not how the world works – Page 4

Getting the runaround

Did you know President Bill Clinton likes to jog? I sure didn’t, at least not until today’s strip… and when I say “today’s strip”, I mean “when he was first elected President”. Does TB think calling him “President Clinton” is not enough of an identifier for readers or did he just recently start watching a DVD box set of 1990s Saturday Night Live episodes?

What’s with all the Eeyores in the first panel? Funky just dialed up BILL CLINTON on a whim, got the former POTUS to answer directly, and was told by the man himself that he would help. Why is Rachel even questioning this?

Better yet, why am I questioning this? Any of this? It’s been a fool’s errand for decades.

Hey I once met you, and this is crazy… but here’s my number, so call me, Funky.

Holly’s persistence pays off in today’s strip… or does it?

Yes, the 27 (or 37) year old phone number for President Clinton that Funky has still works, and his call has been received by a cell phone that recognizes Funky’s personal cell phone as Montoni’s! It must be the same brand as Wally’s magic Adeela-recognizing phone. But the man answering it, unfortunately, is not the former President.

Look, I dunno if this guy is Durwood 40 years in the future or maybe James Woods after a horrible accident involving a beaker or two of acid or the world’s most embarrassing caricature of the late Jerry Orbach or if Ayers just forgot what Flash Freeman looks like… but I do know he’s not Bill Clinton.

It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is

While most of the now-reassembled idiocy of Winkerbeans mopes at a Pete-level in today’s strip, Holly is taking charge! How, exactly, she expects a photo of Act II Funky with the mayor of Centerville to help Adeela remains to be seen…

Before we get into the explanation for this bit of Batiukverse history, let’s take a minute to appreciate the magnificent uselessness of Amicus Breef, who today is repeating the exact same legal vernacular he spit out two days ago… like a 14 year old who just learned the phrase “subpoena evidence” and keeps saying it because he thinks it makes him sound smart. It has been some time since TB introduced such a remarkably incompetent character, which is saying something.

OK, now for the tale of the time Funky and his mullet met President Bill Clinton. It was the summer of 1993 and the Westview school district was facing its latest challenge in getting voters to approve yet another school levy (or “tax issue” as Fred and Nate referred to this one). Dinkle decided the best way to drum up support was to get the recently elected President Clinton to appear at a rally headlined by his WHS band. Being a well-known former band geek, the President actually showed up, endured the band’s performance, and finished things off by playing a saxophone duet with Dinkle. On his way out of town, President Clinton demanded pizza and Dinkle recommended Montoni’s. Thus:

Dinkle also gave the President a gift for showing up at the rally… *sigh* It was a box of comic books, of course.

How Much Is That Dummy In The Window?

Does today’s strip really take place right after yesterday’s? Amicus and Wally left the box office window presumably just a few minutes prior to go bother the supervisor and in that short time Adeela has already been put on the 3:45 AM flight to Baghdad? I see nothing that really indicates otherwise except for Adeela’s speedy departure, so I guess we’re still in the middle of the night of Adeela’s arrest.

I suppose this was inevitable, though. Westview has seen several immigrant refugees move to town over the years, and none have wound up ultimately staying. Let’s look at their fates:

Lu Lin and Zhang Li – escaped detention in communist China for their role in student pro-democracy protests and opened The Jade Dragon, a Chinese restaurant, next to Montoni’s:

Kahn (or is it Khan?) – immigrated from war-torn Afghanistan, founded a deli, and even became a US citizen (despite having been a known Taliban-affiliated arms dealer):

Rana – orphaned by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan and the adopted by Wally and Lefty and raised in Westview by Lefty and DSH:

Bye, Adeela…

Match Game

This ICE supervisor has got to be quaking in his Johnston & Murphy’s, Amicus Breef is finally breaking out the lawyering talk in today’s strip! And he’s doing it with righteous indignation too! What a lawyer this guy, keeping supervisor Ed O’Neill off of his Facebook feed for 4… maybe even 5 minutes by threatening to do something that would have been more useful had he done it before he showed up at the detention facility.