The Selfie
The cartoon you just looked at was inspired by this photo:
That brightly-colored chunk of concrete is the Southern-most point in the United States and it’s in Key West, Florida and I’ve stood right there, but didn’t do it during a hurricane.
Maybe that’s because the Associated Press said Hurricane Ian storm surges could push 12 to 18 feet of water across more than 250 miles of coastline and according to who and/or whomever puts this kind of stuff on the internet, Key West, Florida is only 18 feet above sea level.
Do the math and that might be a problem.
Luckily for Key West, Hurricane Ian did not hit them directly, but they had flooding and damage caused by winds that gusted up to 76 miles an hour so it must have been like sitting in the front row of a Donald Trump rally.
I’ve been there several times and really like Key West, but I’m not sure I’d want to ride out a hurricane at Sloppy Joe’s Bar, mainly because you might have to do it with these guys who think looking like Ernest Hemingway – who seemed to be one of the more notable jerks of the 20th century – is something to be proud of.
A completely unnecessary Ernest Hemingway digression
In an article about the 25 best feuds between authors (and you really gotta wonder what kind of person cares about this stuff enough to rank feuds, but I’m still a baseball fan so I have no room to criticize anybody else’s arcane interests) Hemingway had three of the top 25 feuds (apparently he was big on them) and I didn’t read every word of the article, but did come across Gore Vidal commenting on Truman Capote’s death, which Gore called:
“A brilliant career move.”
Which goes to show maybe you don’t want to get into a verbal altercation with someone who’s really good with words any more than you’d want to get into a physical altercation with a UFC fighter.
Also, after Norman Mailer punched Vidal and knocked him down at some party, Gore got up and said:
“Once again, words fail Norman Mailer.”
Which – let’s face it – is a pretty great line for someone who just got decked, because the best I probably could have come up with on short notice is:
“Ouch.”
Here’s the author-feud article just in case you want to memorize some great insults for the next time you get decked at a party:
https://lithub.com/25-legendary-literary-feuds-ranked/
Anyway…
If you decide you need to get out the Hell Out of Dodge (or in this case, Key West) you’ve got three options:
1. Getting on a small boat during a hurricane…
2. Flying in a small airplane during a hurricane or…
3. Driving 90 miles to the mainland which would include crossing this bridge during a hurricane.
Now here’s a 2016 story from Rolling Stone about people who died while taking “selfies” because apparently it’s worth risking your life to have a really neat photo to put on social media which people will look at for about three seconds and never think about again after about four seconds.
In most cases I have nothing but sympathy for people who lose their homes or businesses to a natural disaster, but have a bit less sympathy if those people wanted government to stay out of their lives and let them be racists or own automatic weapons or destroy the environment or (fill in the blank with the government-prohibited activity of your choice), but then want government back in their lives when it comes to rebuilding their damaged property.
Now here’s a New Yorker article about Florida Governor, Ron DeSantis and how he believes in small government and personal freedom and fought the federal government on pandemic mandates because as all Conservative know, the best government is the government that governs least:
Unless you get hit by a hurricane and then you want all the government you can get.
Now here’s a New York Times article about DeSantis, who opposed federal aid when Hurricane Sandy hit New York and New Jersey, but is now calling on Joe Biden (who DeSantis has criticized for spending too much money) to provide federal aid to rebuild parts of Florida now that his state is the one that got hit:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/29/us/politics/desantis-biden-hurricane-ian-aid.html
And speaking of flaming hypocrites…
I drew the above cartoon after New York Attorney General, Letitia James, sued Donald Trump for fraud and accused him, his business and three of his children of lying to lenders and insurers by fraudulently overvaluing his assets by billions of dollars.
Here’s an article that says Donald Trump and his businesses have been involved in thousands of lawsuits and it was written before Donald became president so you know the number of lawsuits didn’t get smaller:
https://www.azcentral.com/pages/interactives/trump-lawsuits/
And here’s a cartoon about Vladimir Putin threatening to use nuclear weapons…
And another cartoon about the election of Italy’s Giorgia Meloni who, at the time this was written, was expected to become prime minister and form the most right-wing Italian government since WW2 and we all know how well that worked out.
As I’ve said before and am apparently about to say again: generally speaking our problems are not caused by Conservatives or Liberals, Republicans or Democrats — most of the time our problems are caused by Extremists.
And if anyone disagrees with me, they should be drawn and quartered (which kinda sounds like it has something to do with a cartoon and a pair of scissors) and if they survive that, they should then be sent to Siberia and if nobody wants to pay for the airfare, certain parts of Wyoming would do just fine.
OK, for those of you with an impaired sense of humor, that was a joke because I like Wyoming just fine, but if you drive across that state and Utah and Nevada – which I just got done doing…twice – you realize there’s still plenty of wide-open spaces where the buffalo roam and the deer and antelope play and when people complain about overcrowding, they’re complaining about overcrowding in popular places people actually want to be.
Like Key West during a hurricane.