Chuck Portent

Patricia Murphy, for Roll Call:

Either Clinton or Trump will live in the White House, but when it comes to getting an agenda passed into law, they’ll need Senate Democrats’ votes to do it. And to get those votes, they’re going to need Sen. Chuck Schumer, the rising Senate Democratic leader and the man poised to be a Clinton consiglieri or Trump’s not-so-loyal opposition.

But after one of the ugliest presidential elections in history, Capitol Hill veterans point to Schumer as the glimmer of hope that Congress may finally be entering an era of accomplishment instead of gridlock after years of partisan paralysis.

The Brooklyn exterminator’s son, who finished Harvard and Harvard Law by 23, may seem like an unlikely vessel for hope in the post-Obama era, but Schumer’s existing relationships, caucus loyalty and prejudice toward action may make him the man for this moment.

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Image note: U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) speaks as part of an immigration policy “Gang of Eight”, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., 18 April 2013. (Photo by Jason Reed/Reuters)

Murphy, Patricia. “Chuck Schumer Is on the Line”. Roll Call. 3 November 2016.

A Bugworm

So, I’ve got this dumb thing going on in my head, a filked auto dealer slogan echoing over and over and over again: “Bug Martini! Bug Martini! Bug Martini! (dng! dng!)”

It’s hard to explain that last sound; I think it’s supposed to be some sort of xylophone or marimba or something. No, really, damn thing has haunted me most of my life; it’s an earworm from Hell.

Still, though, that has exactly nothing to do with Adam.

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Image note: Detail of Bug Martini by Adam Huber, 2 November 2016.

Irrationality

Science and love can be a dangerous mixture. That is to say, to the one we find great value in science, especially in this day when societal footing is delicate owing to the myriad potsherds cast about by pseudoscientists, anti-scientists, and their political organization―the GOP.

To the other, though, we’ve all known someone with an advanced degree who happens to be inept in human relations or some other everyday aspect of living in civilized society.

In this case, a chemist didn’t think it through. Because, you know, human beings are irrational, and science isn’t.

Just sayin’.

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Weiner, Zach. “Carbon Bonding”. Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. 28 March 2015.

A Note on Cartoons and Communication

Sometimes you can just see that a relationship is in trouble. From the outset.

To the one, I owe a certain apology. Or maybe I should blame McGettigan. See, acknowledging a particular stick-figure comic strip, I tried explaining to my daughter how to go about drawing cartoon figures differently. The thing with setting hard outlines and then detailing is … er … well, right, we should probably pass that one off to a design specialist to explain. But I learned to draw stillframe cartoons by tracing Wasserman and Trudeau, and the first thing I learned in doing so was to save certain outlines and borders for last.

Nor can I say how anyone else actually does it, but the whole point was to get past a certain drawing style.

Just like we all strive to get past stick figures.

So, yeah, there’s Randall Munroe. And now there’s McGettigan; with New Yorker styling to his panels and a sense of humor verging toward Kliban. And now I have to figure out some other way to explain basic cartooning to my daughter.

Then again, as tasks go, that’s one to hope for any day.

To the other, right. Relationships. Look, it’s one of those things we experience in daily life; now and again it comes up that we might witness others experiencing some sort of interpersonal crisis, and when you hear one say, “How was I supposed to know …?” the first instinct is to wonder how long one waited to ask.

What? In truth, you’d be surprised how many people need that lesson.

At least he didn’t slip peanuts into her chocolate chip cookies, you know?

(“But … but … how was I supposed to know secretly feeding you peanuts would kill you?”)

(No, really, the jokes only go downhill from there.)

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McGettigan, Merp. “New Heights (#75)”. The Story Enthusiast. 5 April 2015.

The Love Bug

Oh, come on, you knew that pun was waiting to spring like a hungry puma in heat.

And there is no way you could have predicted that simile, except perhaps in the sense of a general classification; you knew it was going to be bad.

That said, and disclaiming appropriately that some themes really are timeless, so I’m not knocking Mr. Huber in the least, but … you know, maybe there is a theme afoot?

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Huber, Adam. “Shot Through the Heart”. Bug Martini. 9 December 2014.

See Also:

Huber, Adam. “Scared to Beth”. Bug Martini. 21 November 2014.

Not Quite Relationship Advice

Remember always that intimate relationships discovered in a search for idyll will be perpetually compared against the idyll. Similarly, Zach Weiner notes, albeit perhaps unintentionally, that such relationships founded in ritual can really, really ruin the fun.

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Weiner, Zach. Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal. 20 September 2014.