Saturday, December 4, 2004

Recommended Reading

The court case over Michael Ovitz's Disney severance continues to provide interesting insights, not only to the Disney company but to much of Corporate America. Walter Shapiro has some comments.

• Posted at 2:03 PM · LINK

Today's Non-Political Rant

About once every three weeks, someone comes to my door, trying to get me to adopt their religious views. This annoys me on several levels, not the least of which is that I don't even like friends, let alone total strangers, coming to my door sans invitation. They all seem to have an uncanny knack for ringing my doorbell just when I'm in my underwear or about to get into the shower or especially when I'm in that "zone" where I'm writing something I really like and don't want to be interrupted. A few months ago when I hurt my foot, it was a special annoyance to have to hobble down the stairs to answer the door and find someone selling something.

So I've made a personal policy: If someone comes to my door without an invite, the answer is no. Whatever it is. No, I won't buy your product. No, I won't donate money to your cause. No, I won't give you money for repainting the house number of my curb for the fifth time this month.

And I especially won't stand there in my doorway and discuss Jesus Christ or The Bible or The Rapture with you. Those may all be important, worthy topics but I don't need to debate them with people who have nothing better to do with their lives than wander door to door with pamphlets. I usually tell such folks that I resent (a) someone diminishing those topics to such a shallow level that they can be sold like Girl Scout Cookies and/or (b) the concept that my beliefs are so shallow that they could be changed by a quick, impromptu chat with a stranger. My beliefs have changed throughout my adult life, but never because of one sales pitch. These people are like Human Spam, trying to sell you prescription medicines without a prescription. The only problem is that you can't just hit the Delete Key and make them go away in two seconds.

• Posted at 12:42 PM · LINK

Dot's Right

I haven't read one since I was about eight but I recall enjoying the Little Dot comic books. The character was reportedly created by writer-artist Vic Herman and debuted, looking somewhat different than she later did, as a back-up feature in Harvey's Sad Sack comic book. Later, she was redesigned by Warren Kremer, who was the archetype artist for Harvey Comics, and she got her own book...and two of her back-up features, Little Lotta and Richie Rich, also graduated to stardom. It was a fun comic...but I never thought about it in quite the same way that my pal Mike Gold is thinking about it over on his weblog.

• Posted at 9:48 AM · LINK