(an essay by noted astrologist timmy smit)
It's snowing heavily in northern Pennslyvania. An old woman stuffs the last of her firewood into her creaking stove. She wonders who will chop more for her, for she is too weak and lives alone. Her children never visit. Perhaps she will die from the cold in a day or two.
She sees Morrissey outside and quickly stuffs him into her stove. The day is saved!
THE CASE AGAINST MORRISSEY
Little is known about this character. He played in the Smiths or some other stupid old British band from the 80's nobody cares about in America. Nobody has heard their music, or Morrissey's music either.
So how can we judge him?
FACT: Morrissey looks like an old crooner in the pictures we see. Or George Clooney. Or an old gangster. The point is he looks old and not rocking.
FACT: He has too many R's and S's in his name.
FACT: No, really, go find an album cover and look how crappy his music looks like it is.
FACT: He's not even holding a guitar or anything, just a microphone. If you're going to just hold a microphone you'd better be Roger Daltrey or Robert Planet or NOT MORRISSEY.
FACT: He only goes by one name and that is obnoxious.
FACT: British people, with a few exceptions, cannot make good music anymore.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
In the Sunday, April 3rd edition of the comic strip "Beetle Bailey," the fat guy with the glasses soldlier writes a screed against communism on a wall. In part, it reads,
"People are more productive with fewer laws and restrictions. Even good laws have flaws and room should be left for exceptions, because everyone is different with individual needs."
This goes on for five panels. Using a comic strip as an excuse to write an op-ed column is inexcusable, and the only fair reasonable response is to turn an anti-Morrissey screed into a test for you.
THE ASSIGNMENT
1) Do you think this kind of tactic undermines a strip's integrity?
2) Did Beetle Bailey have much integrity to begin with? Remember, the strip is many decades old. If it did lose integrity along the way, what was the year? Did it coincide with the strip's original creators ceasing to draw it?
3) In this cartoon, the character "Plato" is extolling the virtues of the free market. But the unrestrained free market values at its core cheap, desparate, mistreated labor. These people--migrant farmworkers, etc.--are often illegal aliens. Many view the illegals as cheating the system by using our hospitals free of charge, not paying taxes, and so on. However, their employers value the current system because they can mistreat the workers as they please, ignoring minimum wage laws, overtime laws, and paying the government social security for the workers. If enough aliens settle here permanently, it could develop into a sort of permanent class without any rights, similar to serfdom. This is what the unrestrained free market gets you: It values only efficiency, not freedom or human rights. Child labor laws stand in opposition to business interests, yet no one attacks those. The Founding Fathers made sure the government had checks and balances, and it makes sense to have checks to the business sector as well.
4) That wasn't funny. Neither was Beetle Bailey.
5) I hate Morrissey.