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hufflepuffhermione · 4 years ago

Note

from the drabble list 23 “I immediately regret this decision.” if you feel like it!!

This got LONG. I know that’s what happens with everything I ever write, but this got long even for me. But I hope you enjoy it. It’s set in the summer between S3 and S4.

The Oval Office is a dangerous place. Life or death decisions are made in the room every day, and a briefly floated idea can quickly become policy before all of the words are even out. One the President has an idea set in his head, it’s difficult to talk him out of it.

Unfortunately for everyone, Toby and Josh fail to recognize the present dangers.

It’s a staff meeting outlining upcoming campaign events and the changes to the policy calendar; nothing out of the ordinary or particularly monumental, but when there’s something to do with national parks, there is always an element of risk.

“Will someone tell me why I’m going to Montana in a few weeks? If I know my electoral math, and I think I do, they’ve got all of three votes and they usually go to the other guy,” President Bartlet says, looking up from behind his reading glasses.

There’s a look exchanged between the senior staff, but Josh swallows and answers. “Sir, it’s the… the opening of Big Sky National Park.”

The President pauses. “That’s not a national park. I would know, I’ve been to all of them.”

Again, more glances. Josh clears his throat awkwardly and continues. “Yes sir, but this is the one that you signed an order to establish a few years ago. In Montana. They’re finally opening it to the public, and you’re going to be there at the opening with the Secretary of the Interior.”

“Ah, right, I did do that,” Bartlet says, smiling. “You know, I do love national parks.”

“We’re aware, sir,” Toby says dryly.

President Bartlet puts down the schedule he’s been looking at and meets Toby’s iron gaze. “Well Toby, tell me? What’s the best national park you’ve been to?”

Toby mutters something under his breath, and when he’s asked to repeat it, his voice takes on an edge. “I’ve never been to one,” he admits.

Mistake number one.

“You’re telling me you’re about to write a speech for me about the glories of the national park system, and you’ve never even been to one?” the President asks incredulously.

“Well, I was going to make Sam do it,” Toby admits.

“What, is this below your pay grade?”

Toby would be rolling his eyes if he weren’t in the Oval Office. “No, sir, but I figured California boy here has been outside a few more times in his life than I have.”

“Is this true, Sam?”

Sam shrugs. “I guess. My parents weren’t really outdoorsy types, but we went to the Grand Canyon once. So I guess I’m ahead of Toby on that score.”

“And the rest of you? Have you all had the opportunity to experience the wonder that is American national parks?”

Josh and CJ glance at each other warily. Leo volunteers the information of a few he’s had a chance to visit, but when the President’s gaze rests on CJ, she stammers, “I made plans to go to Yosemite when I was in grad school, but I… I don’t think I made it there.”

Before the President can comment on CJ’s admission, Josh chimes in. “Frankly, sir, there aren’t any national parks easily accessible from where I’ve lived, so…”

This is mistake number two.

“Nonsense,” the President exclaims. “Shenandoah is just an hour and a half from here! You’ve lived in DC how long and you still haven’t…” He breaks off, and a dangerous smile spreads across his face. “Josh, do you remember when I suggested we take a staff field trip to Shenandoah?”

“I didn’t think you were serious, sir,” Josh replies, gulping.

“I wasn’t then, but if Toby and Sam are going to be writing a speech for me about the wonders of national parks, on the anniversary of the day which, by the way, the National Park Service was established, you really ought to have some experience visiting national parks,” the President says. “Do you all have anything going on this weekend? Doesn’t matter, I can raise it to the level of an executive order and everyone you have to cancel on will just have to deal with it. We’re going on a field trip.”

The door opens behind them, and it’s Donna standing there. “I’m sorry sir, am I interrupting something?”

“Not at all,” Josh answers with relief.

“I just needed Josh for…”

“Donnatella,” the President interrupts, smiling at her. “How would you like to go on a national park expedition?”

Donna looks at him, wide-eyed. “Well, sir, I do appreciate a good national park. I’m not sure I can say no… can I say no?”

And there’s the third mistake.

“Well, Donna, pack your outdoor things, because you’re going camping this weekend,” the President says gleefully. “I’ll get my guys to arrange all of this.”

“Do you need Josh? He’s needed in a meeting with legislative affairs right now,” Donna says. “They only have twenty minutes before the vote.”

Josh immediately stands up as the President waves him off. “You shouldn’t have come in,” he hisses to Donna, as they walk down the hallway towards his office. “You should have just called. You might have avoided getting roped into this nonsense.

“Well, I immediately regret this decision, but… is he serious?”

“He’s started making plans and everything,” Josh says. “But hey, if I’m forced to go camping, at least you’ll be forced to go too.”

Donna rolls her eyes. “You’re a horrible, horrible man.”

“Yeah, but I sign your paychecks.”

“I had plans!” she whines.

Josh laughs as he turns towards his office to pick up a file. “Haven’t you learned never to make weekend plans? And never to indulge the President when he’s in one of these moods?”

“Believe me, I’m regretting all of this.”

—

“As it turns out,” the President says on a Friday morning staff meeting, “I can’t go to Shenandoah. That would require the Secret Service to shut down the whole park, and even then, there’s nothing they can do about the bears.”

An audible sigh of relief falls across the staff, but it doesn’t last long when he continues, “I’ve arranged transportation and reserved a couple of cabins for you all. You’re leaving at 6am sharp tomorrow morning, and they’ll have you back by Sunday night.”

“Sir… is this… serious?” Sam hazards.

“Serious as the deficit,” the President replies with a grin. “You’re going to experience a real national park.”

“And if we just… happened to be sick tomorrow?” Josh asks.

President Bartlet shakes his head and laughs. “I wouldn’t believe you, since you’ve never taken a sick day you weren’t forced to take. I’d send my guys over to your apartment and have them throw you in the van. Face it, Josh, you’re going to see the great outdoors.”

Toby rests his head in his hands. “Please someone just kill me now.”

“Come on, Toby, you’ll love it!”

“Sir, I’m pretty sure I have to brief this weekend, so I think…” CJ begins to argue.

“You have highly competent deputies, let them handle it,” the President deflects. “6am sharp. Be here, or the Secret Service will be making visits to your places. And they do know where you live.”

—

After a two-hour drive which everyone spent asleep, they are unceremoniously deposited at a campsite with a fire pit and two cabins which might generously be described as ‘rustic’. The August heat that has settled over DC is only marginally lessened by elevation.

“Well this is… something,” Sam remarks, taking a peek inside one of the spartan cabins, which contains nothing but wooden bunks and an ancient-looking table.

“There aren’t any bathrooms,” Toby comments with barely restrained fury. “What are we supposed to do, go in the woods?”

Donna shrugs, wondering, once again, how she got roped into this. “That’s how we usually do it when I went camping as a kid. Sometimes they had a bathroom at the site, but it doesn’t look like they do at this one.”

“You’ve been camping?” Josh asks incredulously.

“Yeah. We’d go camping in the Wisconsin Dells most years, and once in a while we’d go to Minnesota or the UP,” Donna replies offhandedly.

“The UP?” Toby asks.

“Upper Peninsula of Michigan,” Sam corrects, always glad to make a geographic contribution.

Josh picks up a large plastic tub that was left with them, filled with camping food, and begins to walk toward one of the cabins. “Well, at least Donna knows what we’re doing.”

“Didn’t you claim to be an outdoorsman?” CJ asks, quirking an eyebrow. “I’d like to see you prove it.”

He drops the tub and rubs his eye. “I mean… I was on some drugs then, so I’m not sure I can be held liable…”

“You were not on any drugs, Josh, or else I wouldn’t have let you have alcohol,” Donna corrects.

“I was on the drug that was being outside after three months of miserable confinement!”

Donna and CJ share a glance. “Well, I think this is the perfect opportunity for you to demonstrate your outdoorsy prowess. You can lead our hike.”

“Hey, no one said anything about hiking!” Josh completely ignores the tub and stalks over to where CJ and Donna are standing with the rest of the supplies, almost tripping over a branch as he does so.

“It’s in the President’s executive order. He set us an agenda,” Donna declares, waving around a piece of paper that does, in fact, include the presidential seal.

“There’s no way he used an actual executive…”

Josh is cut off by Sam, who snatches the paper out of Donna’s hands with a “Let me see that!” He reads the paper quickly, frowning as he does. “Yeah, he wants us to take three different hikes. There are maps attached to it. Also, he’s set some time aside for Toby and I to… extol the virtues of nature and apply it to our speechwriting?”

“And we wonder why nothing gets done in this country!” Toby throws his hands in the air. “I can extol the virtues of nature perfectly well without having to actually…you know… go out in nature!”

Josh takes a look at the schedule over Sam’s shoulder. “He’s really given us specific times to start each hike?”

“Including one at 5:30 in the morning so we can catch the sunrise over the mountains,” Donna notes.

“Well I’d like to catch a few hours of sleep for once.” CJ rolls her eyes and picks up her duffel bag. “Think we can blow this off?”

Sam presses his lips together. “Um… he’s going to know if we do.”

“Why?”

“Because he left the Secret Service agents here to ‘keep an eye on us’,” Sam says, jerking his head toward the van which they came in, which is parked in a clearing in the woods. “Ostensibly it’s so we don’t die when Josh forgets he’s not actually an outdoorsman, but he’s definitely spying on us.”

Josh rubs his forehead and sighs heavily. “You couldn’t have just lied and said you have a great appreciation for national parks, Toby?”

“If I said I’d been to one, he would have interrogated me about it!” Toby shouts. “I was cornered!”

“You were the one who came up with the idea to establish this new national park,” CJ says, nudging Josh’s side, “so I hold you responsible.”

“God help me for winning a political battle and doing some good for the country at the same time,” Josh replies, rolling his eyes. “That was almost three years ago! Why should I have known it would backfire like this?”

Donna sighs heavily and picks up her bag. “I’m seriously regretting coming out here with any of you.”

“If you had just called the Oval instead of coming in…”

“Yeah, yeah,” she says. “CJ, what do you say to the cabin on the right? I looked inside and I think there are fewer bugs in that one.”

“Please,” CJ says. “I’m grateful I have at least one other member of the Sisterhood here.”

Sam and Josh give each other a look. “I guess we’d better move into the bug-infested cabin,” Sam remarks.

“They’re both bug-infested, but the one on the right is just… less bug-infested,” Donna shouts back, as she heads into the small cabin.

“Well, Mr. Outdoorsman,” Sam says to Josh, “what now?”

Josh rubs the bridge of his nose. “If I wasn’t on drugs, I was under the influence of alcohol—which I hadn’t had in three months—so you know, I can’t be held liable for what I said then.”

Sam quirks an eyebrow as he picks up his duffel bag. “You do have a law degree, don’t you?”

“Don’t remind me.”

—

It’s another hour before all of the stuff in moved into cabins and everyone is seated on logs around the unlit fire pit, unsure of what to do next. It’s Donna, naturally, who has a handle on the schedule.

“Now, the President has recommended we do a short hike before the heat of the day really kicks in, and that one takes off from that trailhead over there.” She points toward a small clearing in the woods with a ragged wood sign marking the head. “It leads to a lake, so he suggests taking a dip to cool off before heading back, so maybe put something to swim in here in your daypack.”

Josh furrows his brow. “Wait, wait, wait. We’re not really doing this, are we? Following this ridiculous schedule, doing all these…”

“Just because you can’t follow a schedule doesn’t mean we shouldn’t,” Donna replies. “And do you really want to defy the President of the United States?”

“Well, if he’s making us go hiking… and swimming,” Toby growls. “I told him, I have a healthy appreciation for the outdoors, but I prefer to be far, far away from them.”

Donna stands up. “Well I, for one, am not going to defy the President, and I think when he asks you very specific details about the hikes, you might want to have some answers for him. Come on, the sooner we get started the less heat we’ll have to deal with.”

“Because this isn’t bad enough?” CJ asks, wiping her brow. The humidity is already oppressive even at nine in the morning.

“Come on California girl,” Toby teases, “aren’t you used to this?”

In unison, Sam and CJ respond with, “It’s a dry heat!”

Josh pulls several files out of his backpack, carries them back to the cabin, and sighs. “It’s going to be a long day.”

—

Donna isn’t sure who does the most complaining in the mile and a half hike. Josh probably complains the most audibly, but there’s something to be said for Toby’s constant glares at everything that constitutes nature and Sam’s intentional, hefty sighs at every single step. CJ is quiet about her discontent, but she doesn’t seem particularly happy either.

Perhaps they really did need an opportunity to learn how to appreciate nature.

The hike isn’t all too steep, although you wouldn’t know that from the way Josh and Toby are panting when they finally reach the swimming hole the President indicated in his instructions.

“Here it is,” Donna says with a smile. The water is set up against a cliff edge, and there are thin streams falling over the edge. It’s really an idyllic place, but none of the staffers seem particularly enthralled.

Still, they’re all hot and sweaty, and so Sam pulls off his shirt and wades into the water, and CJ follows. Toby grumbles, but the prospect of cooling off is too great for him to resist.

Donna is about to take a dip when she notices Josh’s hesitation to go in. He sits at the edge, dipping his toes in, but not looking as if he will go any further.

“Don’t want to swim?”

He shrugs. “Someone has to watch our stuff. You know, because of the bears. Or the tourists. They’re probably Republican tourists, in this part of Virginia.”

She looks at him critically. “Josh… Do you know how to swim?”

“I grew up in Connecticut, of course I know how to swim!” he snaps. “I just don’t want to!” There’s sweat beading on his forehead. There’s no way he doesn’t want to swim.

Donna frowns and takes a seat next to him, dipping her toes in as well. “Why not?”

Josh looks straight ahead at his own soaking feet. “I don’t have another shirt in my pack,” he says quietly.

“Well then, take it…” she begins, and then she sees something in his eyes. He’s still self-conscious about his bare chest. She grabs his hand and smiles at him. “It’s fine. I’ve seen it before.”

Josh shakes his head. “They haven’t.”

“They’re not going to care,” Donna assures him. “They were all there. They don’t need an explanation.” She briefly wonders if he ever had to explain it to Amy.

“Yeah,” he says, his face still grim.

She tugs on his sleeve gently. “Anyway, you’re going to be neck-deep in there anyway, so if you dive in fast, no one will even see anything.”

“I guess,” Josh says.

“I’m not going to go in if you don’t, and I really want to go in, so I’ll be rather upset with you if you don’t go in,” Donna threatens.

He lifts an eyebrow. “So this is on me now?”

“It’s your call,” she challenges.

In one smooth motion, he tears off his shirt and pulls Donna up into his arms, holding her against his chest and taking a few steps into the water. She shrieks as he drops her in a deeper part of the swimming hole. “That good enough for you?” he asks with a grin.

“You shouldn’t be doing that,” she chides, although there’s a smile on her face too. “You’re a cruel man.”

He splashes her with quite a bit of force. “You asked for it. I’m just trying to be an outdoorsman.”

Sam practically has to be dragged out of the water, but as the sun nears its high point, everyone agrees that they sooner they get back to the camp, the better. They manage to make it back faster, thanks to the downhill slope and Toby’s urgency to get back to something even slightly resembling civilization.

“What’s on the schedule now?” CJ asks through a bite of the pre-packed sandwiches that the President sent with them. A good thing, too, since none of them are fantastic cooks even in normal circumstances, and certainly none of them know how to cook over a fire.

Donna pulls the piece of paper out of her daypack and skims it. “Well, there’s a couple choices until our second hike at 6. Either working on the speech, or as he puts it, taking a Thoreau-like approach to extolling the virtues of nature…”

“He’s really going to put me through all of this and then tell me to emulate Thoreau?” Toby interrupts indignantly. “That pretentious mother—“

Josh raises an eyebrow and cuts Toby off with a, “So how about those of us who are under any circumstances not allowed to touch the President’s speeches?”

“We ask for your input when we need it, Josh, it’s just… you’re not the most eloquent of writers,” Sam tries to say diplomatically. Toby, still fuming, nods in agreement.

Josh rolls his eyes. “I like to be direct. Sue me.”

“See, that kind of attitude in speechwriting is what gets the President sued,” Toby shoots back.

Donna clears her throat, giving a barely concealed glare to the staffers before her. “Anyway, Josh, in answer to your question, he suggested you could take a nap.”

His brow furrowed, Josh lets out a little snort. “A nap? What is this, kindergarten?”

“Sometimes I think so.” This from CJ, who hasn’t managed to get her head out of her hands in several minutes.

“I remember a time when you were extolling the virtues of naps to me,” Donna says sweetly, folding up the schedule and putting it back in her bag.

Josh sighs and leans back into the log he’s sitting against dramatically. “Can everyone please stop using the things I said while I was on many, many drugs that made me kind of loopy against me?”

“Never, mi amor,” CJ says, standing up and patting his shoulder. “I’m going to take advantage of the once chance I’ll ever get in this administration to take a nap. Any interest in joining me, Tobias?” she asks with a smirk.

Toby raises an eyebrow. “No, because I have to emulate a pretentious dick who thought he knew everything about nature because he was living in the backyard of his in-laws.”

“I quite enjoy Thoreau, actually,” Sam begins to interrupt.

“Of course you do,” Toby says with a sigh, pulling out a legal pad and a pen. “Come on, let’s get to writing this. Anybody know anything about national parks?”

“No,” Josh says. “I think that’s why we’re here.”

—

The afternoon passes rather pleasantly to everyone’s surprise. CJ takes her nap, Josh reads through all of the briefing memos he managed to smuggle in, and Toby and Sam bicker over the speech, but there are several pages filled by the time Donna comes out of the cabin, fresh from her own nap, and calls out that it’s almost time for their next hike.

“You’re kidding me, right?” Josh says. “One isn’t enough?”

“There are three, remember. The next one is very early tomorrow morning so we can catch the sunrise. This one is so we can catch the sunset,” Donna replies, thrusting the schedule at him.

Josh shakes his head as he looks it over. “I’m kind of regretting getting this man elected.”

Still, everyone, even Toby manages to traipse through the woods and up get another mountain to get to a west-facing lookout, where the sun is just starting to dip behind the mountains.

“Is this inspiring you?” CJ teases, stretched out on one of the benches at the lookout. The sky really is turning very pretty, the sunset a fiery orange with hints of pink.

Toby shrugs. “I don’t think the colors of a sunset are relevant to this speech, but sure.”

“I have to say, I think the Midwest does sunsets better. All that open sky…” Donna says. She’s seating on the other bench, and Josh is next to her, his arm stretched around the back of the bench and his fingers just barely grazing the top of her shoulder. The distance between them is acceptable, but only just.

“Do you miss it? Wisconsin?”

Donna bites her lip. “Sometimes? Sometimes I’ll think about a walk I used to take, or about the ice cream shop I would always go to with my friends, or about the view from my dorm when I lived on the top floor, and I feel a little bit of homesickness. But then I think about how amazing it is to live here, and how much I’ve accomplished since I left, and well… I can’t say I regret leaving.”

Josh chuckles. “I’m glad you’re here.”

Donna turns back to look at the sunset and hopes that no one notices that her eyes are beginning to water with what could be tears.

—

“Okay, dinner now? I”m starving.” Sam says, when they come back from their sunset expedition to the camp. Darkness is beginning to settle, so they’ve set up a few lanterns, but it still feels incomplete.

“We have hot dogs for roasting,” Donna says. “You know, good camp food.”

“That means we need a fire,” Sam says, exchanging a glance with Josh. “We can do that.”

CJ and Donna share a look of concern. “Last time you tried to start a fire, you almost set the White House ablaze,” CJ says cautiously.

“But we successfully started a fire,” Josh points out. “And if it wasn’t indoors in a fireplace with the flue welded shut, we would have been successful.”

Donna has to give them this. “Okay. Go find some firewood and get it started. I think we’re all starting to get hungry.”

Josh grabs a lantern and gives Donna a grin. “Let’s go, Sam.”

While Donna unpacks the food they were sent for dinner, Josh and Sam come back with arms full of wood, Sam looking the worse for wear with several scratches all over his body and what looks like it could be blood.

“Sam! What happened?” CJ exclaims, looking him over.

“I got into a fight with a blackberry bush,” Sam mutters. So not blood, at least, CJ thinks with a sigh of relief.

Josh drops his armful of wood by the pit. “The bush won.”

“Do you need any bandages or anything? They sent us an extensive first aid kid, because I’m sure they know how clumsy you are.” CJ takes Sam’s armful of wood and kneels down next to Josh. “Show me, how do we do this?”

While Sam washes himself off with a water bottle and pulls out the last few thorns, Josh manages to get a fairly impressive fire going. Donna passes around hot dogs and everyone begins to roast theirs, although Sam drops at least two in the fire. Josh intentionally sets his on fire, charring it until anyone else would regard it as inedible.

Perhaps, they all begin to think as they laugh around the fire, for once able to focus on something besides work, this camping thing isn’t so bad. The stress of the election has been weighing heavily on all of them, but they’ve spent almost a whole day without pondering electoral math or congressional seats.

The fire slowly dies, and once it’s down to only the embers, everyone slowly begins to peel off and say good night.

CJ blinks and lets her eyes adjust to the dark before picking up her lantern and padding softly out of the cabin. She would blame her inability to sleep on the nap she took earlier in the day throwing off her schedule, but she knows that’s not the entirety of it.

To her surprise, the fire is still going when she emerges, and there’s someone still seated on a log by it.

“Josh?” she whispers softly, and he turns to face her with the barest trace of a smile.

“Couldn’t sleep?” he asks.

“No. You?”

He shrugs and pokes at the fire with a stick. “Didn’t want to,” he says. “Toby snores.”

“And so you’re just going to spend the whole night out here?”

“Probably.”

“Just because Toby snores?”

Josh doesn’t answer, but CJ turns to look at him and can see the set of his jaw and the tension in his face. And she has an idea of what might be going on.

“Josh, have you been having nightmares lately?” she asks, her voice soft.

She didn’t think his body could show any more tension, but he immediately tenses up even more at her question. “Why would you think that?”

“Because I have, too,” she admits. She can see some of the tension fall away from his shoulders, although he still seems guarded.

“About what?”

CJ bites her lip. “Simon, mostly. Which is ridiculous, I mean, I wasn’t there. And that was three months ago, and I wasn’t even there.”

He reaches out and grabs her hand, squeezing it. “You can easily imagine it though, because you know what it’s like to be shot at,” he concludes.

“Yeah.”

“I don’t. I don’t even remember it, really, and I still have nightmares,” he tells her. “It’s not ridiculous, CJ. Believe me.”

She sighs. “I just… they went away for a while. I thought I was doing better, I thought I was over my grief, and then this last week… well, let’s just say my nap this afternoon as the only time this week I woke up from something other than a nightmare.”

“Well, it was two years to the day a few days ago when we got shot at,” Josh says. “Because I haven’t slept much this week either.”

CJ takes a look at him, his tired eyes and the vulnerability present on his face that so few get to see. She feels privileged to see it. “I hadn’t even thought of that,” she admits, “but I’m sure that doesn’t help.”

“It’ll get better again,” Josh says. “You’ll notice that you’ve gone weeks, even months, without something. The grief never quite goes away, but the fear does.”

“Okay,” she replies, her voice choked up a little. If it were anyone else saying this to her, she’d probably be annoyed, but she knows that Josh speaks from experience and is telling the truth. “So you and I, it’s going to be a sleepless night for the two of us?”

He smiles at her and leans further back against the log. “Claudia Jean, are you propositioning me?”

“Only if you want it,” she teases.

—

Donna doesn’t end up needing the alarm she set on her watch because her internal clock is set to absurdly early mornings anyway. It’s mostly still dark when she gets up, but as she emerges from the cabin, she can see that there’s still a fire going, and that CJ and Josh are in front of it, seating against a log. CJ’s head is resting on Josh’s shoulder. If Donna didn’t know the completely platonic nature of their relationship, she would have been jealous, and even though she knows Josh and CJ see each other as siblings, she still has to bite back a bit of jealousy as she approaches them.

“Hey,” she says, “you two slept out here?”

Josh blinks and looks up at her. “I guess we did sleep,” he says. “I didn’t think we’d manage.”

CJ smiles. “Who knew your shoulder made such a nice pillow?”

He tries to push himself up from the ground and winces. “Well, this log did not,” he says. “Is it really time to get started already?”

“Our sunrise hike awaits,” Donna says, with a look on her face that’s somewhere between a smile and a grimace. “Who’s going to have to wake up Toby and Sam?”

“I say we wake up Sam, and then make him wake up Toby,” Josh says. “I didn’t bring my full-body armor with me.”

—

As it turns out, the sunrise hike is an eight-mile loop, with east-facing lookout about two miles into the trek. Toby, already furious about being woken up, is absolutely fuming at the fact that there are six more miles to go after the sunrise stop. “What kind of a man makes you go on a hike at five in the morning, and then extends It so you’re going to be on this trail all day?”

“I’m finding I don’t hate hiking as much as I thought I did,” Josh says. “But I’m sleep-deprived, so don’t hold that against me.”

“Josh, if you used sleep deprivation as an excuse every time, we’d never be able to call you out for anything you’ve ever said,” CJ points out.

Sam sighs. He’s looking much better now that he’s not covered in blackberry juice, but his arm and leg and the side of his face are still very scratched up. “I just want to take a shower.”

“Ten more hours until they’ll take us home,” Donna says. She doesn’t even have to look at the schedule anymore; her memory is freakishly good sometimes.

They reach a clearing near the top of one of the mountains that has some large rocks and a few benches. They’re above most of the other elevations around them, so they have a clear view of the sun beginning to peek out over the hills before them.

“We never see sunrises or sunsets,” Donna notes. “I think it’s usually dark when I get to the White House and dark when I leave.”

CJ lets out a laugh and perches on a rock. “That’s when we actually manage to leave.”

Donna reaches into her backpack and hands out granola bars. “Breakfast, anyone?”

“Any coffee?” Josh asks.

“There’s a pot to boil water back at camp and a thing of instant coffee,” Donna says.

He groans. “So none here?”

“You should really try to become a less caffeinated life form.”

“Tried that for three months. Worst three months of my life.”

“Just because of the coffee?”

Josh grabs a granola bar from her and takes a seat on one of the benches. “Because of the gunshot wound, but you know, the lack of coffee didn’t help.”

“Will you just shut up and enjoy the sunrise?” CJ asks. “Because I’m not going to see one for another four years.”

Josh clears his throat after a bite of the granola bar. “You really believe that? We’ve got another four years left in us?”

“The President’s in fighting mode. He won’t back down,” CJ says. “And we’re not going to let him, are we?”

Sam smiles. “Absolutely not.”

Through a bite of his granola bar, Toby mumbles, “Careful about tempting fate.”

“We’re not tempting fate,” CJ says, “but we’re renewing our fight. We’ve been so bogged down in reelection struggles that it feels like we’ve lost sight of what we’re fighting for. But you know what Richie wants to do for places like this?”

“Tear them down,” Toby mutters.

“But Jed Bartlet wants to build them up. Build more of them. Let people come to appreciate the outdoors, to see the sunrise, to protect the natural treasures of this country. If we never get to see the sunrise, we should make sure it’s because we’re working long and hard to ensure that other people have that chance here, and at places like this.” Her voice is beginning to get excited. “And that’s only one of the many reasons we’re fighting to show the voters our vision of America. The one that protects the treasures we have, and seeks to provide the best for our citizens. That’s why we’re fighting from before sunrise to after sunset. So what do we say? Four more years?”

Josh grins and holds up the remaining half of his granola bar in a sort of toast. “Four more years!” he shouts out over the mountains.

There’s a chorus of exclamations that no one but them will ever hear, but as the sun rises, there’s a bit of weariness lifted off of each of them. The last four years have been interminably long and difficult, but they are all instilled with a sense of new energy for what they do.

“So that’s what you’re like on sleep deprivation?” Josh teases CJ, as they leave the clearing and set out on the next part of their hike.

“See why that excuse will never work?”

“Fine, but I still stand by the fact that I said a lot of things on heavy drugs that I didn’t mean.”

“Such as being an outdoorsman?” Donna pipes up.

“See, after this weekend, I think I stand by that one.”

——

The Secret Service takes them all back to the White House, rather than to their apartments, and they’re all directed to the Oval Office, where President Bartlet sits behind the desk expectantly.

“You all made it back in one piece!” he says with delight. “I was sure a bear was going to eat one of you; my money was on Toby.” He takes in Sam’s scratched up face. “Except for you, Sam. What happened there?”

“I fought a blackberry bush, and the bush won,” Sam mumbles.

“You did all the hikes?” the President asks.

Toby grimaces. “Donna forced us to.”

“I knew she’d keep you on track,” he says, and Donna beams in response. “And the speech?”

“Needs revision and typing up, but it’s quite good, if I do say so myself,” Sam says, although Toby shoots him a glare, clearly not as pleased with the quality of writing.

“Excellent, excellent. And you two,” the President says, looking at Josh and CJ, “how did you find it?”

CJ smiles. “Quite enlightening, sir. I’m instilled with a new sense of energy. That said, I’d like to go home and get some sleep.” Josh nods in agreement.

“Yes, yes, of course,” the President says. “But senior staff tomorrow, I’m going to have to hear more. God, I can’t wait to open this new national park.”

They all file out of the Oval Office, but Josh hangs back behind the others and grabs Donna’s arm. “Do you have a ride home?”

“I was going to take the metro,” Donna says. “My car’s on the fritz again.”

He shakes his head. “No, don’t. Not will all that stuff. I’ll give you a ride.”

Donna’s about to protest, especially since he definitely seems too tired to be driving, but she considers it and nods in agreement. At least she can make sure he doesn’t fall asleep at the wheel.

“I’m glad you were there,” he says. “I don’t know if I would have made it through this weekend without you.”

She blushes at the compliment. “I’m sure you would have been fine. After all, you proved that you are, in fact, an outdoorsman.”

“Still,” he says, with a surprising amount of sincerity, “the outdoors is so much more fun with you there.”

#donnaamoss #asks #the west wing #josh lyman #donna moss #josh x donna #sort of?#it’s mostly senior staff + donna friendship fic #but it’s 6k words of it lol #this is maybe a weird direction to go with this prompt but i just wanted to write the senior staff camping okay #i really did this instead of working on my final projects go figure

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sparkygoogle2000 · 7 years ago

Photo

“Random Peanuts” returns on a daily basis tomorrow after a too-long hiatus. In the meantime, enjoy today’s “Off the Mark” by Mark Parisi…

This strip was originally printed on GoComics: http://www.gocomics.com/offthemark/2017/07/30

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imamotherfuckingstar-lord · 5 years ago

Text

A Visiting Future, pt. 2

Steve Rogers x Reader

A/N: A commissioned series for @girl-next-door-writes . There will be FOUR PARTS, all written.

Summary: Someone from the future comes to visit Steve and you, and they have a message.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

It was like an odd joke; something only the person telling the joke understood. You were annoyed because someone was touching you without permission, arms wrapped around your waist, coddled like a child and it was hard to breathe. Annoyed that you had to keep calling to Steve, who seemed to be in a different world as he glanced at whatever was in his hands until Sam and Wanda showed up. He looked at you then, face pale and strangely calm – although, for some reason, it made you feel worried.

Then he said something that made no sense.

“He’s our son,” he said quietly to you, forgetting everyone else in the room. You stared at him, shaking your head as the kid pulled from you. His face was somber, and you moved away from him, watching as Steve made several strides to you.

“That’s not funny,” you said because it wasn’t. It was so unfunny, it pissed you off and more so because all it made you think about was sex with Steve – and that itself was strange because you had never looked at him in that way. He was Steve, he was Cap, he was a close friend and that was it.

“I’m not trying to be funny,” he replied, handing over the photo in hand.

Very aware of the young man next to you, and the eyes of everyone else on you, you took the photo and examined it – and that’s when it felt like the Earth under you caved in. It was like looking into an alternative universe, something out of the Twilight Zone. It was you, clearly, standing next to Steve who had a little boy in his arms – seemingly on a family vacation, but you had never been to Yosemite, not never.

“This is fake.”

“It isn’t,” the kid said. You looked at him and noticed a bit of Steve in his eyes, then saw that his hair was nearly the same as yours but none of that matters because there was no way it could be true – that this twenty something year old was your son because that meant he was from the future.

“I’m from the future.”

“Bullshit.”

It wasn’t the most graceful thing to say to your supposed child, but you weren’t feeling so graceful; in fact, you were feeling played and unamused and downright, utterly confused. Nothing was going to convince you that a son was brought into the world by Steve and you – that the two of you had a relationship and very well, consummated it.

Nothing but hard facts.

Looking down at the photo again, your firmly folded it back up and held it out to Steve – he took it and examined the expression of your face, which was cold and calculated. It was the face you used when dealing with bad guys, he recognized it from the plenty of interrogations the two of you partnered up to do; taking turns each time to play the bad cop and right now, you had your bad cop face on.

“What do you want to do?”

You wanted to pretend like this wasn’t happening, that the possibility could be true, but nothing was going to be decided without the truth and there was only one person you trusted with science.

“We go to Bruce.”

…

You were usually a patience person, never minded long lines at the grocery stores and waited a little extra at restaurants when the place was short staffed but waiting for the DNA results to see if the kid, whose name you still didn’t know, was indeed your son was killing your nerves. The ride back to the facility was quiet and awkward, you sat in the front while Steve drove the SUV. He played music loud enough that no one could have a real conversation and you thanked him with a smile, it was nice knowing you weren’t alone in this.

“Any results?”

Bruce Banner’s dark brown eyes remained on the tablet he was working on. “Soon, I promise.”

Biting down on a nail, you leaned back into the couch and studied Bruce’s face – he was a handsome man, a little salt and pepper in his hair. He was a sweet, intelligent man and you adored him as a teammate but more importantly, as a friend.

“I’m scared, Bruce. Can this be possible?”

He sighed and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “I could talk science with you, explain the dynamics of time travel but after everything that we’ve been through so far – this, this doesn’t seem so crazy.”

“You turn green when you throw a tantrum.”

“I don’t throw tantrums.” He placed the tablet down on the table and took off his glasses, he looked tired, but he smiled. “I just want to know how he got here.”

“Time portal, if what he is saying is true,” you pointed out. In the van you overheard him telling Sam how he had arrived through a portal, knocked out a few Hydra agents out and went to find Steve.

Something caught his eye on the tablet, you watched as he walked over to the large holo- screen. “Results are in, should we call Steve?”

You said that Steve was with the kid in the kitchen. “He told me to come get him after I found out. So, what is the verdict? This kid legit or do we have a photoshop expert in our kitchen?”

Bruce chuckled and turned to the screen, tapping a few times until two photos appeared; one of Steve and one of you. “Respectively, these are samples of your DNA. I ran several tests on the young man, he claims to be Joel Rogers. There is no trace of him in any official records.”

“He wouldn’t be the first person to elude the government, what about the results? Is, is he my son?”

You couldn’t take your eyes off the photo of the young man that appeared on the screen between Steve and yours; it was like he was staring at you, and for a moment, you believed it was all true. He was your son, but then you didn’t have to imagine because Bruce confirmed it with a gentle squeeze on the shoulder.

....

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#steve rogers x reader #steve x reader #steve rogers #captain america #captain america x reader #marvel imagine #ivonnes imagine

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fly-pow-bye · 4 years ago

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What’s Airing On Cartoon Network? (July 2021)

While we’re in a rather empty spot for the network, Cartoon Network decided to add another show that was made for HBO Max to its television lineup: Looney Tunes Cartoons! Also, The Fungies continue their airing on television, and there’s new episodes of Total Dramarama and DC Super Hero Girls. More after the break.

Craig of the Creek

For completion’s sake, I’ll list the Craig of the Creek episodes here too.

June 28th:

Capture the Flag Part 1: The Candy - When mysterious circumstances cause issues at the Trading Tree, Craig tries to save the day! (10:00 AM)

June 29th:

Capture the Flag Part 2: The King - The Creek gets help from an unlikely friend. (10:00 AM)

June 30th:

Capture the Flag Part 3: The Legend - Craig goes in search of answers, and finds a legend. (10:00 AM)

July 1st:

Capture the Flag Part 4: The Plan - Craig puts a plan into motion to save the Creek. (10:00 AM)

July 2nd:

Capture the Flag Part 5: The Game - It all comes down to this, the fate of the Creek is at stake! (10:00 AM)

DC Super Hero Girls

July 4th:

#AngerManagement - When Jess coerces Kara into addressing her anger management issues, Supergirl's superhero abilities become seriously compromised! (8:00 AM)

#HappyBirthdayZee - Zatanna makes a birthday wish that forces her to confront the dark side of her magic. (8:15 AM)

July 11th:

#TheGreenRoom - When Jessica is faced with a Green Lantern Corps disciplinary hearing, Hal appoints himself to be her Peer Advocate. (8:00 AM)

#EnterNightSting - Karen is given a mission to prevent the apocalypse by DeathSting, a super-cool future version of herself. (8:15 AM)

July 18th:

#WorldsFinest - When PR whiz Max Lord tells Batgirl and Supergirl he can improve their image by doing publicity stunts, the two friends forget what being a hero is really about. (8:00 AM)

#WorkingStiff - After Babs hooks Karen up with a job at the Burrito Bucket, the two heroes encounter a new villain, the scourge of the fast-food underworld, the Condiment King! (8:15 AM)

July 25th:

#MultipliciZee - Zee magically duplicates herself so she can shirk work and watch TV. Things get out of hand when her copies start to make copies of themselves! (8:00 AM)

#TheMinus - Diana receives her first ever A-minus and becomes convinced that she needs to work harder, however, in order to do so, she resorts to rather drastic measures. (8:15 AM)

The Fungies

July 9th:

Sir Tree's Boy - Seth agrees to take care of Sir Tree's wooden boy, Boy Joy, but quickly pawns him off on Mertha. When Seth discovers that Sir Tree needs his boy back in order to survive, he must stage a heist to steal Boy Joy back before it's too late! (8:00 AM)

Commander Beefy - Seth, eager to explore the stars and find a fellow explorer, sends a signal to space. But the explorer who receives the message, Commander Beefy, has his own shady plans for Earth... (8:15 AM)

July 16th:

The Fanciest Fungie - Seth, frustrated that the Fancies are too caught up in the Fanciest Fancy pageant to listen to his warning about a fungus-eating bacteria, enters the pageant to get his message out. But when he gets sucked into the pageant, he'll have to face the consequences of getting distracted. (8:00 AM)

Snake It to the Limit - When Seth agrees to let an athletic snake replace his arm so he can finally be good at volleyball, he learns he doesn't need a fancy snake arm to make his teammates happy; he just needs to try. (8:15 AM)

July 23th:

Nevin's Cocoon - After a beautiful statue makes Nevin self-conscious about his own looks, Seth helps seal Nevin in a cocoon so that he may turn into a beautiful butterfly. (8:00 AM)

Cool Kids - When Pascal becomes obsessed with a group of cool kids, Seth promises to use his science skills to help Pascal become cool. But is coolness as cool as it seems? (8:15 AM)

July 30th:

Mermove Out - Seth is having a hard time sharing a room with messy Pascal and needs a change. But instead of being honest about the situation, Seth makes Pascal a mermaid tail so that his brother can finally move out-into the ocean! (8:00 AM)

Happy Birthday Nancy - Seth wants his mom to have the best birthday ever, so he creates his own currency in order to buy her an expensive gift. But he learns a little too late that counterfeiting is a crime, putting Nancy's birthday at risk of being ruined. (8:15 AM)

Looney Tunes Cartoons

July 5th:

Curse of the Monkeybird/Marvin Flag Gag: Deflating Planet/Harm Wrestling - Daffy Duck and Porky Pig search for hidden treasure. No one messes with arm-wrestling champ Yosemite Sam - until Bugs Bunny comes along. (9:00 AM)

Big League Beast/Hole Gag: Mini Elmer/Firehouse Frenzy -When Bugs overstays his welcome, an evil scientist unleashes Gossamer to get rid of him. Daffy Duck and Porky Pig make lousy firefighters. (9:15 AM)

July 6th:

Boo! Appetweet/Hole Gag: Plunger/Bubble Dum - Sweet victory turns into a nightmare when Sylvester fears he's haunted by Tweety's ghost. Daffy Duck faces off with a pesky piece of gum. (9:00 AM)

Pain in the Ice/Tunnel Vision/Pool Bunny - A hungry Sylvester sets his sights on Tweety, the ice skater. On a scorching hot day, Bugs Bunny makes himself at home in Elmer Fudd's pool. (9:15 AM)

July 7th:

Pest Coaster/Rhino Ya Don't - Bugs tries to ride a roller coaster, but Yosemite Sam is determined to stop him. At the zoo, Sylvester's lunch plans are foiled by a rhino. (9:00 AM)

Buzzard School/Marvin Flag Gag: Giant Alien Mouth/Wet Cement - Bugs Bunny enrolls Beaky Buzzard in Rabbit Hunting 101. Daffy wreaks havoc on Porky's wet cement. (9:15 AM)

July 8th:

Siberian Sam/Hole Gag: Fishing Pole/Fleece and Desist/Marvin Flag Gag: Mirror/Split Screen Marvin - In need of a new hat, Siberian Sam feasts his eyes on Bugs Bunny. Sam Sheepdog protects his herd from a hungry Ralph Wolf. (9:00 AM)

Grilled Rabbit/Cactus if You Can/Shower Shuffle - Elmer Fudd interrogates Bugs about a theft. Wile E. Coyote's plan to catch the Road Runner gets prickly. Daffy and Porky have shower troubles. (9:15 AM)

July 9th:

Overdue Duck/Hole Gag: Bees/Vincent Van Fudd - At the library, Porky Pig tries to silence a troublemaking Daffy Duck. Bugs Bunny interrupts Elmer Fudd's attempt to be a great artist. (9:00 AM)

Hare Restoration/TNT Trouble/Plumbers Quack - A self-interested Bugs gives Elmer Fudd dating advice. Wile E. Coyote runs into some dynamite problems. Elmer's leaky sink is no match for Daffy. (9:15 AM)

July 12th:

Daffuccino/Hole Gag: Moving Hole/Kitty Livin - Before his new coffee shop goes from grand opening to grand closing, Porky must impress an influential customer. Sylvester may have swallowed more than he can chew when he manages to trap Tweety... inside his stomach! (9:00 AM)

Chain Gangster/Telephone Pole Gag: Sylvester Car Jack Lift/Falling for It - Two bank robbers need Bugs' help to break out of jail. Daffy convinces Porky to go skydiving but forgets one important little thing... (9:15 AM)

July 13th:

Taziator/Marvin Flag Gag: Little Martian/Climate Control - Bugs faces off against Taz in a Roman coliseum. Wile E. Coyote orders a weather control kit, but his chances of catching the Road Runner remain cloudy. (9:00 AM)

Lepre-conned/Flag Won't Stay Straight/Brave New Home - Bugs is looking for Hawaii but finds Ireland and an angry leprechaun instead. Porky's new home has all the modern amenities anyone could hope for, including a computerized assistant - but the voice recognition software could use an update. (9:15 AM)

July 14th:

The Case of Porky's Pants/Fully Vetted - Detective Daffy takes on the case of Porky's missing pants. Tweety's trip to the veterinarian's office gives Sylvester the perfect opportunity for a lunchtime treat. (9:00 AM)

E-Rabbitcator/ Planet Split in 2/The Sales Duck - Bugs must outsmart a new technological foe. Elmer is ready for bed, but persistent salesman Daffy stands in the way of a good night's rest. (9:15 AM)

July 15th:

Pitcher Porky/Cherry Picker/Duck Duck Boom - Benchwarmer Porky finally gets his chance to shine on the pitching mound. With the game on the line, he needs all the help he can get - even if it's from Daffy. Elmer sets his sights on Daffy, but who's hunting whom? (9:00 AM)

Postal Geist/Anvil/Fudds Bunny - Porky and Daffy deliver packages to a haunted manor. Elmer's plan to disguise himself as a bunny to lure Bugs out of his hole doesn't quite go as planned. (9:15 AM)

July 16th:

Shoe Shine-nanigans/Multiply and Conquer/Parky Pig - Elmer visits Daffy for a quick shoeshine. Porky is running late for movie night but finding a parking spot is easier said than done. (9:00 AM)

Shell Shocked/Daffy Dentist - Bugs races against Cecil Turtle for the "fastest thing in New York City" title. The only thing more painful than Porky's sore tooth is a visit to dentist Daffy. (9:15 AM)

Total Dramarama

July 5th:

Breaking Bite - Beth becomes the big dog on campus after she bites Duncan, but being the big dog is a dangerous thing, especially when you didn't actually bite anybody! (5:00 PM)

July 6th:

I Dream of Meanie - When Cody keeps screaming in his sleep Gwen and Duncan take a trip into Cody's dreams to see what is scaring him. (5:00 PM)

July 7th:

Squirrels Squirrels Squirrels - Courtney's attempt to make Chef a better teacher fails when a squirrel gets his hands on her mind-control device. (5:00 PM)

July 8th:

Say Hello to my Little Friends - After telling the kids he will not miss them over the long weekend Chef locks himself into the school and finds out he was very, very wrong. (5:00 PM)

July 12th:

WaterHose-Five - The hottest day of the year and a broke air conditioner leads to a water battle of epic proportions to determine who controls the garden hose. (5:00 PM)

July 13th:

Cody the Barbarian - Cody is set to inherit a video game empire from his long-lost uncle, but only if he and his friends have what it takes to conquer a fantastical live-action video game. (5:00 PM)

July 14th:

TP2: Judgement Bidet - When the city experiences a toilet paper shortage Beth and Harold investigate and discover it's their old rival Sewer Mike who is the mastermind behind it all. (5:00 PM)

July 15th:

Dial B for Birder - Harold uncovers a secret plot that Chef's new parrot is hatching and tries to save his teacher only to discover that Sugar figured it out before him. Or did she? (5:00 PM)

July 19th:

A Hole Lot of Trouble - When rain derails an outside game of catch someone suggests they play it inside. This prompts Izzy to lead the group through her wildly imaginative worst-case scenario. It's an adventure so scary that the kids many never play again. (5:00 PM)

July 20th:

A Tell Tale - After Owen's BBF, Noah, goes through a growth spurt, Owen fears losing his friend and takes drastic action. (5:00 PM)

July 21st:

Chews Wisely - When the floor ends up covered in gum on the day of a big bubble blowing contest, Sugar decides she might help herself win by helping her friends get stuck to the floor. (5:00 PM)

July 22nd:

A Dingo Ate My Duncan - When all their classmates are replaced with well-behaved Australian doppelgangers in a school exchange program, Lightning and Cody start getting suspicious. (5:00 PM)

#fpb news #dc super hero girls #the fungies #looney tunes #looney tunes cartoons #cartoon network #total dramarama

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sleepy-stories · 2 months ago

Text

COMPLETED AND EDITED LIST!: TOONS THROUGHOUT THE YEARS SEASON 3

Fantasmagorie (1908)

Little Nemo (1911)

Colonel heeza liar (1913)

Gertie the Dinosaur (1914)

Bobby Bump (1915)

Farmer al falfa (1915)

Mutt and Jeff (1916)

Krazy Kat (1916)

Koko the clown (1918)

Felix the Cat (1919)

Aesop’s Fables (1921)

Alice’s comedies: Alice and julius (1922)

Dinky Doodle (1924)

Pete (1925)

Winnie the Pooh (1926)

Oswald the lucky rabbit & fanny cottontail & ortensia the cat (1927)

Clarabelle cow (1928)

Tigger (1928)

Mickey & Minnie mouse (1928)

Popeye (1929)

Bosko the talk ink kid & honey (1929)

Horace horsecollar (1929)

Bimbo (1930)

Pluto (1930)

The Little King (1930)

Betty Boop (1930)

Flip the Frog (1930)

Toby the Pup (1930)

Scrappy (screen gem - 1931)

Van beuren tom and jerry (1931)

Foxy & Roxy (1931)

Goopy geer (1932)

Goofy goof (1932)

Bluto (1932)

Three little pigs and big bad wolf (dis) 1933

Fanny zilch (1933)

Buddy (1933)

Donald duck & peter pig (1934)

Clara cluck (1934)

I haven’t got a hat crew: porky, little kitty, bean, oliver owl, ham and ex (1935)

Molly moo-cow (1935)

Mortimer Mouse (1936)

Owl jolson (1936)

Kiko the kangaroo (1936)

Petunia pig (1937)

Daffy duck (1937)

Gabby goat (1937)

Della & Hdl (1937)

Egghead (1937)

Elmer fudd (1937)

Gandy goose (1938)

Happy rabbit (1938)

Casper the friendly ghost (1939)

Sniffles mouse (1939)

Barney bear (1939)

Dinky duck (1939)

Andy panda (1939)

Tom and jerry (1940)

Bugs bunny (1940)

Woody woodpecker (1940)

Daisy duck (1940)

Butch cat & toodles cat (1941)

Fauntroy fox and Crawford crow (1941)

Nibbles mouse (1942)

Jose carioca (1942)

Spike bulldog (1942)

Beaky & mama buzzard (1942)

Henery hawk (1942)

Blitz wolf (1942)

Mighty mouse (1942)

Tweety (1942)

Pete Jr (1942)

Meathead cat (1943)

Droopy (1943)

Chip & dale (1943)

Red hot riding hood (1943)

Topsy cat (1943)

Screwy squirrel (1944)

Panchito pistoles (1944)

Pepe le pew (1945)

Sylvester the cat (1945)

Yosemite sam (1945)

Heckle and jeckle (1946)

Gossamer (1946)

Foghorn leghorn (1946)

Barnyard dog (1946)

Goofy gophers (1947)

George and junior (1947)

Scrooge mcduck (1947)

Gladstone gander (1948)

Hippety hopper (1948)

Marvin the martian (1948)

Butch (1949)

Wile e coyote & roadrunner (1949)

Lightning cat (1949)

Tyke the pup (1949)

Playboy penguin (1949)

Penelope pussycat (1949)

Little quacker (1950)

Snoopy (1950)

Granny (1950)

Sylvester jr. (1950)

Clyde bunny (1951)

Max Goof/Goofy Jr. (1951)

Gyro gearloose (1952)

Sam sheepdog & ralph wolf (1953)

Southern wolf (1953)

Speedy Gonzales (1953)

Sam and friends- sam, yorick, pierre the french rat, hank and frank (1954)

Goldie o-gilt (1954)

Tasmanian devil (1954)

Kermit the frog, harry the hipster, omar, mushmellon (1955)

Michigan j. Frog (1955)

Flintheart glomgold (1956)

Grinch (1957)

Ruff and reddy (1957)

Huckleberry hound, yogi bear, boo boo (1958)

pixie, dixie, mr. jinks (1958)

Donald Duck jr. (1959)

Quick draw mcgraw (1959)

Loopy de loop (1959)

Rocky and bullwinkle (1959)

hokey wolf (1960)

Magica de spell (1961)

Ludwig von drake (1961)

Top cat, choo-choo, benny the ball, brain, spook, fancy-fancy (1961)

Calvin and the colonel (1961)

Rowlf the dog (1962)

Pink panther (1963)

Fethry duck (1964)

Woodstock (1967)

The banana splits (1968)

The muppets- gonzo (1970)

Fritz the cat (1972)

The muppets- miss piggy (1974), dr teeth and the electric mayhem, sam eagle (1975) fozzie, scooter, bunsen honeydew (1976), beaker (1977)

Garfield (1978)

Rizzo the rat (1980)

mario , donkey kong, pauline (1981)

Luigi (1983)

Elmo (1984)

Princess peach and bowser (1985)

Basil & ratigan (1986)

Ducktales - webby, beakley, launchpad, duckworth (1987)

Who framed roger rabbit- roger, jessica and benny (1988)

Ducktales - fenton (1989)

Babs, buster, plucky and hampton (1990)

Sonic and doctor egghead (1991)

Drake mallard (1991)

Pete Jr. (1992)

Max Goof (1992)

Tails (1992)

Yakko, wakko, dot (1993)

Amy rose (1993)

Knuckles (1994)

Pepe the king prawn (1996)

Lola bunny (1996)

South park- the boys, craig gang and the girls (1997)

Spongebob (1999)

Shadow the hedgehog, shrek and donkey (2001)

Fiona, ginger breadman and pinocchio (2001)

Sulley and mike wazowski (2001)

Dennis the Duck (2002)

Puss in boots (2004)

Shaun sheep & bitzer (2007)

Mlp (2010)

and tina russo (2011)

Dhmis (2011)

Kitty softpaws, humpty dumpty, (2011)

Ducktales reboot- lena de spell and mark beaks (2017)

Hazbin hotel (2024)

#toons throughout the years #list #completed

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incorrectlooneytunesquotes · 3 years ago

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Yosemite Sam: Come take a look at this Daffy: Take a look at what, exactly? Sam: Well, the van's half-full. So all ah have to do is fill it up, put you in it, [knocks him out] Sam: and ah'm off.

#Yosemite Sam #daffy duck #source: lock stock and two smoking barrels

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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How Double Dragon’s Abobo Became a Beat em up Legend

https://ift.tt/2F8DPGk

In the late ’80s, video games started featuring over-the-top, meaty musclemen. Metro City had Mike Haggar, a shirtless former wrestler who became mayor and decided that being “tough on crime” meant ridding the streets of criminals with his bare hands, his girlfriend’s psycho boyfriend, and a ninja in Nikes. Circus strongman Karnov scoured the world for adventure and treasure, fighting all kinds of mythical monsters. Bald Bull was trying to dominate both the boxing ring and the arm-wrestling circuit. Gutsman was a jacked construction robot who was later rebuilt as a 40-foot-tall tank centaur.

And then there was Abobo, the gigantic antagonist from Double Dragon. He wasn’t THE antagonist. Hell, in the first game, you fight him within the first two minutes. Despite his low-level status, he’s still far more fondly remembered than the main Double Dragon bad guys like Willy and the Shadow Master. There’s just always been something about this random brute that’s made him special.

Abobo’s journey begins in the original Double Dragon, Technos’ 1987 arcade hit. The game’s story is very simple. A dystopian, lawless, post-nuclear war version of New York City has been overrun by a gang called the Black Warriors or Shadow Warriors or Black Shadow Warriors. (They kind of workshop that name from game to game.) Billy and Jimmy Lee are two martial arts brothers whose mutual friend Marian is captured by gang members. Off they go to lay out everyone in that gang with their bare fists and occasional barrel/whip/knife/baseball bat.

While the cannon fodder is mostly made up of normal-sized guys, out walks Abobo, who makes his entrance by punching his way through a brick wall. From the moment he appears on screen, it’s clear Abobo is meant to stand apart from the rest. He has longer reach, takes more hits, can’t be thrown, and is able to throw Billy and Jimmy like ragdolls. The only guy more dangerous than Abobo is Willy, the final boss, who brings a machine gun to a fist fight.

Weirdly, Abobo has various forms in the game. His initial form is as a bald, pale guy with a mustache. Soon after, we fight Jick, an Abobo clone who closely resembles Mr. T. Later, we face off against an Incredible Hulk version of Abobo. This is post-nuclear war, so I suppose this tracks.

But it was NES port that really delivered the ultimate form of Abobo, whose appearance was seriously altered for the 8-bit console. With orange-brown skin, Abobo is still bigger than everyone else, but also looks inhuman. He has a giant, bald head almost the size of his bulky torso, and a black arch on his face that is apparently a mustache merged with a frown! While the NES version had its own quasi-fighting game mode with everyone redrawn with a bigger and better sprite, Abobo looked exactly the same. You just can’t mess with perfection!

Abobo sort-of-but-not-really appeared in the sequel, 1988’s Double Dragon II: The Revenge. In a game filled with giant enemies, there was a guy named Bolo who looked exactly like Abobo, but with long, black hair. Actually, in retrospect, he looks a lot like Danny Trejo.

Huh.

Abobo sat out of the next few Double Dragon games, as the Lee brothers busied themselves fighting mummies and chubby clowns. But he returned in a very unexpected crossover: 1993’s Battletoads/Double Dragon: The Ultimate Team. The game featured a bizarre team-up between the Dark Queen from Battletoads and the Shadow Warriors. As Double Dragon didn’t have too many memorable boss characters that could stack up to the likes of a giant rat in a singlet, they went with what they could get.

As with the other bosses in the crossover gamer, Abobo was depicted as an absolute giant compared to the Lee Brothers and the Toads. He was also very generic-looking, appearing as a shirtless, bald guy with no ‘stache. Due to the sci-fi nature of the crossover, his storyline ended with him getting booted off a spaceship and sent spiraling through space itself.

1993 also gave us the Double Dragon animated series. Somehow, this thing ran for two seasons (26 episodes) and Abobo was there from the beginning. The first episode was a weird Saturday morning-style retelling of the NES game’s plot, down to Billy Lee having to fight his “evil” brother at the end. Abobo acted as a henchman, alongside a very colorful take on Willy.

In the cartoon, Abobo was a bald muscleman with blue skin, meaning he has the same mysterious complexion situation as Captain N’s King Hippo. Abobo was also strangely competent on the show, all things considered, although the only fighting he ever did was throw oil drums at Billy and miss every single time. He spent more of his time annoyed at Willy, who was depicted as a psychotic cowboy with a laser gun — one-half Yosemite Sam and one-half the Interrupter from Late Night with Conan O’Brien.

The second episode introduced the Shadow Master, who immediately showed disgust at his underlings’ failure by magically bonding Willy to a giant mural of punished souls. Abobo tried to run for it, but succumbed to the same fate. The two would remain in that mural for the rest of the series.

While there was a fighting game released based off of the Double Dragon cartoon, Abobo wasn’t part of the roster. It was just as well. Double Dragon V: The Shadow Falls was a really bad game and Abobo had bigger things on the horizon.

Abobo was about to go Hollywood!

In 1994, Imperial Entertainment Group released the Double Dragon movie, a total cheesefest that couldn’t make back its $8 million budget. But Robert Patrick’s scenery-chewing main villain made the movie almost watchable. The story takes place in a version of Los Angeles that’s a cross between The Warriors and No Man’s Land from the Batman comics. Billy and Jimmy are teens who get roped into a plot that involves two dragon-shaped necklaces that form an all-power medallion when put together.

Initially, Nils Allen Stewart plays the gang leader Bo Abobo. As head of the Mohawk Gang, he’s there to act all intimidating in a goofy ’90s bully sort of way, but he really doesn’t actually do much. He takes part in a car chase and teases a fight scene, but nothing happens.

Then, the villain Koga Shuko transforms him into a literal steroid freak with some experimental machine. From there on out, Abobo is played by Henry Kingi in a bloated, rubber suit. Despite being a muscle golem at this point, Abobo STILL doesn’t actually fight anyone and is instead kidnapped by Power Corps.

Abobo eventually sees what he looks like in the mirror. Broken over what he’s been transformed into, he turns on Koga and…still doesn’t fight anyone. He just gives Power Corps some advice to help turn the tide against the bad guys. At the end of the movie, he asks the Lee Brothers if they could be buddies and recklessly drives their car.

Yeah, it’s…almost something. Not the awfulness of Super Mario Bros, but not the good-for-the-time quality of Mortal Kombat. It’s also not quite as fun-bad as the Street Fighter movie, but it does share one major similarity to it.

Much like Street Fighter, the Double Dragon movie had its own fighting game spinoff. Rather than a one-on-one fighter featuring digitized actors (which was the original idea until it wasn’t deemed viable for the deadline), Technos put together a Neo Geo animated fighter that isn’t so well-known these days due to how run-of-the-mill it was. It looked like your average SNK fighting game, with no real identity of its own. The game was released for arcade, Neo Geo CD, and PlayStation.

The 1995 fighting game was loosely based on the movie’s plot and featured some FMV clips. Showing up from the movie are Billy Lee, Jimmy Lee, Marian, Shuko, and Abobo. The rest of the roster is made up of original characters, though Technos did redesign Burnov, the Big Van Vader-looking boss character from Double Dragon II: The Revenge. Abobo more closely resembles his initial, more human-looking form from the movie, complete with mohawk, although he’s cartoonishly big in the game. Fortunately, he occasionally transforms into his blobby, tumor-like mutant form during certain moves and winposes.

His ending in the game features him eating a lot of meat at a restaurant, demanding to eat meat so rough that it’ll make his teeth bleed. Heh. And Roger Ebert said video games aren’t art.

Games

Double Dragon and Kunio-kun: Retro Bundle Coming Soon

By Rob Leane

Games

Double Dragon 4: Story & Multiplayer Modes Detailed

By Matthew Byrd

After the inexplicable crossover, animated series, failed movie, and fighting game tie-ins, Double Dragon as a franchise was finally spent. As the arcade scene died down in the late ’90s, the side-scrolling beat ‘em up disappeared for a time, and it would be a little while before nostalgia for it would kick in.

Fortunately, there was still some juice left in the fighting game genre, and in 2002 the Neo Geo had just enough time left before SNK’s hardware line was discontinued. The company Evoga developed what was, for a time, meant to be a Double Dragon fighting game, but ultimately the team wasn’t able to secure the rights and was forced to make the game with a knockoff cast of characters. The result was Rage of the Dragons, a tag-team fighting game featuring Billy Lewis, Jimmy Lewis, and Abubo…

Abubo does not have a tag partner and is instead a mid-boss so powerful that it takes two opponents to stop him. He’s depicted as a low-level mob boss with a ponytail, sunglasses, pink tank top, and overly-long, muscular arms. It’s a decent enough redesign of the original, but…Abubo? That’s the best they could come up with?

As for the official Double Dragon, it made its comeback a year later. Double Dragon Advance for the Game Boy Advance took the original arcade version, updated the graphics just enough, added more stages, enemies, and attacks, turning this installment into a souped-up take on the classic. This of course meant the return of the real Abobo!

2012 would be a banner year for the musclebound henchman. Since 2002, I-Mockery’s Roger Barr had been trying to develop an Abobo-based fangame, and in early 2012, the free-to-play masterpiece Abobo’s Big Adventure was released to the public and we were better for it.

Using 8-bit graphics, the game follows Abobo as he searches for his kidnapped son Aboboy. Each level is based on a different NES title and features a dizzying amount of Easter eggs. There’s a Double Dragon level, underwater Super Mario Bros. level, Urban Champ, Legend of Zelda, Balloon Fight, Pro Wrestling, Mega Man, Contra, and finally Punch-Out. The game is an absolute blast, especially for anyone who grew up with the NES and features such whacked out moments as:

Abobo mating with the mermaid from Goonies 2, which gives him a forcefield powerup made up of Abobo/mermaid hybrid babies, one of which begs for death!

An Abobo vs. Amazon wrestling match that includes the summoning of Hulk Hogan, Ultimate Warrior, Roddy Piper, and Undertaker assists in the form of Pro Wrestling sprites.

Taking on Krang’s giant robot body with Kirby in the abdominal area.

An incredibly long and over-the-top ending that gets extremely and laughably violent. If you’ve ever wanted to see a muscular child drink blood from the Shredder’s dismembered arm, this game is for you!

In terms of OFFICIAL nostalgia, 2012 also saw the release of Double Dragon Neon for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 (and later PC). Using 3D graphics, the game was a modern update of Double Dragon’s playstyle while playing up the 1980s aesthetic. It was a lot more ridiculous than the original series. In fact, it’s more in line with the Battletoads crossover since this game also lets you launch Abobo into the deep recesses of outer space to die.

This game also gave us the first – and, as of this writing, only – polygon Abobo. This time a towering, hunched over brute with lots of spiked armbands. All that AND the mustache!

But of those two 2012 releases, Abobo’s Big Adventure is surprisingly the better game in terms of its portrayal of the big man, as it solidified his status as nostalgic beat em up icon.

In 2017, Arc System Works put together Double Dragon IV for the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC. Rather than emulate the arcade original’s aesthetic, the game took its art style from the NES games. That meant the return of the classic NES Abobo as not only a recurring enemy but an unlockable playable character. Double Dragon IV actually lets you play through the story mode as various enemy characters, but honestly, who else would you pick in that situation? Well, maybe Burnov.

Sadly, playing as Abobo in Double Dragon IV leads to a non-ending. I know you can’t improve on “Abobo punches Little Mac’s head off so hard it transcends time and space,” but at least TRY!

Around the same time, another game tried to play up Abobo’s ironic/iconic status. River City Ransom: Underground was released for the PC in early 2017. The River City Ransom series has always had ties to Double Dragon, but this high school brawler goes the extra mile by putting Abobo on a big pedestal. First off, he’s the school principal. If you attack any of your teachers, you’re sent to Principal Abobo’s office to suffer a serious slap on the wrist, shoulder, jaw, spine, etc. Sometimes he’ll even enter classrooms by punching holes through the brick walls, all while shirtless and talking like the Hulk.

Even better than that? Abobo’s not only the school principal but the Mayor of River City! No wonder everyone’s always kicking the shit out of each other! God bless Mayor Mike Haggar for being a true trendsetter.

The Double Dragon/River City connection only grew stronger when 2019 brought the absolutely must-play River City Girls. As the story goes, River City Ransom heroes Kunio and Riki have been kidnapped, so their badass girlfriends Misako and Kyoko go on a violent rampage to save them. Early in the game, while Misako and Kyoko fighting in a classroom, there’s a projector playing a short film about a boy learning about puberty.

It just so happens that the kid in the video is being taught by Abobo, who thanks puberty for his monstrous size and strength. This, my friends, is foreshadowing, as Abobo shows up later in the game as a boss.

Misako and Kyoko confront Abobo about their missing boyfriends, and Abobo admits that he isn’t sure whether or not he kidnapped them since he kidnaps a LOT of people. They throw down and we’re treated to the most powerful take on Abobo yet, considering the length of his life bar. Once defeated, Abobo admits that he has nothing to do with the missing boyfriends, but gives the heroes a lead by talking about his side job as security for an upcoming concert.

In 2020, Arc System Works released a collection for PS4 and Switch called Double Dragon & Kunio-Kun Retro Brawler Bundle. It collects 18 8-bit games, including the three NES Double Dragon games, River City Ransom, and all the old spinoffs from the River City Ransom universe. And who’s on the cover?

Yes, despite technically being in one game out of 18, and not even being the final boss of any of them, Abobo gets a major spot on the cover of this huge collection among the games’ hero characters. Finally, the world understands that Abobo is a star. Now we just need Abobo to appear in Guilty Gear Strive and then we’ll really be cooking.

The post How Double Dragon’s Abobo Became a Beat em up Legend appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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punny-trash · 3 years ago

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Ah well, you're not wrong, that is indeed how they started up until about chapter 14 when scoob flips off some cops and then crash the mystery van. After that they find kermit which is when the whole "is that a gun" exchange takes place, and take refuge in what appears to be an abandoned shack and meet mickey(?). From there they quickly discover that it's more than just an abandoned shack, but not before scoob and shag fet separated. Each group encouters toons who suddenly transform into terrifying body horror monsters. Shag is rescued by Popeye who gives him a run down of toon history and also tells him about ballyhoos (which are basically just cool stand like abilities exept instead of being named after music references they're named after television terms) and scoob is captured by yosemite sam from loony toons.

Basically, shit goes from haha funny one offs to surreal horror to balls to the walls jojo fights faster than you can catch your breath and the ammount of world building it manages to give you in that short time is quite frankly ridiculous. The author has very clearly put a lot of thought and care into this story and it's world and it is honestly so good please go read it

Like, shit man!

[Read the full story]

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sinrau · 5 years ago

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(CNN) Ever since the coronavirus began its deadly march through the US, Donald Trump has been accused of lacking the empathy presidents typically draw on to lead and soothe a nation in crisis.

This week the question of presidential compassion was a consistent storyline.

You could pick your lyrics: Was the President like the Tin Man from the “Wizard of Oz,” plaintively singing, “If I only had a heart.” Or was he suffering from, as the 80s hit song put it, “a total eclipse of the heart”?

We saw a President who slammed the Supreme Court for blocking his effort to subject 650,000 Dreamers to deportation. He also bemoaned the court’s historic ruling Monday that LGBTQ people can’t be fired because of their sexuality. His former national security adviser John Bolton claimed in a book excerpt that Trump had encouraged China’s leader to set up concentration camps for the Uyghur minority. He plowed ahead with a non-socially distanced rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, even as coronavirus cases mounted.

Yes, some rallygoers could get sick, Trump told the Wall Street Journal, but “it’s a very small percentage.”

In a private meeting with the families of Black victims, though, Trump was “very compassionate,” according to the mother of Ahmaud Arbery, who was shot to death while jogging in Georgia. But in his public remarks, the President made law-and-order his primary message.

“Trump went on the attack against his political rivals and doubled down on his hard-line, ‘law and order’ stance, a political calculation solidified by his use of the words ‘safety and security’ and his statement that Americans ‘demand law and order,'” wrote Issac Bailey. “His effort to address growing national suffering and protest over police brutality was, at best, a thinly veiled excuse to defend law enforcement and signal to white voters where he stands.”

A chilling view of the private Trump emerged from the Bolton book. It painted a credible “portrait of the most amoral, autocratic and unprepared man to ever serve as president of the United States,” wrote John Avlon. “This is not a partisan attack by activists from the opposition party. This is the first-person view of the President’s former national security adviser, bolstered by contemporaneous notes, a standard which is admissible in court. It is a damning portrait of a president untethered to anything resembling morals, who cannot separate his self-interest from the national interest and doesn’t even care to try.”

Jen Psaki viewed the book through the lens of the upcoming election: “All of the observations, accusations and specific anecdotes are about one person — Donald Trump — and whether he is fit to lead the country and the lasting damage he would inflict if given four more years.”

In fact, the revelations show Bolton as complicit, in Elie Honig‘s view: “John Bolton has offered the nation a staggering profile in cowardice…Bolton directly witnessed not one but multiple acts that could have been cited in the impeachment of President Donald Trump. But Bolton did nothing about it while he held a powerful post in the Trump administration. And he stayed quiet and took cover when Congress and the nation pleaded with him to speak out during the impeachment process.”

Writing about China policy, Bolton gave this devastating description: “The Trump presidency is not grounded in philosophy, grand strategy or policy. It is grounded in Trump.” As if to prove that such a verdict applies more broadly, on Friday night Attorney General William Barr ousted Geoffrey Berman, US Attorney for the Southern District of NY which has been investigating and prosecuting Trump’s associates. “The news of Berman’s ouster is one more piece of evidence that Trump is the anti-law-and-order President, despite his claims to the contrary. Trump touts law and order when it suits him, but attacks the courts and erodes our judicial system when it comes to his agenda and actions,” wrote Julian Zelizer.

One critic described Bolton’s book as a slog. “It toggles between two discordant registers: exceedingly tedious and slightly unhinged,” wrote Jennifer Szalai in the New York Times. “Still, it’s maybe a fitting combination for a lavishly bewhiskered figure whose wonkishness and warmongering can make him seem like an unlikely hybrid of Ned Flanders and Yosemite Sam.”

Another book Trump may be dreading is due out in July from the President’s niece, Mary L. Trump, who is a psychologist. Trump biographer Michael D’Antonio wrote that the book promises to shed light on the President’s fraught relationships with his father and elder brother, Fred Trump Jr., who was Mary Trump’s father. “Three and a half years into the Trump era, endless words have been spent illustrating the chaotic and cruel personality that can, to cite just one example, schedule a huge ego-gratifying rally in the middle of a deadly pandemic caused by a viciously contagious virus,” noted D’Antonio.

A rally fizzles

Given that cases of Covid-19 have been rising sharply in Tulsa County, wrote infectious disease expert and Oklahoma native Dr. Kent Sepkowitz in advance of Trump’s Saturday rally there, “from a strict public health perspective, the selection of Tulsa is a terrible decision.”

Trump’s first rally since the pandemic began was “supposed to trumpet his return to greatness — and the country’s return to normalcy,” wrote Frida Ghitis. But it “instead brought embarrassing scenes of empty bleachers, a dismantled stage and a familiar speech unsuccessfully trying to reignite public fears…The speech was typically self-centered, with a bizarre more than ten-minute long riff on his ultra-slow descent from the West Point ramp, and absolutely no words of compassion for the nearly 120,000 people in this country who have died during the pandemic.”

Days of freedom

Friday was Juneteenth, the holiday celebrating the end of slavery in the US. Another historic day of freedom came on October 1, 1962, when James Meredith became the first African American student to enroll at the University of Mississippi. He had to sue for his right to an education there, and it took the courts, hundreds of federal marshals and thousands of troops to overcome rioting and protect Meredith.

“The gates of higher education in the United States were opened for all Americans,” Meredith wrote. “This victory for me and for the US Constitution shattered the system of state-sponsored white supremacy in Mississippi…”

“When I see people across America — and around the world — peacefully marching for racial justice and honoring the memory of George Floyd and other martyrs like Medgar Evers…I am filled with both joy and hope. White supremacy may be the most evil beast that’s ever stalked the halls of history, and today it may finally be mortally wounded.”

Some companies and some states marked Juneteenth as a holiday, but it should be observed nationally, wrote Peniel Joseph. It “would spur not only conversation about the origins of our current racial and political conflicts, but would also prompt vitally necessary education about white supremacy and its manifestations in policies and political actions that are anti-Black, anti-democratic and anti-human,” wrote Joseph.

Rayshard Brooks’ own words

Months before he was shot to death by Atlanta police, Rayshard Brooks took part in an interview for a research project. A video of that February interview aired on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 show Wednesday, and in it, Brooks described the lasting burden of being on probation: “I just feel like some of the system could, you know, look at us as individuals. We do have lives, you know, just a mistake we made, and you know, not just do us as if we are animals.”

Van Jones noted that for people on probation “any contact with a police officer — for any reason — means an almost certain return to the horrors of a jail cell. It is safe to assume that Brooks did not want to go back to jail over sleeping in his car or failing a sobriety test, lose everything he had and be forced to start his life over again.”

“In other words, we do not know why the Atlanta police officer chose to shoot a man who was running away from him. But we can guess why that man chose to run, in the first place. Brooks didn’t want to lose his liberty. Instead, he wound up losing his life.”

Melvin Carter, the first African American mayor of St. Paul, Minnesota, is the son of a police officer who served his city for 28 years. But even with that background, he doesn’t think the answer to public safety is solely a matter of spending billions on police and prisons. “Our country’s enforcement-heavy approach to safety isn’t designed to address the root causes of crime, but the symptoms,” he wrote. “Instead of equipping us all with tools to guard our own future security, it further alienates those on the outer edges of society and impedes funding for critical social infrastructure like schools and housing.”

A former mayor, Mitch Landrieu of New Orleans, wrote that the US Justice Department was investigating his city’s police department when he took office. A consent decree which is still ongoing has resulted in a dramatic improvement in how residents view the police, but there’s more work to be done, Landrieu wrote. “We must go further. We can no longer ask police to handle the failures of our social and educational systems.”

Anne Milgram, the former New Jersey Attorney General, worked on the reinvention of policing in what was once America’s most dangerous city, Camden. “We had a police department that had no idea of what it was doing or whether it could do better. It lurched wildly from 911 call to 911 call, sometimes taking hours to respond to calls of serious violence. It failed to solve serious crimes…that plagued the city, and yet hundreds of arrests were being made for low-level crimes, driven most often by drug and alcohol addiction, mental illness, poverty and homelessness.” New leadership, new systems and ultimately a new police department made a difference — the city is “the safest that it has been in more than 50 years” and the police department is a model for others, Milgram wrote.

Supreme surprises

When Donald Trump ran for President, he promised to appoint conservative justices to the federal courts — and he’s been true to his word, naming Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court and scores of others for lower courts.

But it was Gorsuch who wrote the majority opinion this week upholding civil rights for LGBTQ Americans, rejecting the Trump administration’s position in declaring that the anti-discrimination provisions of the 1964 Civil Rights Act protect gay and transgender people. “It’s surprising that it’s taken this long,” wrote John D. Sutter. “Until this week in the United States of America, many LGBTQ workers lacked these simple legal protections.

“In over half the states in America, you could be fired for being gay. Until now.”

Then on Thursday, Chief Justice John Roberts, appointed by George W. Bush, sided with the court’s four liberals in blocking the Trump administration’s effort to kill the Obama-era DACA program, which shields young people who had been brought to the United States as children from deportation. DACA “was life-changing for hundreds of thousands of people — Americans in all but the paperwork — who were now free to work, go to school, seek promotions and continue their academic careers without fear of being detained and sent back to countries they barely knew,” wrote Raul A. Reyes. The decision was “a win for Dreamers, for the American ideal of welcoming immigrants — and for the independence of the high court.”

Happy Father’s Day

Mother’s Day this year came as most Americans were still locked down, and a lot of the holiday get-togethers were virtual. Today is Father’s Day and the advice from Kent Sepkowitz is consistent with what he recommended for the earlier holiday: get together with your father on Zoom, Facetime or whatever platform you prefer. America’s “approach to reopening — which has been unscientific and uncoordinated — has failed miserably. Rather than cautiously peeling back the various Covid-19 containment safeguards, most states have supported an ‘everybody-back-in-the-pool’ return, as if we were all teens partying during Spring Break.”

“Besides, let’s be honest — Father’s Day is no Mother’s Day, “wrote Sepkowitz, noting that total US spending on Mother’s Day gifts is more than 50% higher. “As a dad myself, this junior varsity status is fine by me. This year in particular, I want nothing to do with celebrating a holiday in the middle of a poorly managed pandemic.”

For more on Father’s Day:

Marcus Mabry: A Father’s Day message to all dads

Arick Wierson: George Floyd was my wake-up call

After Aunt Jemima

The debate over systemic racism touched off by the killing of George Floyd rippled into many parts of America. Consumer-facing companies reacted, with Quaker Oats announcing that it would end the 131-year-old Aunt Jemima brand, noted Elliot Williams.

As a Black child, it was upsetting for him to discover that the light-pink Crayola crayon was labeled “flesh” colored. “I put it back in the bin, pulled out ‘burnt sienna’ or ‘raw umber’ and continued whatever (probably “Star Wars” themed) self-portrait I was working on… By implying that the only color called ‘flesh’ looked like white skin, Crayola decided who was ‘normal.’ Everyone else had to work around that.” (The “flesh” color was phased out in 1962, replaced by “peach.”)

“In the midst of a national debate on life-and-death matters around racism and public safety, fussing about the logo on instant rice may seem trivial,” Williams wrote. “It’s not. The images our society chooses to elevate are reflective of who we are, and more importantly, whose voices — and yes, even lives — matter.”

Now that Aunt Jemima has been retired, wrote Crystal Echo Hawk, what should be next? She argued that the many uses of Native American images and symbolism in sports must end. “Professional sports have the power to influence and inspire people of all ages. In this unprecedented moment of solidarity, t hey have the opportunity to take a strong stand and show — not just say — that racism will not be tolerated.”

Covid-19 is still here

America’s top two elected officials did their best this week to argue that Covid-19 is going away, despite clear signs to the contrary. “Other countries whose governments addressed the crisis forthrightly have managed to wrestle down the curve, and now they are carefully, safely reopening,” wrote Frida Ghitis. “In the US, the curve is trending up, not down, even if Vice President Mike Pence deceptively declared in an op-ed this week, ‘We are winning the fight against the invisible enemy,’ unctuously declaring that the good news is ‘a testament to the leadership of President Trump.'”

As Ghitis noted, “On Monday, during a roundtable discussion on senior citizens, Trump said ‘If you don’t test, you don’t have any cases,’ a belief reminiscent of a baby thinking you disappear if he covers his eyes. To state the obvious, if we stopped testing, people would continue to become infected and die.”

Don’t miss:

Kamala Harris: The fight continues to protect Americans’ health care from Trump.

Theodore J. Boutrous Jr.: Trump’s tweet exploits and defames toddlers

Vicky Ward: Telling the truth makes a huge difference

David Gergen and Caroline Cohen: The next Greatest Generation

Merrill Brown: Federal government abdicates duty to inform public on coronavirus

Claire McMullen, Yael Schacher and Ariana Sawyer: Trump’s cold-blooded move to shut out desperate asylum seekers

Jeff Yang: It turns out your favorite movie is racist. What now?

Nayyera Haq: Why Stacey Abrams deserves applause

AND…

At last, summer

A summer like no other begins this weekend. In the first of a new series of weekly columns for CNN Opinion, biologist Erin Bromage wrote, “Our choices over the coming months will determine the trajectory of this pandemic. If we continue to pursue activities that pose a high risk for infection, such as large indoor gatherings, then we will hear the roar of that second wave sooner than later.”

“If we take a more measured approach, by improving hand hygiene, limiting daily interactions with other people, maintaining physical distance and increasing face mask use when we can’t maintain the distance, then businesses can operate safely, people can return to work and the activities our children are missing can resume.”

But even in the midst of the pandemic, Bromage wrote that he’s looking forward to some traditional summer activities: “my first meal at a restaurant (dining outdoors), visiting with more than one or two households at a time, and spending time at the beach. These interactions will be a little different than last summer.

“We will have to keep personal risks and risk mitigation measures in mind, but these adjustments are well worth the payoff of getting to enjoy some of my family’s usual summertime activities.”

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