Comic Strip Survey: For the First Time, We Check Out the Baltimore Sun

Greetings to our blog readers in Hong Kong, Turkey, and Germany........

This week for the first time in the eight-year history of this blog, we look at Sunday comic strips from "The Baltimore Sun." We were hoping to see "Zippy the Pinhead," and as it turns out, yesterday Bill Griffith's comic strip was truly a piece of art. Today, he made vintage fun of Donald Trump; even Bao Bao, the panda at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., isn't such an easy target.

Omigosh, we just made a major faux paux as it is considered rude to mention Washington, D.C., when one is talking about Baltimore. Fortunately, when I briefly met John Waters, a cult film director from Charm City, in 2002, I did not make this mistake. But, I only talked to him for about eight seconds, which is how long I spent talking to Willie Nelson backstage at a Farm Aid concert  around that same time.

"The Baltimore Sun" features several comic strips which we don't see in the other newspapers we survey, like "The Washington Post" (whoops again!), including "Mother Goose and Grimm," "The Middletons," and "One Big Happy." All three of those strips made our big list.

First place goes to "Foxtrot," which features the family going out for a Sunday picnic at a state park in a place like The Humpback Bridge State Park in Covington, Va., and they encounters all sorts of natural elements likes ticks (top image), poison ivy, and snakes. Of course, in Florida, they would also have to worry about alligators.

Third place goes to "Speed Bump," in which a judge (center image) tweets his verdict, somehow we can't imagine Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas doing such a thing (ahhh, that's the third D.C. reference).

And, in sixth place, we have "Mother Goose and Grimm," which ironically has a nursery rhyme themed strip (given its title) as Humpty Dumpty falls off his great wall. We actually didn't get the Obamacare gag (and, that makes four), but we liked the strip enough as it is.

Now, let's give this list which you can perhaps read on the Metro after you've come back from seeing that new Woody Allen movie at the Landmark E-Street Cinema...........now, we are up to five!:

1) Foxtrot

2) Pearls Before Swine

3) Speed Bump

4) Dilbert

5) Get Fuzzy

6) Mother Goose and Grimm

7) The Middletons

8) One Big Happy

9) Garfield

10) Zits

http://www.baltimoresun.com/

http://baltimore.org/

http://www.visitmaryland.org/

http://www.gocomics.com/foxtrot

Tweets Considering All Things Considering Washington DC: (2 of 2) The Great Train Robbery

With a government shutdown looming as the House Congressional Republicans are acting like great train robbers of the Wild West (pictured, forgive the editorial commentary, but we stand by it), we thought we'd look like at some tweets from all perspectives in the nation's capital.

Let's get started (not all tweets pertain to the train robbery):

1) Suzy Khimm ( a liberal journalist who has written for "Mother Jones" and "The Washington Post"): "Republicans have abandoned any pretense that the debt limit fight is about debt."

2) David Corn (a liberal journalist who is an editor for "Mother Jones"): "Obama: 'See what the prices are, and make up your mind. '//Letting the market work. What a socialist!" (Corn is referring to the Obamacare squabble)

3.) Washington Diplomat: "NSA spied on Indian embassy and U.N mission. Edward Snowden file reveals."

4.) Jeff A: "#GOPDemands: All people who work for the government should get Obamacare." (Ok, here's our token Republican here).

5) The Hill: "Senator Barb Mikulshki (D-Md.): GOP can huff and puff, but they won't blow Obamacare away."

6) Rudolf Benkirk (the Dutch ambassador to America): "Only feathers and a bird are natural than a Dutch man or woman on a bicycle. #ThinkBikeChicago"

UPDATE: We decided to add the black-footed ferret which was tweeted about by the National Zoo. To see that tweet, go to our sister blog: http://www.politicscultureandotherwastesoft.blogspot.com

http://thehill.com/

http://www.motherjones.com

http://www.washdiplomat.com/

http://dc.the-netherlands.org/

Tweets Considering All Things Washington DC (1 of 2)

Just because we have a photo of Sen. Ted Cruz, that does NOT we are endorsing him.

Here are some tweets about Washington, DC, today, and not just Congress and the federal government (well, this entry is):

1. Politico: "Delay is not a major blow to Obamacare, exchanges for individuals are still expected to open on time."

2. Hunter: "Obama is supposed to negotiate with ppl who refuse to negotiate even with their own party. Yeah, that will work."

3. The Daily Show: "Ted Cruz cites a children's book about a stubborn jerk who decides he hates something until he's tried it."(They are referring to "Green Eggs and Ham" by Dr. Seuss)

4. Tea Party Cat/Top Conservative Cat: "#GOPDEMANDS: All liberals must watch all 21 hours of Ted Cruz's filibuster until they proclaim him as a savior."

5. Cong Virginia Foxx (R-NC): "Americans aren't interested in spin, they're concerned about whether they'll be paying more for health care on Jan.1"

6.The Onion: "It was a gamble, but 'it paid off'...............45th President of the United States: Ted Cruz."

http://www.politico.com/

http://www.theonion.com/