We have a lot to do today. That's right, this is going to be WORK! Set aside an hour! Get comfy! Stay hydrated!

Well, there's just more than usual, and for that I apologize; some days, I'm sure, this is just something of a drag. Gah it just keeps scrolling and scrolling. It happens; I just have so much stuff. Today in Clippings, for example, there's some Christmas stuff that I could not resist exploring, because it's such a potent piece of nostalgia for people of a certain age.

Anyway, cheerful crankiness first, then it's back to the 50s, then forward to the 80s. Ready?

There are two viewpoints clanging swords on my Twitter feed about some Minnesota businesses that have announced they’ll reopen, and come and get me copper. One: good, we need to live our lives, and people need jobs, and Two, I want a list so I can boycott them forever and the state should shut them down and forbid them to do business again, ever.

Threading through this predictable scrum, every day: a retweeted word of warning from somehow pleading everyone to stay home, because they got COVID despite doing everything right. Masks, distancing, sanitizing, everything - and they still got it. This is held up as a possibility so dire it becomes the default assumption under which everyone else should live.

If you go to a restaurant, you deserve what you get.

But if you just go out, and do everything right, and you get it, do you deserve it?

No! Because they weren’t going to a restaurant! But they did leave the house. Or they did let someone into their house. They should have known better. So they’re slightly deserving, right?

No.

What if no one’s guilty? What if no one deserves it? I don’t blame anyone, except China. If you’re hoping someone gets it and drawing up fantasy rules whereby they’re forbidden medical treatment, there’s something askew with you. There always was. This just brought it out.

		The split seconds tend to add up until it's how you think half the time. At least.
		It's fun to make up lists. Some people just love lists.

Well, as long as I'm dipping into the tweets, let’s clear out the bin, examine all the bluecheckery I saved for some reason. The question, as always: parody, or sincere?

Later, when it was reversed, it was because of science, not ignorance. Got it? Okay!

Next: I love the Expert reaches out for some example of Them that won’t seem to demonize destitute, drug-wrecked communities, and settles on "rural Indiana." That's safe!

		He drops these lead ingots all day long. It’s not about understanding, in either case. From big city to flyover, it’s a matter of submitting. Once the unenlightened have it explained to them - why gender studies is so important, why a third of the population is probably trans, why you should eat insects to stop climate change, why capitalism is bad, why city life is better, and so on - then they will either be enlightened, and agree, or mulishly refuse to accept the predicates. In either case all that really counts is getting out of the way.

But no one is talking about changing your life

		Yeah, that.

Also, the people of rural Indiana would have to understand that gardening is problematic.

		And they would have to incorporate this into their lives going forward and strive to attain anti-racist gardening practices. They would have to do better and do the work because the people who are harmed by racism in gardening are exhausted, you see.
		Okay, Odo. The uncomfortable politics of individual ownership is a term used by somoene who finds "individual ownership" to be the problem in the first place. And probably the last. It leads to spacial inequity! That's bad because it has inequity in it.

Then there's a different flavor of stupid:

		I'll never forget that scene in the HBO series "Rome" where Caesar fought off his stabbers and ran back across the river.

It’s 1957. There’s hope! We could talk!

Jaw jaw better than war war, as the man said, unless of course you’re reading aloud the terms of surrender.

Even more good news! Nicky’s on board, too!

		By their very nature, eh.

Meanwhile, in the real world:

First of the class:

USS Skate (SSN-578), the third submarine of the United States Navy named for the skate, a type of ray, was the lead ship of the Skate class of nuclear submarines. She was the third nuclear submarine commissioned, the first to make a completely submerged trans-Atlantic crossing, and the second submarine to reach the North Pole and the first to surface there.

Never fired a shot, because she existed, and had company.

“What do you have today?”

“Something incredibly topical that could only run today! Nah, just kidding, trotting out an evergreen.”

They were never this happy.

Two things: one, the cartooning style that was 90% body and 10% legs was never my favorite, and pins the image to a particular time, just as the HUGE HEAD and tiny body was all 20s and 30s.

Two: Knollwood was a small mall. I don’t know what it looks like now; I was there many years ago when Daughter had swimming classes. It was somewhat bereft and underpopulated.

Three: Powers was the small, nice department store. Daytons and Donaldsons fought it out between them, Powers had its own little niche.

The Leamington has been gone for years. In 1957 it was old, but it had been renovated. Like Donaldsons and Daytons, the Leamington fought it out with the Curtis.

Open your eyes! You’ll run into something and drop the plates! I know the closed eyes is the sign of happy self-satisfaction, but C’mon.

Speaking of Dayton’s:

Nice ad. One thing stuck out and made me sit up straight:

Oh my stars and bars. I hadn’t though of that thing in years. I had one as a kid. It’s a Jack in the Box. It had terrifying clowns.

The goofy guy who welcomes you to the Special Room in the Fun House:

The philosopher, who tells you that flowers are like children, they grow to be plucked

The Boss, who runs the show. The other clowns made you nervous but this one seemed to be controlling it all, arranging things, making plans, keeping the show running. He took you by the hand and brought you to Candy Closet in the Special Room in the Fun House

The last clown you would ever see.

That'll do. See you hitherish. Warning: the first 80s ad is probably not safe for work. Safe for a magazine in 1987, but not for work today. You can skip it by starting here.