Panel from Slylock Fox, 3/30/25

This is at least the second time that Slylock Fox has proposed the old "one person divides, the other chooses" solution to this kind of dispute, and when the first one was published five years ago I already went on at great length about how I first encountered that idea in TAC*K, a sub-Encyclopedia Brown series of distinctly Slylockian "mysteries" for kids. So I guess today I'll focus on our hapless canine judge. Criminal investigation and prosecution are the flashiest part of the legal system, and the post-human regime has managed to put together semi-functional versions of that, but much of the work of the judiciary involves managing noncriminal disputes between litigants, and we can see that Slylock's animal civilization has a long way to go in that department. Our boy Sly is using the only tool in his arsenal -- ratiocination -- and frankly I don't think it's really up to the task.

Mary Worth, 3/30/25