At the time of his first election, Grover Cleveland was the fattest man ever to hold the office of President. Taft would later beat him out, 332 pounds to 250. Technically, Taft was 3 inches taller than Cleveland, but unless that 3 inches was composed of some Lead-Roentgenium amalgam, it's probably safe to say Taft was a portlier man overall.

Hayes, Harrison, Cleveland, Garfield, and Arthur form the five points of the Pentagon of Mundanity that ran America in the late 1800s. I enjoy this particular era because I think it's closest in temperament to our own. During the early and mid 1800s, titans like Jefferson and Lincoln wrangled with the Big Ideas of freedom and the rights of men and made tremendous leaps in those areas. Then, dizzy, the nation had to rest for a bit and concern itself with boring but important crap like "What should we make money out of?" and "How should we train civil servants?"

Then, in the early 1900s, people started realizing, "Damn, ideas are important too. Let's get some again." So, we wrestled with Big Freakin Thoughts: Democracy vs. Communism vs. Totalitarianism. Feminism. The Lingering Problems of Racism. Unionizing of the Workers. Again, huge leaps, and again we got tired out and have spent the better part of two decades now figuring out new boring but important things, led by a series of Electable Figures of Medium Scale. It's 1881 all over again.

So, when will the ideas come back, and what will they be?

- Count Dolby von Luckner

Well, this comic is something good that came out of the computer being broken.

The problem with the machine was that the video card gave up. This was caused by the fan breaking. Which was caused by so much dust clogging the fan that it choked. That state of dustiness might have been caused by the machine's lazy owner.

I bought a can of compressed air three months ago, and it has been a lovely desk decoration since then.

Oh well, my computer will be fixed soon, so color will reign once again.

--Geoff

Whoa. Subnormality has a tremendous comic up today. Check it out.