Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for November 09, 2008

Bravo.

You know, the Sunday NQs (especially those with the talking horses/turtles, or Basil) have always struck me as a bit more whimsy, or fantasy, and a bit harder to figure out. This one fits neatly into that category, but more so; I wasn’t surprised to see Danae disappointed, but wasn’t expecting such a prosaic response from a talking turtle.

Thats just how Obama got elected. America is going to get hustled just like Danae did.

Markj: Sadly, you are probably right.

risk vs. reasonable expectation

Simply hilarious, but if you really want to get a laugh, substitute President Elect Obama as the turtle…. Then Danae will conclude in the last frame, well… I think I learned how politics works. Then again, maybe we won’t be laughing after all.

doctortoon - that’s profound considering how the democRATS acted for the last 8 years.

I click favorited for the comic not the comments:D

Sometimes the stock market is just the stockmarket. Thanks Wiley.

Doctortoon, I think you have a very good jerk-o-meter. Markj0119 just seems to be making comments out of far ‘right’ field. I saw the one on Lio and it just didn’t make sense.

… and this is a picture I will remember for a while…Thanks for your insight… webcat411

Thank you Wiley for clarifying that. I’m guessing some people take the title of your strip semi-literally. [An inference or conclusion that does not follow from the premises or evidence].

sorry but the first thing i thought of was that the correct substitution should have been pres. elect obama for the stock market

markj. better than what bush gave us for 8 years

The line “Anytime you see a turtle up on top of a fence post, you know he had some help” is attributed to Alex Haley, who died in 1992. I don’t think the quote originated with him, though.

Similarly, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that this joke was first told long before George W. Bush became president, with another political figure as the subject:

http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/jokes/bljokebushpostturtle.htm

The book “Winnie-the-Pooh” was first published in 1926, ten years before John McCain was born.

Wiley says:

I would greatly appreciate it if readers posting comments here would direct their thoughts and opinions toward the subject and point of the cartoon itself.

This cartoon has absolutely nothing to do with president-elect Obama, nor anything about the election. If you want to vent your feelings and opinions about the election, there is no shortage of political chat rooms to do it.

This just a cartoon page. Let’s keep the discussion on cartoons, ok?

I guess I’d better repeat this. Please pay heed to what the cartoonist asks of us, his readers. Thank you.

Couldn’t agree with Wiley more! Must everything be about Obama and Mc Cain? Especially since Danae is talking about the Stock Market! C’mon, Obama won, elections are over,get over it!

I’m glad to see that you tune into the comments Wiley. This strip joins my two previous all-time favorites - Dilbert’s cartoon on the 7 advantages of being dumb, and the Doonesbury’s cartoon where one of the characters is asked what would he do if he woke one day and found that he was Donald Trump. (He would have to kill himself.)

Anyway, for those comment writers who don’t get this cartoon (all of you), I interpret it as being about the credit crisis and the government bailout. The financial institutions (the turtle) don’t really get how they got up on the post, and don’t know how to get off it. The government bailout enables the banks etc. to survive, but the government wants the banks to lend that money out so that the economy can expand again (2 of the 3 wishes?). There’s a good chance that may not happen.

If I’m wrong on Wiley’s intent, it doesn’t matter. Great art is great because of the variety of meanings that viewers find in it. This cartoon is great art, because it says much more than all the stuff that I have read on the financial crisis.

¡Venga en! ¡Consiga una vida! ¡Las campañas para Obama y McCain estuvieron sobre! ¡Obama ganó! ¡Es tiempo de mover en!

QUOTE: “doctortoon says: Wiley - I apologize for my role today in turning this into a political discussion page.”

Good grief man, you don’t have to kiss his ass.

Oh gosh guys, be nice! We’re all fighting like little kids! I’m sorry if one of my comments on Lio made a lot of people angry. However, I disagree somewhat with Wiley. Somewhat. I think that when an election is coming up or just passed you simply can’t avoid political jokes and maybe–maybe–just a bit of discussion. If you don’t like listening to discussion then don’t read the comments and just read the comic. And by the way, doctortoon, I respect you for somebody who’s willing to say you’re sorry even if you don’t share my political views.

Regardless of whether or not this was originally a political joke, the beauty of Danae’s insight is that she sees it as an apt description of how the stock market works for the average investor: stockbrokers/financial advisors take advantage of gullible investors who believe that their advisors know some magic about stocks/bonds/etc. If brokers really knew what they were doing they wouldn’t be up the post as they are today and they wouldn’t be telling their clients, Gee, sorry you lost your money, but we just didn’t expect things to get so bad!

almost the best