Welcome to The World's Most Dangerous Beauty Salon, Inc.
My name is Susan DuQuesnay Bankston. I live in Richmond, Texas, in the heart of Tom DeLay's old district. It's nuttier than squirrel poop here.
I am honored and privileged to know Miss Juanita Jean Herownself, hairdresser extraordinary and political maven. Since she does not have time to fiddle with this internet stuff, I type her website for her and you can read it if you want to. If you don't, she truly does not give a big bear's butt.
A lot of what I post here has to do with local politics, but you probably have the same folks in your local government.
This ain't a blog. Blogs are way too trendy for me. This is a professional political organization.
Thanks, Fran! Good cartoons, most of them as depressing as our current mess. My favorites–the ones that didn’t make me cringe–were the first, “Speaking of inflation,” and the last, “Making a list. . .”
1Thanks, Fran! I agree with thatotherjean for the most part. It’s the kid on Santa’s lap that got me, though.
2Thanks for all these great toons. I agree with thatotherjean as well. I would add #12 hoping Santa’s reindeer all need to relieve themselves over mar a lago. Hope everyone else has a great Christmas.
3When my father finished being a Navy corpsman with the Marines in the Pacific subdivision of WWII, he became a salesman with the local electric company. [yes, back in the days when people had to be sold on electricity]. The story I heard came from the company president’s secretary and later from a doctor at the childrens’ hospital. Just like what happened to my father in WWII, he never spoke about these things with me.
Dad’s first assignment was to go and see what the childrens’ hospital wanted. The hospital administrator had prepared a really good demonstration for that. They had a ward of occupied iron lungs, and they practiced a power outage. That meant emergency announcements over loudspeaker and every able-bodied person bolted to that ward to pump the machines by hand. “Every” included janitors, cafeteria workers, any random parent or visiting salesman in the hospital. Like my father, many men at that time had been in the military and so they simply snapped to and went where they were told and did what they were instructed to do. Afterwards the hospital administrator pointed out that their current backup generator dated back to Thomas Edison and could not supply more than lighting for the hospital. And if it happened at night, many fewer people would be available to help, and at least some polio-stricken kids would die. Try to imagine being trapped and unable to breath, counting on whatever poor slob could be rousted out to keep your breathing machine going. Waiting literally breathless while the lights go out and nurses are shouting, trying to route someone to each machine.
So first-day-on-the-job dad returned to the company headquarters, told the president’s secretary he had to talk to him, and camped there until he was free. Essentially he told the president that the very next day they had to get engineers to the hospital to install any and all emergency generators needed immediately. [He also had sketched out the space available, the additional wiring required, and what fail over and recovery protocols wwould be needed – Dad did not just twiddle thumbs while waiting to be heard.]
As a sign of how different things were back then, apparently the company president agreed and did not quibble about “where will the money come from” or “how can we screw the hospital out of the maximum amount of money possible”. Instead he called everyone on his rolodex that might contribute, or prod the local city/county politicians to pony up, apparently with an unstated “you know how bad it will look if kids die because you thought a new set of golf clubs was more important?”. But now we have a dipshit spoiled son-of-a-politican who grew up when the Salk vaccine essentially eliminated polio in the US, wanting to revoke Federal approval of that and 13 other vaccines. And a terminal twit taking office in January who wants that idiot to head up HHS. Why? Because the guy is “famous” and on TV a lot.
Anyway: the cartoons with kids on crutches actually downplay just how bad polio can be. I’ve been to countries in Asia where polio is still endemic. The ones who “merely” have to get around on crutches are the lucky ones.
On that cheerful note, everyone have a good Christmas devoid of politics. Also, I got the story from the company president’s secretary because she later became my stepmother. A smidgeon of good, because she was a great step-mom.
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