THIS IS THE TALE
OF AMAZI-GIRL / AMBER
A HERO SO BRAVE
ON THE ROOFS OF YOUR DORMITORY
PedanticJerkass
“Close enough.”
Liara
How do you fit that last line into the meter of the song?
Clif
Badly.
Unless you have the verbal flare to pronounce Dormitory to rhyme with Amber. In which case, you can probably pull it off by slurring the syllables together.
Kitchen Doc will patch you up tonight
Just lay on his kitchen island
Kitchen Doc will get you by tonight
Just a little stitch, and you’ll be smilin’
Oh, yeah
Do cops bring knives to protests? Like clubs and rubber bullets have that slight air of less than lethal optics that let cops justify their violence. A knife is just like yeah I’m killing. Just have the sniper start headshotting students at that point.
Tequila Mockingbird
There was a theory going around that Amber/AG had run into Incelerator or some other chud bastard after the protest, and that was the cause of the injury. We’ll see in due time, I suspect.
PedanticJerkass
Mary? ¬_¬
bwooom
Mary sucks, but I don’t think she guts to actually attack someone. She’d probably just run away screaming rather than take out a knife.
Steamweed
Agreed. I can’t imagine Mary doing anything competently violent. Not at the A-G level.
Clif
The cop may have used a cell phone.
yak
Probably not all of them, but certainly there are some cops that have less-than-legal weaponry on them.
Honestly? Do yourself (and your blood pressure) a favour and opt out. I can guarantee no one, myself included, will have any take that is worth upsetting yourself over.
if hell exists and I go there, I’m going to turn Ayn Rand into a human pin-cushion D:<
Cimorene
I’m very upset my 10th grader has to read Anthem for ELA this year, but I’m against censorship so I don’t want to be as bad as the book banning parents. Still, once they start that one I am having at home discussions. The sophomore year class is about individualism and community and what our obligations are to society.
NGPZ
I mean sensitivity reading the curriculum aint censorship, it’s about social obligation to not condone bigotry posing as intellectualism
You’re not as bad as the book banning parents for this resentment, context is everything, you can’t just paint stuff like this over with oversimplified sentiments like “censorship bad” and “nothing should be off limits in the free marketplace of ideas”; that’s literally what internet nazis are counting on ?
Clif
Nothing should be off limits in the free marketplace of ideas, but maybe wait until college before tossing all ideas, both enlightening and toxic, up against the wall to see what sticks. It’s part of the Dumbing of Age process.
Wizard
Rand was about as far from being a “Nazi” as you can get. Any Nazis or Nazi-adjacent types who claim to admire her either never read a word she wrote or else completely failed to understand it. Many of her critics badly misunderstand, but it’s depressing just how many self-proclaimed fans do as well.
And once you put any subject off limits for discussion, those who have or seek power are going to try and turn it to their advantage. This isn’t hypothetical, just look at current efforts to brand any criticism of the Israeli government or support for Palestinians as antisemitism.
Adeptus
Rand was a rabid ”greed is good, cooperation and empathy are bad” right wing ideologue. She couldn’t live up to her own so called ideals at all, but it didn’t stop her from being a moderately successful pseudo-philosopher and B-grade Sci-Fi writer.
Any adult who worships at the altar of Ayn Rand marks themselves as not worth a grown-up discussion. They won’t be able to engage with it in good faith.
I have the displeasure of knowing person with a masters degree in philosophy, who wrote their thesis on her and still gulps her BS. He is a supremely self-centred and self obsessed individual, who would not be alive without a ton of ”socialist” medical and psychotherapy services. The irony is utterly lost on him.
Li
+1
Tequila Mockingbird
Ayn Rand, at the end of her life, still took out Social Security. Despite saying throughout her life saying it should be abolished. Her entire ethos wasn’t “liberty” or “self-sufficiency” it was simply “fuck you, got mine.”
geno
She certainly idolizes her own brand of ubermenches who are super special because they make a lot of money. That’s pretty nazi adjacent
Clif
You can be anti-Israel’s right to exist without being antisemitic, just like you can be a white separatist without being a white supremist. But in neither case is that the way to bet. “From the mountains to the sea” is calling for the destruction of Israel. It is hate speech and should be treated as such.
Criticizing the government of Israel is fine. Being hypocritical about it is being hypocritical. If you are a citizen of the US, your government has done far worse. If the US had an equal proportion of it’s citizens murdered, raped and tortured, I think you would see just how restrained Israel is being in comparison.
I refer you to an incident where the US had a number of ships bombed. Two large Japanese cities filled with civilians, women and children, effectively disappeared from the face of the Earth. More recently, two building in the US and part of a third were destroyed and the face of the Middle East was changed forever while the US sent a military force into an allied country to assassinate the leader of those responsible. I don’t think you want to see what would happen if the US took the kind of hit that Israel did.
If you are actually concerned about the people in Gaza and not just hating on the Jews, for crying out loud make a donation to a reputable organization like the World Food Program as I have done; they have a ShareTheMeal app that makes it very easy. The food will take a round-about and less than ideal route to get there, but it will get there and help. Do something that will actually be effective, and while you’re at it, treat antisemitic racist crap the same way you would treat any other kind of racist crap.
thejeff
There are definitely cases you could make for the US being worse than Israel – and not even just because the US operates on a bigger scale.
WWII is not one of those cases. Certainly not reduced to “we nuked to cities because we had a number of ships bombed”.
The other case is more reasonable. Some of us in fact wanted Israel to learn from our example and not over-retaliate the way we did after 9/11 because of how badly that went for everyone, including us.
Li
I don’t think Clif was talking about “WWII”, I think they were very specifically talking about that time that we chose to drop nukes on two civilian population centers “to end the war” when we knew perfectly well that Japan was ready to surrender, and would have surrendered easily, had we just been willing to promise not to execute their emperor.
That part is not defensible. Nothing else that was going on makes it defensible. And it’s also not really arguable — we didn’t drop those bombs because we “had” to, we did it because the people involved wanted big impressive blast sites to show off the power of our new toys, and we were also eager to crush Japan specifically before Russia could get involved, because we didn’t want to owe them anything.
I’m not “reducing” America’s involvement in WWII to these two bombs, though our long reluctance to get involved and the part where our own eugenics movement was admired by Hitler and we literally had newspaper articles early in the war lamenting that the Germans were “beating us at our own game”, like, none of that is admirable either.
We like to think of ourselves as just the soldiers on D-day. We don’t so much like to remember any other part of America’s participation (or lack thereof).
Cimorene
And that is why I’m not complaining. (To Wizard’s comment). I want to try and trust the process, I just wish I could remember what book the teacher wants to replace A Clockwork Orange with.
Steamweed
The Ayn Rand Foundation does some pretty skeezy marketing to get her books into middle and high schools. Some English teachers don’t read all the material that they have their students read. (Not to mention those who like her crap.)
Adeptus
It does, and it’s super gross.
Cimorene
Arizona passed a law a couple of years back that all lesson plans have to be written to the day a year in advance. Even if I wasn’t disabled I don’t think I could handle teaching here anymore just because of that. The district is also pretty strict and each grade level teaches the same texts/projects (only one high school so maybe 2 or 3 English teachers for each grade?) I like and trust the teacher enough to hope it’s compared and contrasted to the other books.
Big Z
Ugh. Do you know if they’re teaching it straight?
My kid had to read a book I thought was pretty questionable in 8th grade (something PragerU-adjacent, as I recall, but I don’t remember the exact book) but it turned out it was part of the unit on propaganda and most of the pedagogy was pointing out the ways in which facts/statistics/etc were distorted and rhetoric was deployed in place of facts.
Cimorene
They’ll probably read the entire book, but then do a in depth critical analysis. The district is pretty good at balancing opinions and letting students gather their own ideas. The whole year is focused on community vs individuality and they’re reading The Hunger Games, too, but The Cheese knows enough people have misinterpreted those books.
I had 7th grade students post The Bee Movie script as answers to their ReadWorks assignments. When I scored them low they were very upset I actually read work they turned in, unlike other teachers.
337 thoughts on “Civvies”
Dot
Now back to the good part!
Florence
FROM THE DAY HE WAS BORN
HE YEARNED FOR ADVENTURE
OH CAPTAIN JACK
GIVIN THEM WHAT FOR
Cholma
THIS IS THE TALE
OF AMAZI-GIRL / AMBER
A HERO SO BRAVE
ON THE ROOFS OF YOUR DORMITORY
PedanticJerkass
“Close enough.”
Liara
How do you fit that last line into the meter of the song?
Clif
Badly.
Unless you have the verbal flare to pronounce Dormitory to rhyme with Amber. In which case, you can probably pull it off by slurring the syllables together.
jflb96
Lop off the ‘itory’
Thag Simmons
This is the correct one
Needfuldoer
Kitchen Doc will patch you up tonight
Just lay on his kitchen island
Kitchen Doc will get you by tonight
Just a little stitch, and you’ll be smilin’
Oh, yeah
Sirksome
Asher mentioned. Trust lost.
ZombieKyrik
Damn you Willis!
I was excited to see more of the mess that is Jorothy. How could you do this to us?
Svankensen
Yesss, where are my madly in love bisexual queens.
Clif
Right there on the screen. They just haven’t realized it yet.
They won’t realize it until the Martian invasion. Poor Walky and Danny.
Amós Batista
Relax, soon will be Amazi-girl or Sal’s time.
Theozilla
So I guess she caught a rubber bullet in the gut then?
Proxiehunter
Or a knife if other theories are correct.
Sirksome
Do cops bring knives to protests? Like clubs and rubber bullets have that slight air of less than lethal optics that let cops justify their violence. A knife is just like yeah I’m killing. Just have the sniper start headshotting students at that point.
Tequila Mockingbird
There was a theory going around that Amber/AG had run into Incelerator or some other chud bastard after the protest, and that was the cause of the injury. We’ll see in due time, I suspect.
PedanticJerkass
Mary? ¬_¬
bwooom
Mary sucks, but I don’t think she guts to actually attack someone. She’d probably just run away screaming rather than take out a knife.
Steamweed
Agreed. I can’t imagine Mary doing anything competently violent. Not at the A-G level.
Clif
The cop may have used a cell phone.
yak
Probably not all of them, but certainly there are some cops that have less-than-legal weaponry on them.
AndysDrawings
I don’t think that belly wound is fresh, it would still be dressed.
Big Z
You’re 100% right, which is strange since that’s where it looks like she was clutching and bleeding from when Sal found her.
marcus erronius
This chapter title is really shaping up
Clif
Dumbing Of Age 15: IT’D NEVER BEEN SAID EXPLICITLY
Bittersweet
Geeeeez. The size of that scar.
Ray Radlein
Ruptured spleen, perhaps?
Ray Radlein
Oh, wait, wrong side. Gall bladder?
Decidedly Orthogonal
The Spleen is usually on a person’s far left, up under the ribs. Usually… When he’s not running around being a hero himself.
Clif
THE SPLEEN should be its own comic.
Deanatay
*shadowy figure perched on a rooftop*
PULL. MY. FINGER!
*thunder crashes*
Amós Batista
Wow, that’s the kind of shit that can kill you AFTER months.
Hope is not that severe.
Steamweed
If you mean the lower-right abdomen, that can’t be fresh from the protest. It darn well should have bandages on it.
Mym
Waiting for the gigantic walls of texts that aren’t relevant to today’s comic that make me want to eat my own hands
Tequila Mockingbird
Honestly? Do yourself (and your blood pressure) a favour and opt out. I can guarantee no one, myself included, will have any take that is worth upsetting yourself over.
Yumi
I’ve been making an effort to limit my comment engagement over the last week, and it has definitely felt beneficial to me.
True Survivor
They give your tummy the rumblings that only hands will satisfy?
Josh
… Caaarrrlllll…
misanthropope
if the comments section doesnt oblige you, i recommend Atlas Shrugged, ticks off all your boxes there, and double on the auto-cannibalism.
NGPZ
ew
if hell exists and I go there, I’m going to turn Ayn Rand into a human pin-cushion D:<
Cimorene
I’m very upset my 10th grader has to read Anthem for ELA this year, but I’m against censorship so I don’t want to be as bad as the book banning parents. Still, once they start that one I am having at home discussions. The sophomore year class is about individualism and community and what our obligations are to society.
NGPZ
I mean sensitivity reading the curriculum aint censorship, it’s about social obligation to not condone bigotry posing as intellectualism
You’re not as bad as the book banning parents for this resentment, context is everything, you can’t just paint stuff like this over with oversimplified sentiments like “censorship bad” and “nothing should be off limits in the free marketplace of ideas”; that’s literally what internet nazis are counting on ?
Clif
Nothing should be off limits in the free marketplace of ideas, but maybe wait until college before tossing all ideas, both enlightening and toxic, up against the wall to see what sticks. It’s part of the Dumbing of Age process.
Wizard
Rand was about as far from being a “Nazi” as you can get. Any Nazis or Nazi-adjacent types who claim to admire her either never read a word she wrote or else completely failed to understand it. Many of her critics badly misunderstand, but it’s depressing just how many self-proclaimed fans do as well.
And once you put any subject off limits for discussion, those who have or seek power are going to try and turn it to their advantage. This isn’t hypothetical, just look at current efforts to brand any criticism of the Israeli government or support for Palestinians as antisemitism.
Adeptus
Rand was a rabid ”greed is good, cooperation and empathy are bad” right wing ideologue. She couldn’t live up to her own so called ideals at all, but it didn’t stop her from being a moderately successful pseudo-philosopher and B-grade Sci-Fi writer.
Any adult who worships at the altar of Ayn Rand marks themselves as not worth a grown-up discussion. They won’t be able to engage with it in good faith.
I have the displeasure of knowing person with a masters degree in philosophy, who wrote their thesis on her and still gulps her BS. He is a supremely self-centred and self obsessed individual, who would not be alive without a ton of ”socialist” medical and psychotherapy services. The irony is utterly lost on him.
Li
+1
Tequila Mockingbird
Ayn Rand, at the end of her life, still took out Social Security. Despite saying throughout her life saying it should be abolished. Her entire ethos wasn’t “liberty” or “self-sufficiency” it was simply “fuck you, got mine.”
geno
She certainly idolizes her own brand of ubermenches who are super special because they make a lot of money. That’s pretty nazi adjacent
Clif
You can be anti-Israel’s right to exist without being antisemitic, just like you can be a white separatist without being a white supremist. But in neither case is that the way to bet. “From the mountains to the sea” is calling for the destruction of Israel. It is hate speech and should be treated as such.
Criticizing the government of Israel is fine. Being hypocritical about it is being hypocritical. If you are a citizen of the US, your government has done far worse. If the US had an equal proportion of it’s citizens murdered, raped and tortured, I think you would see just how restrained Israel is being in comparison.
I refer you to an incident where the US had a number of ships bombed. Two large Japanese cities filled with civilians, women and children, effectively disappeared from the face of the Earth. More recently, two building in the US and part of a third were destroyed and the face of the Middle East was changed forever while the US sent a military force into an allied country to assassinate the leader of those responsible. I don’t think you want to see what would happen if the US took the kind of hit that Israel did.
If you are actually concerned about the people in Gaza and not just hating on the Jews, for crying out loud make a donation to a reputable organization like the World Food Program as I have done; they have a ShareTheMeal app that makes it very easy. The food will take a round-about and less than ideal route to get there, but it will get there and help. Do something that will actually be effective, and while you’re at it, treat antisemitic racist crap the same way you would treat any other kind of racist crap.
thejeff
There are definitely cases you could make for the US being worse than Israel – and not even just because the US operates on a bigger scale.
WWII is not one of those cases. Certainly not reduced to “we nuked to cities because we had a number of ships bombed”.
The other case is more reasonable. Some of us in fact wanted Israel to learn from our example and not over-retaliate the way we did after 9/11 because of how badly that went for everyone, including us.
Li
I don’t think Clif was talking about “WWII”, I think they were very specifically talking about that time that we chose to drop nukes on two civilian population centers “to end the war” when we knew perfectly well that Japan was ready to surrender, and would have surrendered easily, had we just been willing to promise not to execute their emperor.
That part is not defensible. Nothing else that was going on makes it defensible. And it’s also not really arguable — we didn’t drop those bombs because we “had” to, we did it because the people involved wanted big impressive blast sites to show off the power of our new toys, and we were also eager to crush Japan specifically before Russia could get involved, because we didn’t want to owe them anything.
I’m not “reducing” America’s involvement in WWII to these two bombs, though our long reluctance to get involved and the part where our own eugenics movement was admired by Hitler and we literally had newspaper articles early in the war lamenting that the Germans were “beating us at our own game”, like, none of that is admirable either.
We like to think of ourselves as just the soldiers on D-day. We don’t so much like to remember any other part of America’s participation (or lack thereof).
Cimorene
And that is why I’m not complaining. (To Wizard’s comment). I want to try and trust the process, I just wish I could remember what book the teacher wants to replace A Clockwork Orange with.
Steamweed
The Ayn Rand Foundation does some pretty skeezy marketing to get her books into middle and high schools. Some English teachers don’t read all the material that they have their students read. (Not to mention those who like her crap.)
Adeptus
It does, and it’s super gross.
Cimorene
Arizona passed a law a couple of years back that all lesson plans have to be written to the day a year in advance. Even if I wasn’t disabled I don’t think I could handle teaching here anymore just because of that. The district is also pretty strict and each grade level teaches the same texts/projects (only one high school so maybe 2 or 3 English teachers for each grade?) I like and trust the teacher enough to hope it’s compared and contrasted to the other books.
Big Z
Ugh. Do you know if they’re teaching it straight?
My kid had to read a book I thought was pretty questionable in 8th grade (something PragerU-adjacent, as I recall, but I don’t remember the exact book) but it turned out it was part of the unit on propaganda and most of the pedagogy was pointing out the ways in which facts/statistics/etc were distorted and rhetoric was deployed in place of facts.
Cimorene
They’ll probably read the entire book, but then do a in depth critical analysis. The district is pretty good at balancing opinions and letting students gather their own ideas. The whole year is focused on community vs individuality and they’re reading The Hunger Games, too, but The Cheese knows enough people have misinterpreted those books.
Yeet
*posts bee movie script*
Mym
Perfect pfp for this
Cimorene
I had 7th grade students post The Bee Movie script as answers to their ReadWorks assignments. When I scored them low they were very upset I actually read work they turned in, unlike other teachers.
Mym
Looks like I’m eating my hands
Bryy
You are not required to read the comments.
Skyeribbon
I will excuse the break from the gay girld because of hot girls because I am a hot gay girl
deliverything
Yes, we’re all trying to deal with the heat this summer. That’s what you meant, right?
Adeptus
Am I too cynical when I doubt the hotness of anybody self-describing themselves as hot? I suspect their attitude would immediately put me off.
Whirlakitty
Too cynical. Everyone is hot these days.
Damn global warming.
Deanatay
Amazi-Girl: future mob hitwoman.
Steamweed
No, no, _Amber_ will be the hitwoman. (though mostly they’ll have her do cybercrime). _Amazi-Girl_ will fight against her.
apricot
Sal continues to be a good character and friend
Embe13
that she is!
Axel
nah your dad definitely wanted to be a mob tough guy