Thanks for the Satire

The New Yorker magazine is renowned for its satirical covers. You can buy volumes archiving the covers going back to 1925. Now, it appears, it's time for another giant Obamaflap, this time over this particular effort.

There may have been controversy in the past over how successful a particular New Yorker cover has been, but never a chorus of voices saying it shouldn't have been published, that somehow this particular subject matter transcends the First Amendment. As we have subscribed to The New Yorker for decades, I don't regard this cover as particularly extraordinary as one of their political efforts.....it's perhaps somewhat broadly drawn for my tastes.

The more interesting question here stems from a comment I heard on a cable channel concerning the ability of the average person to draw the satirical inference from the cover, having viewed it "-on a newsstand." The conclusion was that it would take "-great mental effort" for the average person to think his or her way through to the lampooning the magazine intended. I wonder how many people would view this cover in passing and, their brains melting down from attempting analysis of the subject matter, have gone on to raise a controversy on this level. As I know The New Yorker and its probable readership pretty well, my conclusion: damn few.

The controversy stemmed from a rather blatant objection from the Obama campaign directly to the media. The second step, of course, was for the media to create a controversy where none might have ever come about. I can only infer that the Obama campaign wanted the controversy, their motives in doing this I can hardly imagine. Perhaps public attention to the candidate is flagging. The media, of course, and for the nth time, have proven the perfect no-cost tool in inflating a passing incident to a mouth-foaming issue, this time over the putative martyrdom of Barack & Michelle by The New Yorker.

Whatever anyone thinks, its publication is clearly Freedom of the Press (and I'm not defending The New Yorker....), all the rest being opinions & taste. Nothing here goes beyond New York Times v. Sullivan, which means it is in violation of no civil or criminal law. End of story.

Despotism in the Duchy of Daley

First scratch foie gras, now it's smoking on stage. The Windy City is on a fast slide to despotism. Note that the ban on smoking in Jersey Boys was made following a complaint by one (1) person. And isn't the rule of one person the very definition of despotism? Sure it is.

They're Everywhere......

Time for me to start inspecting my grandchildren more closely as they eat their meals....you can never tell when the rejection of an enchilada or some Szechuan garlic chicken is going to be indicative of a budding racist. Where is old tailgunner Joe McCarthy when we need him? How about the House Un-American Activities Committee? That would be the pre-school subcomittee, of course.

Su Casa es Nuestra Casa

This speaks for itself, not merely about The 545, but, more painfully, about us....as in Walt Kelly's line from Pogo, "We have met the enemy, and they are us."

Profundity in xkcd.com

I get some laughs from -a percentage- of this strip, but there's both comedy and tragedy in this one, my friends. Terrible truth, too.

Send Him to France.....

The French appear to have perfected the "don't shoot the hostages" situation, instead substituting "gun down some innocent bystanders." But at least they're doing it in France, whereas there are things that bother me a whole lot more, and closer to home.

I cite as example the comments by FBI Director Robert Mueller, wherein he criticized the recent Supreme Court ruling upholding the individual's right to keep & bear arms, which are chilling, to say the least. I wouldn't know whether to begin with the non-sequiturs in the article, the unsubstantiated claims, or a number of other things, such as how he plans to make his grandchildren's campuses gun-free without the institution of a Campus Security Administration, employing thousands, cost in billions....with yet another bureaucrat in a cheap suit at the helm.
So I'll just leave today's editorial with Shakespeare's abundantly proven assertion "Security is the chief ill of mankind."