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26 June 2021

No. 2,280 (cartoon)

You’re going nowhere.

See you there!

27 June 2021

El Abrevadero

Sid and I were lamenting the huge financial disparities in this country, especially when it comes to something as basic as food. It’s hard to believe that so many people don’t have enough to eat when almost everyone I know is trying to avoid gaining weight.

He agreed that there’s nothing one person can do about the big picture, but that he supported effective work to reduce hunger in his neighborhood. He went on to praise an organization that’s been eliminating hunger in his part of town for decades.

That came as a welcome surprise. Show me a huge nonprofit and I’ll show you the executive director’s expense report for flying first class to a conference in Tahiti, hundred-dollar lunches, et cetera.

I confused him when I asked him for the name of the local charity, and understandably so: he was talking about El Abrevadero, the taqueria down the street. He said every dollar he’s spent there went directly to eliminating his hunger, and what could be more effective than that?

28 June 2021

The Things Humans Know

Once upon a time one person could know everything there was to know. That was six or seven centuries ago, give or take a few weeks. The Things Humans Know have increased exponentially since then, and today it’s impossible for anyone to begin to even fathom how much s/he doesn’t know. I was reminded of that this morning when I saw the headline, “Peculiar parasitic fungi discovered growing out of the rectum of a fifty-million-year-old fossilized ant.”

I didn’t read the article. Instead, I just added “peculiar parasitic fungi” to the seemingly infinite long list of Things I Don’t Know.

29 June 2021

Particles of a Real and Rhythmic Whole

I love it when something too good to be true actually is. In this rare example, Nikola Tesla really did say this in 1926:

When wireless is perfectly applied the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain, which in fact it is, all things being particles of a real and rhythmic whole. We shall be able to communicate with one another instantly, irrespective of distance. Not only this, but through television and telephony we shall see and hear one another as perfectly as though we were face to face, despite intervening distances of thousands of miles; and the instruments through which we shall be able to do this will be amazingly simple compared with our present telephone. A man will be able to carry one in his vest pocket.

That was so remarkably prescient that I’m not going to fault him for failing to foresee that the huge brain would be psychopathic and dysfunctional. Instead, I’m going to buy a vest in which I shall carry my television and telephony device.

30 June 2021

Epicurean Slop

Gerrit bought some ridiculously expensive “artisan unifood” for his mangy mongrel. It meets all the legal requirements for human consumption, and the packaging boasts, “Meals you’ll love as much as your dog does!”

I’m skeptical of such marketing hooey, but in this case it’s actually true. The mutt won’t touch the purportedly epicurean slop, and Gerrit also concluded it’s inedible.

1 July 2021

Victor’s Confucian Truths

“Every truth has four corners. As a teacher I give you one corner, and it is for you to find the other three.”

Confucius said that, not me, even though I just did.

I remembered his comment today when I was in Victor’s darkroom and saw three cardboard corners stacked against the stairwell. Clearly, he had passed the exam, but what happened to the original corner Confucius gave him? It’s probably in a museum somewhere. In any case, that’s why I gave my photograph of the three white corners, Victor’s Confucian Truths.

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©2021 David Glenn Rinehart