Good As Gold. A rhetorical question.

[Mark Kohut]

Mike Jing asks:
"I see your point. What I'm really concerned about is whether this is
intended as a joke. It looks so to me, but of course I could be totally
wrong."

I read this as a joke intended by the author, another of his steady stream
of tropes about
contradiction, ala the great iconic embodiment Catch--22.

The Catch here is, the character is not aware of his contradiction, a nice
insight into
how we all are like this sometimes. I think.

Of course, I could be totally wrong.