A seeming disparity in campaign and election law: voting is anonymous, donating money to a campaign is not. Actually, that’s imprecise. The candidates have to disclose the name of anyone who donates at least $200, so you can only find out whether I’ve given at least $200 to a campaign or party. But you still can’t look up how I voted. So nyah.

I’d be interested to know why the public is entitled to know that I gave two hundred bucks to Kang or Kodos, but not which of them I voted for. I’d also be interested to know why the privacy of a $199 donor is more sacrosanct than that of a $200 donor.

One possible answer: well, we have to know who gave whom what money so we can look into the possibility that we’re bribing our perfectly honorable politicians. I would rebut that all too often it seems the opposite is true, and the perfectly decent and respectable politicians are bribing us: “Put me in power and I’ll give you A, B, and C, paid for by that guy over there.”

I think that either all the donations should have real live people’s real names attached to them or none of them should. Either we go with the principle of full disclosure or that of total privacy. I also think the number and amount of donations should be entirely unlimited—if I want to give my billions to Ralph Nader and his parrot, then so be it.

I’ll announce my endorsement for President soon.

…

It seems that Berke Breathed is plotting to kill off Opus this coming Sunday. I don’t lament the passing of the comic strip itself, because Breathed’s work hasn’t been funny since Reagan was president. However, Opus Himself is one of the all-time greats of the funny pages, and he would be missed. I hope that Opus will pull off a Shawshank-like escape from the animal shelter, but I don’t expect it.