What the F@%& Is Up With Stephen King?


When I was a kid, I was plagued by nightmares. One scary TV show, and boom, I'd wake up paralyzed with terror after a night in which animal-headed people tried to kill me all night, or Nazis pursued me through the streets of New York. After awhile, my little brothers knew to protectively chase me away from the television if something even faintly Hitchcockian came on; while they'd watch, I'd hunker down in my bedroom with Anne of Green Gables or, later, Tolstoy. My basic aversion to, or caution about, horror movies and scary books lasted well into my adulthood, until I learned how to tune down the fear and sleep through the night. But horror is a taste that I've never fully developed. 

All of which is to say that I haven't ever been a Stephen King reader or viewer—until yesterday, when he jumped on the Warren Buffett bandwagon with his Daily Beast blast, "Tax Me, For F@%&’s Sake!" Here's the gist:


Cut a check and shut up, they said....




For years, Stephen King has been beloved in Maine for the way he gives his millions back to the community. My wife, who grew up relatively near his house in Bangor, regularly points out how spectacular he's been to the community.  She writes, "He built a $1.2 million dollar youth baseball complex in 1991. In the early nineties, his donation to the University of Maine Swim Team saved the program from elimination from the school's athletics department. He has donated to local YMCA and YWCA programs have allowed renovations and improvements. He annually sponsors a number of scholarships for high school and college students. He donated money to bring Air National Guard members home for Christmas a few years ago before they were shipped to Afghanistan. Recently he gave a $70,000 donation for fuel assistance to low income people in Maine." That last one was because the federal government cut fuel assistance, and he stepped in. But as he puts it, why should the overwhelmingly poor and working-class folks in the non-Kennebunkport regions of Maine be dependent on the kindness of one dude who actually got rich there? What about the freezing people in northern New Hampshire: who's their rich savior?  Here's King responding to Mitt Romney's attitude about his own wealth:


There's more. Go read it (Then come back and donate to The Prospect, where you can get more in-depth analysis on all the issues above.).

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