Tuesday, June 18, 2002

Possibly the most wonderful unsubstantiated rumor of the year: Ain't It Cool News repeats what's apparently an underground legend that Bill Watterson, who from 1985 through 1995 produced one of the all-time top five or six comic strips, "Calvin & Hobbes" — and who first turned down billions in "Garfield"- or "Peanuts"-like toy and merchandising offers, then walked away at the height of his success rather than let his story grow stale — has been spending these years drawing, mostly alone and by hand and far from any cheesy studio influence, an animated C&H movie.  The rumor's resurfacing now because a couple of well-known voice-over actors have listed the project in their bios. 4:33:30 PM    commentplace ()

Fresh from their furious fight against an estate tax — they lie and call it a "death tax," as if it affected all deaths instead of only a handful of estates — that takes a huge whack at the budget deficit while affecting fewer than 5,000 ultra-rich families — they lie and sigh about family farms, though there isn't one documented case of a farm lost to estate tax — what is the party that keeps saying it stands for "the American people" doing now? Today's N.Y. Times: "Republican leaders in Congress are using procedural tactics like walking out of committee hearings to keep Congress from voting on measures to close the so-called Bermuda loophole in the federal tax code, measures that would almost certainly pass overwhelmingly if given the chance." Every time it has a chance to prove it's for real fiscal responsibility benefiting real citizens — and to really smack down the still all-too-prominent spendaholics on the Democratic side — the GOP unhesitatingly, recklessly, rabidly shows it's for grotesque tax breaks and windfalls for the fewest and fattest of the fat cats.  Meanwhile, as lifelong Republican Kevin Phillips writes in Wealth and Democracy, America is showing the widest gulf between the rich and the workers since 1929, as well as every trait shown by Spain, Holland, and England before those nations' tumble from the world stage, and sober people are starting to talk about the degree of inequality that spurs revolution and chaos.  What's under your mattress? 8:42:04 AM    commentplace ()