Cartoon Contest

Every week The New Yorker prints a cartoon and invites its readers to supply a caption for it. (I have not been able to win that contest.) 

In today’s blog I am going to reverse the process; I will supply a caption, and, since I can’t draw, describe the drawing that should go along with it.

<<<<<<<>>>>>>>

1—Drawing: UFO floating above the Earth. One alien speaking to another.

    

      Caption: “It’s a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.”

2—Drawing: Two beavers in a river. Log dam behind. Beaver speaking.

      Caption: “It’s a dam site better now than before.”

3—Drawing: Professor’s office. Prof holding paper, speaking to student.

      Caption: “It seems, Benson, your AI is a plagiarist.”

4—Drawing: Maiden looking down at a frog.

      Caption: “Even if you are a prince, I won’t French kiss you.”

5—Drawing: Shakespeare speaking to the Earl of Oxford.

      Caption: “Sorry, Earl, but I can’t use any of your ideas.”

6—Drawing: Man surrounded by Nazi artifacts speaking to another.

      Caption: “What makes you think I’m an anti-semite?”

7—Drawing: Two Pilgrims. Mayflower off-shore. 

      Caption: “Next year it has to be the Caribbean.” 

8—Drawing: Several mice posing for a photographer, who says . . . 

      Caption: “Say ‘cheese.’”

9—Drawing: Barroom. Disconsolate patron speaking to barkeep.

      Caption: “I asked AI to find me the perfect woman—and it ran off with her.”

10—Drawing: Gulag camp. One disheveled prisoner pointing finger at another.

        Caption: “Look here, Gronski. Siberia isn’t big enough for both of us.” 

“The Rodney Dangerfield Plutocrats get No Respect Rectification Project”

In my blog post of August 10, 2017 (“They’re Writing Songs of Love”*), I wrote about whining plutocrats, quoting James Surowiecki, who “yoke[d] [Stephen] Schwarzman [the chairman and CEO of the Blackstone Group] with venture capitalist Tom Perkins and Kenneth Langone, the co-founder of Home Depot, (both of whom ‘compared populist attacks on the wealthy to the Nazis’ attacks on the Jews’). They are members of the plutocratic set who ‘believe that they’re a persecuted minority.’” Almost a decade later, the whining continues, as 

Steve Roth [the CEO of the Vornado Realty Trust] bravely brought attention to the plight of his fellow billionaires during a recent earnings call. “I consider the phrase ‘tax the rich’ … spit out with anger and contempt by politicians … to be just as hateful as some disgusting racial slurs.”** 

We at drnormalvision can exclusively report that the cries of the billionaires have not gone unnoticed. Our secret Washington mole has handed us a copy of the Trump administration’s plan for a complete overhaul of the United States calendar of national holidays, which the committee drawing up said calendar has named “The Rodney Dangerfield Plutocrats get No Respect Rectification Project.”

And here it is:

Calendar of National Holidays (effective January 1, 2027)

###

January

January 1—(Formerly New Year’s Day) Now, National Recalibrate Your Earnings Day

Eliminated—Martin Luther King, Jr. Day (obviously a DEI plant)

February

Added--February 2, Ayn Rand’s Birthday (to be celebrated by a marathon reading of Atlas Shrugged at The Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts)

Eliminated—February 12, Lincoln’s Birthday (Billionaires can’t relate to someone born in a log cabin)

Renamed—February 14, Valentine's Day, now, Love of Plutocrats Day

Eliminated—February 22, Washington’s Birthday (Impossible to celebrate someone who “cannot tell a lie”)

March

Renamed—March 17, St. Patrick's Day to be Mandatory Wearing of the Green Day, celebrating the accumulation of greenbacks 

April

Added—April Fools Day (Billionaires get a free pass at making fun of the rest of the populace)

Added—April 15, Un-tax Day (The 1 percent are relieved of their burden)

Easter—Repurposed to anticipate the second coming of Trump

May

Eliminated—Memorial Day (We can’t bother with losers)

June

June 14—Donald Trump’s Birthday (Celebrated with a yuge military parade down Pennsylvania Avenue)

Eliminated—June 19, Juneteenth (See MLK, Jr. Day)

July

Renamed—July 4, now Dependence Day (Recognizing that the United States is dependent upon the good nature of the rich)

Added—July 14, Bastille Day (The prison gates are opened to free businessmen convicted of fraud, self-dealing, pyramid schemes, and stock manipulation)

August

Au, being the chemical sign for gold, the whole month is dedicated to draping Federal properties with faux-gold 

September

Renamed and repurposed—Labor Day becomes Management Day (to celebrate those who run the show)

October

October 31—Halloween—(A day dedicated to scaring those who are about to lose their medical coverage)

November

Eliminated—Election Day

Eliminated—November 11, Veterans Day (See Memorial Day)

Repurposed—Thanksgiving (Steve Roth also said that billionaires should be “praised and thanked”*** and they shall be)

December

Eliminated—December 25, Christmas (Plutocrats can’t relate to someone born in a manger—cf. February 12)

Added—December 26, Boxing Day (The public shows their appreciation of the rich by gifting them presents—cf. July 4) 

***

* https://drnormalvision.blogspot.com/2017/08/theyre-writing-songs-of-love.html

** https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/may/12/pity-poor-billionaires-higher-taxes-hurtful-tax-the-rich

*** https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/06/tax-the-rich-racial-slurs-new-york-real-estate

 

Mother's Day (with Chickens)

You’ll be happy to know that this post arrives before Mother’s Day. How your mother will feel about this listing at Amazon I don’t know. (“Thank you for the soap. So you think I’m dirty?”)

*

But at least that listing wasn’t a candidate for “Mistake of the Day.”

*

And then there’s weird: what joins these together?

*

There’s a question of authenticity here:

*

And now a visit to the chicken coop:

In North Carolina you can get Alpaca Chicken.

But roosters are in for a hard time of it:

Korean Air Bans Roosters on U.S.

Flights to the Philippines

Then again, it’s nice to know that chickens aren’t 

carnivorous. 

Nice to learn that the welfare of chickens is being looked 

after . . .

. . . that is, before they are slaughtered.

*

Perhaps you prefer fish: Swedish researchers gave 

salmon cocaine.*

*

That’s it for now. I hope you haven’t lost your appetite.

***

• https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/20/science/cocaine-salmon-sweden.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20260421&instance_id=174401&nl=the-morning&regi_id=92908560&segment_id=218544&user_id=4610757384ecaf1ad328813857abb8ad 

 

Wall-eyed

News Flash

President Donald Trump has sent his son-in-law-in-chief, Jared Kushner, to China to negotiate the sale of the Great Wall to the United States. If the purchase is consummated, the Wall would be relocated to the border separating the United States and Mexico, the purpose being to deter Mongolian immigrants from reaching United States territory. The Government Printing Office is reported to already be printing posters reading “Keep Out” in Mongolian and Mandarin. In return for allowing the US to acquire the famous Wall, Mr. Trump is, according to sources not authorized to speak on the issue, prepared to offer the Chinese government the opportunity to rename any three properties in Beijing after Mr. Trump.

*

Buttering Up

If President would not be honored enough by the removal of a world heritage site to the United States and, in return, having his name slapped on edifices in the Forbidden City, he has been extolled by Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) as “better than sliced bread.” Nehls adds in his “humble opinion” that Trump is “almost a second coming.”*

*

I Love You to Death

Former Fox News host Megyn Kelly ripped into some of the most vocal supporters of President Donald Trump’s war in Iran, listing the names of people she said pushed him into the conflict.

“Stop with that ‘it’s President Trump’s decision.’ I’m aware, but someone talked him into it, and those people should be held to account,” Kelly said on Friday’s episode of her show. “As this thing goes south, we need to know exactly who talked him into it, and what representations were made to convince the president that this was a good idea. Who? Who, specifically?”**

The above view of Megyn Kelly that Trump’s Iran policy is the result of his listening to advisors who “talked him in to it” is just one example of Trumpian excuse-makers who hand Trump an exculpatory get-out-of-jail-free card when presidential policies go south. “It ain’t Trump to blame—it’s those who have his ear,” and so they have an excuse themselves to continue to support the wayward President (to the extent, in Megyn Kelly’s case, that he “could drop a nuke and I’d still vote Republican over Democrat”).*** 

The Economist has a recent story about a “fashion influencer speaking truth to Putin” via a “viral Instagram video.”**** The article notes that while Victoria Bonya, “a Russian former television presenter turned influencer,” claims that 

“the people are afraid of you, bloggers are afraid of you, artists are afraid, governors are afraid,”

she goes on to counter their feelings, saying that they should not be afraid (“I am not afraid”—because Putin is “the president of our country”). 

The Economist points out that 

she mainly attacks intermediaries (following the ancient formula “good Tsar, bad boyars”).

Just like the approach of Trump brown-nosers who can’t separate themselves from the incompetent, deluded, self-loving Tsar in the White House (with the destroyed East Wing)—blame the boyars!

*

Guru

Finally, if one really needed advice from a well-educated, level-headed, politically-astute commentator, one could turn—as Trump did at a recent dinner of his—to Mike Tyson.†

***

* https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/republican-lawmaker-says-trump-almost-160542506.html

** https://www.huffpost.com/entry/megyn-kelly-maga-pushed-trump-iran_n_69c7f6f7e4b0a014076f381c

*** https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/celebrity/articles/megyn-kelly-says-donald-trump-114235855.html

**** https://www.economist.com/europe/2026/04/26/the-fashion-influencer-speaking-truth-to-putin?utm_content=ed-picks-image-link-2&etear=nl_sunday_today_2&utm_campaign=r.the-economist-sunday-today&utm_medium=email.internal-newsletter.np&utm_source=salesforce-marketing-cloud&utm_term=4/26/2026&utm_id=2183139

† https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/crypto/articles/tickets-trump-vip-event-now-145022033.html