How Long is Mitt Willing to Get Pummeled Over His Tax Returns?

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Mitt Romney has just handed the Obama team a doozy of an issue to club him with. Romney said today that he won’t release his tax returns if he’s the Republican nominee, even though all major party candidates going back decades have done so. This is probably because most of his vast income comes from capital gains and is thus taxed at 15%, rather than the higher rate on which most taxpayers are assessed. The DEMs have already put up a clever website What Mitt Pays that caculates what ordinary folks pay, compared to what Mitt’s probably paying. //more

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Cheers for Canadian Bands at Year’s End

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“Clearly, this has been years in the making. The Canadian indie scene has been in ascendance ever since Feist’s old band Broken Social Scene put ‘sprawling collective’ into the music-critic lexicon with 2002’s ‘You Forgot It in People’. . . . But Canada’s combined musical might this year is still a revelation.”–Joshua Ostroff in Spinner //more

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A Photo Worthy of Eisenstaedt’s Classic VJ-Day Shot

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Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta embraced her partner, Petty Officer 3rd Class Citlalic Snell. “It’s something new, that’s for sure,” Gaeta told reporters after the kiss. “It’s nice to be able to be myself. It’s been a long time coming.”//more

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Two Great Graphic Novels Coming as Ebooks

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I just got an email from Montreal comics publisher Drawn & Quarterly, a company that produces exceptionally fine graphic novels and comic nonfiction, announcing their first entry into the ebooks space with two books by artist/writer Chester Brown. I think their email is worth quoting at length, because this is a fine print publisher stepping in to ebooks and because of their ebook royalty, which they explain will be an equal share with their authors. This is especially topical, in light of Michael Chabon’s new arrangement with Open Road Media, which I’ve discussed in an earlier post today. Bravo to D&Q and Kobo! This is an exciting publishing collaboration. //more

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Chabon’s Hyperbole Undermines his Fair Critique

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I suggest that the book industry view the cost savings from the diminishment of print as a kind of “peace dividend” for authors and publishers and other stakeholders like retail booksellers. Parties should share fairly in whatever windfall is to come. I would accuse the major publishers of being shortsighted and dumb and in thrall to old ways, but I fear that hyperbole like Chabon’s will only further degrade the debate and discussion that must proceed between publishers and authors, lest Amazon eventually become the monopoly publisher and bookseller many bookpeople nowadays fear is looming in our collective future. //more

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All the Romneys’ Horses

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In a weird and offensive article last Sunday that was headlined “Two Mitt Romneys–Wealthy Man, Thrifty Habits,” the New York Times reported on the Republican pol’s supposed ambivalence about his enormous wealth. I barely gave it a look at the time, quickly relegating it to the category of things I didn’t need to know about.

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Songs about Speeding Arrows & a Disgruntled Cat

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The show at Manhattan’s Bowery Ballroom last Friday featuring The Weakerthans with Rah Rah was special in many ways. Before anything is even said about the music and the performances, consider that it was the seventh night of what by any measure must be considered an extraordinary bi-coastal residency that The Weakerthans had undertaken over the previous two weeks. Talk about ambitious! / / more . . .

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The Henry Hudson Bridge–75 Years above the Sputyen Duyvil

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As odious a public official as I find Robert Moses to have been, I would vastly prefer someone like him to the visionless so-called leaders we have today. Yes, it’s a pity that Moses didn’t ultimately uphold the progressive ideals to which he subscribed early in his career, as shown by Robert Caro in The Power Broker, but at least he left something behind that remains useful to denizens of the region today. All that Gov. Christie is going to leave posterity is a lot of hot air.

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