Mind the hygiene. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

The New Shed

Those of you who have been following this blog for very long have learned a great many things about me. One of them is that I love to write. Another is that I love to read. Yet another is that I am the most inept of handymen. Of the four siblings in my family, my two brothers inherited our father's amazing construction and fix-it talents ... my sister and I got mom's literary genes.

So I thought that today I'd write about my new shed, which may - someday - actually be erected to relieve the crammed conditions in my garage.

My next door neighbor is a fine and generous fellow who recently bought a spiffy new shed that looks more like an aristocrat's hunting lodge than a place to store junk. He even landscaped around it. But having bought the new shed, he found he needed to do something about the old one, which now looked pretty sad sitting across the landscaped yard from its sparkly new replacement. "I know!" he thought excitedly. "I'll offer it to Bilbo!"

And Bilbo, spurred on by Agnes and always reluctant to pass up anything that's free, gratefully accepted the offer.

Dumbass.

The offer was made a few weeks ago, and yesterday I finally got around to effecting the transfer of the shed from my neighbor's estate to my own. This was no small task, as it involved dismantling the old shed (a heavy plastic Rubbermaid edifice, screwed onto a wooden base and braced with a pair of eight-foot 2x8's and an aluminum roof rail), hauling it over to my place, and reassembling it.

I'm two-thirds done.

The first part of the job involved locating and removing 756,000 one-inch screws cleverly hidden in secret places guarded by enormous, hairy spiders irritated at the disturbance to their habitat. Next, the roof had to be lifted off in a single piece weighing about four tons and sitting at just the right height so force us to hoist and carry it on tiptoe so that the base would clear the walls. This done, I drove to the local medical equipment rental company for a portable x-ray machine to help find the two screws which held the entire roof assembly together.

Took a break.

The next part was easy - the walls consisted of eight interlocking panels held together by locking plates that slid into place and were easily removed with the application of small amounts of TNT. Once the locking plates were removed, the individual panels were easily disconnected from the base with the application of a moderate amount of force exerted by a Bucyrus Erie crane.

The last part of the dismantling procedure consisted of unscrewing the four interlocked pieces of the floor from the well-rotted plywood base. The screws were easy enough to find, although hidden under many years of grass clippings, mouse poop, and irritated spiders, and I was eventually able to remove them with the application of a few well-chosen adjectives in various languages.

I now had 16 large plastic side and roof panels, two doors, two roof end pieces, a pair of eight-foot 2x8's, the aluminum roof rail, 600 locking plates, and the 756,000 screws, all of which I dutifully carried across to my estate and neatly stacked behind the house until I can decide where to reassemble them into some something resembling a shed ... because, of course, the idea of getting a shed for free overshadowed my knowledge that I don't have a place in the yard large and level enough to put it.

So ...

I now have all the parts of an 8x8-foot shed, aching muscles, millions of large, pissed-off spiders, and several irritated snakes that had been displaced from their comfortable lodgings. Now to figure out what to do with it.

In the words of Fagin in the musical Oliver! ... I'm reviewing the situation, and I think I'd better think it out again.

Have a good day. Need a shed?

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

Of Cabbageheads and Kings*

You may have been following some of the ongoing grand hoopla about the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth  II of England (actually, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but we won't split that political hair) - she is celebrating 60 years on the throne, putting her in second place as the longest-reigning monarch in history, behind her great-great-great** grandmother, Queen Victoria (who reigned for 63 years). Nobody does pageantry like our British cousins, and they are pulling out the stops to make this event a memorable celebration.

Here in the states, of course, we don't have a king or queen (well, except for Elvis of course), having fought a bitter war against the mother country to get rid of one in the first place. But it's interesting to read some of the observations being made in conjunction with the Diamond Jubilee that hypothesize whether we'd be better off with a monarch rather than the chaotic and dysfunctional government we are struggling with today. As it happens, this is a subject to which I've given a great deal of thought. Here are the pros and cons of a monarchy as I see them:

Pro:

1. Really cool parades. I attended the Queen's Birthday parade in Berlin in 1982 and was thrilled by the spectacle.

2. A respected, apolitical figure around whom everyone can rally.

3. Ability to separate the role of head of state (the monarch) from head of government (the prime minister or whatever). This is no small thing when you consider that in this country, by combining the two roles in the form of a single president, we condemn the incumbent to the third role of chief political hack for his party, making him (or her) waste valuable time and effort with unseemly political tasks rather than focusing on national problems. A constitutional monarch effects this separation, as does the system in Germany which provides for a President  as the head of state and a Chancellor as head of government. Here at home, this doesn't really matter most days except to protocol folks who worry about who rates a State Dinner at the White house.

4. "Off with their heads!" is a viable option for dealing with 535 elected ass clowns who put political purity and shameless vote pandering above cooperating to solve problems ...

Con:

1. Really cool parades. They are, after all, expensive. And once sequestration kicks in when Congress is unable/unwilling to fix our budgetary problems, it will be difficult to scrape up enough military equipment and troops for a decent parade, anyhow.

2. The whole ruling families thing. Bush II ... 'nuff said.

3. Waste of a perfectly good Revolutionary War.

4. Crowned heads don't always rest easy ...

For a more detailed look at the what-if-we-had-a-queen question, you can read this interesting piece by Autumn Brewington in yesterday's Washington Post.

Would we be better off with a constitutional monarch rather than an elected president? There are days you could make the argument ... such as most days when Congress is in session. But on reflection, I guess I'd rather stick with the President and our stable of elected reprehensives. At least they can be voted out by their corporate sponsors at regular intervals, sparing us the trouble of messy revolutions.

Have a good day. Best wishes to Queen Elizabeth on her jubilee ... at least there's one person with job security.

More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo

* With apologies to Lewis Carroll.

** I believe I have the correct number of "greats" here.

Cartoon Saturday

Welcome to June - we are now halfway through 2012 ... but the election season lies ahead. At least you have Cartoon Saturday to help ease the pain.

Former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak has been sentenced to life in prison for ordering his forces to fire on demonstrators protesting against his government; disgraced politician John Edwards has been acquitted in his corruption trial, although everyone now realizes he's just a professional cad with a political career in ruins; authorities have arrested a Maryland man and charged him with murder and assault ... the assault part deriving from his eating of parts of his victim; Microsoft has rolled out the final preview version of its new Windows 8 operating system, scheduled to be formally released later this fall; and stock market gains for the year have been wiped out as the market fell on news of weak job growth.

Yep. We really need to get to the cartoons fast ...

We lead off with the traditional terrible pun cartoon. If you don't get the joke, go back and read yesterday's post ...

Okay, how about another terrible pun? ...

Various animals are popular with cartoonists for various reasons. I have whole files of cartoons dealing with penguins, turtles, sharks, pigeons ... and beavers* ... 

Exam time at beaver school ... 

Beavers have shopping choices, too ...

Older readers may not think this one is quite as funny ...

Beaver hors d'oeuvres? ... 

Reading some of the insane leaks of sensitive information that come out of Congress and the Administration (nobody is innocent, no matter what some partisans would have you believe), I think this is probably where we need to go ...

Submarines can also be good for a cartoon or two ...

My readers who are educators may appreciate this one ...

And finally for this week, this one's for John ...

Tonight is the First Saturday dance party at Forever Dancing, but before we get there I'll need to mow the lawn ... assuming it dries out after our torrential rains of last night. I was ready to back the ark out of the garage by 9:00, but things seem to have calmed down a bit. We'll see.

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

Bilbo

* The Beaver family features prominently in the history of Pennsylvania ... we had a governor named James Beaver, we have a Beaver County, and there are many buildings, towns, and features named after members of the Beaver clan. One of the most clever graffitos I ever saw was at the Penn State main campus back when I was a student: the University opened a new women's athletic center named for a member of the Beaver family - the Mary Beaver White Building. One night, a graffiti artist made a slight modification such that, when the sun rose the next morning, it was now the Mary "Beaver" White Building. Well, I thought it was funny ...

"We Are the State." Aren't We?

My daughter called me yesterday morning to talk about a story she'd heard on NPR: Stumbling Upon Mini Memorials To Holocaust Victims.

The story tells of a movement in Germany headed by artist Gunther Demnig which seeks to remember the victims of the Holocaust by installing "stumbling stones" - small brass bricks bearing the names and death details of people murdered by the Nazis - in front of the homes where they once lived. It's an interesting story in itself, although that's not why my daughter wanted to talk about it ... her attention was drawn to a statement made by a man who told the NPR reporter why it was important to remember the Holocaust victims today, many decades after the horror of that time:

"Everybody in the first place is responsible, individually, for remembering. One can't pass off everything to the state. And we are the state anyway. All of us must continue to insist that Nazis are not welcome, that we must keep the memory alive and learn from our history so that it does not happen again."

The assertion that "we are the state anyway" was what caught my daughter's attention, as it followed a discussion she and I had in her car on the long drive back home from Pittsburgh last weekend about things that are wrong with America. She believes, and I tend to agree, that we have lost the sense of community that makes us understand that we are the state ... or part of it, anyway. There's a focus in today's America on the rights of the individual rather than the individual's responsibilities to the larger group.

Columnist E.J. Dionne wrote eloquently about this in a recent op-ed piece in the Washington Post: Conservatives Used to Care About Community. What Happened? Mr Dionne writes about

"... Republicans in Congress who have abandoned American conservatism’s most attractive features: prudence, caution and a sense that change should be gradual. But most important, conservatism used to care passionately about fostering community, and it no longer does. This commitment now lies buried beneath slogans that lift up the heroic and disconnected individual - or the “job creator” - with little concern for the rest."

We are no longer the state. We're a bunch of individuals looking out for Number One, losing the sense of responsibility we each have for the larger good. In the place of a sense of community, we have an endless series of bumper-sticker slogans that focus on simple platitudes: government is bad, taxes are too high, immigration (not illegal immigration, just immigration) is ruining the country, etc. We used to celebrate a sense of American community ... now, we put the individual - particularly the wealthy individual (the job creator) - on a pedestal, and screw the rest.

John F. Kennedy once famously urged us to "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."

Of course, John F. Kennedy was an old-school liberal Democrat, and ideas like that are now anathema both to conservatives (who celebrate the individual and demonize the state) and liberals (who focus on what the state ought to be doing for individuals, whether it's rational and affordable or not).

We ought to remember that we really are the state, and we all have a vested interest in making it work for the common good. Because, as Benjamin Franklin once noted, "We must all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately."

Have a good day. Hang in there ... together.  Come back tomorrow for Cartoon Saturday.

Bilbo

The Philosophy of Elvis Presley

In yesterday's post, I shared with you the opportunity to make a bid on a tomb once occupied by Elvis Presley. Later, it occurred to me that there are probably a lot of younger readers who may not know who Elvis Presley actually was ... a sign of how much the world has changed since The King shuffled off his mortal coil back in 1977. But soldiering on with the topic of Elvis Presley, I thought I'd share with you this compilation I found on Miss Cellania's blog the other day ... a compilation of comments on life and related topics, drawn from the songs of The King.

Taken as a whole, they contain everything from handy tips about geography ("a river flows surely to the sea") to practical travel advice (the YMCA in Memphis offers cheap accommodations), to religious instruction* ("I'm lonely like Adam, you're evil like Eve"). Here is a collection of things you can learn about life from listening to Elvis Presley songs:

General Issues ...

- Children born in disadvantaged areas such as ghettos should receive special assistance as this reduces the likelihood of them turning to a life of crime, thus perpetuating an endless cycle of disadvantage.

- If you suspect someone is evil check their middle name because it may well be "Misery."

- The US postal service is so efficient that it will return an unwanted letter within 24 hours of its initial posting ...

Travel ...

- The Heartbreak Hotel is located at the end of Lonely Street and its desk clerk dresses in black ...

- There are few sounds that make you feel more lonely than that of the midnight train.

Relationships ...

- If rejected by the older sister in a family, by all means have a crack at her little sister, who may have matured more than you at first noticed.

- Women named Marie are naturally duplicitous.

- If caught without a partner during a dance at a federal penitentiary, why not try dancing with a wooden chair?

- A .44-calibre pistol is an excellent firearm choice for a woman whose partner was doin' her wrong.

Zoology ...

- There are few looks in life more intense than that of a one-eyed cat peeping in a seafood store.

- A passionate kiss can be measured by the fact that even a team of wild horses would be unable to drag apart the two participants.

- The embrace of a grizzly bear provides a useful point of comparison when considering the pressure necessary to demonstrate real passion during an affair.

- A good hound dog should be able to catch a rabbit.

Geography and Meteorology ...

- People are more likely to be alone during a blue moon than during any other lunar event.

- In the state of Kentucky, precipitation usually occurs when a man is hitchhiking from town to town, having been abandoned by his baby ...

Medical Tips ...

- The lips of attractive women tend to taste like breakfast spread, in particular honey.

- A temperature of 109 is quite common during the early stages of an affair.

- The experience of love, especially early in life, can have serious medical consequences including sensations of itching, hand tremors, leg spasms, heart palpitations and language difficulties.

If you have any questions about the above, why not call Elvis and ask? Just call (619) 239-KING ...

Have a good day. Hail to The King!

More thoughts tomorrow ...

Bilbo

* Of particular importance to ultraconservative Republicans in an election year.