Grover Norquist, 2008, with cartoons

Well, my nemesis, Grover Norquist has published a book, “Leave Us Alone”.

To quote Bugs Bunny, “what a maroon”.

In fact, he is interviewed this week in The New York Times Magazine.

Read through this interview. Grover Norquist is the classic example of the walking baby-man, of which there is a surfeit in power in this society. A man, aged 40+ in body, 10+ in mind and emotion. My feelings about him are justified: he came up with his “no tax pledge” when he was 14. Grover’s problem, as I see it, is he never grew up.

Grover Norquist claims in his interview that private entities take care of their properties better than public ones. He claims parks as his example, but consider, let’s say, Okeefenokee Park. By all parameters, Okeefenokee should be a national park. It’s gigantic, a glorious national treasure, a unique ecosystem and living, wild environment. The park itself, for reasons you can read about elsewhere, is privately owned, pathetic- full of cardboard cut outs of Pogo and other swamp creatures. The goat stall, the train, the gift shop are all slight and embarrassing, and not one person knew anything about the “Walt Kelly Museum” on their grounds. Though everyone had a vague idea in which direction to point me. (Though let me say that everyone working their was very pleasant and charming.)

Your average National Park is run by dedicated rangers, and is full of scientists and other professionals dedicated to either the conservation of the park or the accurate education of the park goers. The parks are reasonably well taken care of, and are in equal service of the park and its patrons. Grover can keep his crappy little private parks.

Another example. The French trains (the SNCF), publicly owned, are clean, well-maintained, affordable, on time, efficient and fabulous. Compare to the London trains, mostly private and mostly shitty. Or any other number of competitive, penny pinching, profit-driven enterprises.

What GROVER NORQUIST, the jackass, doesn’t realize is that the same thing is true, private or public. Things are run best when they are run by responsible, intelligent, caring, well-trained people. Period. Whether they are private or public matters not.

Norquist, take a powder!

What a maroon! What an ignoranimous!

In honor of GROVER NORQUIST’S RIDICULOUS new book, I am running classic Norquist strips on Hutch Owen. Click here for the dailies. Click the image below for more Sunday Grover.

Bookstack, March 08

I’m liking this Bookstack idea. Here’s March 08.

First, I realized how wrong I was about Joann Sfar’s Vampire Loves. Its weird meandering nature, it’s mixing of characters all searching for something is really really charming… The Rabbi’s Cat I was already sold on, and reread it last month. Just finished Steve Martin’s Born Standing Up, which is so intelligent and good-hearted, his quest so rigorous and serious. Thanks, Tim Kreider. (I’m trying to feel regret or envy that the book shows a case of super hard work and dedicated intelligence as a path to commercial success. I’d like to believe those qualities are in fact, valued in our media world.

Finally read Calvino’s the Non-Existent Knight, which had a great minimum of characters and bizarre, meta-situations. I think I might not get to The Cloven Viscount before I return the book. Above that, a stack of student work, which I managed to get through and notate. Points of View is a book of short stories organized by narrative strategy, that inspired me to think on that subject a bit more widely, and also construct a few exercises for my students… Atop that, finally reading Don Quixote all the way through, but yes, that’s an abridged version… I am unashamed.

Atop that, notes for a new project. Why can I no longer find metal recipe cards boxes?