I've long since scratched Rudy Giuliani off my list of Republicans I Could Imagine Myself Voting For...a list that until fairly recently also held the name of John McCain. There are many reasons Rudy's off but a biggie is that I don't think macho swagger and mentioning 9/11 in every other sentence is an excuse for not having a grasp on foreign policy.
If I'd needed another reason to cross Giuliani off, I got it this morning when I read...
Giuliani, who has strong national polling results but trails former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in New Hampshire, planned to "give the death tax the death penalty," his campaign said. What some politicians call the "death tax" involves the taxes on wealth passed on through inheritance.
I think the drive to reduce or eliminate Inheritance Taxes is one of the great crocks of Western Civilization, and a perfect example of wealthy folks figuring out how to transfer their fair share of the tax burden to others. Every so often, I'm going to link to this post which, in turn, links to two others that explain why this is not only a scam but a deliberate, calculated sham.
But I have to say that I was fascinated to read the following line in the news stories on Giuliani's statement...
The current rate is set at 45 percent through 2009. It would drop to zero in 2010 but jump to 55 percent in 2011.
Is that true? If so, make a note. 2010 would be a great time to murder that wealthy grandmother of yours.
When I was a kid and my parents took me to their favorite bookstore, I would always buy a book, usually a book of comic strips. Up until the time I had all of those then in print — I think there were four or so — it was the Peanuts books. That was when I started in on Pogo, which is not to say I fully understood Pogo at the time. The dialogue was inaccessible to my toddler mind and even when I could decode what I could decode, I wasn't sure what they were all yelling about. In a way, it was frustrating the way it's frustrating to watch certain TV shows with the sound off. You can tell something interesting is being said but it drives you up the ever-lovin' wall to be denied it.
That was how I felt about Walt Kelly's swampland comic strip up until the age when I started to "get it." I knew it was funny. The characters were so alive and expressive. You could tell just from their poses that wonderful things happened in their world. You could also tell that the guy drawing all them amusing pics was a man of great humor and wit. I never got to meet Walt Kelly but long before I met his daughter, I felt like I knew him. And of course, hearing her stories and being welcomed into that world, has only made me feel closer to this great Pogo cartoonist.
Walt Kelly would have been 94 years old today. For purely selfish reasons, just so I could have met him, I'm sorry he didn't make it. I'm also sorry for all of us because it would have been great to have another few decades of him and his wonderful creativity. Under Carolyn's watchful, protective eye, Fantagraphics Books will soon reprint the Pogo newspaper strips in full, and in the best presentation possible, and everyone who knows the material is very excited indeed about this.
To keep you Pogofied until then, we'll be posting more excerpts and goodies over at the Pogo Possum website. Pop over there later this weekend and celebrate Walt Kelly Day with a little Walt Kelly. It doesn't get any better than that.
I lied. I went to bed and only now am I posting the video link. It's from last week when CBS Sunday Morning did a nice memorial piece on Groucho and it includes interviews with Elliott Gould, David Steinberg, author Charlotte Chandler and a reporter who's seen Horse Feathers 28 times. There's also a nice bit with our friend Frank Ferrante, who does such an uncanny job of replicating The One, The Only on stage. If Frank is ever doing Groucho anywhere near you, run — preferably in a half-crouched posture and with your eyebrows going up and down — to see him. His touring schedule is on this page.
Some may be puzzled by the reference to Steinberg helping write the Broadway show Minnie's Boys since his name appears nowhere in its credits. I believe Mr. Steinberg was the first of several writers who tried to write a book for the show that would pass muster with (from all reports) an extremely-difficult-to-satisfy Groucho. I've never read Steinberg's draft but someone who did told me that he'd made the mistake of writing something that was mostly accurate, as opposed to what Groucho wanted the world to think was accurate. In any case, I don't think any of Steinberg's work made it into the finished product.
Well, my Internet connection got fixed and I was just sitting down to post something here when I got a call and had to go take my mother in to the emergency room at a nearby hospital. That's always good for at least six hours of not getting any work done. Her condition was not life-threatening and she's now back home and resting but she had something that needed fixing, it couldn't wait 'til Monday and there was nowhere else to take her. In fact, I couldn't help thinking that it was a lot easier to get a guy out to fix my cable modem than it was to get my mother in to see a doctor.
Every time I go to an emergency room, I come away with at least one observed story. This time, it involved a very lovely young lady of high school age and Asian extraction. She was dressed in a cheerleader outfit and had been wheeled in by a guy in matching (but for males) cheerleading garb. Sitting in the wheelchair, she somehow had to — and amazingly, managed to — keep an injured leg elevated at an impossible angle. It was actually perpendicular to the floor and if she'd pulled it back a few more degrees, she would have been seated with her leg behind her head.
She was being checked in and next to her, an elderly woman — I'm guessing at least eighty, maybe close to ninety — was being checked in for some ailment or other. While waiting for the triage lady to fill out some forms, the elderly lady turned to the cheerleader and said, "I was a cheerleader when I was your age."
The cheerleader didn't seem particularly interested but just to be sociable, she said, "Well, I hope your team won."
— to which the elderly woman replied, "I don't remember. I didn't even pay attention then. I hated sports. I just became a cheerleader because I wanted to be popular. That was all that mattered to me...being popular." Then she looked at the younger woman's leg still elevated in this astounding contortion and added, "You know, if I could have put my ankles behind my ears like that, I wouldn't have had to be a damn cheerleader."
True story. Anyway, I lost an evening and now I'm behind so there may not be a lot of posting here for the next few days. I'm going to post a video link, then go to bed. And when I wake up in the morning, I'll have some things to say about Walt Kelly Day. It's Walt Kelly Day, you know.
August 26, 2007
