Showing posts with label comics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label comics. Show all posts

Friday, June 05, 2020

The best things in life and the worst things in life

The April 26 Frazz comic:

Caulfield: A few weeks ago, you were all but howling at the full moon.
Frazz: Beautiful! Enormous, razor sharp and bright enough to hold its own against the rising sun across a vast, cloudless sky.
Caulfield: So you remember it.
Frazz: Of course! A moon like that is one of the best things in life.
Caulfield: Do you remember a week ago?
Frazz: I guess I don't.
Caulfield: It was inky and overcast, and there wouldn't have been a visible moon anyway. The complete opposite of the best thing in life, if you catch my drift.
Frazz: You're overthinking this.
Caulfield: Ergo: The worst things in life aren't as bad as the best things are good.
Frazz: I like the way you overthink.



The interesting thing is Caulfield has essentially proven that the worst things in life are way worse than the best things in life are good.

There are people in the world who, like Frazz think the beauty of nature is one of the best things in life.

If you find one of these people, ideally at a moment where they haven't just opined on the best things in life, and ask them about the worst things in life, they will, rightfully, come up with something like war atrocities. (Or, if they don't will likely agree that war atrocities are far worse than whatever they just thought of. Unless, of course, there's something worse than war atrocities that I'm not thinking of.)

War atrocities are, by far, many many many orders of magnitude worse than the beauty of nature is good.

(If anyone disagrees, here's a thought experiment: would you rather never be subjected to war atrocities and never experience the beauty of nature? Or would you rather be subjected to war atrocities for the rest of your natural life as the price of admission for experiencing the beauty of nature?)


In fact, Caulfield has just demonstrated that the bad things in life aren't even on the same scale as the good things in life. The absence of a beautiful moon isn't a war atrocity, it's simply nondescript. The absence of war atrocities isn't beautiful, it's simply nondescript.

There's a saying that the opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference. Maybe that logic applies to other things in life as well.

Saturday, July 28, 2018

Do culture that value biological paternity produce more people who don't want children?

Today's post was inspired by this Scandinavia and the World comic:



The post under the comic:
Something that was deeply offensive to most of the cultures the Vikings encountered was that Vikings didn't worry too much about fidelity, even the women could shag around, and their husbands happily accepted the children as their own even if they knew they weren't the father.

The reason was quite simple. Keeping a child alive was difficult back then so any child that survived was a miracle, and people wanted big families, so if your wife had a child it was your right as the husband to keep it. The other loser could mob around with one child less to his name.

(Some of the commenters suggest that this might not be historically accurate, but that's not relevant to what I'm blogging about today.)

Reading this comic, I found myself wondering if living in a culture that values biological paternity increases the likelihood that people will realize they don't want children of their own.

How I arrived at this idea:

Every adult around me growing up would have said, with absolute certainty, that having children is a blessing and a gift and a wonderful thing.

And every adult around me growing up would have said, with absolute certainty, that's it would be a horrific burden and the epitome of injustice for a man to end up raising another man's biological child.

Not so much of a blessing and a gift and a wonderful thing, that.

I think (although I can't be certain) my first exposure to the idea of children being work/a burden (as opposed to simply being baseline human reality) had something to do with this idea of raising another man's biological child being the epitome of injustice.  I can't remember the details - it was probably something I absorbed from adults having adult conversation around me - but reading the comic stirred in me the forgotten knowledge that the two are inexorably linked in my mind.

I wonder: if I had never been exposed to the idea that raising another man's biological child is an injustice, and therefore to the idea that a child can be an undue burden, would I have entered the thought process that led me to realize I'm childfree?  I think I'd probably still be childfree - essentially, I don't want children because I don't want actual human beings with thoughts and feelings and human rights that I need to keep forever - but I don't know if I'd ever consciously realize it.  I might have been stuck on "Aww, babies are cute and funny and interesting!" and had children (or aspired to have children) on that basis.

I don't know if this could be studied - you'd need a population that thinks children are a gift regardless of biology and have access to reliable family planning and whose family planing intentions can be known (i.e. they have to be living or have a very robust and thorough diary culture, they'd have to be willing to speak honestly to researchers, etc.)  And then, I'm sure, you'd need other comparable populations who don't think children are a gift regardless of biology but are comparable in every other respect, in order to control for variables that I can't even imagine.  And then there's the question of which is cause and which is effect: do people see raising non-biological children as a burden because they value biological paternity?  Or do they value biological paternity because they see raising children in general as a burden, so if the kid doesn't even have your genes why bother?

But it would be super interesting to study if it could be done!

Thursday, January 09, 2014

Pirate synchronicity

The following two comics were next to each other on yesterday's Globe and Mail comic page:




















I like to think they're both the same pirate, getting all his medical exams done in in a row on his one day of shore leave.

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Why Kim from Between Friends shouldn't speak to her son's class: the parental ego approach

I blogged previously about a storyline in the comic strip Between Friends, where the character of Kim had been asked by her son's teacher to go speak to her class. (If you click through in the old post, you can see the whole week's worth of strips.  The storyline also continues the week of November 26.)  I proposed that she shouldn't because it would be disrespectful of her son's expressed feelings, and parents should want to set the example for their children that you respect feelings and that you can expect your feelings to be respected.

However, some people (some of whom are parents) aren't very receptive to this argument.

So here's another one from a parental ego perspective:

We know that Kim's speaking to the class must be of some educational benefit to the students, or the teacher wouldn't have brought up the idea.

We know that any good parent wants to give their kid every advantage possible.

So if Kim doesn't speak to her son's class, she's retaining that educational benefit for her son, giving him an advantage over his classmates.

All of which sounds rather mercenary, doesn't it?

BUT, Kim can remove any perception that she's being mercenary by simply telling the teacher that she isn't going to do it this year out of respect for her son's feelings, but she'll revisit the idea in a couple of years when it isn't relevant to her son any more.  This would make her look like a good, thoughtful, considerate mother who's setting an example for her child so he grows up to be respectful, while also making her look like she's an engaged member of the community who wants to help students and be involved in her school.

Sunday, November 11, 2012

What if parents made a point of never humiliating their kids?

This post was inspired by this comic strip:








Her son is mortified by the idea of her speaking to his class, but she completely shrugs off his emotions.  Her husband might be enjoying the fact that their son is mortified, and she seems to be amused by this.

This is sort of a common cultural trope - kids are embarrassed by their parents, the parents see the kids' embarrassment as foolish and invalid, and the parents therefore take a certain delight in embarrassing their kids.  And, as a cultural trope, it's seen as all in good fun, at least by the parents.

But it seems to me that this is the kind of thing that could foster bullying attitudes.

A kid in a family like this will learn that feelings aren't worth respecting. If someone finds something humiliating, taking advantage of that fact to make them feel humiliated is normal, valid, and entertaining.  Surely no good can come of taking that attitude into the schoolyard with them!  The kid will also learn (as I did) that baseline human reality is that people want to embarrass you, and develop self-worth and defence mechanisms accordingly.

But suppose instead the parent said "I respect your feelings. If it would embarrass you, I won't do it."  And then the parent said to the teacher "It would embarrass Danny to have his mother come speak to the class, and I respect his feelings.  I'd be happy to come speak to your students in a year or two, once it would no longer bother him."

Then he would learn that respecting people's feelings is normal, and might carry that forward into the rest of the world.

Tuesday, September 04, 2012

Were adults more boring in the 80s?

A For Better or For Worse strip that recently appeared in the paper, originally published in the early 1980s.




This is a common trope I saw in media when I was a kid. The protagonist (often, but not always, a child) does something mildly wacky (in this case, running through some guy's sprinkler) and the bystanders - nearly always adults - would be baffled and bemused. This seemed like the natural order of things to me at the time.

But now I'm looking at it from an adult perspective, and I realize that, as adults, we understand why people would run through sprinklers. We did it when we were kids, it's hot out for us too, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who runs through the sprinklers I pass on hot days when my schedule and my outfit allow me to get wet. I've even seen an elderly lady in a walker deliberately walk closer to the grass so that the sprinkler would sprinkle her.

But in this comic strip, the homeowner is scratching his head as though he's utterly baffled that someone would run through his sprinkler. Why doesn't he get it? Were adults in the 80s more boring than adults now?

On one hand, the author of the comic strip was an adult when she wrote it, so she must understand why people would run through sprinklers. On the other hand, she also wrote the idea that the homeowner would be baffled, which means that it seemed like a plausible reaction to her. FBoFW was far from the only medium of my childhood that portrayed adults baffled by childish whimsy that my adult self (and the creator's adult self) would totally understand. What was going on there?

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Question for grownups

Is "balancing a chequebook" an actual task? I always thought it was just an expression for making sure you don't run out of money, but this old For Better Or For Worse strip makes it sound like it's an actual thing you have to do. (Also, why is Elly saying "check" instead of "cheque"?)

What does it mean? Is it something I should know how to do or is it now obsolete? I'm not unfamiliar with using cheques (some of my bills still had to be paid by cheque for various reasons when I was first starting out, my old landlord had me pay rent by cheque), but it never...occurred to me, I suppose, to do any actual task that could be described as balancing one's chequebook.

Wednesday, April 07, 2010

Has Ellie Patterson always seemed old?

Before they rebooted For Better Or For Worse, Ellie Patterson was the same age as my mother and Elizabeth was the same age as me.

My mother was a year older than I am now when I was born (which is hella weird in and of itself! I don't feel a year away from being as much of a grownup as my parents!), and the rebooted Elizabeth seems to be about 1 or maybe 2 years old, so that means that the rebooted Ellie is very close to my age. I'm 29, and Ellie's no more than 32.

But she doesn't seem to be close to my age at all! She seems like a cranky get-off-my-lawn-type middle-aged woman. Without context (i.e. the fact that she has a one-year-old child) I'd place her as well into her 50s.

Did Ellie seem age appropriate to her contemporaries the first time around? Does she seem age-appropriate to women my age who have children? The youngest mother I know well enough is about five years older than me, and she doesn't seem anywhere near as old-ladyish as Ellie.

Monday, January 11, 2010

An Eddie Izzard reference in Ziggy...AGAIN!

This is the second time I've seen an Eddie Izzard reference (at 0:55) in Ziggy.

The first time was the one shown by Comics Curmudgeon here, and the relevant Eddie is here at 3:49.

And I don't even read Ziggy!

Monday, October 26, 2009

Everyone look at the xkcd website today

Even if you normally read it through a feed reader, make sure to click through to the main page today.

It's beautiful!

Tuesday, September 08, 2009

Are ballet dancers richer than I think, or is housing in New York more reasonable than I think?

Or has Brooke McEldowney not fully considered the economics of his universe?

Seth and Edda have a spare room. That means they have a three-bedroom apartment. They're both ballet dancers.

Not only that, but the apartment was originally just Seth's. He was already living there, and Edda moved in when she first joined the ballet. This means that Seth was managing a three-bedroom apartment on a dancer's salary singlehandedly.

I don't actually know anything about ballet dancers' paycheques or New York City rents. But conventional wisdom is that the arts don't pay particularly well, and conventional wisdom is that housing in NY is exceptionally expensive. So something is missing somewhere.

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Calvinball!

This page has links to a bunch of Calvinball strips.

Sunday, May 31, 2009

What's up with today's Foxtrot?

Warp factor 11???

Surely both Bill Amend and Jason Fox know that the warp scale only goes up to 10.

(Yes, I am that kind of nerd. We already know that. My point is that so is Jason Fox.)

Monday, May 11, 2009

Toggle

The saddest thing about the character of Toggle in Doonesbury is that he lives with his mother in a trailer.

The man is a wounded veteran. He should be receiving enough of a pension or whatever it's called to afford his own place. If he needs to live with his mother for medical reasons or she needs to live with him because her house was foreclosed, he should still at the very least be able to afford a two-bedroom apartment or a small bungalow (whichever is most appropriate to their geographical area) in a decent working-class neighbourhood.

The strip doesn't emphasize this very much, but I really think for him to be living in his mother's trailer is truly a tragedy.

Sunday, May 03, 2009

You're a puppy! Yes you are!

I was introduced to a puppy the other day, and I felt the need to say to him, repeatedly and in a very squeaky voice, "You're a puppy! Yes you are!"

My new goal in life is to do that to some creature that is very clearly not a puppy.

Bonus: the relevant xkcd.

Saturday, May 02, 2009

Why do parents want their kids to play outside?

This train of thought was inspired by today's For Better or For Worse, but it happened to me all the time in real life and it's a trope you often see in comic strips and other media.

Parents tell their kids to stop watching TV and play outside because it's a beautiful day.

Why do they care? Seriously. Why do they have this need for their child to stop what they're actually enjoying and go through the motions of enjoying the beautiful day?

You often see this in older contexts where the kids don't need to be immediately supervised, so it's not that the kids' presence indoors is stopping the parents from enjoying the beautiful day themselves. In fact, in the comic strip context, the parent most often stays inside while kicking the kids outside. Why?

Monday, March 23, 2009

xkcd imitates life

1. I always have these dreams. (Click on the link - I tried to embed but it's too wide.)

I've even blogged about them. They always take place in high school. And I always find myself thinking "Hey, wait, don't I have enough credits to graduate? And haven't I in fact been to university? And I seem to remember something about an apartment in Toronto?" just like in the comic. The odd thing is I've never had a translation dream. I'm coming up on my sixth anniversary in my job (and spent three years in translation school before that). I spent five years in high school. And yet I keep dreaming about high school and have never dreamed about translation.

Speaking of translation...

2. Some of my co-workers have actually had this happen:



The source text says "pun not intended" or similar. The translator goes crazy trying to figure out what the pun is. Finally the translator swallows their pride and goes to a mother-tongue speaker of the source language, only to find that there is no pun whatsoever. Our goal, which no one has yet succeeded in fulfilling unless they've neglected to brag about it, is to insert a bona fide pun in the translation. If anyone succeeds in doing so, pun jar fees will be waived.

Saturday, November 01, 2008

My very very favourite thing about the xkcd Discovery Channel comic

Everyone has already seen this.

I just felt the need to mention that my very very favourite thing about the comic is the exclamation mark on the sign in the bakery that says "PIE!" That exclamation mark is the single most efficient supplier of teh awesome ever.