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.

Brand of Bothers

Cultural change is in the air. Or maybe it's just the lingering smoke from burned businesses - they smell pretty much the same.

In either case, corporate America is bending over backwards to show that it's woke and not racist. Which is why Quaker Oats has announced that they're getting rid of the Aunt Jemima brand of products. Not that Aunt Jemima herself will be out of work long...

And Aunt Jemima was only the first classic brand representative to fall. Because another familiar face will soon be missing from store shelves...

If you didn't read comic books, don't even try to understand this one.

Of course, we want to be helpful in a time of crisis, so we're offering to let the Uncle Ben's Rice folks use this different, more contemporary design we came up with a few years ago...

But lest anyone start thinking that problematic branding is limited only to products with black people's names on the label, we want to point out that products with white people's names on the label can be just as bad, if not even worse...

News Flasher

I'm taking a rapid fire (as opposed to a Wendy's fire) approach to the news today because of the last item in the cartoon above. Daughter Jarlsberg's dog, Ladybug, who currently resides at stately Jarlsberg Manor, has to be taken to the vet today because an anal gland has swollen painfully and the resulting butt bubble looks way too much like Jerry Nadler's face for us to ignore. And though she should be just fine, I worry anyway - because I currently like dogs more than I like people, and nothing in today's news has done anything to change that.

• FDA bans hydroxychloroquine - Medical data from around the world shows that hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), when administered early and with a zinc supplement, is a highly effective treatment for Covid19. Plus, it's safe (millions of doses over decades of use) and cheaper than dirt. But now the FDA has withdrawn their emergency approval of the drug because, in their view, HCQ isn't effective and may be dangerous according to a completely fraudulent study which has already been withdrawn by the con artists who wrote it. So if I know the study was a fraud, why doesn't the FDA?

Clearly, it's because A) they hate Trump and B) they aren't going to get bribed for approving a cheap remedy when the "official" approved drug is Remdesivir at $1000 a dose. The FDA also tells doctors not to give HCQ together with Remdesivir because it may reduce Remdesivir's beneficial effects. Oh, really? Because Remdesivir has no effect whatsoever on reducing mortality and may, at best, reduce hospital stays for those who would have lived anyway by a few days.

The fix is in, and those who are getting their pockets lined or are operating out of political hatred should pay for the innocent lives they're happily sacrificing.

And as long as I'm pissed off about everything related to Covid19, I should mention that we'll never know how many protesters and rioters caught the illness in New York, because Bill de Blasio has ordered healthcare works not to ask if people who test positive were at the protests. Because politics will always be more important than pandemics or public health.

And one more thing (as Columbo used to say when approaching a door): one of the reasons there's so much confusion now about whether or not masks should be worn to help fight Covid19 is that Dr. Fauci now admits lying his ass off originally so medical professionals could grab what few masks were available. The truth: masks were always important and they're still important.

• Atlanta rioters burn Wendy's after new police shooting - (Truth in journalism: since creating the cartoon, I haven't been able to absolutely confirm that the business owner is black.)

I think everyone can pretty much agree that George Floyd's death under a police officer's knee deserves thorough investigation and, if warranted, tough criminal charges. But the police shooting of Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta isn't even vaguely the same. Despite headlines like "Police Kill Black Man For Being Asleep at Wendy's" and media/political accusations that this was murder, the facts - and the video - don't support it.

The police officers treated Brooks with respect and a calm demeanor. When he was found to be legally intoxicated after a breathalyzer test, they asked him to put his hands behind his back to be handcuffed. That's when Brooks erupted into a furious fighting machine (he had a criminal history of violence, including violence against his own children), wrestling with and repeatedly punching the officers before grabbing one of their taser pistols and running. Here's what happened next...

All of this is absolutely clear in the video. Not shown here is that the cop who was fired upon then pitched to one side and fell against that red car as Brooks continue running. So what the second cop saw was that the man who had just violently attacked him had raised a weapon, there was a bang and a muzzle flash, and his partner staggered - perhaps injured. The second officer then shot and ended the situation before it could escalate farther.

(Update/Correction/Apologia: I got an important part of the sequence wrong in my summary above. It was not the second cop who shot Brooks, it was the one closest to him - who had just dodged the Taser shot. Sorry about the error!)

Here's a helpful tip to bad guys of every race, creed, and color: if you don't want to die, don't shoot anything at the police. And a tip for rioters: burning down a business that had nothing to do with the incident doesn't help your cause.

• Obama to join Biden for online fundraiser - I can only imagine that Barry is praising Allah for Covid19, because it means he won't ever have to actually share a stage with Joe Biden. Nor will Obama have to be wearing pants with a nice crease during the event. In fact, he may not wear pants at all - who's to know?

I don't really have anything clever to say about this "event." Obama still sucks, Biden is still the world's most prolific gaffe machine, and I sure as heck won't be watching.

• Seattle gives "CHOP" concrete barricades for their imaginary kingdom - Confirming that Seattle is now officially The Dumbest Place On Earth, city officials are giving the occupying protesters concrete barricades to replace the old wooden and plastic ones. While not specifically stated, I assume that this was done as a public safety measure, because protesters who fire AK-47s at police will be much less likely to get hurt if they can hide behind rebar-enforced concrete.

UPDATE: GLAND OF PLENTY

Ladybug is home and doing fine now that her anal gland, much like a Seattle protester, has been able to express itself. She'll be on antibiotics for a couple of weeks, then get rechecked.

But clearly she's feeling better already. Now that her backdoor Nadler face has been drained, she was finally able to scurry into the backyard and take a big, healthy Schiff.