It's Not Immigration Control. It's Ethnic Cleansing

Guard the Unendurable Laughter

A sense of humor is sanity’s steam valve.

Shaftesbury, in his Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humor, said humor is the only real test of gravity because “a subject which would not bear raillery was suspicious.”

Put another way, it’s just that cartoonists realize that sacred cows make the tastiest hamburger.

In fact, speech that offends someone is the only speech worth defending. Inoffensive speech is necessarily meaningless, and is never censored.

And why keep the stiletto of ridicule always handy up your sleeve? Because, as Euripides observed, “The laughter of one’s enemies is unendurable.”

For Pete's Sake, Not Another Damn Rapture!

This must be the 57th Rapture I've been through.

The Tiffany Trick

“During World War II, a man of middle age entertained a Marine one Saturday night. The man enjoyed himself so much in the Marine’s muscular embrace that he felt he should buy him something to show his gratitude, but since it was Sunday when they woke up, and the stores were closed, the best he could offer was breakfast.

“’Where would you like to go?’ he asked. ‘Pick the fanciest, most expensive place in town?’

“The Marine, who was not a native, had heard of only one fancy and expensive place in New York, and he said, ‘Let’s have breakfast at Tiffany’s.’”

— Capote, Gerald Clarke

And that anecdote gave Truman Capote a title.

The Devil's in the Downward Dog

So apparently “anti-yoga Republican” is a thing now.

The satanic sin of stretching, I guess.

Horror of the Fog Queens

Christopher Isherwood recalled a London cab ride with Bill Caskey and Tennessee Williams in 1948. 

“It is foggy, and Tennessee exclaims, ‘We are the dreaded fog queens!’ and utters his screaming laugh,” Isherwood wrote in his Lost Years memoir. 

“Whereupon all three of them begin to elaborate on the fantasy — how the respectable citizens shudder and slam their shutters and cross themselves as the dreaded fog queens ride by, and how one darling little boy disregards their warnings and looks out of the window and sees the fog queens and they are absolutely beautiful, so he shouts to them and begs them to take him with them, and they do, and he is never heard from again.”

The Eternal Sincerity of the Talk Show

 

“I suffered in silence,” confessed the blonde, flashing her practiced smile on the Today Show.

A Man Called Intrepid

Whenever I hear the word “intrepid,” it reminds me that, sadly, I have never been trapped in quicksand or chased by a helicopter.

If Starfish Could Talk...

This is a cartoon I've had in mind for years.

 

Check This Out

The strange sights of 2023: eight or 10 people were waiting in line at the Walmart self check-out station while, right next to it, a cashier stands patiently waiting for customers.

I could only presume that a) they had taken up waiting in line as a hobby, or b) they had been digitally trained to avoid all human contact, or c) they’re shoplifters.

I might have come up with more possible explanations, but I was already out the door with my purchases while they were still waiting.

America the Ignorant

Jaime O'Neill: "I sincerely doubt that polite young lady at the bank is a racist. She gave every indication of being a nice person. But when she made that blanket dismissal of all politicians as corrupt, she revealed a willingness to accept a man like Donald Trump as at least no worse than the rest of them. In a mind like hers, there's just no significant difference between Lauren Boebert and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, no difference in character or values between Abe Lincoln and Aaron Burr, Joe McCarthy and Eugene McCarthy.

"Given how little most Americans know about American history, let alone our system of government, it's unlikely she'd know most of those names, anyway. I doubt she thinks there are reasons to bother with knowing stuff like that. She is the product of an educational system that teaches an array of skills, but often little else, thus creating cogs in a machine that we all must serve without much question."

When Ravens Bitch...

Ancient Advice about the Right

Let's PLEASE abandon the pretense that Trumpettes know what they’re doing.

Baited by blatant racism, they were duped by corporate media propaganda into cutting their own throats to fill the jeweled goblets of America’s poor, victimized vampire billionaires.

Aristotle Had Some Funny Ideas

In other words, sacred cows generally provide tainted meat, and many truths are said in jest.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Republicans

Why keep the stiletto of ridicule always handy up your sleeve? Because, as Euripides observed, “The laughter of one’s enemies is unendurable.”

The GOP Doubles Toil and Trouble

The Republican Party is completely corrupt, but the cowardly, dithering “both sides” corporate media can’t face that glaringly obvious fact.

Portrait of a Real Murkan

I keep hoping we might someday achieve something that we could refer to as “civilization” without laughing in derision.

Trump Pegs the Meter on Stupidity

Trumpolini and his lunatic Dunning-Kruger mob are a direct threat to human civilization, and most of them are too stupid to know it.

Probably Best Not to Bother Him

This is the kind of old age I could get behind.

I Resemble That Remark

From this week's New Yorker.