Deep Sea Jiving

As you've already surmised, we're taking a "Bah, humbug!" approach to the day's news. Seriously, the guy in the diving helmet might have the right idea when it comes to blocking out the media crapfest.

And because we have so little to say, we're going to fill some additional space with yet another cartoon drawn by our Dad some decades ago.

Oddly, we like making our brand new "Earwigs" cartoons look old and yellowed, but the original cartoons by our father really are old and yellowed - so we put considerable effort into making them look new again.

It seems enough like a circular system designed by government bureaucrats that we're amazed we're not receiving an NEA grant.

BONUS: A GLASS HALF FULL

And in this case, we're referring to our 4th glass of scotch, which is prompting us to write a little something political today even though we said we wouldn't.

Specifically, we're talking about the tragic case of Otto Warmbier and the costly but valuable lesson that his miserable death might teach the radical "antifa" Leftists and other noisemakers.

Warmbier made the fatal mistake of believing that North Korea was, at some level, like the United States - and a little innocent mischief didn't present much personal risk. He was dead wrong.

Meanwhile, the Leftist loons on college campuses (happily smashing windows and setting things on fire) seem to believe that under Donald Trump, the United States is the true totalitarian regime, stripping people of their rights and freedoms (concepts that aren't even dreamed of in North Korea) and threatening their very existence.

These pampered, self-absorbed dilettantes would do well to spend a little time thinking about their plush and privileged lives in comparison to the hell on Earth that Warmbier surely experienced for the slightest of political infractions.

This is called "perspective," and unless the young Leftists develop some, Warmbier's horrifying death will have been in vain.

Father's Day 2017

Sure, it's not exactly topical - but we couldn't let Father's Day go by without poking a little fun at the wild and woolly Clinton family, and restate our suspicion that (unlike certain blue dresses we could name) Chelsea has no trace of Bill's DNA.

And speaking of the Clintons, what ever happened to the investigations that were supposed to be happening to look into the ugly relationship between "contributions" to the demonstrably bogus Clinton Foundation and "favors" granted to high-rollers by Hillary's State Department? As long as we've got Special Counsels galloping around Washington with their hair on fire, why not put one on her tail?

But we digress. We're writing this on Father's Day, so are unsurprisingly thinking fondly of our Dad who doodled lots of cartoons like this one:

...and who wrote stories for innocent, trusting children like this one:

He's been gone for 11 years, but his influence remains strong. Not just on our somewhat unusual sense of humor, but also in our day-to-day pursuit of morality, responsibility, and decency.

You are much missed, Pa. 

Needle in a Hate Stack

A massacre was barely averted Wednesday (although at the time of this writing, multiple victims are still fighting for their lives) when a "lone wolf" terrorist opened fire on Republicans - because they were Republicans - who were practicing on a baseball field for an upcoming charity game.

The hate-filled gunman, killed by police, is thought to have been "self-radicalized" by violence-promoting materials easily found on the Internet and posted by the incendiary imams of Left-think, a group which sadly includes many liberal politicians, most mainstream "news" outlets, and virtually all social media platforms.

The shooter hadn't bothered to hide his political anger from others because he didn't have to. So pervasive is anti-Trump (and Republican and conservative) rhetoric and calls for violence on social media that his many posts and re-posts on the subject didn't strike anyone as out of the ordinary. He was just a needle in a hate stack.

Let that appalling thought sink in for a moment.

We wish we were over-generalizing, but we don't think we are. As a case in point, we want to share a sad exchange which we were party to on Facebook about 3 weeks ago. A lifelong friend (of more than 60 years) who, like the shooter, is an avid Bernie Sanders supporter, posted an article headlined: "House Republicans Admit Fearing For Their Lives From Growing Civil Unrest." The sub-heading was "You reap what you sow, and Republicans sure have sowed quite a bit of anger."

Our liberal friend added "When their actions threaten the very lives of the constituents they are supposed to be serving, what do they expect? They have gone crazy ramming devastating legislation through. They deserve to be fearful." Ouch.

Far from receiving any social disapproval, these comments were reinforced by her online community. Our friend's adult daughter posted "I find myself actively wishing harm on these people at every turn. I want karmic justice. I want these fucking monsters to suffer."  Her adult son posted "This is their karma," and a sister derided the Republicans as "Snowflakes" for being concerned about the pitchfork-and-torch crowd.

And suddenly, we found ourselves in the position of those "good Muslims" we keep hearing about. Should we report this group enthusiasm for violence to someone? To who? To what end? And is that really the kind of America we want to live in? Or should we simply reach out to the perpetrators and try to change their minds?

Actually, we'd already tried doing that but couldn't get any traction...and we eventually got tired of being called a hater. Instead, we stopped "following" this person (and others) on social media, solidifying the walls which increasingly divide our nation, while reluctantly accepting the idea that some of those endorsing violence on the Left may be, to borrow Hillary Clinton's unsubtle terminology, both deplorable and irredeemable.

We hope that isn't the case with our friend, whom we know to be a decent and good-hearted person. And to be fair, her family has very real problems with health and financial issues, and legitimate (if too often misguided) reasons to be unhappy with the bureaucratic mess in Washington. Neither she nor her family members are bad people - far from it - but a tidal wave of false and angry narratives are leading them, and too many others, in bad directions.

We can and should continue calling for greater civility in public and personal discourse as well as greater journalistic responsibility in the media (as we've done in this space for almost a decade), but we don't think either is likely to happen at this point.

Because "America's favorite pastime" is now an entirely different ballgame...and we're afraid that the gunman in Alexandria just threw out the first pitch.