Salem-News.com News Feed for articles tagged with benny_and_sid http://salem-news.com 2007 You may be a Pastor and wield the Bible to turn aside Satan when he shows his pointed little head and pitch fork. But none of it means anything until real temptation comes your way. You're out of town. No one knows you from Adam. All it would take is to find your way to the wrong part of town, meet the wrong person, yield to the wrong temptation and all the sunday church-going of a hundred years won't do you a bit of good. http://salem-news.com/articles/november182009/truant_officer_9.php http://salem-news.com/articles/november182009/truant_officer_9.php Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:35:00 PST Some guys finesse their way through life. They make the right choices. We can call this luck, but it's more than luck. It's a matter of keeping your eyes and ears open. It's also a matter of being in the right place at the right time. Then there are guys who never know what to do next. They need someone to write out their next three steps ahead of time. They need someone to watch over them because left on their own they'd drop the ball. http://salem-news.com/articles/november112009/truant_officer_8.php http://salem-news.com/articles/november112009/truant_officer_8.php Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:11:00 PST Life is busy enough when everything goes smoothly. What drives you nuts is when something goes wrong. Like the flat tire you got last winter when it was 12 below. Like the bank statement which tells you your account is overdrawn when it couldn't be. You can straighten it out, sure, but you're going have to take off from work to do it. http://salem-news.com/articles/november042009/truant_officer_7.php http://salem-news.com/articles/november042009/truant_officer_7.php Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:24:00 PST Why is our culture so violent? Why do men spit in the street and why are so many women attracted to guys who are going to make their lives miserable? Why are so many people happy to watch, but not play sports? These are subtle clues as to who we are. These are revelations which we are blind to. http://salem-news.com/articles/october282009/truant_officer_6.php http://salem-news.com/articles/october282009/truant_officer_6.php Wed, 28 Oct 2009 20:36:00 PDT There are days when not only does your "best" not work, it doesn't even convince yourself. You wonder why you're going through the motions. You wonder why they cut you a check once a month. You wonder why anybody smiles at you and wishes you a good morning. If every day were like that you'd find something else to do. Something a little more rewarding like vacuuming car interiors at the local car wash or selling Hoovers door-to-door. http://salem-news.com/articles/october212009/truant_officer_5.php http://salem-news.com/articles/october212009/truant_officer_5.php Wed, 21 Oct 2009 08:01:00 PDT Nobody likes to be made a fool of. Sometimes you see it coming. Sometimes you've just got to clench your teeth and take it in the gut because it's your job. I'm not sure what consolation it is to know that Friedrich Nietzsche once wrote "That which does not kill us makes us stronger," or that Arnold Schwarzenegger said much the same thing in "Conan the Barbarian," but the jobs real men do take more than just swinging a pick or driving a long haul truck. http://salem-news.com/articles/october142009/truant_officer_4.php http://salem-news.com/articles/october142009/truant_officer_4.php Wed, 14 Oct 2009 12:19:00 PDT You never dream the dream that dreamers are supposed to dream. You never find yourself skipping in fields of brightly colored flowers. Faces which should be friendly and familiar are foreign and blurred. You're late for class, or you can't remember your lines in the play you find yourself in and performing before hundreds of people. What's the combination for that lock which keeps you from washing your gym clothes? http://salem-news.com/articles/october072009/truant_officer_3.php http://salem-news.com/articles/october072009/truant_officer_3.php Wed, 07 Oct 2009 09:19:00 PDT The unemployment numbers are obscene. Good men and women pick themselves up morning after morning and do their rounds only to be told to come back the next day. "Sorry Mac, I've got nothing for you today." They grit their teeth into what passes for a smile and move on. Maybe he's a logger. Maybe she's a waitress. Maybe they've got kids who need glasses and grandma needs a triple by-pass. Do they deserve a break? Could these good people use government health insurance? Damn right. http://salem-news.com/articles/september302009/benn_sid_truant_officer-2.php http://salem-news.com/articles/september302009/benn_sid_truant_officer-2.php Wed, 30 Sep 2009 08:59:00 PDT The nightstand next to your bed spills over with dog-eared paperbacks by authors like Mickey Spillane, Raymond Chandler, Ross MacDonald, and Donald Westlake. You selected the latest addition to your wardrobe from here [http://poeticlicenseprinting.com/artists/hardcasecrime.html], and every time you toss it into the laundry you pull it back out and wear it just one more time because it's so incredibly truck-stop. http://salem-news.com/articles/september232009/truant_officer_1.php http://salem-news.com/articles/september232009/truant_officer_1.php Wed, 23 Sep 2009 08:52:00 PDT Some people work hard all their lives. They do the right thing. They go to school. They never stop learning whether they're in a classroom or not. They're interested in just about everything. They're kind and generous. They always have a kind word to say about everyone they know. They make good choices. Then there are the people who are always looking for a get-rich-quick scheme... http://salem-news.com/articles/september162009/benny_sid-62.php http://salem-news.com/articles/september162009/benny_sid-62.php Wed, 16 Sep 2009 19:33:00 PDT My wife is a wonderfully complex woman. She is interested in so many things--some bizarrely juxtaposed. She likes samurai movies and Jane Austin. We've watched and enjoyed Yojimbo, The Seven Samurai, The Samurai Trilogy and others repeatedly. But I can't tell you how many movie adaptations of Pride and Prejudice we've watched together. http://salem-news.com/articles/september092009/benny_sid-61.php http://salem-news.com/articles/september092009/benny_sid-61.php Wed, 09 Sep 2009 08:28:00 PDT I'm sitting in the Phoenix Inn Suite continental breakfast area in Bend this past Sunday, but it could have been anywhere. Plates clatter. Silverware clinks. Toasters pop. The light buzz of conversations fill the air. To one side hangs a wide screen television. Why is it there and why is it on? http://salem-news.com/articles/september022009/benny_sid-60.php http://salem-news.com/articles/september022009/benny_sid-60.php Wed, 02 Sep 2009 09:14:00 PDT Those of us who are old enough remember a far more rational time. A time when the crazies of the right wing would have been impossible. They would never have been given news coverage. Barry Goldwater was as right as it got and Goldwater was really a reasonable man even if you disagreed with him. http://salem-news.com/articles/august262009/benny_sid-59.php http://salem-news.com/articles/august262009/benny_sid-59.php Wed, 26 Aug 2009 08:03:00 PDT I really should have done a strip about the health care debate -- if you can call shouting down speakers at health care meetings a debate. It reminds me of the people who complain about their doctors or lawyers or whichever occupation at the moment seems fair game for complaint. One moment they stomp their feet and act indignant. http://salem-news.com/articles/august192009/benny_sid-58.php http://salem-news.com/articles/august192009/benny_sid-58.php Wed, 19 Aug 2009 08:31:00 PDT I have a relative who hates Obama. She's not very articulate as to why she hates him ("He's another Al Capone" -- which makes no sense whatever), but at a not-so-deep level it boils down to racism. She like many conservative whites is afraid that blacks are going to treat whites as the whites historically treated blacks. http://salem-news.com/articles/august122009/benny_sid-57.php http://salem-news.com/articles/august122009/benny_sid-57.php Wed, 12 Aug 2009 08:13:00 PDT Well, as near as I can figure this should mark three years of my doing comics for Salem-News.com. That's a lot of time and a fair number of comics. When I thought about doing an online comic I knew I wanted it to be paced differently than print comics. Print media is limited in the space it can take up. http://salem-news.com/articles/august052009/benny_sid-56.php http://salem-news.com/articles/august052009/benny_sid-56.php Wed, 05 Aug 2009 08:16:00 PDT I went back to Indiana to visit relatives and old friends this past week. Have you ever noticed how many Hoosiers (what people from Indiana are called) there are in Oregon? Not nearly as many as former Californians, but more than might otherwise be expected. http://salem-news.com/articles/july292009/benny_sid-55.php http://salem-news.com/articles/july292009/benny_sid-55.php Wed, 29 Jul 2009 09:11:00 PDT Well, I suppose it never hurt anyone to believe in the Easter bunny, and if you want to believe that Criss Angel can walk on the surface of a swimming pool, then knock yourself out (but don't watch the Masked Magician). There are times when we willingly suspend our belief system for entertainment. There are times, for example, when it's fun to speculate about the possibility of ghosts. (I've experienced phenomena for which no one has yet provided a reasonable explanation.) But the science which puts airplanes in the sky (not the Bernoulli effect, by the way) or sends digital images to your high def television has a pretty good track record in getting results. Science really doesn't ask anyone to believe anything. It only has explanations which best fit the evidence. When the evidence changes the theory may have to change as well or be discarded. That's what I like about science. No idea is so sacred that it can't be dropped if it proves to be wrong. http://salem-news.com/articles/july222009/benny_sid-54.php http://salem-news.com/articles/july222009/benny_sid-54.php Wed, 22 Jul 2009 08:19:00 PDT Life is good in the summer. The sense of summer freedom is intoxicating to me. Every color that the sun picks out in the flowers, every bird-song sung, every shimmy of trees in the wind reminds me that this is the best of all seasons. Summers should last forever. We should be kids forever walking around, skipping rocks across ponds, reading books that we want to read--not books that someone else has picked for us and are so boring that it dulls the imagination. http://salem-news.com/articles/july152009/benny_sid-53.php http://salem-news.com/articles/july152009/benny_sid-53.php Wed, 15 Jul 2009 08:29:00 PDT I just read about an anti-paparazzi device [http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/07/celebrity-shielding-flashgun-handbag-defeats-paparazzi/] which flashes an intense LED light into the offending camera's direction when the device's light meter senses a camera flash. It doesn't appear to be the least bit practical, but it demonstrates the level of frustration endured by celebrities. I don't think anyone really cares if Celebrity A has cellulite and shouldn't be at the beach wearing a blue Speedo, yet it's a common photo-topic in the scandal rags even though it's about as appetizing as a picture of a sore toe. http://salem-news.com/articles/july082009/benny_sid-52.php http://salem-news.com/articles/july082009/benny_sid-52.php Wed, 08 Jul 2009 08:31:00 PDT Michael Jackson is gone. Another pop icon now left us. None of us is immortal. I saw Michael Jackson once in a parade in Gary, Indiana when he was just a bouncy little kid with a fro and a fringe jacket. He stood on an Oscar Meyer weiner float and threw candy to the bystanders on Broadway. Those were Jackson 5 Days and Michael was just one of the team then. http://salem-news.com/articles/july012009/benny_sid-51.php http://salem-news.com/articles/july012009/benny_sid-51.php Wed, 01 Jul 2009 08:33:00 PDT In high school I knew a fellow student who never (well, hardly ever) said the right the thing to the right person. He bought, for example, a faux lettermen's jacket with sleeves only a slightly different hue from our school colors. Within 48 hours a couple of jocks caught him behind the school, ripped his jacket, gave him a matching set of fat lips, and generally proved themselves to be stereotypical dolts. http://salem-news.com/articles/june242009/benny_sid-50.php http://salem-news.com/articles/june242009/benny_sid-50.php Wed, 24 Jun 2009 08:04:00 PDT Summer is here. That's great news. I love the look of lush trees, the feel of the heat of the sun, that sense of freedom that summer brings to school children. I'm old enough that the sights, sounds and smells of summer trigger memories of when I was a kid with a tantalizing clarity. Sometimes during the transition between spring and summer I feel as if I can just peek under the thin veneer of reality and see what the world really is. http://salem-news.com/articles/june172009/benny_sid-49.php http://salem-news.com/articles/june172009/benny_sid-49.php Wed, 17 Jun 2009 08:06:00 PDT I've got 150,000 miles on my car. I drive more than I'd like to because of my job. but I get 38 miles to the gallon unless I've got the air on. Not bad. But I'd give it all up in a second if I had a decent electric bicycle. Maybe I'm just one of those guys who is attracted to quirky ideas and designs. I've got to drive too far each day for that to be a practical option, but still it strikes me as ideal. http://salem-news.com/articles/june102009/benny_sid-48.php http://salem-news.com/articles/june102009/benny_sid-48.php Wed, 10 Jun 2009 18:42:00 PDT When Devo first hit the scene in 1970's their outrageous elevator shoes were meant to be a satire of rock. Devo's first lesson in the reality of pop culture was their over-the-top presentation was taken as the latest trend and (briefly) elevator shoes became the fashion. Devo's later choice of flower pots for signature head gear, however, was never mistaken for anything other than anti-hip. They were through being cool. http://salem-news.com/articles/june032009/benny_sid-47.php http://salem-news.com/articles/june032009/benny_sid-47.php Wed, 03 Jun 2009 08:56:00 PDT People believe the strangest things. A gnat flies in front of a security camera and somebody gets excited and claims it's a ghost. Not that ghosts might not be real--I've had some likely supernatural experiences myself, but come on, guys--an insect is an insect. http://salem-news.com/articles/may272009/benny_sid-46.php http://salem-news.com/articles/may272009/benny_sid-46.php Wed, 27 May 2009 08:09:00 PDT Mick Jagger in all his arrogant wisdom advises us that we can't always get what we want, but (he adds) we just might find that we get what we need. I do hope he is right. We want to endure the recession, but we need to create a new society which measures success in some other way than profit. http://salem-news.com/articles/may202009/benny_sid-45.php http://salem-news.com/articles/may202009/benny_sid-45.php Wed, 20 May 2009 19:18:00 PDT If I write something about what a crime torture is, I get all sorts of people who can tell me why they believe torture is a reasonable thing. If I write words about how Ron Paul is a great archeologist and the discoverer of the lost city of Atlantis at the bottom of Lake Michigan (soon to be revealed in its full splendor as global warming turns the once great lake into a mud flat), I hear the cry of "Foul!" http://salem-news.com/articles/may132009/benny_sid-44.php http://salem-news.com/articles/may132009/benny_sid-44.php Wed, 13 May 2009 08:49:00 PDT During the 2000 election Chris Tucker noted the resemblance of Al Gore to actor Christopher Reeve who played Superman in four movies made during the late 70's and 80's. Tucker said if Gore would appear in a Superman costume he would win the presidency. Gore, not heeding this advice, lost to George Bush, but probably for other reasons. http://salem-news.com/articles/may062009/benny_sid-43.php http://salem-news.com/articles/may062009/benny_sid-43.php Wed, 06 May 2009 08:02:00 PDT Oh, the big news is the public's dismay over the torture policies of the Bush administration. So America, the soporific is finally wearing off? I'm appalled that there are those who are trying to justify it by claiming that torture gave us worthwhile information. http://salem-news.com/articles/april292009/benny_sid-42.php http://salem-news.com/articles/april292009/benny_sid-42.php Wed, 29 Apr 2009 08:04:00 PDT