Recent Comments

1. about 13 years ago on [Deleted]

   Mona, I don’t get into discussions about class anymore, but when I was younger we even divided “middle class” into three parts: Upper, Middle, and Lower. I always considered myself to be middle, middle class. We did not even use the term “working class.” This was in Illinois, where the Crustwood Heights is located. So far as I know, working class is not a well-used term in Illinois today. But I claim no expertise in that matter, or much of anything. However, it is my guess that anyone in Illinois who lives in a house that never had wheels is middle class – and I’m in no way inferring that that is the cut-off point. Even further, I would suggest that if you asked a typical Illinoisan to tell you the difference between working class and middle class, they would say, “None.”

   Now Crustwood Heights is a relatively new addition or sub-division, you can tell that from the architecture, or lack thereof. In Illinois almost all of these were developed from farmland and often retired farmers moved into them. They may have even owned the land and sold it to the developer.

   Illinois farmland is better than gold. Particularly when sold to a real estate developer. On August 31st of last year it hit $10,000 an acre. Old-time farmers easily owned several hundred acres, and often in the thousands. Right now a relatively paltry 200 acre farm is worth about $2,000,000. It is very easy to imagine that Ma Darwin is the widow of an Illinois farmer who sold her farm and now lives with her daughters, Joy and Verla. That would be a very common situation in an Illinois sub-division. She could be the glory hole.

   I’ll leave the rest up to your imagination, But it is my opinion that Ms. Larson’s description is right on, and needs no editing or modification. And I think the whole point is that they are living the middle class lifestyle and where there income comes from is irrelevant. What difference does it make if it is earned, inherited, gifted, or mysteriously supplied? This is the lifestyle they are living. Perhaps Burl inherited $50,000,000 from his farm family and could live much more up-scale and not work at all, but still decided to work at U-Store-It and live like he does. Does that then make him upper class, or close?

   There are plenty of rich old farmers who live a lot worse than Burl. You would call them working class. And I would not argue with you. This comic is not about money, it’s about lifestyle and money is merely incidental, if that. As I said, Ms. Larson is right on.

2. about 13 years ago on Doonesbury

   Here’s the thing: Paul could never gain enough public support to pull of his domestic ideas, so those are essentially harmless. But what scares the Republicans is that he COULD get enough public support to curtail military spending and end our wars, repeal the Patriot Act, and end the War on Drugs. He wants to do all those things, and those are the last thing that the leaders of this country, including not just the Republicans, but BOTH PARTIES and the media want.

   A lot of Paul’s support is from Democrats who feel betrayed by Obama on just about everything, especially the wars. Their anti-war, anti-Patriot Act, and Anti-Drug War feelings are so strong that they overcome his domestic ideas. They also salivate at the savings that would accrue from these shut-downs.

   So Paul, as was Kucinich, is ridiculed and marginalized, especially by the press. Paul is too dangerous to be allowed a chance – the media will see to that simply by denying/distorting coverage of him.

3. about 13 years ago on Speed Bump

4. about 13 years ago on Frog Applause

   Vlad, Blood, & seems to be something in your blood that’s not too tasty?

5. about 13 years ago on Wizard of Id

6. about 13 years ago on That is Priceless

   Fabulous! You set the theme for almost everything that followed.

7. about 13 years ago on Brewster Rockit

   Hang On To Your Tuffet

8. about 13 years ago on PC and Pixel

9. about 13 years ago on Doonesbury

   Christian Conservative Voters Boo Ron Paul’s ‘Golden Rule

10. about 13 years ago on Brevity

    This