Cape Diem

Sometimes there's a man...we won't say a hero, 'cause what's a hero? But sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And with apologies to the Coen Brothers and "The Big Lebowski," at this time and place, it's Pessimism Man.

Granted, like all superheroes, he just does his thing and quickly departs - for which we can all be grateful. But he paid us a visit earlier today, which sort of derailed our train of thought for anything very useful.

See, the news was already just godawful no matter what direction you look in, but at least we felt fairly secure here at home. Then, over our morning coffee, we noticed that our quiet little residential street was teeming with speeding traffic. But why? It turns out that they were all detouring from our nearest major intersection, which had been closed off after an "incident."

Specifically, there was a car crash (which didn't look too major), and a helpful police officer arrived on the scene and went to check on the occupants of the cars. The driver of the first car jumped out and stabbed him. The officer fell back, and the driver then rushed to the other car and started stabbing its driver. Lacking a Rapid Response Social Worker on scene, the officer shot the offender - who died at the scene.

We don't know the race of any of the people involved, and it wouldn't make any difference to us anyway (though it might to mobs). It was a horrible event, and the police officer acted appropriately to save a life.

With this gloomy cloud hovering our head (and an unending parade of cars roaring past our home), we at least tried to come up with a topical cartoon or two, but couldn't conjure anything which wouldn't get our house burned down.

An especially dangerous proposition when you've stockpiled as many flammable bottles of Clan MacAccelerant as we have.

Statuary Rape 2020

On Monday evening, we watched the sad spectacle of radical human cockroaches swarming a statue of Andrew Jackson and attempting to topple it, just across the street from the White House. Police were eventually able to save the statue and push back the anarchists, but not before the monument had been damaged and vandalized.

There are two kinds of madness at work: that of the mob which wants to destroy anything and everything related to "history," and the madness of politicians who are doing nothing to restore law and order. Indeed, many of them are encouraging the chaos and destruction.

Remember a long time ago (or so it seems now) when all of this was allegedly about George Floyd and racial equality? Well that narrative, along with the principles Martin Luther King Jr fought and died for, has gone into the crapper.

What we're seeing is a radical push for anarchy and Marxism. What we're hearing is that only Black Lives Matter, except for the Black Lives lost to black-on-black crime and gunplay. In Chicago this past weekend, a black 3-year old boy was shot and killed. If his life mattered to the mobs, they would declare that Chicago can't continue to be a slaughterhouse for the innocent.

But they're too busy screaming "F*ck the police" to offer up actual support for black children in a war zone. And too busy toppling inanimate objects to confront actual killers, or challenge the political party which has really been guilty of systemic racism since its inception.

FROM THE VAULT...

A Tall Hat to Fill

In honor of Father's Day (when I'm writing this), I'd like to share several cartoons that my Dad drew many years ago. He constantly doodled cartoons just for the pleasure of it - any scrap of blank paper became his playground.

One character he returned to frequently was The Man in the Tall Hat. Why the man had a tall hat, or even who he was, never really came up. And why should it? A little absurdity does a body good.

The cartoons weren't laugh-out-loud funny, but instead were flights of gentle whimsy. A peek into my father's psyche, and his conception of the world as it should be rather than how it is.

Happy Father's Day, Pa - You are missed by many and you still make us smile.  -Stilton

BONUS: CHICK, PLEASE...

At a recent roundtable discussion of race, Chick-fil-A's CEO, Dan Cathy, showed that he believes actions are stronger than words. Unfortunately, the words in question were Cathy's declaration that to atone for racism, white people should literally start polishing the shoes of black people wherever they find them. Which won't be socially awkward at all, right?

To show he means business, Cathy then whipped out a shoeshine brush that he keeps in his pocket (this is called "eccentricity" when you're wealthy) and stooped to polish the sneakers of rapper Lecrae Moore - a black man who has been so oppressed by centuries of systemic racism that he currently has a net worth of only $3 million.

Humility is fine, but obsequious virtue-signaling is the opposite of humility. Moreover, Cathy's suggestion strikes us as a good way to get killed. Don't believe us? Pounce on the feet of the next black person you see, and hock up a loogie on their shoes. The odds that you'll finish giving a spit-shine are considerably lower than the likelihood you'll soon find yourself waddling to a hospital for an emergency shoebrush extraction.