Interview with the legend

Ethan Van Sciver interviews Chuck Dixon. From the section where they discussed Chuck’s involvement with Arkhaven.

CD: I don’t mind being edited, but I mostly want to be left alone on the creative end. I wasn’t interested in books that were political, they weren’t going to be screeds, but they would reflect my life view. They wouldn’t tell anybody what to think. And [Vox] was fine with that.

I wanted to be free of the kind of concerns I would have working for another company where I would have to be politically correct, where I would have to be diverse for the sake of diversity, that kind of thing. He said no, that’s fine, that’s what he was looking for. Basically, he was doing the book that would take all the slings and arrows, but if I wanted to do straight-ahead superhero adventure set in the universe he created that was fine.

That’s where we started, and then it turned into more books, and more involvement, and that’s where we stand. The first artist is working on the second book now, the first book is going to the colorist.

A few weeks ago, he thought of the idea of adapting PG Wodehouse into comic book form, not knowing that I’m a longtime Wodehouse fan. He teamed me with Gary Kwapisz, who I’ve worked with for 30 years and never knew was a Wodehouse fan. We’re adapting Right Ho, Jeeves, which should have a huge audience overseas.

Like all the editors I used to like working with, he has faith in me and he’s letting me do what I want. So, it’s kind of irresistible.

And he’s paying on time!

EVS: He is?

CD: Yes, he is, he is paying on time. It’s a reduced rate against participation and backend, but I’ve been doing that for years.

EVS: So what do you think? Do you think he’s going to succeed?

CD: I think project by project, we’ll have to see what happens. He’s certainly got different ideas, he’s got ideas that don’t come from comics which is a good thing, sometimes. He seeks my guidance all the time. He’s always picking my brain.

The costs of convergence

The NFL has gone from bleeding viewers to outright gushing them.

Every single game was down, no matter how good the games were. And, remember, three of these games were highly competitive in the divisional round this year. Whereas last year only two of the games were competitive. Hell, three of the four windows even feature one of the same teams from last year. And yes, I know, the Cowboys and the Packers played last year and those are the two biggest fan base draws in the NFL, but even if you pull that game out the numbers for the other three games also declined double digits.

Adding all these numbers up 120.8 million viewers watched the NFL divisional round playoffs in 2018 vs. 144.1 million who watched in 2017, a decline of 23.3 million total viewers.

That’s an overall viewership decline of over 16{97fd97520de31cde0b26d0c2f59922f7376b6ca8a53cb12ed2e4a6df0b8f3453}, even steeper than last week’s 13{97fd97520de31cde0b26d0c2f59922f7376b6ca8a53cb12ed2e4a6df0b8f3453} playoff decline.

What a pity it doesn’t occur to corporate executives to consult with the kind of experts who could tell them how to avoid these sorts of self-mutilations.

Clearly the NFL needs a New England vs Minnesota Super Bowl. Desperately. Is that… is that THE NARRATIVE’S music?

Sweden running out of patience

Let’s face it, we all know where this is going to end, sooner or later:

Sweden will do whatever it takes, including sending in the army, to end a wave of gang violence that has seen a string of deadly shootings, Prime Minister Stefan Lofven said in Wednesday. Law and order is likely to be a major issue in a parliamentary election scheduled for September with the populist, opposition Sweden Democrats linking public concern about the rising crime rate to a large increase in the numbers of immigrants. …

“People are shot to death in pizza restaurants, people are killed by hand grenades they find on the street,” Sweden Democrat leader Jimmie Akesson said in parliament on Wednesday.

“This is the new Sweden; the new, exciting dynamic, multicultural paradise that so many here in this assembly … have fought to create for so many years,” he said sarcastically.

Forget “ending gang violence.” End the invasion. That’s actually what the army is for, after all.

And immigration is war.

Nationalism intensifies. The Sweden Democrats growing vote share:

1998: 0.4{97fd97520de31cde0b26d0c2f59922f7376b6ca8a53cb12ed2e4a6df0b8f3453}
2002: 1.4{97fd97520de31cde0b26d0c2f59922f7376b6ca8a53cb12ed2e4a6df0b8f3453}
2006: 2.9{97fd97520de31cde0b26d0c2f59922f7376b6ca8a53cb12ed2e4a6df0b8f3453}
2010: 5.7{97fd97520de31cde0b26d0c2f59922f7376b6ca8a53cb12ed2e4a6df0b8f3453}
2014: 12.9{97fd97520de31cde0b26d0c2f59922f7376b6ca8a53cb12ed2e4a6df0b8f3453}
2018: I expect 30{97fd97520de31cde0b26d0c2f59922f7376b6ca8a53cb12ed2e4a6df0b8f3453}+

Free Stupefication

The Original Cyberpunk has an announcement:

To celebrate the release of STUPEFYING STORIES #19, we’re giving away the Kindle editions of both our latest book (issue #19) and our oldest book that’s still on Amazon (issue #12) FREE for the cost of a click—but for today only.

Tell your friends! Tell your family! Tell people you know who aren’t such good friends but still like to get free ebooks! Share the news!

But share it soon, because at midnight tonight, these books go back to normal price.

» DOWNLOAD ISSUE #19 RIGHT NOW
» DOWNLOAD ISSUE #12 RIGHT NOW

STUPEFYING STORIES #19 features the remarkable cover story, “Communion,” by Fi Michell, along with  a terrific mix of fantasy, light horror, superheroes, alien invasions, space adventure, and I don’t know what to call “More Crackle Than Music” but I love it. The book ends with Harold Thompson’s dark but charming story, “Dogs and Monsters,” which I’m hereby going to go out on a limb and christen an entirely new sub-genre, “post-Human steampunk.” Clifford Simak would have loved it.

Who subsidizes whom?

California politicians are worried about their taxpayers’ new inability to offset against their Federal taxes:

The Republican-backed federal tax bill flipped the tables on a never-ending question for California politicians: Will high taxes lead the state’s wealthiest residents to flee the Golden State for the comparable tax havens of Florida, Nevada and Texas?

Republicans reliably raise that alarm when Democrats advocate for tax increases, like the 2012 and 2016 ballot initiatives that levied a new income tax on very high-earning residents.

But now, with the federal tax bill cutting off deductions that benefited well-off Californians, the state’s Democrats suddenly are singing the GOP song about a potential millionaire exodus.

“People with higher incomes pay a lot more money, and some of them may be tempted to leave,” Gov. Jerry Brown said when he unveiled his 2018-19 budget proposal last week. “This was an assault by the Republicans in Congress against California.”

That fear animates Senate President pro tem Kevin de León’s bill that would allow California residents to write off their state taxes on their federal returns as a charitable deduction, as well as other proposals that Assembly leaders have hinted they’re preparing to offer. De Leon’s bill cleared a second committee this week and is on its way to a vote on the Senate floor. Trump administration officials say it won’t pass muster with the IRS.

Democratic state lawmakers are worried because California relies so heavily on the income taxes it collects from high earners to fund government services. The state’s wealthiest 1 percent, for instance, pay 48 percent of its income tax, and the departure of just a few families could lead to a noticeable hit to state general fund revenue.

“It is a genuine concern and that’s why the legislatures in high-tax states are swinging into action immediately,” said Katie Pratt, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles who specializes in taxes.

The new federal tax law poses problems for high earners in the Golden State because it caps two deductions that Californians used to limit their federal income tax liability, restricting their ability to write off mortgage interest and their state and local taxes.

Come now. Every time the issue gets raised in Minnesota, the newspapers produce one argument after another to explain why people don’t move based on tax rates. Because great schools! And art! And people!

Of course, since liberals and progressives are totally incapable of keeping two thoughts in their head at the same time, the fact that moving a bunch of Mexicans and Somalis might degrade the value of those competing factors never occurs to them.

Stealing their wind

To the Point articulates how Trump systematically undermines the power and influence of the media:

President Trump’s systematic thrashing of the leftist media is the example that illustrates the theory.  See his literal thrashing in the YouTube above.

Conservatives complained about the media for a long time. Aristotle’s dialectic approach, against people uninterested in truth. Net effect? Very low. Sad!

So let’s apply what we’ve learned.

Why do the media have power? Because they have social status with ordinary people. Are we still hearing about Watergate — decades later? The Pentagon Papers? How many movies seem to exist just to show journalists as heroes?

Or let’s take a different tack: What’s the attraction of such a low-paying profession? Status given by the profession, and status from rubbing shoulders with high-status people. Status by acting as a vector for status signals, which is what every women’s magazine is.

Ditto publications like WIRED, which is just Cosmo for geeks.

The media offers people clues about what things are high status within the areas they cover. People notice, and act accordingly. Yet most conservatives still don’t understand Trump’s response:

 If I lower the media’s status, I will wreck their power.

So The Donald says that the media has “some of the most dishonest people” he has ever seen. Not an arm’s length complaint. A direct and personal status attack, rooted in truth.

Trump also acts in ways that cause journalists to fulfill his pre-suasion labeling. He makes “outrageous” statements, which many people outside the Beltway Bubble agree with. Those statements receive over-the-top media attacks, which make his enemies look ridiculous.

Then events swiftly show that Trump had a point. Trump rubs it in, using the media’s own “Fake News” term against them and pouncing on every sloppy and dishonest mistake. As a final topper, Trump makes the dishonest media a focus during every massive rally. Which strengthens his out-grouping effect among participants and viewers.

He uses ridicule and lèse majesté, not bended knee and appeals — note that subordinating word — to logical argument.

The result?

American belief in the credibility of their news media is now at about 32 percent. That’s the lowest ever polled, and an 8 percent drop from the lowest point of the 2008-2015 period. The media has lost audience, and a lot of power.

This is an extremely effective technique. And like all rhetoric, the more based in truth it is, the more powerful it is. The point about status-signaling is important too, because that is how SJWs decide who gets to determine the Narrative. It is also one more reason why giving them what they demand will never satisfy them, because the struggle for status continues regardless.

They all knew

A woman’s expose of Brian Epstein in Vanity Fair was whitewashed back in 2003:

I got to work on all of it—and Epstein kept close tabs on me. He didn’t want to be seen to cooperate, but he’d do his best to control me. He phoned regularly. I wasn’t altogether surprised to be quickly summoned to the offices of the rich and powerful, sometimes before I’d even asked to meet with them.

James “Jimmy” Cayne, then the cigar-chomping CEO of Bear Stearns, not only phoned me up, he found the time in his busy day to give me a tour of the office. He was on his best behavior, talking up Epstein’s alleged supposed great brain, his value to the bank—never mind the fact that Epstein had had to leave it quickly in 1981; this Cayne put down to Epstein’s ambition “outgrowing” the place.

I also met with respected real estate developer Marshall Rose; the former Bear Stearns chairman Alan “Ace” Greenberg called me; so too did Leslie Wexner, the founder and CEO of The Limited, who trusted Epstein so much he had given Epstein carte blanche to insert himself into both Wexner’s family and business affairs, according to people who saw Epstein’s contract; they all chattered on about Epstein’s brilliantly creative mind, his intellectual prowess—a mental agility that, to put it bluntly, was simply not evident in the many phone conversations he had with me….

I worked through December 2002 like a dog. I worked with three fact-checkers, the magazine’s lawyer; I sifted through everything Epstein threw at me and defused it. We were getting ready to go to press. And then the bullet came. “Graydon’s taking out the women from the piece,” Doug Stumpf, my editor, told me.

I began to cry. It was so wrong. The family had been so brave. I thought about the mother, her fear of the dark, of the harm she feared might come to her daughters. And then I thought of all the rich, powerful men in suits ready to talk about Epstein’s “great mind.”

“Why?” I asked Graydon. “He’s sensitive about the young women” was his answer. “And we still get to run most of the piece.”

And then the guy got his wrist slapped four years later for multiple sex offenses that should have been enough to put him away for a long time.

The thing is, if a man has a brilliantly creative mind, an intelligent woman is not merely going to notice it, she’s going to be drawn to it. So, whatever it was that those very rich men saw in Epstein, I very much doubt that it was his intellect that made him so valuable to them.

Lawdog in audio

LawDog had the honor of representing law and order in the Texas town of Bugscuffle as a sheriff’s deputy, where he became notorious for, among other things, the famous Case of the Pink Gorilla Suit. In The LawDog Files, he chronicles his official encounters with everything from naked bikers, combative eco-warriors, suicidal drunks, respectful methheads, prison tattoo artists, and creepy children to six-foot chickens and lethal chihuahuas.

The LawDog Files range from the bittersweet to the explosively hilarious, as LawDog relates his unforgettable experiences in a laconic, self-deprecating manner that is funny in its own right. The audiobook is more than mere entertainment, it is an education in two English dialects, Police and Texas Country. And underlying the humor is an unmistakable sympathy for society’s less fortunate – and in most cases, significantly less intelligent – whose encounters with the law are an all-too-frequent affair.

Narrated by David. T. Williams, The Lawdog Files are 4 hours and 29 minutes of genuine Texas hilarity. You really have to listen to the audio sample. His voice is just about perfect for Lawdog.

Good sports

Your feel-good story of the day. It probably doesn’t hurt that he has what is very nearly a proper Minnesota name:

It all started after the last play of Sunday’s game, following the touchdown that thrilled Vikings fans and broke the Saints’ hearts. By NFL rule, an point-after touchdown attempt must be played after a touchdown, even if it comes with no time left and with no chance of that attempt affecting the outcome of the game. So after the Saints had already gone to the locker room and the Vikings had already taken the field to celebrate, the officials went into the tunnel and informed the Saints that the game wasn’t over and they had to put 11 players on the field for the point after.

Morstead, a punter, isn’t used to lining up on defense, but he was the first guy to volunteer to jog back onto the field. He wasn’t happy about it, but he had a job to do and he was going to do it. That impressed Vikings fans.

So Vikings fans, appreciating Morstead’s professionalism, took to social media and encouraged donations to What You Give Will Grow, Morstead’s charity for kids battling cancer. When Morstead heard about that he said that if donations topped $100,000, the charity would use the money for programs at Children’s Minnesota hospital, and that he’d personally go to Minnesota to deliver the check. As of Wednesday night, the $100,000 goal had been reached.

“Alright, Minnesota, you guys are officially ridiculous — $100,000 raised for the child life program at the children’s hospital in Minneapolis. I am totally blown away,” Morstead said in a Twitter video.

Of course, the proper spelling is Morstad…. In any event, it is a good cause and a great hospital. I was more impressed that he kept punting so well despite being observably injured.

It would have been funny, though, if Bill Belichick had been the coach. It wouldn’t have mattered to him that the game was over. If he saw an injured punter playing goal line defense, you know he’s going for two.

Winning: corporate tax edition

Say what you will about the God-Emperor, but his policies actually work as designed:

Apple just announced on Wednesday it will bring back hundreds of billions of dollars from overseas to fund investment in the U.S. and likely increase its capital returns.

“Apple, already the largest US taxpayer, anticipates repatriation tax payments of approximately $38 billion as required by recent changes to the tax law. A payment of that size would likely be the largest of its kind ever made,” the company said in the release.

Using the new 15.5 percent repatriation tax rate, the $38 billion tax payment disclosed by Apple means they are planning a $245 billion repatriation.

The tax overhaul, which President Donald Trump signed into law last month, also lowered the corporate tax rate to 21 percent from 35 percent.

After the repatriation tax payment, the company will have $207 billion left over from the move it can use for investments, acquisitions, stock buybacks or larger dividends. Apple said it plans more than $30 billion in capital expenditures in the U.S. during the next five years.

Apple had $252.3 billion in overseas cash as of the end of September quarter, according to SEC filings, so that means the company is paying tax on nearly all of that foreign cash.

$38 billion is a lot of money. And I note that it’s considerably more than the $21.6 billion the Department of Homeland Security said it would cost to build a big beautiful wall on the southern border.

Also, there are going to be some very sad European bankers and investment managers this morning. All those glorious fees gone in the blink of an eye. No wonder they hate the God-Emperor so much. It was very smart to make the repatriation fee even lower than the reduced corporate tax fee.