If I were writing a political movie, this is how it would end

Michigan Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Snyder is proposing to eliminate the Michigan Business Tax and replace it with a "6 percent flat corporate income tax." Snyder estimates that the flat tax "would raise an estimated $700 million, less than the $2.2 billion the Michigan Business Tax is estimated to generate for the 2009-10 fiscal year," and calls this additional shortfall in a state that already faces an annual problem of severe revenue shortfalls a "$1.5 billion tax cut on Michigan job creators."

It really frustrates me that Republicans seem to own the issue of fiscal reform, even when, as during the Bush years, that reform is deeply irresponsible and goes against their own dogma (as in running a huge deficit). I think there's a big opportunity for Democrats to try and turn that around, and the Michigan Business Tax is a great example of a potential way to do so.

I'd love to see a Democratic candidate stand up in a debate and say something like this:

"My opponent criticizes the Michigan Business Tax, and he's right. It's a bad tax. It hurts small businesses that are critical to Michigan's economy, especially when big businesses like Chrysler and GM—whose lobbyists created this tax and are the only businesses who benefit from it—continue to demonstrate that we cannot rely on them alone to drive economic recovery in this state. The Michigan Business Tax is even worse than the Single Business Tax it replaced, and that's unforgivable.

"Republicans like to criticize the Democratic Party as the party of tax-and-spend. They say that our state can't afford huge increases in spending in our economy, and that's exactly right. But it's become clear that Republicans seem to think that government can spend without taxing, that we can cut our way to prosperity, and the results of that policy have been clear and disastrous. When you campaign on eliminating taxes and nothing else, you end up eliminating taxes like the Single Business Tax and replacing them with worse ones like the Michigan Business Tax. If your campaign is based on eliminating taxes and nothing else, this is great because then your next campaign just argues that we should eliminate the Michigan Business Tax. This may be a great campaign, but you end up hurting people. You hurt the children whose schools lose funding, you hurt your neighbors who lose police and fire protection when state revenue sharing is eliminated, and what's worse is that you end up paying more for less. This is nothing short of a disaster, and it's the result of short-sighted and frankly stupid tax reform that ends up costing businesses and the rest of us more than we were paying in the first place.

So lets agree where we agree. Let's fix the tax system, because it's broken. But let's do it the right way, with a plan. [outline plan, very briefly.] This isn't about taxing just so that we can increase spending. No one gets a blank check. But let's do what the state needs to do, and let's make sure it's paid for. That's fiscal responsibility. That's fiscal conservativism. And that's my stand."

Cue a swelling inspirational soundtrack, and I might be able to sell a few tickets to moviegoers who flocked to Dave and The American President, but I'm not holding my breath to see it in real life anytime soon.

It's not a bug, it's a feature!

Cute video from the Sun (UK), in the style of an Apple new product video.



I'm not sure how much I want to nitpick. I've spent a lot of time in this space arguing that print is a highly developed technology (and I know you read Tim Carmody at Snarkmarket who makes it a real argument and not just an assertion), but other than the humor, which is nice, there's a real misstep in this ad—which is to engage the iPhone on its own terms. 7 games? *yawn.* 3-D graphics? Not really. Never have to turn it on its side? That's all you have to give me?

So in short, chuckle, but don't think about it too hard.

(via Sullivan)

There are days when I miss my old job

Photo taken at Schuler Books in Lansing

Theses on journalism: an experiment in format

(I posted the following on Twitter earlier today.)

Fair warning: I don't really spend much time thinking about journalism.

However, prompted by an interesting albeit somewhat roundabout (my fault, not hers) discussion with @motheroflight, a few theses:

1. @motheroflight: "It's a bad idea to equate the decline of newsprint with the decline of journalism."

2. When newsprint circulation was higher, "the news" wasn't why most people bought a newspaper.

3. Regular purchase and consumption of a newspaper was a cultural impulse: a way to participate in a particular community.

4. This is actually in continuity with the internet and cable news's splintering of the "news" audience.

4a. Historically, most major urban areas had not one newspaper, but several, each with a distinct viewpoint/community.

5. In this way, the decline of the newspaper can be traced to the decline of classified advertising more than a decline in reporting.

5a. I think the history bears this out: decline in the newsroom follows and reinforces declines in circulation, it doesn't initiate them.

6. What we consider "objective," but more importantly, authoritative reporting is a result of national network newscasts, not newspapers.

6a. That is to say, the proliferation of 24-hour cable news was not an innovation as much as an unintentional echo of historical print.

7. The idea of the news as serving the public interest might also be traceable to FCC requirements for broadcast licenses.

7a. This one might be the most problematic, as I don't have research to back it up.

7b. Particularly because I'm not as interested in whether journalists consider themselves as serving the public interest

7c. so much as whether the idea of news reporting as serving the public interest had credence with the broader public.

8. Insofar as journalism is "in decline," what is really happening is that the idea of objective/authoritative news has collapsed.

8a. Part of this can be traced to an argument starting in earnest with Nixon that all reporting is biased.

8a1. Most left-wing media critics/theorists would actually say that Nixon was right, even if he used the argument speciously.

8b. Further stress was put on the idea of objectivity/authority in the postmortem examination of reporting leading up to the war in Iraq.

9. So what we have are three interrelated but not identical "declines."

9a. A decline in newsprint circulation, linked to a community function and caused by the migration of communities to other (free) outlets.

9b. A decline in reporting (newsroom employment) caused by circulation declines.

9c. A collapse of the idea of journalism (and especially newspapers) as custodians of the public interest.

Because steampunk is really all about the joy of being alive

A steampunk take on the conclusion of the Original Series Star Trek episode, "The Menagerie"



I also rather enjoyed this strip, which is hotter than your mom.

A quick break

I haven't abandoned CADS, and while I'm overdue for a post, I'm up-to-date on my reading, and will try to have something tonight.

In the meantime, however, I have another pressing issue on my mind. DC Comics lately has tried to drive sales with big identity mystery/reveals: who is Superwoman? Who will be the new Batman? I didn't care much about the former, and the latter turned out to be pretty much exactly who you would expect. (This is not a complaint. The last time there was a new Batman, it was a character that was introduced specifically to take over the role, and it sucked hard.)

A new Batgirl ongoing series goes on sale today, and the promotional material is trying to drive speculation about who exactly the new Batgirl will be. Casual fans may or may not know that Barbara Gordon hasn't been Batgirl since the late 80s, and a new character, Cassandra Cain, took over the role in 1999.

Without rehashing the whole sordid story, Cassandra Cain has been a bit of a hard-up character lately. Her own unlimited series ended in 2006, and she was turned into a villain as part of the "One Year Later" storyline. This move proved to be unpopular, and so Cassandra was revealed to have been under the influence of a mind-control drug. She floated around the second-tier "Batman and the Outsiders" title until that team collapsed during the "Batman: RIP" storyline, and Cassandra went to work organizing a new Outsiders team to help fill the gap left by Batman's apparent death. Oh yeah, she also had her own six-issue miniseries where she sought revenge for the mind control incident, learned a bit about herself, and finally was going to be adopted by Bruce Wayne (as Tim Drake, um, Tim Wayne, um, Robin had already been.)

What's the point, you ask? Exactly, I say. What's the point of all this if there's going to be a new Batgirl? What happened to Cassandra Cain? Is this just a Cassandra Cain Batgirl relaunch? (Which, I should say, would be well deserved) I'm going to be a bit peeved if I'm being sold a "who is Batgirl?" storyline if the answer turns out to be "the person who was already Batgirl before we started this storyline."

All the same, I'm going to be equally peeved if I don't find out exactly what Cassandra Cain is up to. Dick Grayson and Tim Drake make a big deal of the fact that they are adopted brothers, and there's a real bond between the two characters. It would be very un-Bat-Family for Cassandra to be adopted and for no one to know or care what she's up to.

However, I got to thinking this morning about the Battle for the Cowl storyline, and how while it really made sense for Dick Grayson to take over as Batman, part of me was hoping that Tim Drake would do it. It would be a bolder choice, as Tim is far younger than Bruce Wayne was when he first became Batman. (Tim is in his late teens, and Bruce is normally presented as being in his mid to late twenties on his first adventures as the Batman.)

In that spirit, I realized that there is a similar option for the new Batgirl, another character besides Cassandra who has been abused in every possible way, and largely overlooked even after her recent reintroduction: Stephanie Brown. It would be totally in character for Stephanie to take on the Batgirl mantle without asking permission, and I'd really like the character to come into her own as a full member of the Bat Family and become more than an ongoing well-intentioned troublemaker and comic relief.

So if DC had any guts, or ever did anything unexpected, Stephanie Brown should be the way they go. Based on the covers of the first few issues, however, I think it's going to be Cassandra (and I fear that it might just be a new character altogether.)

(Update, 11:38AM: Woot!)