Frazz by Jef Mallett for December 03, 2015

Stupid is as stupid does, kid. What do you know from dumb?

I drive through it a few times a month and it is a real time saver.

Doing core work on a reformer in the Pilates studio seems pointless but it sure has done wonders for my singing and my speed walking.

Use your brain, Caulfield. It won’t go to waste.

I think it’s Chevy Chase Circle.

I remember using the same argument when I was a child. The adults of that time scoffed at me as I scoff at today’s youth.

Seriously? I’ve never before encountered a roundabout where the people entering had right of way in any country. For one thing, that could lead to a traffic jam almost immediately since the roundabout could “fill”. If that’s really the case then that’s just ludicrous!

Lots of roundabouts (“traffic circles” in the local vernacular) in and around DC area. The bizarre thing is that most of them have traffic lights — which completely defeats all advantages of a circle and results in essentially a needlessly complex and confusing intersection.

Besides roundabouts/circles, we have a few other odd types of intersections around here. The ones I’ve been through seem to work fine. But sometimes I wonder what will happen in few years when the traffic paint wears off.

Since reciprocally are necessary to do fraction division problems, as well as useful to understand negative exponents, Caufield is out of character in rejecting useful knowledge.

cant intelligently call a subject “dumb” unless you learn it first

With all the commentary about reciprocals and roundabouts, it appears that Jef may have buried the gag. Caulfield’s last line can stand alone, regardless the set-up:1. It exposes “learning something new” as a commonly accepted redundancy, like “hot water heater” and “foreign imports”.2. It expresses the truth that the ability to avoid learning something dumb is a luxury of adulthood. The problem is that most people (of all ages) tend to conflate “hard” with “dumb” due to lack of imagination, which explains accidents in traffic circles.

@J Ba is essentially correct: when I approach any unusual traffic situation (roundabout, roadside police activity, hot-air balloon in sight) I instantly reclassify all the other drivers as idiots. I’m rarely wrong.

Roundabouts work in England because the British are inherently cooperative (put ten Englishmen in a room and they will quite spontaneoulsy form an orderly queue), and so those entering the roundabout will automatically yield to those already in it. Americans have more trouble with roundabouts because our nature is to view driving as a competitive sport.

They work OK in France (where in my experience queue-jumping is a national sport). They work OK in parts of the US where people are used to them.

Now let’s talk about diverging diamonds….

We have several roundabouts near my home, and they work well until the guy in the circle stops to allow everyone on the side road to enter. Makes you want to get out and teach him how to use it.

JudyAzThe line was supposedly by Sam Goldwyn, the G in MGM. However, it was probably from one of the writers he hired to come up with such statements to get mentioned in the trades. Yogi was not that interested in the restaurant scene, having had to use so many in “away” games.

Reciprocals actually make things easier. Which goes against everything Caulfield stands for.

If cars wanting to enter the roundabout have priority over vehicles already in the roundabout, that is a gross violation of one of the most-basic principles of traffic law.

These are different kinds of learning. I know perfectly well how to hit a baseball; but let me try to actually do it ….

How does he know that it’s something dumb? Just because Mrs. Olsen is teaching it? Conversely, if he does know that it’s dumb, it indicates that he already knows about them, so what’s the problem?