A pithy comic strip about life, love, lust and puthy cats.

Est. 1985

Extra, Extra!

Show Your Colors

By Jimmy Johnson

June 14, 1995


Today’s classic A&J is from Flag Day, 1995, before there were any full-color comic strips except on Sunday, and, lo, Sunday is Flag Day. I think most of us can agree that no matter our differences, it isn’t the fault of our flag (not in any literal sense anyway), and I think, for most of us, it remains a symbol of what we want our country to be. Flag Day of course is not a real holiday, and it usually passes quietly, but I think, again for most of us, this year it could be a particularly meaningful occasion. Just don’t get carried away and overdo! The next day is Monday, you know.


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37 responses to “Show Your Colors”

  1. sandcastler™ Avatar
    sandcastler™

    Sunday is also the U.S. Army’s 245th Birthday. Go Army, Happy Birthday.

  2. Ghost Avatar
    Ghost

    Yes, Happy Birthday, US Army. You don’t look a day over 200. 🙂

  3. Richard Avatar
    Richard

    Jimmy, since winter is over, may I kindly nudge you for an update on the status of the book?

  4. Norm Sullivan Avatar
    Norm Sullivan

    YES Jimmy…..someone supports Flag Day.

  5. Ghost Avatar
    Ghost

    Re the 6-12-20 real-time cartoon: We buy beer. In fact, we buy it by the case. Also in fact, it’s the cheapest brew I can find, because it’s the key ingredient we use in pain à la bière. (For the hoi polloi out there, that’s “beer bread”, not “pain in the butt”. 🙂 ) Making about a loaf per week, a case lasts almost six months. That being the case (no pun intended), I suppose we could buy the expensive imported premium stuff, but after it’s baked in a bread pan full of dough for about an hour, I’m pretty sure we couldn’t tell the difference.

    1. Cozmik Cowboy Avatar
      Cozmik Cowboy

      I have made beer bread with all sorts of brews, from nasty BMC swill to mt finest homebrew, and I can assure you – better beer does make better bread – and an excellent cream ale and an excellent porter make completely different excellent breads. Give it a try; you won’t be sorry!

      1. Ghost Avatar
        Ghost

        I will. My impression was the beer’s job was to make the dough rise. And I really can detect any flavor it imparts to the bread. But perhaps a more flavorful brew would.

        1. Ghost Avatar
          Ghost

          ^^”really can’t detect”^^

  6. emb Avatar
    emb

    c x-p:
    “THREE of my friends turned 80 today. Seems remarkable to me.” Even more remarkable at fourscore & ten. One Philly tennis player I’ve known since 3rd grade in Greenwich Village, a few emeriti from BSU, no relatives* that I know of, a few elders that I may get a chance to meet at BUMC when it goes live again. 1 math prof in Windsong [SHB assisted living apts.] turned 95 last year. House arrest is getting tiresome; some days are warm enough for a walk around “The Meadows.”
    *That makes me patriarch, but we don’t discuss politics: 3 half-nephews & 2 half-nieces, & their offspring. My deceased half-sibs were all old enough to be my folks. In various ways, my folks were too old to be my folks, but we have no choice in these matters. You already know about the best choice I ever made.
    Peace,

    1. curmudgeonly ex-professor Avatar
      curmudgeonly ex-professor

      Did you mean that all the persons you mentioned share the same date of birth (day, month, & year)? {That is what I meant for my trio.} If so, such would be very unusual, indeed.

  7. Jerry in Fl Avatar
    Jerry in Fl

    First of all I have never had the flu, never. I don’t think that I’ve ever had a cold. Allergies? Oh yeah, but they aren’t bothering me right now. I do wear a mask and usually gloves when I go somewhere, even to visit family. They can think I’m being silly, but I intend to survive this and I have been reading a lot about the 1918 flue and it is very scary. They say that one minute someone appeared fine and the next minute they were dead. I don’t think that we have seen an epidemic yet, but we will.

  8. Ghost Avatar
    Ghost

    I was told by my grandmother that in 1918 healthy young men would go to work in the morning and be dead from the “Spanish flu” by lunchtime.

    My last bout with flu was in 1970. Probably not coincidentally, that is also the last year I did not get an influenza vaccine injection.

  9. Library Gal Avatar
    Library Gal

    This June 14th Flag Day is also my 46th wedding anniversary. My bridesmaids wore red & white gingham dresses and carried red, white and blue flower bouquets. Very appropriate. ?

    1. Bryan Avatar
      Bryan

      Very appropriate, Gal!

      1. Bryan Avatar
        Bryan

        Oh, and Happy Anniversary!

        1. Library Gal Avatar
          Library Gal

          Thanks!

    2. Nancy Kirk in AZ Avatar
      Nancy Kirk in AZ

      Cool!

    3. Galliglo of Ohio Avatar
      Galliglo of Ohio

      Happy Anniversary!

      1. Library Gal Avatar
        Library Gal

        Thanks!

  10. Llee Avatar
    Llee

    Happy Anniversary Library Gal! And Happy Birthday(s)! Jerry! Good to see you, man!
    Ghost, give Jackie a hug for me, please? Mark, thanks for the music.
    My flag was torn away and went flying during one of the bad storms…haven’t replaced it yet. Life keeps interrupting. But I hope to get another Soon.
    Jimmy, I had to go looking for “the suitcase incident”, needed another funny for today. Good one! Thank you- for all the good stuff.

    1. Mark in TTown Avatar
      Mark in TTown

      You’re welcome for the music. Hope it livens up your day. Thank you for the photos you are sharing on Facebook. Nice to see all those different flowers and scenes of the Red Oak farm. May you and everyone else have a great weekend.

  11. emb Avatar
    emb

    c x-p.
    No, not the same dates. Obit of another colleague in today’s Bemidji Pioneer: 87, prof. emer. / Geol. Neat guy.
    Peace,

  12. Jerry in Fl Avatar
    Jerry in Fl

    I very rarely get a flu shot and almost never have had a pneumonia shot. This year I’ve had both. I am reading unbelievable stories, about hospitals in which every single patient died during the night. One man got on a streetcar and began having a conversation with another man who suddenly dropped dead. Within two blocks six more people had died. It is said that the situation in large cities was like the plague in the middle ages. People would put the bodies on their front porch and a wagon would come by and pick them up to carry to a mass grave. Since you and I are here I assume that like mine your grandparents survived. Mine probably did because they lived on farms in the country.

  13. Jerry in Fl Avatar
    Jerry in Fl

    DON’T CANCEL LAW AND ORDER/SVU. Keep Olivia.

    Keep Olivia

  14. Sandy Avatar
    Sandy

    We have always loved Arlo and Janis.. it’s amazing how much we are like them.. and Jimmy Johnson sounds like he really knows and loves cats.
    the Saturday June 13, 2020 made me laugh until I thought about the implications of this “joke”. people in China were throwing their cats out of their apartment windows right after Covid started. so many cat haters use any reason possible to torture and kill cats. I’m so afraid that people will use
    this reason to hurt any cat they can find, or throw theirs out. I wish he could take this cartoon back so it would never be seen. )-:

  15. Ghost Avatar
    Ghost

    Well, this certainly sucks. From today’s New York Post…
    The reading of the Mayan calendar was wrong according to a conspiracy theory on Twitter, and while the world didn’t end on Dec. 21, 2012, as originally prophesied by calendar readers, Mayan doomsday is sometime this week or next.
    “Following the Julian Calendar, we are technically in 2012… The number of days lost in a year due to the shift into Gregorian Calendar is 11 days… For 268 years using the Gregorian Calendar (1752-2020) times 11 days = 2,948 days. 2,948 days / 365 days (per year) = 8 years,” scientist Paolo Tagaloguin tweeted last week according to the Sun. The series of tweets has since been deleted.
    If Tagaloguin is correct, adding up all the missed days, then the Mayan doomsday date is … this week.

    1. TruckerRon Avatar

      Don’t run up your credit cards partying until that day!

    2. sandcastler™ Avatar
      sandcastler™

      I’ll check back on the 21st.

      1. Llee Avatar
        Llee

        It can’t end this week- I haven’t finished the latest painting!!!! And there are books to be read!!!!!!!
        🙂

    3. Elementary Mind Avatar
      Elementary Mind

      Long ago, I learned how to use a calendar. My teacher did not try to scare us without a reason. She taught us at the end of the month to turn the page over and display the next month. At the end of the year, hang a new calendar for the new year. I never considered the idea that the end of the page meant the end of all time. So when my own young son shared with me stories of the world ending because of a very old calendar ran out, I asked if anyone had turned it over to read the other side. I mean, I know it is really heavy and all, but it might be worth a look. Maybe it was time to hang a new stone on the wall.

  16. Old Bear Avatar
    Old Bear

    So the Mayans predicted the Julian Calendar but not the Gregorian?

  17. emb Avatar
    emb

    Scientists know they may be able to prove this or that hypothesis FALSE, but we can never be certain that one is CERTAINLY true. We know the best we can do is the preponderance of evidence. Since ALL of the thousands of predictions of end times have failed—those that is which have been based on interpretations of various scriptures; Mayan, Egyptian, etc. ruins; what “house” various planets have been in; the number of vertebrae in a giraffe’s neck; & other irrelevant findings or notions—my humble hypothesis is that such predictions are garbage.
    However, they may not be a total waste: studying people who have faith in such “end times” may be worth a master’s thesis or 2. Perhaps some have already been done. This could get political.
    Peace,

  18. Ghost Avatar
    Ghost

    As do, I’m sure, many other veterans, I have a “Veterans Cap” that proclaims my status and branch of service. However, I wear I only on military holidays and days of remembrance. (Wearing it every day seems a bit, well, show-offish to me. But that’s just me. If you are a Vet, have a cap, and wish to wear it every day, by all means do so. You’ve earned that right.) Since this is Flag Day, I’m wearing mine proudly today. And for any that would denigrate that sense of pride as somehow no longer relevant or jingoistic, your freedom to feel that way is one of the reasons I served. Have a great day.

    1. Galliglo of Ohio Avatar
      Galliglo of Ohio

      Totally agree!

  19. Old Bear Avatar
    Old Bear

    From when music was music and you could sing along without worry.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kch2apoV490