Saturday, December 21, 2013

Duck Dynasty Thoughts

Robert H

Neither his nephew, grand nephews, nor Launchpad are getting the kind of education they will need when they inherit Scrooge McDuck's magnificent fortune. I get wanting to force work ethic into the next generation but sailors (?), pilots, and boy adventurers do not make good material for the future richest duck men in the duck world.  These duck people need to be developing their financial literacy and learning about how to help the duck poor, not serving as Scrooge's flunkies and gadflies.

Even more horrifying, in past comics scrooge has indicated that his heirs might receive not just most of his wealth but also take over his business.  And Donald, his closest relative, is a leading candidate as heir!  Again, this is an aging, out-of-work sailor who has spent the last few decades taking odd jobs and fantasizing about being a nazi.  Other than his heroic service as a commando in WWII, when he was dropped solo behind enemy lines and destroyed a Japanese air base housing the imperial army's supply of racist caricatures, very little about his life qualifies him to become one of the most powerful beings in Duckburg, much less the world.

Plus, what the hell is Scrooge doing exposing children to race cars, lasers, and aeroplanes?  Six year olds should not live their lives in a duck blur.  I get that Scrooge made his fortune adventuring, but there are only so many giant gold nuggets in the world, and Scrooge really needs to consider pushing his grand nephews in a different direction.  Even if he doesn't, let's wait until they are a little older before we start putting them in life threatening situations, k?

If the Mcduck and Duck families want to become the Duck dynasty, they need to start planning for the future.

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Writing Tips from Winston Churchill

by Charlie Clarke

Riffing on the writing advice you learned in elementary school, Deidre McCloskey offers this anecdote:

Miss Jones filled us with guilt about using a preposition to end a sentence with.  Winston Churchill, a politician of note who wrote English well, knew how to handle her and the editor who meddled with his preposition-ended sentence.  He wrote in the margin of his manuscript corrected by a student of Miss Jones, "This is the sort of impertinence up with which I will not put."

Found in Economical Writing.