The Washington Post comes up with the perfect metaphor to describe the Republican party's negotiation style. And they found it in the funny papers.

Courtesy of the Washington Post:  

To the White House, the shutdown/debt ceiling fight is quite simple, and quite radical: Republicans are trying to create a new, deeply undemocratic pathway through which a minority party that lost the last election can enact an agenda that would never pass the normal legislative process. It's nothing less than an effort to use the threat of a financial crisis to nullify the results of the last election. And the White House isn't going to let it happen. 

The Obama administration bristles at the idea that they've been unwilling to negotiate or compromise. They went on a widely covered "charm offensive" back in the spring. The president held multiple dinners with Senate Republicans. He invited over key House Republicans. The meetings were so frequent that the participants were nicknamed "the diner's club." 

Nothing came of those meetings. Republicans still weren't willing to talk on taxes. And so the White House grimly accepted that they couldn't move the dial on spending. The CR, they note, funds the government at the GOP's number of $988 billion. It is, itself, a compromise, and one they don't like. But they made it, because they couldn't pass anything else through Congress. And then the Republicans decided to shut down the government because they couldn't pass a delay or defunding of Obamacare through Congress.

That's right folks, all that talk of the President not reaching across the aisles and not being willing to negotiate is all bullshit.

In an attempt to find just the right metaphor to describe the tactics employed by John Bohner and the House Republicans reporter Ezra Klein struck pure gold.

As the White House sees it, Speaker John Boehner has begun playing politics as game of Calvinball, in which Republicans invent new rules on the fly and then demand the media and the Democrats accept them as reality and find a way to work around them.

Yes, yes, that is EXACTLY what they have been doing! As the President has tried to find some way to play fairly and create an environment where perhaps no one side wins everything, but that ultimately the American people emerge victorious, the Republicans have been playing Calvinball!

What? You are unfamiliar with Calvinball?

Well first off you should be ashamed of yourself for not recognizing the iconic game from the best damn newspaper strip EVER created! And second, well second here is your chance to rectify your crippling ignorance.

Yep, that just about sums up the Republican's approach to deal making in the last several months.

The only question is, will President Obama continue to allow them to keep changing the rules or will he take a page out of Rosalyn the babysitter's playbook.

Inspiration can come from the most unlikely of places you know.

New documentary "Dear Mr. Watterson." If you already know what it is about simply from the title, good for you.

Courtesy of Slate:

On New Year’s Eve of 1995, Bill Watterson published the 3,150th and last Calvin and Hobbes strip. Since then, we’ve seen a host of good-to-very-bad takes on the comic: cartoons, apps, bizarre live-action reboots—even a search engine. 

Now there’s a documentary, Dear Mr. Watterson, which explores the impact the boy and his anthropomorphic tiger had on both readers and Watterson’s colleagues. The film began as a pet project for director Joel Allen Schroeder, who started interviewing fans of the strip in 2007; his Kickstarter project, created in 2009, then raised more than twice his initial $12,000 goal. The movie’s been picked up by a distributor, and the first trailer has just hit the Web. 

Calvin and Hobbes was initially viewed as too literate for kids and too fantastical for adults, but instead the strip’s subtle riffs on loneliness, friendship, and adolescence bridged the gap between the two. It’s unclear if Dear Mr. Watterson will delve into Watterson’s complex artistic ambitions or stick with praise for his obvious achievements. Either way, it’s probably a must-see for diehards. It’s scheduled to arrive in theaters Nov. 15.

I am not sure if I have already shared this or not, but I am a huge comic strip fan. And I mean HUGE! 

This is only a portion of my collection.

It started with Charles Schultz's Peanuts of course, and I always made sure to check the box by at least two pocket books every time the Scholastic book pamphlets were handed out in my elementary school.

From there my interest spread to B.C, The Wizard of Id, Hagar the Horrible, and the irascible Andy Capp. (Also my father's favorite.)

Before I left for college in Hawaii, as a young adult, I bought to paperbacks by G.B. Trudeau to read on the long flight from Anchorage. By the time I landed I was a HUGE fan of Doonesbury and made it my mission to purchase every single pocketbook that the bookstores carried.

I actually never stopped discovering new strips and buying their anthologies. Even into my middle age.

I currently have Dilbert, Foxtrot, Zits, Herman, Bloom County, and of course Calvin and Hobbes in my collection.

As much as I loved other comic strips Calvin and Hobbes quickly replaced them as my favorite, and in my opinion it remains in a category all by itself.

The strip seemed, if I might put my atheism aside for a moment, magical.

And it did not hurt that I connected with Calvin on a very fundamental level. There were many times as a child that I too spent huge blocks of time taking up residence in my fantasy world, where animals could talk, ghosts haunted every dark corner, and my wishes could come true if ONLY I could be the well behaved little boy that my mother so wanted me to become.

I am looking forward to this documentary, perhaps for no other reason then to see so many people paying homage to a man that I believe is a true genius. A man who remembered to never let the little boy inside grow up, and then brought him out of his subconscious for all of us to enjoy.

I literally could have chosen any C&H  strip to close out this post and it would have been awesome, so I chose the one below randomly.

And of course, it's awesome!

Happy Mother's Day!

I thought I would commemorate this day with an example from my all time favorite comic strip of all time.

I ma kind of a comic strip nerd and have lots of collections on my bookshelf. But my all time favorite is Calvin and Hobbes.

If any other strip came as close to explaining how I saw the world as a child I have yet to find it. And Calvin's relationship with his mother is a great example of how it seems to mirror my experiences growing up.

I don't think I have ever seen a more accurate depiction of childhood in America today.

Gone are the imaginative romps enjoyed by yesterday's children.

Today's children are mesmerized by electronics. medicated into compliance, and tested to exhaustion.

For all of you Calvin and Hobbes fans.

Nice to see they are still together.

(Don't know what the hell I am talking about? You should be ashamed of yourself. Go here to get educated. Greatest comic strip in the history of comic strips.)

Merry Christmas my little immoral friends!

Now, now no crying on Christmas.

I know it may seem odd for an Atheist, but I LOVE Christmas, and always have a great time with my family.

Of course when we were growing up Christmas was treated more like a secular holiday, you know like Santa had intended, before some of the nuttier Christians started demanding that we remember "the reason fof the season." Which in my house by the way had always been to get loot and bring up embarrassing stories from the past to humiliate each other.

But I don't think that is what THEY meant, though I am pretty sure my way is a lot more fun.

Well anyhow I cannot think of ANYBODY who reflected my views of Christmas when I was a child as well as Calvin does, so here are a few of my favorite comic strips to get all of YOU in the mood.

Now THAT is how I remember Christmas!