A number of people didn’t receive the cartoon yesterday. I now know why and am always happy to resend upon request. Also, all Homemade Cartoons since April 1st when I began posting them are available for viewing on my blog
I now begin my 7th month of doing this and if you have friends who might be interested in being added to my distribution list have them contact me at peter.imber@gmail.com
By the way I have lost several subscribers along the way who have disagreed with my points of view. I have no problem with that and in addition if you are simply instantly deleting these cartoons and commentaries everyday when they arrive in your mailbox, I won’t mind at all if you ask me to stop sending them.
I want to thank all of you who do read them and often respond to me with comments, insights and stories of your own. In the time of COVID-19 we all need to find ways to cope and create routines for ourselves that fill our days and lift our spirits… Your responses raise mine.
Happy October 1st! Here in Maine it looks like it’s going to be a nice day and I hope where you are it will be too.
Peter
“I intend to leave after my death a large fund for the promotion of the peace idea, but I am skeptical as to its results.” –Alfred Nobel
Nobel was of course the Swedish chemist, engineer, and industrialist who invented dynamite and other more powerful explosives and who also founded the Nobel Prizes.
I didn’t watch the “debate” and apparently am the better for it. I have been telling people for months that Biden should not have agreed to do this and needed to have demanded there be a mute button for the moderator and instant fact checkers as well as Trump’s releasing his tax returns as a precondition. Trump would have never agreed and there would not have been this debacle.
I didn’t see the point of giving Trump the opportunity to do exactly what he did. There is no law that mandates presidential debates. After the first Nixon–Kennedy debates in 1960 it was 16 years before presidential candidates agreed to participate in them again. Will America have to endure two more of these in 2020? Can a country flog itself? I bet Vladimir Putin enjoyed seeing this… “This is Vladimir Putin and I approved this menagerie.”
I have a new moniker for Trump
The Bully Puppet!
—————–
Ok, so people take sides– Democrat or Republican, Dodgers or Yankees, Coke or Pepsi and as I perceive things you’re either a Mickey Mouse or a Donald Duck fan. I’m a Duck man.
If Mickey was salt, then Donald was pepper. Mickey may have misbehaved in the employ of the Sorcerer and gotten whacked in the butt with a broomstick but really? He was a goody two ears. Did he ever get in Donald Duck spitting fire kind of trouble? You bet he didn’t. I’ve found a list of some of Donald’s most egregious misdeeds.
He:
–Looted his nephews’ piggy bank to pay for taking Daisy out
–On another occasion destroyed her living room in a fit of rage when he couldn’t open a window
–attempted to kill a cow with a hatchet
–wrecked a Christmas display because he couldn’t stand the repetitious caroling
–put lit firecrackers in Huey, Dewey and Louie’s Trick or Treat bags
And I could keep going.
One of my best friends does a spot on angry Donald Duck imitation when he hits a bad golf shot. But like Donald he may sound vicious but he’s not malicious. I haven’t mentioned the other Donald who’s both and there’s no need to. I’m a Duck man and the president has just tested positive for COVID-19 and will be quarantined from my cartoon world while we all gasp at the irony of this development. Seemingly, just one more event in a year that had already blown the circuit breakers of history off the wall months ago.
Anyway, I’m here to talk about Disney and having been grandfathered into the Walt Disney Company when ABC was acquired by it in 1995, my accrued service time ended up totaling 26 years in both mouse and human years.
At year 20 I received my first employee appreciation award which was a standard practice then. The item was a Mickey Mouse watch, not a cheap one either. It was to be engraved with my name. I tried to change that. You see, my son went to work at Disneyland as soon as he could drive and even decided to attend college at UC Irvine nearby (and become the only Phi Beta Kappa in our family) so he could continue to work at the park. I asked to have his name put on my watch but was told that was not allowed. No big deal. My son has a nice watch.
At year 25 I was up for another award and this time it was a statue– a statue of Tinkerbell and spell check just informed me that it’s Tinker Bell and not Tinkerbell.
The statue didn’t appear to have any utilitarian value until I realized it might make a good doorstop (and doorstop is one word and not two.). That’s what I did with it but shortly afterward I bumped into it and cut my ankle seriously. I’m not making this up, Tink’s wings are sharp. No big deal.
What I really would have liked is the statue of Donald Duck. You only get him after 40 years of working for the Mouse which means if I were still at ABC News I’d have four years yet to go. Who gets to work for 40 years for one company anywhere anymore? You’d have to be a cartoon character.
Maybe I should put my Tinker Bell on eBay. Somebody’s asking $700 for one identical to mine. No, I think I’ll keep her. We’ve patched things up. I don’t even have a scar.
—————–
Don’t know much about astrophysics but enough to understand that a light year is the distance light travels into space in the course of one calendar year on earth and that’s about six trillion miles. If that doesn’t resonate as fast or far, consider that by using this measurement of speed it takes about eight minutes for light to get from the sun to us. Traveling at such a clip in your car would definitely get you pulled over and a significant bump up on your insurance premium but hardly anywhere out into the universe.
We are a small fry here on our planet but we certainly have a lot of big problems and we’re not doing a very good job at tackling most of them. Since the debate a few days ago and the president’s subsequent coming down with the coronavirus, earth’s insignificance in the incalcuable scheme of things is something I’ve been thinking about. Robert Crumb, whose comics I have collected and keep in a brown paper bag, may have pretty much nailed it over 50 years ago.
Are there levels of despair that can be delineated? Is it all or nothing? How about if we no longer are actually capable in America of solving our problems and whoever is the president may matter about as much as who wins baseball’s World Series? Where does that rank?
I know this is a bleak outlook but let me offer my evidence and let you decide if I’m just standing on the Tallahatchie bridge and actually considering jumping off or just despairing at others in far more distress than I am who may be ready to leap at any moment.
Exhibit A– On my first day of sheltering in place because of COVID-19 last March 16th the DOW closed at 27,682. Yesterday, almost six months later the DOW closed at 27,682.
That’s a weird coincidence to be sure but what it tells me is that for those of us fortunate enough to have the wherewithal to be invested in the stock market, we may not have made any money but we are far more likely to have been unscathed by the pandemic thus far. We’ve stocked our pantries and can pay our mortgages.
The coronavirus deaths, the political chaos, government dysfunction, job losses and, unless we live in California and the Far West, ominous episodes of climate change have only impacted us marginally. Life may be inconvenient right now but it has not become terribly difficult or totally overwhelming.
We who angst but are still receiving our social security and pension checks plus drawing on our investment income should be giving thanks. In major ways we are insulated from the country’s trauma at least in the short term.
Do we really believe a different president will be able to accomplish anything at this point other than to slow our nation’s decline? Will he or she remedy injustice and end racism? Will he or she end the inequities of the Electoral College and gerrymandering? Will he or she have any chance of convincing companies and corporations to value their employees at least as much as their stockholders? Will he or she improve the lives of everyone, fix healthcare, our public schools and decaying infrastructure? Will he or she get us to really take meaningful steps to confront climate change?
Our problems are obvious but are their solutions attainable? I wish I knew.
—————–
—————–
This week a respite from the news, instead, some stories that have absolutely no connection to what’s going on in the world. We all need a break. At least I know I do.
Maine has a state motto– The Latin word “Dirigo” which means I lead. But just as recognizable as the official motto is the unofficial one you see a few miles up the road on a sign by the side of l-95 after you cross the Piscataqua River Bridge from Portsmouth to Kittery– “Maine… The Way Life Should Be.”
I came here 10 years ago and Maine has been mostly the way life should be for me. Although I’ll always be “from away” I can deal with that. If Maine won’t adopt me, I’ll adopt it and since my wife was born here, doesn’t that give me some kind of special consideration with benefits? No? Ok, I guess not and that’s fine, but what about this guy I’m going to tell you about?
The main character in our story today was born and grew up in Maine almost on the New Hampshire border. He had lived all his life– 90 plus years –on the family farm. His had been a quiet life in which he minded his own business and became a respected, if not prominent, member of the community. But with the introduction of GPS (global positioning systems) and EDM (laser electronic distance measuring) little did this Mainer know that these new tools were about to pose a threat to his very identity.
You see, a few years ago the state of Maine decided to resurvey its borders and using the latest technology at its disposal, there were some surprising findings. Mapping errors were discovered that would need to be corrected. One of them involved the property line of our Mainer’s farm. The new Maine–New Hampshire boundary put his farm in the Granite State and not just by a little bit. No, it seems the farm was and had been entirely in the wrong state since 1776.
When this information was reported to the town office there was shock and concern. How would the news be broken to someone who had assumed he had been a Mainer for nearly a century but now had been revealed to have lived a lie? He was a stranger in their midst.
A lot of thought and planning went into how to break the news. The town leaders decided they would go together and take a social worker and an MD with them. An ambulance with EMTs would park outside the farmhouse.
The day to break the news came and the wary procession arrived at the farm and was greeted as you would expect with puzzlement by our about to be former Mainer.
The farmer’s small living room was crowded when a member of the board of selectmen opened the conversation.
Selectman: “I’m afraid you don’t know why we’re here today.”
Mainer: “No, I don’t.”
Selectman: “Well, I’m sorry to say I have some bad news. A new survey of the border found that your farm is in New Hampshire and you no longer and never have been a Maine resident.”
Total silence ensued as the farmer took in what he had just been told. A minute or two went by before he shrugged and spoke.
Mainer: “OK.”
Selectman: “Whew, you are taking this so great. We were all very worried.”
Mainer: “Nah, I’m fine with it. It’s actually a relief. I couldn’t have taken another one of those Maine winters.”
Is the story true, false or just apocryphal? Does it matter? What is for certain is that one of those Maine winters will soon be upon us.
Peter
—————–
Did you know that Dr. Benjamin Spock’s ashes were buried in Rockport, Maine? At least some of them were but not all. Spock’s second wife Mary Morgan also took a few with her to California and paddled out into the Pacific Ocean in a canoe to scatter them there. Spock was 94 when he died. Is it surprising that she had the energy to do that? Not at all, she was 40 years younger than he was and today’s Maine story is about her and not him.
The Spocks spent winters in Arkansas and summers in Maine and even though they had a house in Camden they liked living on their sailboat. One evening they came ashore to go to the movies in Rockland where the following conversation took place between Mrs. Spock and the owner of the Strand Theatre.
Mrs. Spock: “You know, when we are down south in the winter the movie tickets there don’t cost as much as they do here in Rockland.”
Theater owner: “Well, all I can tell you is that we think we charge a fair price.”
Mrs. Spock: “Hmmm… You know, when we’re up in Bar Harbor the movie tickets there don’t cost as much either as they do here at the Strand.”
The “up in Bar Harbor” is a glaring tipoof that someone is “from away.” Mainers say they’re going down to Bar Harbor and up to Boston. It’s not up east, it’s Downeast for a reason. Apparently, it’s sailing terminology and maybe the good doctor just bit his tongue when he heard his wife mis-Maine-speak but then again he was born in New Haven, Connecticut and not North Haven, Maine.
Mrs. Spock: “Tell me is there a reason why your tickets are more expensive than they are in Bar Harbor?”
The theater owner thought for a moment and then responded to her.
Theater owner: “You know, the only one I can think of is that the theater owner in Bar Harbor must be from the South.”
That theater owner was my late father-in-law Meredith Dondis. His parents built the Strand in 1923. My wife Jo, the third generation of the Dondis family devoted to the Strand’s existence, became the chair of its board of directors when the theater became a non profit business in 2013 and is still chair to this day.
Tickets to the movies at the Strand pre COVID-19 were $9 and $8 for seniors. In New York City movie ticket prices range from $13 to $20. I don’t know what tickets cost in the South or Bar Harbor for that matter.
When you’re a district attorney for 35 years, you’re bound to have been faced with some delicate, outlandish or just plain odd situations. So a phone call after midnight from the police chief asking for advice was nothing this D.A. hadn’t dealt with before. Or was it? The D.A. listened to the police chief’s predicament and quickly made a decision.
“Just let the guy go and I’ll handle it in the morning,” was what Michael Povich decided.
Mike Povich was the long serving district attorney for two Maine counties– Hancock and Washington. Together they are larger in size than Connecticut but have a population just barely more than that of Maine’s largest city, Portland. Povich is the relative of my wife Jo so this story comes from the source. But let me tell you a little about Mike before going any further.
I was a big fan of the television series Columbo where Peter Falk played a homicide detective who always tripped up his suspects by allowing them to think he was a bungling pest. No, Mike Povich wasn’t by any means Columbo but he could easily be taken for granted. He has a strong Maine accent and a folksy manner more befitting a used car salesman than a razor sharp Harvard educated lawyer and classical pianist. So, with that information we’re ready for the tale.
It was a summer night on Mt. Desert Island (Is it pronounced desert or dessert? You hear both but it was French explorer Samuel de Champlain who gave it the name originally so skip desert but if calories are an issue, skip dessert.) and some kids from the nearby Hancock County seat of Ellsworth were about to precipitate the trouble that would wake up Mike Povich.
They had rented a limo owned by a local man who they’d hired to drive them in it. Destination: Mt Desert Island and the homes of the rich who far out number the famous there. Things were going fine until the kids told the limo owner/driver that they wanted to get closer to one of the stately homes that had a circular driveway– which should perhaps be more accurately called horseshoe driveways since they form only part of a circle– to get a closeup look.
The owner/driver who was known to be more of a pushover than pushy wasn’t willing to accede to the request at first but, pressured to comply, then made an unfortunate choice of driveways. It was the house belonging to Martha Stewart.
Stories about Stewart in Maine that I’ve heard have not been flattering. One of my favorites, which in fairness may be apocryphal, involved her attempt to buy a boat, not just any boat but one from the Hinckley Company, one of Maine’s premiere boat builders that’s been in business for nearly 100 years. After Stewart was told she could place an order but the boat would not be delivered for about two years, she threw a fit and demanded to see the owner. It was a short encounter…
Stewart: “Don’t you know who I am?”
Hinckley Company’s owner: “Yes, you’re number 28.”
So, the limo has now entered the Stewart estate– a 35,000 square foot stone mansion –and when Martha hears it moving on her gravel she immediately orders her caretaker to shut the gates. Her next move is a phone call to the police…
Stewart: “I have trespassers on my property and I want them arrested. Send your officers here pronto.”
Some time elapses and the limo and its occupants keep their cool but when the police arrive Martha does anything but. Her rage is more directed at the driver than the kids and she insists that he be jailed and the proverbial book be thrown at him.
Now, we’re at the point in the story where the police chief has phoned D.A. Mike Povich and gotten the directive to let the limo driver go home.
The next morning before Povich even sits down at his desk Martha Stewart has already called and is put through to him. She’s still infuriated and demanding prosecution…
Stewart: “The driver trespassed on my property and I insist that the full force of the law be brought to bear.”
Mike listened to her tirade and then in a calm and very Maine voice…
Povich: “Well, Ms. Stewart I could do that but it seems we might have a situation here.”
Stewart: “What kind of situation?”
Povich: Let me ask you a question. When you saw the limo in your driveway did you then close the gates?”
Stewart: “Yes, I ordered my caretaker to do that. I didn’t want them to escape.”
Povich: “Did you warn them that they were trespassing on your property before the gates were shut?”
Stewardt: “No, I didn’t have to, that was obvious. They were already inside my driveway.”
Povich: “So, you then kept them there and called the police?”
Stewart: “Yes, that’s exactly what I did. So what is this “situation” you’re referring to? They trespassed on my property and I caught them doing it.”
Povich: “Well, here’s how I see it. Yes, they might have trespassed but you didn’t warn them that they had and then detained them. That’s illegal and one might even call it kidnapping. Now, what would you like me to do?”
The sound of a phone slamming was probably heard in both Hancock and Washington counties that morning.
—————–
My son was born in Southern California and has never lived anywhere else. To him snow is something you visit. I grew up in Pennsylvania and then went to college in New Hampshire. I knew snow but avoided it for nearly 40 years by residing in Mediterranean climates. I’ve been in Maine now for a decade and in winter snow visits me again regularly and hangs around way too long.
I’m not a skier or a snowboarder. I don’t skate or toboggan. I’m not shaken by a snowstorm nor am I particularly stirred. I’m happy to just look out the window with a martini in my hand that was prepared either way (with apologies to James Bond).
Blizzards are not a good time to be outside and I have first hand experience with one actually coming inside. A number of years ago we had a nor’easter– a big one. Nor’easters are actually classified meteorologically as cyclones. This one dropped two feet of snow on our area but it was the wind that woke us up in the middle of the night. I thought a tree had fallen and gashed a hole in our roof.
Instantly, the bedroom turned frigid and snow was blowing in my face. It wasn’t a tree through the roof, although we had that happen a few years later. No, the wooden and glass insert from a window in the room that I use as an office had been blasted out of its frame and onto the floor. Miraculously, It hadn’t broken and I was able to snap it back in place. I figure the wind gusts that dislodged it must have been well over 50 miles an hour.
So, the Maine story today is about being caught in and then rescued from a blizzard. It’s a tale of friendship formed between a good samaritan and the man he may have saved from death and who really should have saved him in another sense. By way of explanation let me draw you a picture.
Cushing is a town in Knox county about 20 miles from where I live. Its population is closer to one thousand than two. It has a Zip Code but no grocery store or gas station. There’s no downtown or uptown. It’s a location with houses. I have good friends there and I don’t think I’m offending them by saying that Cushing is a bit out of the way. If you get stranded in your car in a snowbank, that’s not a good thing to have happen there.
And so it was fortunate that our good samaritan arrived upon the scene and saw this particular car that had slid off the road. He retrieved its occupant before that person’s luck might have possibly run out. Seeing that the driver was pale and shivering, the rescuer took him home with him to warm him up.
Good Samaritan: “How long do you think you were stuck there?”
Rescued Man: “An hour or so. Maybe longer. Good thing you found me.”
Good Samaritan: “It’s wicked cold and snow’s still comin’ down. I’m glad I did.”
The two men talked for a while until the rescued man’s wife showed up to take him home. Their brief encounter led to more get-togethers between them and they struck up a friendship.
What did they have in common or talk about? Hunting and fishing perhaps? Who knows? They spent time together and enjoyed each other’s company. This is something I identify with. I play golf and have made wonderful friends through the most devilish game man has ever created. Invariably, when I get home Jo asks me how I played and sometimes also what I and the guys talked about. Occasionally, I’m able to say I played well but I shrug off the other question with a “nothing” or a “I don’t remember” and that’s the truth, I don’t. Although we spend many enjoyable hours together on the golf course my friends and I don’t often ask the kind of questions of each other that I’ve been assured are ones women consider all but required.
So back to the story. A few years have passed since the rescue and the good samaritan is at a bar with a different friend. It was just after the Holidays.
Good Samaritan: “You know a few winters ago I saved my friend Andrew, pulled him out of his car in a snowbank. He was about to freeze to death.”
Friend: “Yeah, I remember you told me about that. You still see him sometimes, right?”
Good Samaritan: “Yeah, but I think there’s something about him I don’t get.”
Friend: “What’s that?”
Good Samaritan: “Well, every year now I get a note from him wishing me a Merry Christmas but instead of it being on a Christmas card. It comes with a drawing. I know he has the money to buy a card.”
Friend: “Are they good drawings?”
Good Samaritan: “Yeah, they are. This time I got one of a man sitting on a log. But there’s always something strange about them.”
Friend: “What’s that?”
Good Samaritan: “They’re never completely finished.”
Friend: “So, what do you do with them?”
Good Samaritan: “I give them to my four year old. She likes to color in the parts that aren’t done.”
—————–
I honked my horn a few days ago. We have an intersection near our house where the main street which happens to be U.S. 1 has a stop sign and the side street our house is set back from does not and has the right of way. It’s unusual and understandably confusing. A driver of a car in front of me coming from that side street stopped and didn’t realize he could just go through so I honked. Not right away mind you and only for an instant. And not out of impatience like I would have reacted in Los Angeles to having to wait unnecessarily. Actually, I think I get the oil changed in my car as often as I honk its horn.
Driving in Maine is stress free for me. So is the post office, the town office, the Social Security office and the Bureau of Motor Vehicles office. Lines pretty much for everything are short up here in the Midcoast. We don’t complain about the bureaucrats, we even know some of them. It’s good to be able to recognize the faces behind the counters, the checkers at the supermarket, the person who delivers your mail, the mechanic who works on your car. But I digress.
Maine, you might already know, is the oldest state in America demographically. It edges out Florida at this point with just over 20% of its population 65 or older. The whole country is predicted to reach that percentage of 65 plussers in the next 30 years as we move from the Baby Boom to the Geezer Gang.
I was 63 when I arrived here in 2010 so I didn’t bring Maine’s elderly numbers down for very long. Little known fact: When I was a member of my college fraternity it had the highest grade point average of any on campus. That was an instance where I did lower the curve. But I digress again.
Jo and I moved here from California and in accordance with Maine law we registered our car and got new drivers licenses. Things went very smoothly at the local Maine Bureau of Motor Vehicles office until we needed to have our pictures taken. The machine that was supposed to that was being repaired and so, we had to wait.
It was late morning and we were the only people in the office besides the staff until an eldery man entered the room. By the front door there was a ticket dispenser from which you took a number like you might in a delicatessen for your pastrami sandwich. It took a minute or two for the elderly man to figure this out but he did and then sat down.
It only took another minute or two for a bright light to start flashing with the number he had drawn but the man did not move. The light kept flashing and the man kept his seat until finally a voice shouted from the otherside of the plexiglass partition.
Bureau of Motor Vehicles person: “Sir, are you 89?”
The elderly man: “What did you say?”
BMV person: “I said are you 89?”
The elderly man: “Older.”
I knew from that moment I was going to like being in Maine.
According to Wikipedia, the phrase “A picture is worth a thousand words” originated at the turn of the 20th century and the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen gets credit for almost owning it– “A thousand words leave not the same deep impression as does a single deed.” is what he wrote and shortly after that “deed” became “picture.”
But it probably wasn’t until the advent of television that the expression had real consequences in American politics– The Nixon-Kennedy debates in 1960 may still be the most heralded example. Nixon looked like Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman compared to JFK’s Sir Lancelot in Camelot in their first debate and although many of those who only heard the debate on radio thought Nixon had won, the consensus was resoundingly the opposite by others who watched it on TV. There was a visceral reaction to how the two candidates appeared and its impact may not have determined the outcome of that election, but it’s clear that viewing the debate on television was a different experience than hearing it on radio and helped Kennedy while hurting Nixon.
I’m not sure many voters give a gnat’s ass about a fly sitting on Vice President Pence’s head on Wednesday night but what’s pretty certain is that the fly who wouldn’t say goodbye has become and will likely remain the most memorable takeaway from the evening. The moderator, Susan Page, said she didn’t notice the fly at all and perhaps that’s because she was further away from Pence and Senator Harris than she might have been due to abundant caution in the time of COVID-19.
I think we can conclude that those who were watching at home (I wasn’t.) had the closer, if not better, vantage point than those in the room. This is not the first time in American politics that what others saw or heard at home was something different than what those actually present at the event may not themselves have seen or heard.
Remember this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6i-gYRAwM0
It became forever known as the “Dean Scream” and led to Democratic candidate Howard Dean’s being mercilessly ridiculed on late night television talk shows in 2004. It didn’t single handedly doom his campaign which was failing on its own by his third place finish in the Iowa Caucus, but the scream heard on TV that unleashed such mockery of him hastened his candidiacy’s demise. The irony in this instance was that the “Dean Scream” was barely noticed above all the noise in the room where Dean and his supporters were gathered.
Dean was whipping up his troops who were disheartened by his poor showing in Iowa and as he got louder and more emotional so did they. The device he was speaking into for amplification and broadcast was what’s called a unidirectional microphone. It’s designed to separate the sound of what is closest to it (in this case Dean’s voice) from whatever other noise is in the background. The microphone did its job and the crowd that was screaming along with Dean was actually as loud or even louder than he was in that room but that wasn’t what reached viewers and listeners at home. Like the fly on Pence’s hair that wasn’t even seen by the moderator, those not present in the room weren’t hearing the same thing as those who were.
I had a boss once who said to me that perception is more important than reality. She was talking about television news but surely it also often applies to life in general. How we look doesn’t signify who we are but it serves as the starting point in forming an impression if we don’t have anything else to go on. The expression “Clothes make the man” goes all the way back to the Greeks. Bright colored dyed tunics indicated you had the drachmas to buy them.
Whether we accept it or not, physical attractiveness can be a benefit or a detriment in the course of one’s life. In politics today how you look and sound on a screen is important if not crucial. The short article in Scientific America I’ve pasted in a link to below offers evidence that “The look of a winner” is something that we sense and respond to already as children.
It’s said that Abraham Lincoln could never have been elected president now. He had a face the camera didn’t love. I hope I would have voted for him anyway. There were no flies on Abe.
—————–
“The more things change the more they stay the same.”
–Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr
“History doesn’t repeat itself but it rhymes.”
–Mark Twain
“So why bother to study history?”
–Peter Imber
Ok, I’m a cynic. I think I’ve told you that already. Yes, I know the George Santayana quote: “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” And that’s my point. What has our species learned from its history? Seems to me we keep going down the same paths making the same mistakes over and over.
So, maybe we should accept the fact that human nature actually isn’t capable of learning from history and that won’t ever change. If in fact we avoid extinction by way of nuclear war, catastrophic pandemic or flooding and heat stroke from climate change, history will eventually be written about our period of time on earth. And if there are historians, anthropologists and sociologists to analyze and hypothesize centuries from now about who we were and how we lived what will they study? The atomic bomb? COVID-19? Hurricanes and wildfires? Cabbages and kings? The momentous of the moment?
I have a different idea for what they should.
How about television commercials? It’s been estimated that the average American who lives to be 80 (That’s average life expectancy today.) will have spent four years of his or her life watching television commercials. I think hundreds of years from now their content may reveal just as much about our times as the usual stuff.
What does this have to do with today’s cartoon? Well, this is something I’ve thought about for a long time and it has everything to do with side effects. I’ve watched thousands of commercials for prescription drugs. Why? Because commercials always reflect who is sitting at home seeing them. If it’s sports then it’s beer, pickup trucks and deodorant. If it’s network news they’re aimed at my demographic and our aches and pains and ailments and diseases. As part of my job I watched 22 minutes of news on the evening news and eight minutes of commercials interspersed within that news nearly every night for 28 years.
Virtually every prescription drug commercial speeds up near the end to warn viewers of all the unfortunate things that might happen to you if you ingest, apply, inject or however else you use the drug being hawked. The pharmaceutical companies are required to tell you about the side effects and we’ve been so bombarded with “stop taking immediately”, “if symptoms persist call your doctor”, “may cause bleeding, cancer or death” that the lists of side effects have no effect.
Has any generation before us been lulled into passivity and obliviousness in this way? I think there are a lot of our commercials that will be fascinating to those looking at them in the future and could provide genuine insight into what life was like for us. I wish I could be around to hear the reaction to one commercial in particular. Imagine the conversation…
Researcher #1: “What the hell is that?”
Researcher #2: “I think the announcer called it a salad shooter.”
Rearcher #1: “They shot people with salad?”
Reacher #2: “I don’t know. Maybe just the vegetarians.”
—————–
Rush Limbaugh is our modern day Socrates. Think about that. An intellect and talent superior to anyone in his industry slandered by enemies to such a ridiculous extent that it is jaw-dropping to hear what ordinarily rational people will say about him.” –Sheldon Agonson
“I am wiser than this man, for neither of us appears to know anything great and good; but he fancies he knows something although he knows nothing; whereas I, as I do not know anything, so I do not fancy I do.” –Socrates
—————–
A late post today after a scheduled visit in Boston. Here’s the post appointment interview with me…
Interviewer: “So, Peter when did you learn you had cancer?”
Me: “Almost four years ago. It was the morning after the election. I woke up late and was feeling depressed already and there it was.”
Interviewer: “There was what?”
Me: “A message on something called My Chart that shares your medical stuff with you. I had had an ultrasound because my GP discovered enlarged lymph nodes in my neck during my yearly physical. After I saw the result she called within an hour and got the ball rolling on the first of three biopsies that confirmed a diagnosis of lymphoma.”
Interviewer: “How did you take the news?”
Me: “I didn’t know what to think other than this wasn’t good news and in the course of the next week the news got worse because I was told I was stage 4 and needed to start chemotherapy right away.”
Interviewer: “And did you?”
Me: “Fortunately no. As Humprhy Bogart said in Casablanca, I was misinformed. Not to get into too much detail, Jo and I decided immediately to get a second opinion and got the name of a doctor at Dana-Farber in Boston who was highly recommended. We scored an appointment and a few weeks later I got dressed up like I was going for a job interview because I wanted this doctor to take me as a patient and he did.”
Interviewer: “What kind of lymphoma were you diagnosed with?”
Me: “My lymphoma is called small lymphocytic lymphoma, known as SLL and under a microscope it is identical to a leukemia called chronic lymphocytic leukemia or CLL. The difference between the two as I understand it is that SLL presents in the lymph nodes whereas CLL is just in your blood.”
Interviewer: “So, that was four years ago and you’re alive and active. What are your symptoms and prognosis?”
Me: “Actually, I was probably living with SLL for several years before it was diagnosed. Now, this may sound strange but other than my blood tests that have shown a slow but steady progression of the disease I haven’t had any symptoms and I have not had any treatment either. And as for a prognosis, there are some people with my cancer that never get treated.”
Interviewer: “Ok, but aren’t there drugs that can treat the disease that you could be taking?”
Me: “Here’s the thing. Both SLL and CLL are incurable and a patient’s outcome hasn’t been shown to be ultimately any different if treatment is started before his or her symptoms warrant intervention. As for a prognosis, in the four years I have lived with this I have seen amazing new drugs be introduced to help those whose lives have been adversely affected by this disease. The drugs can knock it back– not cure it but prolong how long people live with it.”
Interviewer: “So is there a good chance you will never be treated?”
Me: “That would be great and right now I’ve never felt better actually. I’ve lost 20% of my body weight since the beginning of the year and I exercise more and eat less and better. What will change things for me would be if my energy level drops precipitously or I begin to suffer from infections. If either of those things happen, I’ll be prescribed something. Right now I have bloodwork done every three months and see my hematologic oncologist every six months.”
Interviewer: “Sounds like you’re a lucky guy.”
Me: “I am indeed but I’m also aware that cancer is like a jack-in-the-box. The box may be closed right now for me but it could pop open anytime. Of course that’s kind of true of almost anything bad that happens in life and as you get older there sure seem to be more jack-in-the-boxes popping up all around you.”
Interviewer: “Is that your final thought?”
Me: “Just this… My blood work may be messy but my doctor at Dana-Farber is a mensch.”
—————–
Continue reading “More Cartoons in the Time of COVID-19 for October 2020”
pawnedaccordion 