Patriotic Comics

When I read the comics, I expect them to mention major holidays. However, it seems that comic strips have been ignoring the calendar more frequently these days. On Sunday, two comics (Heart of the City and Non Sequitur) referred to the National Cartoonists Society's Reuben Awards held a day earlier. I am not familiar with these awards, and I was looking for a different topic--patriotism. I was surprised that Doonesbury skipped it.

Right on cue, Crankshaft held a barbecue to kick off summer. Regular readers can guess what happened. Taking it to a new extreme, Homeland Security detected the explosion with their satellites as they surveyed for possible terrorist activity.

Sally Forth and family took to the road. "Where can all these cars possibly be headed? There are only ever two possible destinations-home and someplace else. Obviously these people aren't going home. And no one can afford to go somewhere else in this economy." "Where are we going?" "I...I thought you knew." "So we just got in the car for Memorial Day weekend out of habit?" "At least we have an excuse, but what are these other people thinking?"

Those that mentioned the traditional purpose of Memorial Day did a fine job of remembering those who have served our country.

Wizard of Id recognized that some people only get the Sunday paper and shared their message twice.

Sunday:

Monday:

Heart of the City took a break from the usual diva (Heart) and geek/nerd (Dean) activity to remember the fallen.


Even the adventure comic Rip Haywire took a day off from chasing bad guys to share their message.


But perhaps Arlo & Janis said it best.


Happy Memorial Day.

Apprentice or Follower?

On the Celebrity Apprentice, Hope Dworaczyk [Playboy Playmate of the Year] had to defend herself against claims that she was a follower and a weak player. First, Hope referred to Nene Leakes's [Real Housewives of Atlanta] leadership as verbally and mentally abusive, which is ironic because Nene's is playing for Twisted Hearts, a charity that brings awareness to the plight of domestic violence against women of all races.

One example of the verbal abuse occurred at the beginning of the task in front of Donald Trump and Farouk Shami, the founder of Farouk Systems, maker of hair care products they had to promote in this week's episode. Nene attacked the manipulative strategy of Star Jones [lawyer, cohost of "The View"] and called Hope a puppet on a string under Star’s spell.

In the boardroom Hope said, "I don't think I've been a follower. I think I've done what I was told to and I'm led by the project manager." That sounds to me like she admitted to being a follower. She quietly stayed under the radar. While that is the stance I would generally take, it is not successful in reality television, especially in the world of Donald Trump.

A web column (www.realitytvworld.com) detailing the highlights of the episode took a different perspective, saying: "Hope also stuck up for herself and claimed she was simply allowing herself to be led by the project manager, but should not be considered a follower as a result."

Hope's arguments were not strong enough to contend against the tenacity of Nene and Star. As a result, she was the person fired this week.