All the flap about the Confederate Flag and other symbols of the time in our history that condoned slavery, makes me wonder just how far are we going to go to the extreme in dodging sensitivity. That era was not one of our more honorable ones. Neither was the time that we pushed the Native Americans off of their land. Nor is this current era of homophobia and religious radicalism.
So do we scour our cities, towns and landscapes to make sure there is not a single thing out there to remind us of our failings. Or do we let the statues and flags stay and hold them up as a symbol of what should never happen again?
At the University of Texas in Austin there’s a petition not remove the statue of Jefferson Davis because of his support for the institution of slavery and white supremacy. What he did was wrong. But that is still a part of history and having his statue there is not condoning it its just reflecting it.
A letter to the editor in The Dallas Morning News by Claire Cross sums up the problem with sensitivity perfectly. “History could look back and call this the age of being offended. One is offended by a license plate, another by a flag, some are offended by a statue, others by a meat packer next door. A writer is offended by a local Minister sermon. Some are offended by a team’s name. Some are offended by a painted wall on a residential street, and the list goes on.
One would surmise from this that we just sit around and think of reasons to be offended.”
Well said, Claire. And now lets have some fun.
Friday’s Funnies
This was a editorial cartoon from William “Bubba” Flint. Two political analysts are standing in front of a poster board that has Republican candidate names posted on it: Walker, Ryan, Paul, Rubio, Carson, Cruz, Huckabee, Graham, Patiki, Perry, Trump, Bush, and Santorum.
One of the analysts says, “According to my estimates there will be more presidential candidates then potholes in North Texas.”
The other man says, “I believe the potholes have more depth.”
This is from Shoe. by Gary Brookins and Susie MacNelly Cosmo is sitting at the diner, and the man next to him is jabbering on his cell phone, “Last week I had my broker unload a boatload of my blue chip stocks and pick up some value corn mutuals, hi-yield bonds, and corn-fed sowbelly futures on the open market blah blah blah blah blah blah blah…
“Then Charlie and me caught a train down to Key West to do a little trolling on the beach if you catch my drift blah blah. And when I woke up on Friday morning my head was pounding like sheet metal in timpani factory blah blah blah
“So my doc starts to put on the old rubber glove and I says to him yak yak blah blah blah blah blah.”
Cosmo can’t take it any more. He says, “Excuse me. But do you have call forwarding?”
“No,” the man says.
Cosmo picks up the phone and tosses it. “You do now.”
And this one from Mother Goose and Grimm by Mike Peters is for my friend Dani Greer. Grimm and his pal Ralph are getting ready to eat dinner. Ralph has his electronic tablet out and says, “I’m taking a picture of my dinner so I can show everybody on Facebook what I ate tonight.”
Grimm says, “Ralph you eat dry dog food every night. You only eat dry dog food and every night you take a stupid picture of it and you put it on your Facebook. There’s nothing different. No change. It’s exactly the same night after night. A picture of your pathetic dry dog food.”
Ralph takes his dish over to Mother Goose and asks, “Could you put some parsley on this?”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That’s all from me today. Do you have big plans for the Fourth of July? I have company coming to help me celebrate my birthday, and we will go to a nearby lake to picnic and play. What will you be doing?