I drew a cartoon today about artificial intelligence, but it isn’t scheduled to run until tomorrow in The Contrarian. So instead, I’m posting a couple of sketches that never made it into print after being passed over by freelance clients.
One of them was inspired by a story from a few weeks ago that I was surprised didn’t get far more attention: the FBI quietly changed some of the standards it uses to screen prospective agents and other employees. Conduct that once could automatically end an application—including hiring prostitutes, stealing from an employer and even certain acts of bestiality or animal cruelty—can now, under limited circumstances, be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
The FBI insists that applicants still undergo extensive background investigations and polygraph examinations, and the changes shouldn’t be interpreted as abandoning its suitability standards.
Wait. What?
In almost any other era, “FBI relaxes hiring standards involving prostitution, theft and bestiality” would have enjoyed a healthy life cycle of headlines, political cartoons, commentary and merciless mockery. Instead, it barely registered. That’s one consequence of “flooding the zone”: when the political news cycle produces a fresh controversy every few hours, even stories that would once have stopped us in our tracks can disappear before we’ve had time to process them.
