Monday, September 23, 2013

Doiby Dickles, the Father of Trickle-Down Economics


Sorry for the late post, my lovelies, but it's been chaos at Case de Barnett.  In the matter of four days, I've had to turn two strays over to animal control... and that doesn't include the other two I couldn't get on Friday.  I know it seems mean, but it's their only shot of getting a decent home and no matter what, it's certainly more humane than dying from exposure, starvation, dehydration, getting hit by a car, shot by a person, killed by another animal, etc.

See, here's the thing.  We domesticated dogs, so they can't survive on their own.  If someone dumps an animal or can't be bothered to put contact info on it so it can be returned home, that's really all that's left.

So a) GET YOUR ANIMAL FIXED.  Only 10% of shelter animals get homes.  Letting your dog or cat "just have one litter," even if you can find homes for those animals, is incredibly irresponsible because that still takes prospective homes from shelter animals.  FIX YOUR ANIMAL.  THERE IS NO EXCUSE.

b) PUT IDENTIFYING INFORMATION ON YOUR ANIMAL.  When a dog or a cat has a tag or a chip, do you know what I do when I find it?  I call you, you pick it up, and everyone's a winner.  See how simple that is?  A collar by itself is useless.  There are machines at Wal-Mart that will make a tag for you on the spot for just a few bucks, so THERE IS NO EXCUSE.

c) If you can't take care of your animal and you can't find another home for it, HAVE THE BALLS TO SURRENDER YOUR ANIMAL TO THE SHELTER.  Yes, the odds are huge that they'll put the animal down.  But you know what?  That's the kind of thing you signed up for when you took on the pet.  Abandoning your animal is much more cruel for the animal, and there's a special place in Hell for you if you do that.

In short, please be worthy of your position in the animal-master relationship so that I will not wish terrible things upon you... which for the people responsible for those four dogs I encountered just these last few days, includes (but is not limited to) leprosy of the genitals.

Ah.... I feel better.  On to the fun stuff, courtesy of Green Lantern #12:



Doiby has ambition, and good for him.  But, as is often the case, "ambition" often means "I want to take considerable short cuts."  Thusly:


But, of course, Alan is having none of that:


So, just to review: Alan should use the ring so that Doiby can become rich and spend the money on War Bonds.

Now, I'm not saying rich people don't give to charity.  Like with any other group of people, some of them are good people that do good things, and some are scumbags who don't take care of their animals and deserve leprosy of the genitals.  No, what's amazing is that Doiby is asking for Alan to violate his ethics and hand Doiby a business without putting in any of the work and with minimal risk on Doiby's part.

And Alan totally buys it:


So if I promise to buy extra boxes of Thin Mints from the Girl Scouts this year, can I have a ready-made business just fall into my lap?

Meanwhile, do you know what's going to make a comeback in the future?  Flash bulbs.  From Action Comics #160:


I've heard that Uranus is pretty dark, indeed.

Heh.

See you tomorrow!

4 comments:

MarvelX42 said...

So you seriously think that crime fighters shouldn't get paid for their work? We should just stop paying the entire police force? What about the military? Should they get paid?

Adam Barnett said...

I don't even know where you got that, Marv. Doiby isn't talking about getting paid for his work. Doiby is talking about opening up his own private business and asking Alan to break his own ethics. If Doiby needs to get paid for his crime-fighting, then he should join the police, become a private detective, or a "hero for hire." But if I volunteer to read poems to blind puppies, that doesn't give me license to do unethical things in my other dealings.

MarvelX42 said...

If what Doiby says is true that he hasn't had time to get a regular person job because he has been out fighting crime with GL all the time and he obtained all of these cars legally than I don't see the problem in asking the Lantern to fix them up so that he can actually DO a regular job and earn a living that way. The GL fixin the cars wouldn't be illegal either and is hurting noone. In fact Doiby would probably be hiring people to drive some of those cabs thereby helping even more people. Also GL wouldn't be using the ring for personal gain. He would be repaying a friend for helping him out and compensating him for his work. That is what happens everyday. Noone is breaking any laws or doing anything unethical. Perhaps I am missing something in your objection to this hypothetical situation.

Adam Barnett said...

Fair point... I guess the issue is that Alan has clear lines in that regard (ie, no using the ring for commercial purposes), and Doiby is asking him to cross them. He certainly wouldn't be breaking any laws, but he WOULD be helping Doiby make a profit, and that's something he didn't want to do... until Doiby convinced him that "a part of the proceeds" would go to the war effort.