By Bob Copperstone
Letter to Editor
Nov. 16, 2024
Bargain-Basement Comics
By Bob Copperstone
All the daily newspapers serving our part of eastern Nebraska are owned by a single entity, and share a thrifty, barebones half-page comics section. Recently they announced another shuffle.
We lost Doonesbury, among other worthy strips, and left these dregs behind:
“Family Circus”: The epitome of insipidity. Age 64 and shows every year.
“Beetle Bailey,” “Hi and Lois”, “Hagar the Horrible” and
“Sally Forth”: Tough competitors in the vapidity sweepstakes race
“Zits”: The only strip worth the ink it takes to print the Lee Enterprises’ stingy comic pages.
And why bother to disinter the dusty corpses of “Barney Google & Snuffy Smith”
That hillbilly-themed cartoon is 105 years old, for heaven’s sake! The effort to update those goofy characters by giving them modern situations is painfully pathetic. Do not resuscitate!
And that’s just the daily offerings. Don’t even get me started on the Sunday comics, where sub-par panels are printed grotesquely enlarged to fill space and avoid buying us more cartoons.
This entire mess gives the appearance of a bargain-basement shopping spree at the cartoon supplier’s, Andrews McMeel International.
We subscribers deserve better than a cartoon race to the bottom.
Omaha Attorney Barges In
I am a fairly new reader of this World-Herald’s Public Pulse “Comments” feature.
I was initially attracted by the possibility of broadening my outlook on current events in the give-and-take of a public forum. It could be useful to my knowledge of current events.
But I increasingly taste a rancid flavor to the offerings. The distaste is fed by ad hominem attacks that drag participants away from fruitful discourse.
That cheapens the time and effort I take in following the personalized brouhahas that lately often monopolize the discussions.
Even if I am able to follow the drift of those personal attacks (the feuds have been going on for so long that participants are calling each other snarky nicknames or only first and last initials which mean nothing to an intruder like me), it makes me wonder if I am being adequately informed.
Or am I simply intruding on a spat among a tight little clique busily throwing dirt on the characters of perceived foes and talking over my head?
Do I want to risk being pulled into that mud-stained arena?
Well, here I am anyway. What’s next?
Early Jail Time
PARENTS: Can’t make your children toe the line? Are they repeat offenders? Do you need help?
The answer is as close as your nearest state capitol, where wise, all-knowing politicians are striving to steadily lower the age at which children can be jailed. Nebraska laws are currently on track to allow locking up pre-adolescent kids. (”Happy 11” birthday, my future little jailbirds!”
... Where will it all end?
“What’s this? Another poopie diaper? You know better than that. Didn’t the government warn you to stop that?” “Don’t cry, Dear, I’m sure you will make parole.”
A Pissy Grocery Cashier
(I sent this letter to the owner of a Wahoo supermarket several years ago.)
Dear Rex:
I was distressed on Wednesday, about 3:45 p.m., when an elderly woman in front of me at the second to the last register had dropped some blueberries on the floor.
The woman was quite elderly, but had nevertheless competently shopped for her few groceries, although she was obviously a bit addled about her mistake. The blueberries were in a fragile snap-lid plastic container, which would easily pop open if squeezed wrong.
The dark-haired cashier (I don’t know her name) glared at the woman, said “Oh, my god,” called for another checker, announced loudly that there was a “big mess”, and then ran around to the site of the spill.
The elderly customer stood back, a pained look on her face, while the checker held the offending blueberry box in front of her and proceeded to explain, as to a child, how the box could be closed properly.
In my opinion, the checker didn’t need to get all pissy about it and publicly humiliate the poor woman.
How much better a public face your supermarket would have if she had comforted the woman that “it’s all right, no harm done, let’s get someone to pick up the berries and we’ll get you checked out.”
The woman knew she had spilled them, but she was obviously addled and didn’t know what to do. The checker made her feel like a naughty child.
I know I can expect better from your store.
I remember with fondness how years ago my mother, Irma Copperstone, was about that old, and near-blind as well. She shopped at Wahoo Super, and depended on the staff – maybe you, yourself, Rex – to help her shop. She’d give them her list, and they’d fetch the groceries. Very impressive.
That helped keep her independent and out of a nursing home. I’m forever grateful for that, and it made a lasting impression on me. I shop at your store exclusively now.
I hope you can persuade your staff to be a little more empathetic. Please let me know if I can be of more help.
Best wishes,
Bob Copperstone
