Comic-Con International for 2018 runs from July 19-22 with a Preview Night on July 18. If you already have a badge or are darned sure you're going to get one, you might be interested in the Early Bird Hotel Sale which is now on. It's for lodging in hotels that are generally cheaper because they're some distance from where all the action takes place…but most are reachable by shuttles. Read all about it here.

And a reminder: I am not your best source for info on the convention and when to sign up and how and stuff like that. I may miss vital info. Your best source is to keep your eye on this here page.

Brendan O'Neill authored this article entitled, "Kevin Spacey is Innocent." It seems to me to be mistitled because what it really argues is "We Don't Know If Kevin Spacey is Guilty." That's not the same thing.

The article is very critical of those who think he might have done it even though Kevin Spacey seems to think he might have done it. His statement, after all, said "I honestly do not remember the encounter, it would have been over 30 years ago. But if I did behave then as he describes, I owe him the sincerest apology for what would have been deeply inappropriate drunken behavior."

That's not "I didn't do it." That's "I might have done it."

And so what if it was over 30 years ago? I think most of us can say with great confidence whether we tried to molest an underage boy at any period in our lives. There's something deeply wrong (or at least suspicious) with someone who isn't sure…and here's where my personal prejudice against drunks might be kicking in. If Spacey did it, obviously he is a bad person for that. But I also think that of people who get so shitfaced drunk or stoned that they aren't in control of their own actions. A dear friend of mine was killed by a drunk driver who actually tried to argue that he was "not guilty by reason of temporary insanity" because, after all, he was drunk at the time.

If people are now convinced Spacey did it, that's mainly a function of his inability to deny it. If he'd said, "I absolutely did not and would never do such a thing," we'd now be having a different discussion. There would still be people who thought he was guilty but most would not be as certain, and the rest would be giving him the benefit of some skepticism.

One other point. When I first wrote about this, I said…

I also kind of wonder if a smart lawyer vetted that admission. When you confess you might have tried to rape a minor but you can't remember for sure, aren't you just inviting others to accuse you of doing other things you might not remember? Aren't you kind of disqualifying yourself as a witness to your own life?

Let me take that back. Mr. Spacey is a very wealthy man who is at the center of several enterprises that involve large sums of cash. What is happening to his reputation will impact the future marketability of House of Cards, any films he's made that have yet to be released and the films he's made which may have their future value affected. There is a whole industry out there of lawyers and consultants who specialize in what we might call Career Crisis Management. You go to them when there's a scandal and you need to minimize what it does to you in terms of legal jeopardy, and to you and those around you in terms of image.

It also scrambles to head off future accusations and/or revelations. One thing we've learned from the Cosby and Weinstein matters is that one accuser can lead to many others. One person claiming victimhood comes forward and that emboldens others who figure there's a certain safety in numbers and a greater likelihood of their charges being taken seriously.

Mr. Spacey's statement didn't make a lot of sense to me but then I realized: He and his advisors are not just concerned with the one accusation but with others…and indeed, there have been others. Presumably, Spacey was not too drunk for thirty years to know of others who might emerge. The strategy of a guy in his position might not seem logical to us but we don't know what he and his people are worried about…and it may not be other charges of child molestation. It might not even be other illegal activities. It might just be things that he simply doesn't want to see come out.

You know, I'd love to see Kevin Spacey somehow clear himself of all charges. He's someone I've always respected as an actor and an activist. I'd like to be able to respect him as a human being, too. More significantly, I love when an innocent person is cleared of suspicion. I don't think they all are. As I've written here before, I think our prisons are full of innocent people, in part because once our legal system convicts someone, it does all it can to discourage parties from proving that conviction was wrong.

It would be great if a court or even an investigative reporter who really dug into the matter could say, as the article said, that "Kevin Spacey is Innocent." But I don't even see Spacey saying that. I just see a lot of Damage Control. It is, to quote the noted philosopher Donald J. Trump, sad.

On YouTube and similar services, one finds a surplus of videos taken by folks who seem to enjoy seeing a turtle or tortoise being unable to bite into something it wants to eat. Here we see a turtle or tortoise unable to wrap its mouth around a tomato. There are plenty of these videos but in this one, a decent human being comes along to help the poor creature get a bite…

Jonathan Chait reveals the shocking fact that under the G.O.P. tax plan, the richest Americans get most of the benefits. Is there a human being on this planet who didn't think that would be the case? Seriously? If there's a bedrock policy in the Republican party today, it's that the government exists to serve the wealthiest people first and everyone else as necessary.

Kevin Drum meanwhile notes that the Republican plan also takes from those who vote Democratic and gives to those who vote Republican. Yeah, that's going to bring us all together.

Drum also notes a new report on how Russians sure did their darnedest to help Trump defeat Hillary. It's amazing how many people who voted for Trump because they felt he'd be tougher on Russia aren't bothered by that.

Donald Trump seems to be amazed and frustrated that the powers of the presidency do not permit him to order his political opponents be jailed or even prosecuted. As Ezra Klein notes, one of the things working against this man is that he seems broadly incompetent to use the powers he does have. And we can only imagine the Republican outcry if Barack Obama had wished aloud for the dictatorship that Trump wishes he was commanding.

Daniel Larison wonders if Congress has the guts to limit Trump's war powers, especially with regard to North Korea. I would say the answer to that in on a sliding scale somewhere between Absolutely Not and Definitely Not.

And lastly for now, we have Jeff Goodell on "The Climate Report President Trump Thinks You're Too Stupid to Read." Well, maybe Trump feels that way but it seems to me that what he believes is that there are enough people in America who don't want to believe Climate Change is happening to sustain his core principle that nothing should ever get in the way of a company making money. Those people don't really care what experts say. For them, a homeless guy screaming on the street corner that it's all a Liberal Hoax cancels out any number of actual researchers. Reality can be whatever you want it to be if you only listen to those who tell you what you want to hear.

The Usual Gang of Idiots over at MAD offer their Do-It-Yourself Constantly-Reoccuring Mass Shooting News Story. I'm afraid they'll be able to post this over and over for a long time.

This posting is, of course, about the mass shooting in Texas yesterday but it'll also be about the mass shooting somewhere else later this week and the one next week and the three the week after. It's nice when people write or say "Our thoughts are with the victims and their loved ones" or "Our prayers are with them" but we all know that's become just another way of saying, "Let's not actually do anything about this kind of thing." I'm starting to get more annoyed at that than I am at the inevitable Alex Jones theory of how it's all a phony story concocted by the government to push its anti-gun agenda. If he hasn't announced it yet, he will.

I continue to believe that there are laws that could be passed that without infringing on legitimate Second Amendment concerns would lessen (not eliminate but lessen) this kind of thing. And I continue to believe that they'll never be even seriously considered until such time as we can say, "You know, X number of Congresspersons and Senators lost their seats in the last election because they opposed Gun Control." And X will have to be a high number. I do not expect this to happen in our lifetimes especially if the almost-unrestricted access to guns shortens those lifetimes.

The big song from Wicked sung by a whole bunch of women, most of them painted green and some of them in store windows…

• Mass shooting in Texas. It's the price we pay for freedom and it's not the time to discuss doing anything. Unless the shooter was Muslim.

• It looks like this may be the week when it turns out Trump barely knew Michael Flynn and Flynn turns out to be an unimportant volunteer.

I have two postal addresses — my home and a mail drop. At my home address, I am the recipient of mail sent to me of course, but I also get mail for my mother, who passed away in October of 2012 and for my dear friend Carolyn, who passed away in April of this year. The Carolyn mail comes in two varieties. I used to buy her a lot of mail order items, mainly vitamins and women's apparel and sometimes, we'd have the order shipped to my home address and sometimes, we'd have it shipped to her home address which now forwards to my home address.

What does this all mean? It means I get a shitload of catalogues and junk mail.

There's a mail order firm called Woman Within which seems to send out two catalogues per week and sometimes, for no visible reason, they send two copies to the same person. So they send one or two copies to Carolyn's old address and they're forwarded to me and they also send one or two copies to Carolyn at my home address and one or two copies to me at my home address. We once ordered my mother something delivered to her old address so they send one or two copies to that address which are forwarded to my home address. We also once had an order for Carolyn sent to my mail drop so they send one or two copies to her at that address and another one or two copies to me at that address.

I think I get a minimum of eight copies of every Woman Within catalogue and once in a while, up to twice that many. There was one day when I received nine.

The odds of me ordering something from these hover at or below Zero %. The only time I've ever opened one was to look and see if there was a little paragraph that said something like, "If you no longer wish to receive mailings from us, call this 800 number or visit this website to unsubscribe." I found none and so now I don't bother to open them at all.

Instead, the ads are pitched right into the recycling bin along with catalogues from Vitacost, J. Crew, Eddie Bauer and more than a dozen other companies from whom I will never-ever order. In fact, I've never-ever ordered from any of their catalogues as the orders I did place which started this tsunami were all off their websites. They have no reason to believe I've ever responded to or looked at any advertising they've sent me.

I assume that at some point, my total lack of response will get me off these lists but I have tried a few times to hurry that along. I called Woman Within's 800 number once and told them they could save a buck or twenty by a month by not sending me their catalogues. No one on the phone seemed to have any idea what to do with such a request except to put me on hold and leave me there forever. I also tried calling Vitacost once and was told that nobody in that office, wherever the hell it was, could do anything about the mailings.

I guess it must work. I mean, even with folks like me shot-putting every piece of mail from them into the dumpster, they must get enough orders from each catalogue to make them profitable. Still, I wonder what would happen if they sent out a mailing that consisted of just a letter and a pre-stamped postcard. The letter would say…

This is a test to see if you even read anything we send you. If you read this, send back the enclosed pre-stamped postcard which asks if you want to continue to receive our advertising. You can specify "Yes," "No" or "Yes but not as often."

No matter what you check, we will mail you a five-dollar bill, no strings attached. If you do indicate you want to continue to hear from us, you will see that our catalogues will have lower prices to reflect our savings from cutting all the folks who didn't respond off our mailing list.

If they did this, they might save a lot of money, their customers might save a lot of money and I'd make at least thirty bucks and I wouldn't have to unclog my mailbox all the time. Why is this not a terrific idea?

In the past, I've said very nice things about the Cupcake Theater, which is a little storefront operation in North Hollywood, on Magnolia right across from the Television Academy. In a building that was not designed to be what it is now, a very enterprising company stages revivals of major Broadway musicals in cramped quarters on what is obviously a very cramped budget. The total shebang is run by a bundle of energy named Michael Pettenato who seems to do a little of everything including, in their current show, a pretty fine bit of acting in a smallish role.

That current show is the stage musical version of Disney's The Little Mermaid. It opened on Broadway in January of 2008 and ran there for 685 performances. That would make it a wildly successful musical except that Disney was expecting it to equal or better Beauty and the Beast, which ran 5,461 performances or The Lion King, which will celebrate its twentieth anniversary on November 13 and which comes out to something like 8,400 performances…with no sign of closing. The Little Mermaid was also beastly expensive so it's kind of fun to see how creatively the Cupcake crew does it. There were probably individual special effects on Broadway that cost what this whole production out here cost.

What the folks behind Cupcake's presentation of it have going for them is a real sharp cast starting with Katy Harvey in the title role. Ariel has to be adorable and an incredible singer and Ms. Harvey more than qualifies and truly brings the animated princess to life. I was also real impressed by Michelle Lane as Ursula, who is delightfully slimy as she chews what little scenery they have. Thurzday (whom some of you may remember from the MTV series, Todrick) was mesmerizing as Sebastian the Crab, and Dorian Keyes was both heroic and befuddled as the Prince. I liked Kelsey Nisbett as Scuttle the Seagull, Kevin Spear as Grimsby and…oh, heck. I was impressed by just about everyone who was crammed onto that tiny stage.

A special shoutout should go to Sasha Markgraf who costumed all those people well for whatever money was available, and to Thomas Polk who directed. Usually when you stage a Broadway revival, you can get a running start by aping what the original production did but this one had to be really rethought for the limitations of space and spending. Good job there…and on the way out, I told Michael Pettenato, who was very funny in his part, "The producer is not supposed to steal the show!"

But you know who I was really impressed with? The audience. The 8 PM show last night was full of kids, a few of whom didn't know (and weren't told by their parents) that they weren't supposed to sing along with the better-known songs. I kept watching a young woman — she couldn't have been more than eight — across the aisle from me. She stood there in front of her seat, never taking her eyes off the stage for one second. Between her body language and sing-along activities, she acted out every second of the role of Arial. Wouldn't surprise me one bit if that little lady winds up on a real stage with a real part someday.

If you have kids who need to be introduced to live theater, even if all they'll ever do is sit in the audience, this is a great show for them to see. It will help if they know the 1989 animated film real well and if you prep them a bit. Let them know that some of the small cartoon characters are going to be played by fully-grown human beings in costumes which represent the characters without looking much like them. Then after the show, they can meet the cast and get photos with them in costume.

Anyway, the whole audience loved the evening…loved it. I would have liked it even with a less enthusiastic crowd but I really enjoyed how much everyone around us enjoyed it and it would have been the absolute best thing I'd ever seen in my whole life if I was a nine-year-old girl. I suppose it's too late to arrange for that now. Fathers who are fans of real cute women in seashell brassieres will also have a good time.

This production was supposed to close this weekend but it was announced that they're extending it through December 9: Two shows on Saturday, one show on Sunday, no shows any other day. Tickets run from $58 to $98 on the Cupcake Theater website and if you can afford it, buy them there. The Cupcake could use the cash. But if you're strapped, I'll let you in on a secret: Goldstar has them for half-price. Amber enjoyed it more than most of what I took her to see on Broadway a month ago.

There are a lost of postings on the web about the revelations or claims (take your pick) made by former Democratic National Committee head Donna Brazile. That these have led Donald Trump and a few Bernie Sanders supporters to misquote her as saying the primaries were "rigged" for Hillary Clinton should be taken as a warning light that something that means one thing is perhaps being built into something that means something else.

The best take on this I've seen is from Josh Marshall, who unlike everyone else is not rushing to sell some spin on Brazile's assertions. Give it a read. At least some of what Ms. Brazile says does not make a whole lot of sense.

A skilled chef attempts to build a better Twinkie. It ain't as easy as it looks…

Just read this…

The latest Post-ABC poll shows that Robert S. Mueller III, for now, enjoys overwhelming support for his investigation. He also gets high marks for the indictments of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and adviser Rick Gates. And in even worse news for President Trump, nearly half (49 percent) of Americans surveyed think he committed a crime. Mueller receives 58 percent approval and only 28 percent disapproval from Americans. Even among Republicans, nearly 4 in 10 (38 percent approve). A plurality of white men without a college degree (44 percent to 35 percent), a key Trump demographic, approve of Mueller's performance.

Is this really a poll of how many people think Robert Mueller is doing a good job? I know that's the question they asked in some form — but isn't it really a poll of how many people want to see Trump nailed to the wall and they don't care who does it or how it's done?

Here's Cookie Monster doing what Cookie Monster does so well — and so often…

Several folks e-mailed me links to this article in which Cathy Young (a woman, most pointed out) is concerned that accusations of sexual harassment (or even outright assault) might go too far. Well, yeah…just as increased reporting of any crime might result in an increase in false accusations. What's the alternative? Keep a situation where the Harvey Weinsteins of the world can keep abusing people because that system discourages and even penalizes victims from speaking up? We don't want that.

Well, maybe some sexual predators do. They should not get that.

I understand why some folks — men more than women — are uneasy about this. In our pasts, many of us have a few incidents of what started as mutually-consensual flirtation but the two parties were not on the same wavelength as to how far it would go. If this were a different kind of blog, I could tell a few tales. Sometimes, consensual sex can become a little less consensual after the fact, like when one party decides they shouldn't have done what they did. There's a lot of lying that goes on about sex and it even includes lying to one's self. It's like Archie and Veronica are both dying to sleep together, "sleep together" in this case being a euphemism for screwing. They do…then Veronica has to deal with the fact that she promised fidelity to Reggie or abstinence to Dad so she tells him (and maybe herself) that Archie pressured her into it.

There are infinite other scenarios where innocent sex somehow morphs into allegedly-guilty sex…but so what? There absolutely is such a thing as coerced sex. There are also things like attempted rape, inappropriate sex talk, hints that sound like threats and other situations that fall short of actual rape that should not be tolerated or excused. An awful lot of victims of rape or near-rape do not report what happened to them because they fear they'll only suffer further for doing so. None of this can be stopped if the victims do not come forward and they will not come forward if they're subjected to what some have faced, which includes being put on virtual trial for the crime they're reporting.

The predators count on the prey deciding that it's too painful in too many ways, and there's surely a clear link between getting away with it once and doing it again and again and again.  How many women have now come forth to accuse Weinstein? How many other men have done it because they saw Harvey wasn't paying any price?

What I think is going on now in this country is a corrective and sometimes, correctives over-correct before they find the right level. We paid way too little attention to this problem in the past and victims were way too afraid to speak up.  Is there a danger of correcting too far in the other direction; of innocent folks being accused or at least slandered?  Sure.  That has already happened.  Remember Brian Banks?  Remember the Duke LaCrosse team? (There's a movie coming out soon about what happened to Brian Banks. Its producers couldn't have timed it better.)

Okay, so some people are afraid they'll be falsely accused; that they'll be the target of "witch hunts." Apart from the distinction that there are no witches but there are sexual predators, that's a perfectly valid fear but, you know, we could reduce the number of people falsely accused of murder by not treating murder as a serious crime. Sexual assault is a serious crime, too…and it's one that a lot of people don't think of as one because they've gotten away with it or know others who have gotten away with it. Let's find a way to be fair to the accusers and the accused instead of worrying just about the accused.