Presidents.

Gosh, rilly quiet today.

Didn't watch, couldn't bear it. but the reports are in, and it was just as pathetic as everyone expected.

When seeing the first debate responses last night, I was wondering if the fanboys have finally figured out, after all these years, that they've hitched their dearest brittle egos to a screeching harridan-with-combover whose sexual, financial and interpersonal incompetence are plainly visible from every culture on the planet, pro and con, and from every year on the calendar, fore and aft.

And then, when falling asleep, I thought… Nah… They're still in.

They're still in.

Of course they are. The alternative is President Harris.

What's the point? Biden's been a politician for about a half century and wants us to believe Trump is the problem.

Trump's been President for nearly four years and wants to be President another four.

Neither one of these guys are going to do anything but sloganeer, dog whistle, virtue signal, finger-point and preen. Given an opportunity, they'll yell out a pre-written zinger like "Where's the beef?!" or "I'd buy THAT for a quarter!". Blech.

I did a little reading instead. Chopped some veggies, too.

Last night? Music, guitar, eggs. We all make our choices.

I am watching it tonight on youtube I hope.

I am watching it tonight on youtube I hope. ~ NicoleK at September 30, 2020 11:55 AM

Go in prepared for a dumpster fire on both sides and you'll make it through.

Both get a couple of good zingers in on each other, but it's like watching a couple of eighth grade playground bullies argue with each other.

What I didn't get was the number of viewers who said they were screaming at their TV sets.

What did they expect? Nothing surprised ME. Maybe I'm just too numb.

But, I worked on something else while the TV was on, so my time wouldn't be wasted.

In the meantime, sad to say, the world-famous, much-loved, Argentine cartoonist Quino has died, aged 88.

(Creator of Mafalda. The collections of the strip have been in print for half a century - but only got translated into English in this century, after being translated into more than two dozen other languages, about the same number as Calvin & Hobbes.)

Rough translation from a 2004 article, about the strip:

"There was no recent English translation because, Divinsky (the editor) explained, the North American publishers considered to too sophisticated Mafalda "for the American children". And the English of England said that it looked like Peanuts, that he is more or less like saying that a table looks like a horse because it has four legs."

(One Spanish-speaking reader said, in response to the "too sophisticated" claim: "WTF? I learned to READ from Mafalda!")

Here's the BBC obit - there was also one from NBC, plus who knows how many obits in Spanish and the 26 other languages the strip is available in:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-54362413

(when you scroll down, the photo of the books has Spanish editions on the left and the English editions - Mafalda & Friends - on the right)

Skip right towards the comments' section and watch the parade of philosophical fallacies overwhelm your senses:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/09/coinbase-offers-exit-package-to-staffers-bothered-by-anti-politics-stance/

Mike cut-offs are a good idea, and should be used routinely to prevent debaters from interrupting during each other's allotted time.

But the problem with Wallace was not lack of aggression. The problem was that he was blatantly biased against Trump, and not only helped Biden make his points but frequently interrupted to deliberately prevent Trump from making his.

I'd like to bring back the old punishment of exposure in stocks just for Wallace.

I keep trying to find something not to like about the Armstrong letter, but cannot, and want credit for linking it last week.

> the parade of philosophical
> fallacies

You'll see some of 'em here, as well… e.g, from the page you linked:

> CEO then ensures that only
> sociopaths want to work
> there.

Similar to lost your mind, from the comments in this very website: 'Psychopathology is the only explanation for not cohering to my views!'

And the ARS Techica piece is a pretty good read, too. It may well be that Coinbase will survive this, given the nature of its product… Or, that it's particularly threatened by wokism for being composed of tech nerds, who might tend to come from suburban families without a lot of insight into race relations.

@Lenona,

I always thought how strange it was that people in the USA had no idea someone like Quino existed.

Maybe his politically charged cartoons made him persona non grata.

In any case, his works cover a wide range of topics. A great starting point to read Quino is the Lumen Grafica Collection since the books have a strong emphasis on the wordless drawings.

This one and the Guernica parody are sublime:

https://i.imgur.com/AevU9xP.png

Oh my God, they're rebooting E.T. the Extraterrestrial and this time the spaceship lands in China:

https://mobile.twitter.com/GodsTeapot/status/1311434209685172225

> Mike cut-offs are
> a good idea

+

> I'd like to bring back
> the old punishment of exposure
> in stocks just for Wallace.

Dood, what will you do when somebody hits the cut-off button in a way you don't like? You can smirk instead of answering, but when people say things like that, we wonder what sort of feelings they have about the free expression of ideas.

We need to find some daylight between these extremes.

I'm with Hymowitz.

@Crid,

A former Twitter CEO weights in on Coinbase's stance:

https://twitter.com/dickc/status/1311472075903647750

Why men have shorter lifespans NSFW edition:

https://twitter.com/ordurebizarree/status/1311376568590241792

Maybe his politically charged cartoons made him persona non grata.
________________________________

Not that likely. He was fashionably leftist enough for his time. (He was a pro-Israel liberal.)

You can see plenty of his work on YouTube as well.

One book collection of his wordless cartoons released in the U.S. was The World of Quino (1986), praised by Garry Trudeau, Gary Larson, and Charles Schulz, among others. From an Amazon customer in 1997:

"...There are lots of funny folks around, but no one walks that tendentious tightrope between the truely funny and the all-too-painfully-true like Quino does. Whether he's crafting one of his one- or two-page comic vignettes or dashing off a gag, his stuff is urbanely harrowing, poignant, jocular, profound, lighthearted, scintillating, insightful, melancholic, piercing, or some new and exciting combination of the above.

"The greatest pity of Quino relates to the fact that his work is virtually unknown in the U.S. This is particularly odd as he long ago made an aesthetic decision which should have served as a concession to the U.S.'s largely monolingual culture; most of his comics are wordless. To appreciate Quino requires only a handful of things; to be human, to have eyes that work, to have been subject to the griefs and glories of Western Civ, and to have not totally lost your sense of humor..."

And here's what I said about his characters in Mafalda:

Mafalda is 5 years old (she does age, at half-speed) and is always worried about the global situation and plans to be an interpreter at the U.N. when she's older so she can translate politicians' insults into compliments and bring about world peace. Strong patriot, wise, progressive, loves the Beatles and hates soup.***** Has a turtle named Bureaucracy.

The other child characters include:

Felipe, an amiable, procrastinating, daydreaming boy. Loves the Lone Ranger.

Susanita, a bourgeois racist little girl who dreams only of Cinderella, rich husbands, babies, household goods and canasta parties. Always wears a very maternal bubble-cut hairstyle and pearl stud earrings. Fights with Manolito. Talks non-stop.

Miguelito, a narcissistic pseudo-intellectual with feathery hair to match. His Italian family keeps an antiseptic house and worships Mussolini.

Libertad, a tiny, fierce but naive left-wing revolutionary. She resembles Charles Schulz's Sally in her hair, energy, and academic cluelessness.

Manolito, the greedy capitalist stooge. Literally blockheaded, with a crewcut. He helps his father in their low-quality grocery store, plans to own a chain of supermarkets, is (usually) culturally illiterate, and when an angry customer wants to return a rotten salami, says "lady, nobody gets to return their newspapers when they don't like the news!" Worships Rockefeller. Hates the Beatles. Fights with Susanita.

Guille, Mafalda's lisping pacifier-hooked macho baby brother who is also hooked on Brigitte Bardot. Loves soup. Causes frequent embarrassment in typical toddler fashion.

*****From what I understand, decades ago (during the Depression?), soup used to be the only thing most Argentines could afford to eat, so naturally it was mandatory for kids to eat it and the saying sprang up "si no comes la sopa no vas a crecer," which means "if you don't eat your soup you won't grow." From this, Quino turned soup into a symbol of governmental oppression. In real life, Quino loved soup.