Cartoon Saturday

October is a scary enough month, but there are a lot of people working hard to make it terrifying ... 

A female black bear named Grazer has won the honors during Fat Bear Week in Alaska, beating out #2 finisher Chunk by a whopping vote total of 108,321 to 23,134 votes; GOP House members continued to flail helplessly, unable to conduct ordinary business or agree on a proposed candidate to replace the unceremoniously ousted Kevin McCarthy; the humanitarian disaster continues to unfold in Gaza in the wake of the unspeakably brutal Hamas attack on Israel last weekend; superstar performer Taylor Swift seems to be working on a one-person solution to the economic slowdown, generating hundreds of millions of dollars to boost the fortunes of tour stops; and in a move sure to ease tensions between supporters of Israel and of the Palestinians, the French government on Thursday banned pro-Palestinian demonstrations across the country. What could possibly go wrong?

For our second Halloween-themed Cartoon Saturday of 2023, we pay a visit to the legendary Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow ... 

Yes, that would piss me off, too ...

Monsters can have a good laugh, too ...

Uh, oh ...

He'll need it if he's running for Speaker of the House ...

I can relate ...

It's going to his head ...

Sometimes, the latest tech just doesn't work for everybody ...

Is it any wonder? ...

Hope he makes a good choice ...

Well, that head's got as much in it as the jack-o-lantern ...

And that's it for our second Halloween-themed Cartoon Saturday for October ... I hope it balanced laughs and shivers.

Have a good day and a great weekend, and be sure to come back tomorrow for Musical Sunday and a classically spooky animated offering ... if you dare.

Bilbo

Great Moments in Editing and Signage

It's the second Friday of October, 2023, Friday the 13th, and the first October installment of Great Moments in Editing and Signage. It's also National No-Bra Day, but that's another issue ...

It would probably help fill the pews ...

Actually, I've always found a well-prepared and presented sirloin steak to be a powerful aphrodisiac ...

Just in time for Halloween!! ...

Wait, what?? ...

How about never ... does that work for you? ...

Well, duh ...

About that table in the haunted barn ...

For those times when she really, really wants to go commando ...

If Jim Jordan is the coach, it's probably safer ...

For the MAGAt who wants to remain stylish while being able to receive the latest orders from the mother ship ...

And that's it - your latest collection of editorial and signage ya-ha's. I hope you enjoyed them. 

Have a good National No-Bra Day, and be sure to come back tomorrow for our second Halloween season Cartoon Saturday - a salute to the Headless Horseman. See you then!

Bilbo

I'm Right, You're Wrong, Screw You

One of the most dispiriting things about living in the year 2023 is the increasing unwillingness of people, governments, political parties, and single-issue partisans to even consider compromising with those with whom they disagree.

In the Middle East, Hamas refuses to negotiate with Israel, causing widespread devastation and death on both sides of the Gaza border, dooming generations on both sides to lives of fear and misery.

American gun zealots refuse to compromise on any measures that might reduce gun violence, viewing the Constitutionally-authorized right to "keep and bear arms" as absolute and inviolable, regardless of the cost in human lives.

Religious fundamentalists refuse to compromise on their complete and total opposition to abortion, regardless of the fact the mother may die or the child be born with defects that would prevent a normal life.

In Congress, individual Senators and Representatives refuse to compromise on their pet issues, preventing meaningful legislation on immigration reform, medical care, education, gun safety, and any number of other issues, and leaving the nation without key military and government leaders at a time of great international peril.

There was a time when we viewed the ability and willingness to compromise as a cornerstone of good government ... Kentucky Representative Henry Clay was actually known as "The Great Compromiser," and his ability to craft compromises helped to quell regionalism and balance states' rights with national interests, helping to hold the nation together in the first half of the 19th century. 

Now, however, the very word compromise is often uttered dripping with scorn, because we have reached a point when many believe that someone who does not share their beliefs is not only wrong, but deliberately and manifestly evil. The state that produced a giant like Henry Clay now gives us legislative midgets  Mitch McConnell, Rand Paul, and James Comer. We have lost the ability to work with others to find common ground in an era of I'm right, you're wrong, screw you.

The opposite problem was illustrated as far back as 1967 in the song "Shades of Gray," written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil and performed by The Monkees: 

When the world and I were young

Just yesterday

Live was such a simple game

A child could play

It was easy then to tell right from wrong

Easy then to tell weak from strong

When a man should stand and fight

Or just go along

But today there is no day or night

Today there is no dark or light

Today there is no black or white

Only shades of gray

I remember when the answers seemed so clear

We had never lived with doubt or tasted fear

It was easy then to tell truth from lies

Selling out from compromise

Who to love and who to hate

The foolish from the wise

But today there is no day or night

Today there is no dark or light

Today there is no black or white

Only shades of gray

It was easy then to know what was fair

When to keep and when to share

How much to protect your heart

And how much to care

But today there is no day or night

Today there is no dark or light

Today there is no black or white

Only shades of gray

Only shades of gray

Today, no one paints the world in shades of gray, but in the very starkest black and white that brooks no compromise. I'm right, you're wrong, screw you.

Where is Henry Clay when we need him?

Have a good day, and consider compromise ... the nation needs it and you may discover that things work better with it.

More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

Ass Clown Special Award

I try to limit the number of Ass Clown Special Awards I present, because I don't want to cheapen the impact of each individual award. But sometimes a Special Award is called for because the nominee goes the distance to meet the challenge of supreme ass clownery ... and so it is today, as the nation faces multiple crises with a weakened diplomatic corps, a weakened military, and a weakened government.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Readers, we present an 

Ass Clown Special Award

to

Senator Ted Cruz (R, TX),

Senator Tommy Tuberville (R, AL)

and

the GOP Majority in the House of Representatives

In a departure from my usual practice, I'm going to simply quote the words of historian Heather Cox Richardson in her "Letter from an American" published on October 9th, because I don't think I could express the foul depths of ass clownery we cite today any better than she does:

"Because of holds Republican senators have put on the nomination process, the U.S. does not have a Senate-confirmed ambassador to Israel or Egypt, the two countries that border the Gaza Strip. The nominees for U.S. ambassador to Oman and Kuwait are similarly waiting for confirmation, as is the State Department’s coordinator for counterterrorism. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) has held up several of the Middle East nominations, claiming that the “nominees keep lying to Congress and the American people, testifying publicly that they are committed to countering Iran and deepening the U.S.-Israel relationship, then implementing the opposite policies in secret once confirmed.

"The military is also down critical leaders, as Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) is refusing to lift his hold on more than 300 uncontroversial military promotions, a hold he says is to protest Pentagon policy of permitting military personnel time off to obtain abortion care.

"And the House of Representatives is without a speaker, making it unclear what, if any, business other than electing a new speaker it can conduct. The two candidates in the race for speaker—Representatives Steve Scalise (R-LA) and Jim Jordan (R-OH)—apparently hope to be elected from within the Republican conference, but neither has shown any sign of being able to find the necessary votes.

"Scalise is saddled with his own declaration years ago that he was like Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke “without the baggage,” and—in addition to old accusations of turning a blind eye to sexual abuse of the Ohio State University wrestlers on the team of which he was the assistant coach between 1987 and 1995—Jordan is closely associated with the attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Republicans from more moderate districts are likely to be reluctant to back either of them."

At a critical juncture in history, a small number of angry, ignorant, and extreme Congressional partisans holds the nation and much of the world hostage as effectively as the armed and deadly Hamas terrorists on the rampage in the Middle East. They deserve the condemnation of decent and honorable people everywhere.

Have a good day, and remember this despicable behavior when you vote in this year's midterm elections and the general election of 2024. I will.

More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

Poetry Sunday

Today is the first Sunday in October, the month of Halloween, and in keeping with our annual October theme, we offer the first of this month's two Poetry Sundays with an eerie and disquieting, Halloween-worthy topic ... 

Halloween in the Anthropocene, 2015

By Craig Santos Perez

Darkness spills across the sky like an oil plume.

The moon reflects bleached coral. Tonight, let us

praise the sacrificed. Praise the souls of  black

boys, enslaved by supply chains, who carry

bags of cacao under West African heat. “Trick

or treat, smell my feet, give me something good

to eat,” sings a girl dressed as a Disney princess.

Let us praise the souls of   brown girls who sew

our clothes as fire unthreads sweatshops into

smoke and ash. “Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me

something good,” whisper kids disguised as ninjas.

Tonight, let us praise the souls of Asian children

who manufacture toys and tech until gravity sharpens

their bodies enough to cut through suicide nets.

“Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me,” shout boys

camouflaged as soldiers. Let us praise the souls

of  veterans who salute with their guns because

only triggers will pull God into their ruined

temples. “Trick or treat, smell my feet,” chant kids

masquerading as cowboys and Indians. Tonight,

let us praise the souls of native youth, whose eyes

are open-pit uranium mines, veins are poisoned

rivers, hearts are tar sands tailings ponds. “Trick

or treat,” says a boy dressed as the sun. Let us

praise El Niño, his growing pains, praise his mother,

Ocean, who is dying in a warming bath among dead

fish and refugee children. Let us praise our mothers

of  asthma, mothers of  cancer clusters, mothers of

miscarriage — pray for us — because our costumes

won’t hide the true cost of our greed. Praise our

mothers of  lost habitats, mothers of  fallout, mothers

of extinction — pray for us — because even tomorrow

will be haunted — leave them, leave us, leave —

We are eight years beyond 2015, and the delicious thrill and happiness of the Halloween of my youth is long gone. And that's really scary.

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

Bilbo

Cartoon Saturday

It's a scary time, and not just because Halloween is coming ... 

A legislative panel in Arkansas will investigate the purchase of a $19,000 lectern for Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders; Commander, the Biden family dog, has been exiled from the White House after biting a Secret Service agent in the 11th such incident; Kevin McCarthy was ejected from his position as Speaker of the House of Representatives after both Republicans and Democrats decided (for many reasons) they could not trust him; a New York judge imposed a limited gag order on Der Furor after the Velveeta Voldemort attacked a member of the judge's staff on social media; and in Oklahoma, the managers of a mobile home park urged its residents this week not to talk to the media about a 13-foot-long cat-eating albino python, about which residents claim the park’s management has done nothing. 

It's the first Cartoon Saturday of October, and in keeping with our annual celebration of Halloween, we begin with a collection of cartoons about the terror of giant beasts ... 

This is going to take a while ...

Tour guides for the monsters ...

Extra points if you know who Christie is ...

It's the next open field for lawyers who have been fired by Der Furor ...

Who knows? It just might work ...

Lately we have a good deal of experience with terrifying creatures in elected positions at the local level ...

Whatever works ...

The latest update of a classic beast ...

Now, there's a terrifying creature ...

And don't forget to count your steps ...

And that's it for the first edition of 2023's Halloween-themed Cartoon Saturdays ... I hope it helped to take your mind off the real monsters like climate change, pollution, and political extremism that threaten us at every turn.

Have a good day and a great weekend. More thoughts tomorrow, when Poetry Sunday continues our salute to the scary side of life. See you then.

Bilbo

The Right-Cheek As Clown for October, 2023

It's been a long time since I've had a potential Ass Clown awardee who wasn't a political figure, but I guess that the old saying that all things come to he who waits is true.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Readers, with the usual flatulent blare of trumpets I announce the selection of

The Right-Cheek Ass Clown for October, 2023

and the award goes to

Michael Gardner

Mr Gardner, a native of Odessa, Texas, was officiating at a wedding in Omaha, Nebraska, when he fired a revolver loaded with blanks to "get the attention" of the wedding guests. He had apparently planned to fire the shot into the air, but his hand slipped when he cocked the pistol ... which obediently fired, hitting Mr Gardner's 12-year-old grandson in the shoulder. 

The grandson was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries, and Mr Gardner turned himself in to the local authorities, who charged him with "child abuse by neglectable [sic] firing of a firearm."

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Readers, for doing such a bang-up job of illustrating the dangers of allowing every Tom, Dick, and Harry* to own and carry a deadly weapon, Michael Gardner is named as the Right-Cheek Ass Clown for October, 2023 and this month's poster child for sensible gun control measures.

Have a good day, and come back tomorrow for the first of this year's Cartoon Saturday salutes to the  Halloween season. See you then.

Bilbo

* It should be noted that the Second Amendment does not restrict the right to keep and bear arms on the basis of the bearer's name.

Imaginary Numbers, Revisited

Almost ten years ago (October 16, 2013, to be precise) I wrote a post in which I expressed my limited understanding of the concept of imaginary numbers, but recognized its applicability to economics. 

Fast forward to earlier this month, when my friend Bob sent me this video about imaginary numbers. I watched it with great interest, although I still don't fully understand the concept ... you can watch the video yourself and see if it makes sense to you. And here's a cool diagram that shows how imaginary numbers relate to numbers in general:

Imaginary numbers are said to be a key to many other modern concepts in mathematics, physics, astronomy, engineering, and other scientific areas. That may be so. But the field that - now as back in 2013 - most depends on imaginary numbers is economics.

As far as I can see, all numbers in modern economic theory and the operation of government are imaginary. Here's what I mean ...

The national debt as of today is estimated* to be something in the neighborhood of 33 trillion dollars. That number, as large as it is, is not all the debt that's out there. According to a press release from the New York Fed last month, as of the second quarter of Fiscal Year 2023: 

"Total Household Debt" was around 17 trillion dollars, consisting of:

Credit Card debt, about $1.3 trillion; 

Mortgage debt, about $12 trillion;

Home equity lines of credit, about $34 billion;

Student loan balances were about $1.6 trillion;

Auto debt, about 1.58 trillion; and,

"Other" debt, about $53 billion.

If we add a national debt of $33 trillion to a household debt of $17 trillion, we get a grand total debt of $50 trillion. And this doesn't count money flowing through the web of PACs, Super PACs, and cash-stuffed briefcases that purchase our elections. Or the money socked away in bundles of cash and gold bars in politicians' homes or freezers, or the foreign accounts of the 1%.

As I see it, numbers this enormous are arbitrary and ... well ... imaginary. That is, they are, quite literally, beyond the imagination of the average individual. And there are other imaginary numbers that underlie economic theories, too, such as the $7.25/hour minimum wage**, which imagines someone earning it can support a family ... or even themselves alone.

We may not understand imaginary numbers, but they understand us. And they don't care.

Have a good day, if you can afford it. More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

* Nobody knows for sure, which is why every number is expressed in billions and trillions to, at most, two decimal places.

** Which has been the legal minimum wage in the US since July, 2009, although some localities have mandated higher minimums up to $15/hour.

P.S. - There are also "irrational numbers," of which "45" is the most irrational. Change my mind.

B.

Musical Sunday

Today is the first day of October, the month that ends with the spookiness of Halloween, and in keeping with tradition, Musical Sundays this month will feature songs appropriate to the season, beginning with this spooky tune by King Luan featuring both Count Dracula and - wait for it - Nicola Tesla ... titled, "No Vampires Remain in Romania" ...

Here are the lyrics, in case you're interested:

I am not your Dracula spectacular

This is not your weekend in Vegas

This is not your selfie obscura

I am not your tour guide of Paris 

No vampires remain in Romania

No vampires remain in Romania

No vampires remain in Romania

Don't walk alone in Transylvania

No vampires remain in Romania

This is not West Hollywood on Thursday

I am not your objet d'art

I am not your sepia heyday

This is not the moment we part

No vampires remain in Romania

No vampires remain in Romania

Don't donate blood in Transylvania

No vampires remain in Romania

I am not your pop starlet saviour

This is not your reference du jour

This is not your sanctioned behaviour

I am not the disease or the cure

No vampires remain in Romania

No vampires remain in Romania

Don't sing this song in Transylvania

No vampires remain in Romania

Have a good day and enjoy the rest of your weekend. And don't forget that your next opportunity to vote for your favorite bloodsucking politician is just over a month away!

More thoughts coming.

Bilbo

P.S. - Bwa, ha, HAAAAAAAA!!!!!

Cartoon Saturday

So long, September - don't let the door hit you in the backside on your way out ... 

Senator Diane Feinstein of Califoria, a liberal icon and the oldest sitting Senator, died at age 90; a 16-year-old boy is in custody after cutting down Britain's iconic, 300-year-old Sycamore Gap tree in a senseless act of vandalism; the United Auto Workers strike against the Big Three auto makers continued; the French government has launched a major effort to fight an infestation of bedbugs spreading across Paris; and in Philadelphia (not Florida?) a fan was prevented from attending a Phillies game with his emotional support alligator. 

 

I'm cleaning out files this week, so here's another collection of random cartoons for your Cartoon Saturday enjoyment ... 

This year, yeah, I'm going with the void ...

But to compensate for the smaller size, we're charging more ...

I can't tell you how often I'm that poor guy ...

Nice of him to provide the warning ...

When I was young, eggs were ... well ... eggs. Nowadays, you have to make a statement by the kind of eggs you buy ...

Maybe I should get one of those ...

I'd go with the "AAHHHH!!!," myself ...

It's the 2023 style of home decor ...

That would be my insurance company ...

I think it's going to be a split decision ...

And so we close out the month of September with another Cartoon Saturday. I hope it's helped you get over the past week and prepare yourself for tomorrow's dawn of another politically catastrophic month.

Have a good day and a great weekend. More thoughts tomorrow, when we begin our annual salute to Halloween with the first Musical Sunday of October - see you then.

Bilbo