With all proper respect to Bob Woodward for past deeds of actual reporting, he has become the Master of False Equivalency. Whenever one political party does something majorly wrong, leave it to Woodward to find some tiny case of the opposition party doing something vaguely similar so he can say "Both sides do it." Sometimes, that's true but often, it is not. It's not equivalent to Trump coarsening the political arguments in the U.S. when Woodward argues that Democrats should not attack Trump's kids, as if they're pre-teens trying to stay out of the spotlight. They're adults running their father's campaign, speaking everywhere they can on his behalf and lying their wealthy butts off about Hillary. They deserve no "zone of protection" as he calls it.
Washington Post fact checker Glenn Kessler looks at the story Sean Hannity is spreading now about a heroic deed he says Donald Trump did once, sending his planes to bring some stranded Marines home. You may be shocked to find out that the story is not true. And it sure doesn't sound like Mr. Hannity did anything to verify it before presenting it as fact.
Trump's selling point of the day seems to be that Obama is the "founder of ISIS" and Hillary is its co-founder. Politifact notes some of the reasons that is not true. (And if Trump is going to claim that voting for the Iraq War as a Senator is how Ms. Clinton co-founded ISIS…well, so did his running mate and an awful lot of candidates he's supporting.)
Six major pollsters — including Marist, Quinnipiac and Susquehanna — give Hillary a lead in Pennsylvania of 8-13 points. I am of the opinion that it will be real, real difficult for Donald Trump to win the presidency if he can't win Pennsylvania. It's theoretically possible if he wins both Ohio and Florida but he's running behind in both of those states, too.
Well, it's feeling like it's about time for another one of these silly periodic discussions over whether Comic-Con International should move out of San Diego and if so, where. Heidi MacDonald (Hi, Heidi!) notes that the November ballot issue in S.D. may have a lot to do with that and she's right.
My prediction is real simple: Comic-Con will never move from San Diego unless it has to because it can't get a proper deal to stay where it is. You have all these people out there (like this guy, John Campea, who argues for Vegas) saying it should relocate because it would be better somewhere else, mainly because it needs more room. I can't speak for the convention organizers but I doubt they see that as a good reason. If they did, they would have moved long ago.
Yes, more people could get in but especially in Vegas, it would not be the same convention in a bigger space. The whole structure and feel of it would change because you'd be eliminating one of the most important elements of the convention — the city it's in. We take over San Diego and the city adjusts itself to welcome us and accommodate us. To Las Vegas, we'd just be one of this week's conventions. No one of them matters to Vegas as much as Comic-Con matters to San Diego and the hotels in Vegas, which run the town, don't need us one-tenth as much as the hotels in San Diego need us.
True, Las Vegas has a lot more space. It even has more than one convention center…but that doesn't mean we'd get all of it or even as much as we want. We'd get as much as we paid for and those facilities are expensive. The whole business model for Vegas conventions presumes everyone is there on business and has an expense account…and you don't want to hear what exhibitors pay for their booth space. That's because most of the 20,000 or so conventions held in Vegas each year are industry trade shows. Most are not open to the general public and all but a few have fewer attendees than Comic-Con.
Photo by Bruce Guthrie
In his podcast video, Mr. Campea makes reference to the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, which is usually the largest convention of the year in that town. Some might suggest that's in part because it's held in January when Las Vegas has better weather than the rest of the country. Comic-Con is held in July when Vegas weather is usually over 100°, often over 110° Anyone want to cosplay outside in an Iron Man suit in that climate?
Now, I've been to the C.E.S. and I found it to be just as noisy and crowded as the worst corners of Comic-Con, with everything so spread out that to get from one place to another required way more walking than I ever have to do in San Diego…and I do a lot of walking in San Diego.
It's somehow crowded even though it covers more ground and most people can't get in to the C.E.S. To get a badge, you need to prove you're in the Consumer Electronics industry and they cap admissions at not that much more than Comic-Con admits, even though C.E.S. has way more floor space available to it. Here's an excerpt from an article about the 2015 show…
The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas has a problem that many events would love to have: It's become too big. And it doesn't want to get any bigger.
With as many as 160,000 visitors to CES — the world's largest annual trade show — the Nevada city's sprawling hotels are stretched to the limit. Last January's gathering of gadget-loving geeks somehow packed in a full 10,000 more people than Las Vegas has rooms for them to sleep in.
The Consumer Electronics Association, the folks who put on the conference and expo, says CES 2015 will have the equivalent of 35 football fields, or about 2 miles of floor space, filled with phones, televisions, smartwatches, washing machines and throngs of people trying to see it all. "In order to enhance the experience for our attendees, we aim to keep attendance between 150,000 and 160,000 so that everyone can get where they need to go," says CEA Vice President Karen Chupka.
Comic-Con has somewhere around 130,000 to 140,000 attendees every year — and unlike C.E.S., Comic-Con probably has another 50,000+ people who come to town and enjoy the activities right outside the convention center. Keep all that in mind if you think that all Comic-Con needs is a lot more floor space and it could double in size. The physical convention space to be found in Vegas is more than double in size but the biggest conventions staged in that town are not as big as they could be, often by choice. (Most actually are under 10,000 in attendance.)
Couldn't Comic-Con expand to, say, 250,000 people there? In theory, sure. In reality? Well, no one knows how that would work because Vegas conventions don't get that big. What would that do to traffic and hotel prices and taxi availability and so many other things? Again, no one knows because Vegas conventions don't get that big, especially in July. If I were running Comic-Con, I sure wouldn't want to go try to figure that out and gamble on it and to try and transcend all existing business models there.
I know that some will say I feel that way because as a usual Guest of Honor person, I don't face the prospect of not being able to get a badge or a hotel room. Believe me, I am sympathetic to those who face those frustrations and I hear from a lot of them. I also hear from people who are unhappy with Comic-Con because it's as huge as it is. There are those who aren't there because they feel it's too big and there are those who aren't there because they feel it's too small. I don't think it's humanly possible to please both groups.
Which is why — unless someone in San Diego is stupid (and I mean seriously brain-dead stupid) enough to drive Comic-Con away — it will stay right where it is. I hope, I hope, I hope.
Someone who asked that I not use his name just sent me this simple question…
So I'm being sent to Las Vegas for work in a couple of months. I've never gone. Do you have any suggestions about what I should do while I'm there?
Well, it depends on what you'd like to do. I don't drink or smoke and years ago when I gave up card-counting at Blackjack, I gave up all gambling for good.
The advice I'd give to someone who has never really tried casino gambling and wants to is to, first and foremost, never gamble with money you're not prepared to lose and set a firm limit for every trip. Then pick one game and learn it well. A staggering amount of loot is lost by people who split tens in Blackjack or don't understand the different odds on different Video Poker machines.
Learn one game well, practice on your home computer where you're not risking anything, then go to the casino, play that game until you're ahead, then quit forever. If you play any game long enough, it will clean you out. That's what they're designed to do. The only way to win in Vegas is to get ahead, then quit while you're ahead.
This sometimes requires enormous will power. The temptation when you're up $500 is to say "I'll quit when I'm a thousand ahead" and then when you're a thousand ahead, you decide to make it two thousand. The casino staffs have many names for people who do this and none of them are flattering.
Don't let them call you one of those names. Really and truly quit when you're ahead by some amount that will buy you something nice. That's what I did. I didn't buy anything in particular with that money but I'm very glad I stopped when I did.
Apart from gambling, see a show or two. If you like Penn and Teller and they're playing there, you won't be disappointed in what they do. You can even meet one or the other on the way out.
There are many fine Cirque De Soleil shows in town. I haven't seen them all but of the ones I have seen, the one I like best is Mystere at Treasure Island. They've been announcing for about five years now that it was about to close but it hasn't. If you like something a bit more adult in terms of vulgar comedy (not nudity), I recommend Absinthe at Caesars Palace and I highly recommend not sitting in the front row. It's a troupe of great acrobats hosted by two folks who are very, very funny and one is very, very rude. David Copperfield more than lives up to his reputation and Rich Little and Wayne Newton do not.
Check this show guide before you go and pick something. If you feel like an afternoon show and you like magic, Mac King is funny and magical at Harrah's and while you're there, see if you can catch a free show by "Big Elvis" in the lounge. There are, alas, no more of the classic showgirl-decorated production spectacles in that town.
I don't do pools or spas. I do like to just wander around and look at people and things. Mandalay Bay has an aquarium-type exhibition called Shark Reef that was wonderful when I went through it about eight years ago. I don't do ziplines, ferris wheels or roller coasters but there are several of each to choose from if you do. If you don't mind crowds, an evening trip downtown to Fremont Street can be a lot of noisy fun.
For dining, you have to try at least one buffet and these days, they're all pretty good. There are a few that emphasize their low prices. They're fine. The ones that cost more are usually worth it if you can eat enough, though my fave all-you-can-eat place in Vegas is not a buffet. It's the Pampas Brazilian Steakhouse, a churrascaria located in the Miracle Mall that adjoins Planet Hollywood. Men stream to your table with skewers of superb meat, fish and fowl to carve onto your plate. When you've had enough, either ask for the dessert menu or the complimentary Gastric Bypass.
Most of my other info is outta date since in the last few years, I haven't been to Vegas as often as I used to go. I can tell you though that the best source of info on the touristy parts of it is The Las Vegas Advisor, which offers and news and reviews untainted by casino bribery (i.e., advertising).
Don't drink too much, don't spend too much, don't play Keno, don't accept any free offer which involves sitting through a sales pitch for a time-share apartment, don't be surprised that your hotel bill includes a hefty unexpected "resort fee," don't go outside much if the temperature is over 100°, don't play the slot machines at the airport and don't assume anyone in particular is or isn't a hooker. Have fun.
On Twitter, a lot of people are answering a question using the hashtag #firstsevenjobs. You list the first seven jobs you had. What would yours say?
This is pretty simple: Writer, writer, writer, writer, writer, writer and writer — in that order. Later on, I made a few bucks as an artist, an editor, a director, a producer and even a reluctant performer but I considered all of those as extensions of my writing position — like, I've been a writer-artist and a writer-editor and a writer-producer. If I leave aside income from investments or things like that but include times I've taught writing, I'd guess over 95% of my lifetime income has been from writing. I'm really, really inept at anything else…and envious of folks like my pal Ken Levine who have actual other professions.
Jonathan Chait wonders if Donald Trump will weasel out of the debates with Hillary Clinton. I dunno. Common logic says that Trump needs a public K.O. to reverse the trend of his plunging poll numbers…but as Chait notes, "the 'candidate would never do something stupid' model has a poor record of predicting Trump's behavior so far."
Trump is saying he'll do it but he has to see the rules and make sure the moderators are acceptable to him. In other words, he has to be The Boss here and everyone has to appease him, plus he's setting up excuses in case he decides to chicken out. If he does, he has to be able to explain to his supporters that he could have mopped the floor with her but pulled out as a matter of principle and because everyone was trying to rig the debates against him.
I wonder if he is emotionally capable of walking out on a stage from a position of weakness. It's likely that Trump's poll numbers will be better by September 26, which is when the first one is scheduled. But as of today, Nate Silver's site has Hillary with a 94.7% chance of winning in the "if the election happened today" model and that's a lot of ground to make up for someone who needs to dominate every situation he's in. And I would think that the fact that it's a woman leading him by a wide margin would make it even more difficult.
I am, as I've said, supporting Hillary Clinton for reasons other than that she is not Donald Trump. I think she's very qualified for the job and I think the accusations of dishonesty against her are all either outright lies or people holding her to a unique standard, one they do not apply to those they otherwise wish to vote for.
But I do have some reservations about her, mostly relating to hawkishness in foreign policy. Daniel Larison has the same reservations, though like me, he's a lot more worried about what President Trump would do in these areas.
When I asked readers to send me questions to answer here, I got this one from three different readers. This version is from Michael Kelley, who's been watching the old Tonight Show episodes on Antenna TV…
In the beginning of the Johnny Carson repeats, a stage fellow throws a big disk thing up to another stagehand above. What in the world is it?
That's what's called a gel. It's a color filter for one of the stage lights. So you have one guy up on a ladder adjusting a light that's mounted way up high and he yells to a guy below to toss him up a certain kind of gel that will tint or diffuse or otherwise alter the output of the light…and the guy below throws it up to him.
One of the more interesting aspects of TV and film production — and it's amazing how so many people in the business pay no attention to this — is what the stage crew does. The setup or the teardown on some stages can be acts of mesmerizing skill and efficiency and even physical strength or daring. I've seen stagehands scamper up and down ladders that you couldn't get me on for Leonardo DiCaprio Money.
One of the first times I wrote a variety show, the crew had to do the "load-in" in one night. A game show called Liar's Club was taping on our stage until 8 PM. At 8:01, they had to be out — all their sets, all their gear, everything — and this army of grips and lighting guys and set people just moved in…and they had until 10 AM to bring in and set up everything, including a full-size working merry-go-round.
I decided to see how this was done, partly for fun, partly for education. I went to Canter's Delicatessen and bought a sack of sandwiches. Then I drove to the studio, found a spot on the stage where I thought I wouldn't interfere or get trampled and I just watched and passed out free sandwiches to anyone who wanted one. It is still one of the most astounding things I have ever witnessed — all these people working all night, hauling in huge scene flats and furniture and assembling and placing everything exactly where it was supposed to be. It was like seeing a city erected in fourteen hours, much of it right before my eyes.
I left about 4 AM because I had to sleep and get back there for a 10 AM rehearsal. When I returned, some of the men (and women!) who'd been working all night were just wrapping up…and indeed, there was a working merry-go-round on the stage. Several children of staff members and a few beefy stagehands in t-shirts were riding on the horsies.
If you work in TV or movies and you've never seen this, go see it some time. It will give you a much, much greater respect for the people who do this kind of thing for a living. Tossing those lighting gels up is just about the easiest thing they do.
Donald Trump made a major economic address today. There are many places on the 'net where you can read it or view it but if you don't have time, it comes down to basically two principles…
Make sure that nothing gets in the way of rich people getting as rich as possible.
And maybe at some point we'll figure out a few things to help out the poor and the middle class.
There's more to it than that but really there isn't much more to it than that.
