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Karmic Strips

Darrin Bell made a good point in a recent edition of his Candorville strip when one of his characters cited the recent case of a couple of Los Angeles cops "who didn't respond to a robbery 'cause they was playin' Pokemon." As a result, they were "fired on the spot."

Bell's cartoon alter-ego, journalist Lemont Brown, replies aghast: "You mean they didn't put them on paid leave? They didn't have to 'investigatei it for months? And nobody in America called those cops 'heroes'?"

"Well," Lemont's sidekick replies, "Ain't as if they beat or shot a non-violent Black man. They did something that ALL Americans could agree was wrong."

And on January 29, Lemont revealed his nerdish leanings when a friend asked what "caused the Big Bang" and Lemont explains: "Some speculate that the inflation field phase-transitioned toward a vacuum state, where it then propagated outward from the nucleation point."

Turns out his friend was simply asking whether a loud noise he'd just heard was "a gunshot or a car back-firing."

In the course of the same week, the strip also dealt withSection 3 of the Constitution's 14^th Amendment and assessed how comics in the 1920s dealt with the Spanish Flu, 

Karmic Strips II 

Two recent Sunday comic strips, The Wizard of Id and Pearls before Swine, made my day. 

In Id, the kingdom's mini-monarch delivers a speech and unwittingly outs the corporations behind his policies on climate change ("ExxonMobil"), the War on Terror ("Lockheed, Boeing"), high-priced drugs ("Cigna, Bristol Myers Squibb") and poisonous Big Ag chemicals ("Monsanto"). In the last panel, a panicked aide yells: "Who left all the sponsors' names on the teleprompter?!!" 

And in Pearls, an enlightened donkey (known as the "Wise Ass on the Hill") criticizes the country's growing wealth gap and reveals the unspeakable truth that some of the world's richest people control powerful media tools that they use to intentionally sow social division to prevent Red and Blue America from focusing on their common enemy — the very rich. 

In the strip, the Wise Ass reveals that there are 664 billionaires in the US who have "more money than the bottom 165,000,000 Americans combined." When asked why more people don't know about this, the Wise Ass replies: "Because the rich own the media. And if you say anything, they'll crush you and replace …" At which point, the Wise Ass is silences as the Pearls strip is visibly demolished before our very eyes. To get the full effect, check out the actual strip online at this link. 

Chronicle Headlines 

A brief salute to some of the Chronicle's recent pun-laden headlines. 

January 15 headline on potential hikes in the cost of pork:
Fears of 'Bacon Crisis' aren’t panning out yet. 

January 17 report on climate-change impacts on the local beer industry:
Barley shortage has brewers over a barrel. 

January 24 story on restoring a local watershed:
Muir Woods creek flows with change. 

January 24 headline on local eateries:
Pandemic feeds profit for restaurant chains. 

January 25 back-to-back sports headline:
Warrior's backbone Looney doing work on the backboard. 

January 26 update on monthly "practice blasts" of emergency siren:
Fixing noon siren: This is a test for S.F. 

Weathering the News  

Personal opinion: Too much precious TV airtime is devoted to weather reporting, Reality: animated weather forecast maps are compelling to watch but they aren't reality. While a seven-day forecast is right about 80% of the time, a 10-day forecast is only right about 50% of the time. 

If you want to know what the weather is like in real time, just look out a window. You don't need to watch a weather reporter standing in knee-high water to know that a serious rainstorm is in progress. 

One good thing about TV weather reporting: some of the reporting assignments couldn't be more appropriate. The ABC News reporter covering tornadoes in Nashville was none other than Danielle Breezy and NBC's Nightly News weekend anchor covering east-coast blizzards was none other than… Kate Snow. 

Trump Unplugged at Arizona Rally 

Security was tight at Donald Trump's recent ego-rally in Arizona. Some newscasts reported on a list containing a number of items that were banned from the event. One of the items on the list was: "electric toasters." Good planning. You wouldn't want some Antifa provocateur throwing a toaster at Mr. Twice-Impeached. Fun fact: Not on the banned list: guns. 

Whites on Trump's Vax Blacklist? 

During his Arizona feisty-fest, Trump told his adoring troops that Democrats are “denigrating white people” by using Covid treatments to “determine who lives and who dies … it’s unbelievable to think this.” According to Trump, a Biden-Fauci Conspiracy was assuring that white people were “being sent to the back of the line.” 

This prompted late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel to observe: “Where does he even get this stuff? This is a man who hasn’t waited in a line since like hot lunch in the fourth grade. White people are being sent to the back of the line? I guess Martin Luther King’s dream has been realized.” 

Kimmel got that last part wrong. MLK's dream was "equality" not Black entitlement. But this raises what would seem to be another culture clash. 

Looking at Trump's on-stage entourage, you can't miss the half-dozen African-American faces prominently placed behind the podium wearing "Blacks for Trump" shirts. And then you had to wonder how these presumed Black Anti-vaxxers processed Trump's revelation that, under the Democrats, White people awaiting Covid jabs were being routinely sent to "the back of the line"—meaning that Biden was willing to sacrifice White people to privilege people of color. Or, if you believe the vaccines are harmful, Biden was protecting White People and accelerating the mass-demise of People of Color. 

I half-expected to see Trump's Black Backers struggling to remove their shirts. 

Speaking of MLK: MLK Speaking 

A timely note from the Berkeley Historical Society asks: Did you know you can listen to Rev. Martin Luther King's 1967 UC Berkeley speech, "America's Chief Moral Dilemma," recorded on the steps of Sproul Hall by KPFA on May 17, 1967? The stirring online presentation is accompanied by a number of great photos from the event, all courtesy of Berkeley Community Media's YouTube channel. For a half-hour video version, see Bay Area Television Archive. 

Lynchings: Still As American as Apple Pie 

There's a new petition making the rounds, courtesy of The Daily Kos. The header reads: "Tell the US Senate to make lynching a federal crime by passing the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act." 

It was a bit of a shock to discover that lynching is NOT recognized as a hate crime in the USA. Now I'm wondering whether decapitations, eviscerations, dismemberments, acid attacks, unprompted pummellings, and immolations are considered "hate crimes." 

Forget the Pepper Spray.
The Hot New Urban Weapons Is a Flashlight 

A new "tactical flashlight" available from Buy-elitetac.com, has proven so devastating that purchasing the device should require background checks. 

As an online video extols: "This US army engineer built a device to give Americans the peace of mind they deserve when outside in the dark." At issue is a powerful flashlight that not only illuminates vast swatches of pitch-black surroundings but is also so powerful it can boil water, cook food, ignite paper, and burn through metal. The video ads make it clear that this new device also can be used as a weapon to burn, blind, and bully victims. 

The Elite Tac website promotes the small flashlight as a weapon that can be used "in self-defense." 

"Strobe mode" (one of the device's five settings) can be used to "get someone’s attention from far away or to blind an attacker." In the case of the burns-through-metal Elite Tac, that last line should read "blind the attacker permanently." It's time to start working on new laws to protect the public from the use of these eye-scorching, flesh-lighting "flashlights." 

Ukraine On Fire 

In Oliver Stone's award-winning (but woefully under-publicized) documentary, "Ukraine on Fire," the acclaimed filmmaker exposes the CIA's role in the 2014 US-backed coup that lead to the violent Kiev Massacre that toppled Viktor Yanukovych's Russian-allied government. Stone charges the Western Media with covering up the real story about political developments in Ukraine—including Washington's complicity with Ukraine's neo-Nazi movements and the role of Joe Biden's Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Victoria "Fuck the EU" Nuland, in deciding who would assume post-coup power as Ukraine's new pro-US puppet. 

In addition to being caught on tape, profanely dismissing members of the European Union, Nuland was also photographed during the US-backed coup handing out free cookies to anti-government protesters in Ukraine's capital. In her defense, Nuland denied the cookie claim and insisted she only handed out "sandwiches."