THIS MODERN WORLD

A small offering for those of you who have young children, or who know someone who does: my first kid’s book will be published in September. (You can pre-order it here.)

I’ll post some sample pages as the date draws nearer. And I’ll warn you in advance: I’m going to be promoting this one relentlessly. The publisher is a very small operation out of Brooklyn, and my advance was minimal, so sales of this one will have a real, direct impact on their lives and mine.

And just to be clear: this isn’t one of those kid’s books that’s actually aimed at adults. It’s a genuine children’s book –with Sparky!

…adding: I know it doesn’t mean a lot in terms of actual numbers, but I love that the Mayor is #5000-something on Amazon as I write this, five months before the pub date. My publisher, Ig, is almost literally a mom-and-pop outfit (recommended to me by my friend Jen Sorensen, whose compilations they also publish), and this is their first children’s book, and I’m really hoping they don’t lose money on it.

Another visit to the incredible shrinking Rightwingoverse.

A cartoonist friend just sent an email reminding me of my open letter to the Pulitzer Board from April of 2006. The situation hasn’t changed much since then.

…to the “Get a Brain! Morans” guy:

More here.

In the grand scheme of things, getting people to complain about taxes on April 15th might be the easiest thing in the world. It’s right up there with “eating ice cream on a hot summer day” and “laughing whenever Glenn Beck cries”. Bitching about taxes is America’s true pastime. So when a few thousand people gather on tax day to whine about their taxes (after getting massive tax breaks, btw), it’s hardly the second coming of the American Revolution. Hell, I remember a time six years ago when millions of people took to the street to protest the government. We all saw how well that worked out.

When their rallying cry is “Grrrr…I hate you TAXES!”, there won’t be a whole lot left to keep the tea bagging movement together after April 15th. Manufactured-populism and a fractured-understanding of American history will only take you so far. The great-great-great-great grandchildren of liberty will have to find some other crusade to motivate them like birth certificate forgeries or investigating whether Bo Obama was really a rescue dog. Sure, some die-hards will stick around like the asshole who keeps flipping through your DVD’s at three in the morning oblivious to the fact that the party is over, but within a few weeks, the only people left to carry the “tea party” torch will be the GOP & Fox News personalities trying to recapture the “good times” with all the subtlety and humility of Chubby Checker trying to get everyone to do the twist.

I’m going to miss the “Tea Party” movement. I’m going to miss the powdered wigs and the lunatic ranting. I’m going to miss the ideological uncertainty and the unpragmatic futility (seriously, you’re mailing tea bags to the White House to demand lower taxes after you just got a tax cut?). Most of all, I’m going to miss the jokes. These last few weeks have been a golden age for juvenile humor that passes for insightful political commentary. It’s a rare movement that chooses to describe itself with terminology that also means “testicle slapping” and those of us who relish in the foolishness of conservative activism will be much worse off for it.