Yesterday, it was reasonably quiet. I had already managed to list all the days in May I needed to make cartoons for (11 of them), and made the first five, taking me up through mid month. So I figured it was time to work on the other six, for which I had chosen events, but not started on the actual construction. And, by golly, I managed to finish all of them.
Cartoon –
Short Takes –
The Conversation – How burying the dead keeps the living human
Quote – Humans have always cared for their dead – so much that archaeologists often consider mortuary rites among the traits that distinguish Homo sapiens from other species. In other words, it is a fundamental part of being human. Humans’ close relatives also showed concern for the dead. The Neanderthals practiced burials, and other extinct hominids probably did too. Even chimpanzees appear to grieve over deceased relatives. But no other species goes to such extraordinary lengths to care for its dead.
Click through – At least since Helen Steiner Rice’s work began to appear on sympathy cards (remember her?) I’ve had a pet peeve about the “Don’t cry for me” people. That sentiment is so controlling. The death may be theirs, but the grieving is mine, and I need to do what I need to do. (As morbid as this sounds, sitting down and having a chat with a funeral director, not at a time of grief but just a normal chat, about what he or she thinks about the purpose of funerals and other mortuary customs are for can be illuminating.)
Democtratic Underground and Time Magazine – Inside Zelensky’s World
Quote – The nights are the hardest, when he lies there on his cot, the whine of the air-raid sirens in his ears and his phone still buzzing beside him. Its screen makes his face look like a ghost in the dark, his eyes scanning messages he didn’t have a chance to read during the day. Some from his wife and kids, many from his advisers, a few from his troops, surrounded in their bunkers, asking him again and again for more weapons to break the Russian siege. Inside his own bunker, the President has a habit of staring at his daily agenda even when the day is over. He lies awake and wonders whether he missed something, forgot someone. “It’s pointless,” Volodymyr Zelensky told me at the presidential compound in Kyiv, just outside the office where he sometimes sleeps. “It’s the same agenda. I see it’s over for today. But I look at it several times and sense that something is wrong.” It’s not anxiety that keeps his eyes from closing. “It’s my conscience bothering me.”
Click through to DU for an excerpt. Or click through to Time for the full article. Part of the screen is covered at Time, but enough isn’t that it is readable.
Letters from an American April 28, 2022
Quote – It has been hard for me to see the historical outlines of the present-day attack on American democracy clearly. But this morning, as I was reading a piece in Vox by foreign affairs specialist Zack Beauchamp, describing Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s path in Florida as an attempt to follow in the footsteps of Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, the penny dropped…. Trump’s type of family autocracy is hard to replicate right now, and our history has given us the knowledge and tools to defend democracy in the face of the ideology of states’ rights. But the rise of “illiberal democracy” or “soft fascism” is new to us, and the first step toward rolling it back is recognizing that it is different from Trump’s autocracy or states’ rights, and that its poison is spreading in the United States.
Click through. Yeah. Whether we like it or nor, if we are going to fight something and win, it behooves us to know and understand what it is we are fighting.
Food For Thought
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