Of Mockingbirds and Sacred Cows: Sunday Funnies 140817

The Sunday Funnies word of the week is silliness:

sil-ly |ˈsilē|
adjective ( -lier , -liest )having or showing a lack of common sense or judgment; absurd and foolish : another of his silly jokes | “Don't be silly!” she said.• ridiculously trivial or frivolous : he would brood about silly things.• [as complement ] used to convey that an activity or process has been engaged in to such a degree that someone is no longer capable of thinking or actingsensibly : he often drank himself silly | his mother worried herself silly over him.• archaic (esp. of a woman, child, or animal) helpless; defenseless.noun ( pl. -lies) informala foolish person (often used as a form of address) : Come on, silly.PHRASESthe silly season high summer, regarded as the season when newspapers often publish trivial material because of a lack of important news.DERIVATIVESsillily |ˈsiləlē| adverbsilliness nounORIGIN late Middle English (in the sense [deserving of pity or sympathy] ): alteration of dialect seely [happy,] later [innocent, feeble,] from a West Germanic base meaning [luck, happiness.] The sense [foolish] developed via the stages [feeble] and [unsophisticated, ignorant.]***I start assembling Sunday Funnies editions on Sunday morning, of course. As I peruse the first batch of the week's gocomics.com emails, I usually discover a common thread, which suggests the word or theme I'll flesh out as the week progresses. Absent such a thread, I look for comics that tickle my funny bone and which, dear reader, I believe will have the same affect on the nerve at the distal end of your humerus.

At first blush, this week's comics and cartoons had no common thread, and I chose silliness as the word of the week. By midweek, however, silliness (having or showing a lack of common sense or judgment) had taken a decidedly macabre turn at Ferguson, Missouri where a policeman had shot and killed an unarmed, Black teenager the previous Saturday.

I am well aware of the seriousness of the story unfolding in Ferguson, and many of the editorial cartoons I received this week have addressed this theme. Nonetheless, I have focused on the more benign definition of the word (ridiculously trivial or frivolous) as the theme of the week for these reasons:

24/7 news coverage of the events unfolding in Ferguson makes any retelling here superfluous
The underlying issue of unequal application of the law merits a stand-alone post rather than a compendium of editorial cartoons
After a week of anger and frustration at the absurd and foolish behavior of the Ferguson police force, I thought I'd offer a bit of frivolity to break the tension.

6. General Zaroff's Deception Comes to a Head

If you've read The Most Dangerous Game (or seen the incredibly bad movie version of the story), you'll appreciate this one. If you haven't, Ivan will show you to your room...