Slavery Sarcasm

Today's Bizarro is brought to you by Controversy Industries, Inc. "Looking for trouble? We've got it in over 250 different styles and colors!"

I normally post cartoons a week after they run in papers, but this one has attracted a lot of negative mail so I wanted to address it sooner.

Contrary to what many people assumed, this cartoon is not intended to make light of slavery or racism. My intention was to point out that modern "feel good" marketing techniques are no more honest than this kind of technique would have been during legal slavery in America. My earnest apology goes to anyone who misinterpreted it. I'm not into pushing those kinds of buttons.

Words like "free-range," "organic," and "humane," make consumers believe that animals are being well treated and that the environment is not being damaged. This is a patent lie in virtually all cases. Animal agriculture at current rates is always cruel to animals and damaging to the environment. Any animal that goes to a slaughterhouse has experienced the ultimate cruelty. It's a no-brainer, there is no such thing as "humane meat".

I don't personally believe that cruelty to any species of animal is less immoral than cruelty to our fellow humans. To me, we are all the same in our desire to be pain free, happy, and alive. I don't believe this because I am vegan, I am vegan because I believe this.

For the record, I also refrain from buying products from countries with serious human rights issues. (Although everything under the sun is made in China so to be ardent about this I'd have to live naked in the woods.)

I hope this alleviates some angry readers. If not, send me an email and I'll respond personally.
If you're interested, here is a website about what your animal-based food goes through.

MGM Weddings

This Bizarro is brought to you by something clever, which I cannot at the moment think of.

If you're alive in America right now, you've probably been invited to a foreign wedding. This seems to be the new trend, I've been to four in the past three years.

Even though I poke fun of foreign-destination weddings in this cartoon, I actually kind of like them. Unlike people with real jobs, I can usually afford to get away for a while and I fly so much that I have lots of frequent-flier miles. They are usually three-or-four-day parties and fairly spectacular.

One thing I've noticed over the years, however, is that the more money a couple spends on their wedding, the shorter the marriage tends to last. That's not always true, of course, but I have a general theory that if it is important to you to make an MGM musical out of your wedding, chances are it is disguising some insecurity about the relationship.

Before you start filling the comment box with examples of that not being true, remember that it's just a general rule of mine and carries no legal weight or obligation. Your results may vary.

Die Like Howard

This episode of Bizarro is brought to you by our nation's airline industry. "We charge whatever we feel like for every tiny thing, but at least security is unreasonably inconvenient and our service is undependable."

(Click image to enlargenate)

Just got back from South Dakota and wow, what a trip. Can't really go into it in detail here, maybe someday, but the sites were beautiful and I got to spend a lot of time climbing thick, forested mountains alone, which proved essential for my emotional well being.

This cartoon came from my wondering what might happen if Superman fell asleep while flying. I'm notorious for not being able to drive for more than an hour without conking out and though I've never had an accident, I've taken a few unexpected side trips through scenic roadside culverts.

I despise car trips anyway, so there is no love lost. But with airlines becoming more expensive, less reliable, and increasingly inconvenient because of our great nation's idiotic security system, I hate to fly, too.

More all the time, I just want to stay home. Fortunately, I live in a city where you can never run out of new things to see and do. Someday I may hole up in my house like Howard Hughes and die with long, white hair and beard and fingernails the length of shoe strings.

Mounting Patriotism

I'm viewing life from the Mount Rushmore area of South Dakota this week, dodging overweight patriots by the thousands. There are more stars and stripes around here than at a Republican convention, and nary a morsel of tofu for miles. It's alternately fascinating, fun, and frightening. I've been going through scotch and cigars like they were salsa and chips.

If I don't post for the rest of the week, it's because I'm drunk on our nation's birthday. Or I've been accidentally crushed by 350-lbs Nebraskan wrapped in our nation's flag. "Hey lady, there's a little flat New Yorker stuck to the seat of your pants."

Soup or Powers

Bizarro is brought to you today by Invisible Headphones.

I've often wondered if I had a choice between invisibility on demand or being able to fly (without apparatus), which I would choose.

As a teenager, I thought the best thing about invisibility would be access to the girl's locker room. As an adult, I think more about standing behind the President at a televised news conference and yanking his feet out from under him every time he lies.

The ability to fly at will would be amazing, especially with the escalating price of gas and mass transit. It would be a blast, but only truly useful if you could carry luggage.

The Invisible Man had to be naked to be totally invisible, a caveat that would allow you to use the ability only when weather conditions permitted. And what if it was a bit chilly so you wore clothes to the location of your planned caper, then disrobed, then returned to find your clothes had been stolen? It would be a cold walk home. People stepping on your feet would also be a hazard.

I personally have experienced invisibility on a number of occasions at singles bars. And I wasn't even naked.

Cat Butts

Today's Bizarro is brought to you by Zen Industries.

This is an old cartoon from '04, and one of my favorites of the past few years. I like cats, but find their personal habits disgusting. True, even after years of yoga, I can't lick my own butt so I guess I shouldn't criticize. But I feel fairly confident that even if I could, I would refrain.

And the fact that they swallow so much hair that they barf is beyond belief. I get one piece of hair in my mouth and my head turns inside out.

Cats clearly hate to be wet, but they'll slather themselves with saliva if you drip a couple of drops of water on them. Is saliva not wet to them? Is there a difference between the sort of wet that water and saliva possess, that we humans cannot perceive?

One of my cats often slinks along the back of the sofa when I'm watching TV and licks the top of my head for several minutes. Even though it's pretty disgusting that my head is covered in cat saliva and she's using the same tongue she was just licking her butt with, I let her do it because it feels good.

Maybe that answers why they lick their butts.

Cookie Faith

Bizarro is brought to you today by Fortune 500 Cookie Company.

Seems like fortune cookies used to actually have fortunes inside them, but now they all seem to have bits of useless wisdom instead.

"A good friend is a good neighbor."
"There is no more beneficial exercise than smiling."
"A screaming child is the most powerful form of birth control."

Yeah, I know all that stuff –I don't need a cookie to tell me. I want useful information from my desert. Like if my taxes are going to get audited or whether I should change my flight because the plane is going to crash. What has happened to the prophetic powers of pastry in this country?

One confession: As a small child, I ate fortune cookies for several years before my parents noticed I wasn't taking the fortune out first. If I ever get a terminal illness, I'm going to blame it on the ink and sue China.