Monthly Archives: February 2006

Some Republicans are moaning that the funeral of Coretta King turned political. They're outraged that certain folks "exploited" the occasion to bash poor George W. Bush, who had to sit there and endure it and later be civil to those who'd bashed him. There's some truth to that but so what? The late Ms. King was a political activist and the people who turned out for the event sure seemed to love it. A funeral is for the friends and family of the deceased and if they think something's appropriate, no one else's opinion should matter, especially folks who didn't much like the Kings to begin with. I might buy the argument that a heavily-politicized funeral is unworthy of free television time but that's a separate issue…one that has to consider that the folks who decide to broadcast such events can't be sure of their political content before the fact. Certainly it isn't the fault of the speakers that the event is on C-Span, nor should they depart from what they think is appropriate just because there are cameras present.

For good or ill, the funeral of a political person is going to be a political event, even if no one gets up and issues calls to activism. Some of the speakers who showed up at the Coretta King memorial surely did so after consideration of how it might help them with black voters just to be there, regardless of what they said. I'm not sure people like George W. Bush or Hillary Clinton order a pizza without studying how it might impact their poll numbers.

Critics of that funeral — and I think there's something unceremonious just in being a critic of a funeral — have likened it to the tribute when Senator Paul Wellstone died. I actually watched all 3+ hours of the Wellstone Memorial and I thought the characterization of it as a political event was a gross and probably deliberate exaggeration. Perhaps ten minutes of it went over the line, some of it directed at Jesse Ventura who raced to the talk shows to pout that some people in attendance didn't like him. You'd think a guy who made his living for so many years getting booed could cope with that.

The Wellstone Memorial was inspiring to some Democrats because it included Democrats talking the way a lot of Democrats wish prominent Democrats would always talk. I think that's why a few Republicans felt the urgency to misrepresent and discredit it. At the San Diego Con a few years back, I got into a loud hallway argument with someone who called it a disgrace based on the 90 seconds or so of it he saw on Fox News. I kept urging him to watch a little more of the video (which was then up on the C-Span site) and he kept saying, "I've seen all I need to see." A lot of demagogues on both sides count on the eagerness of some to believe the worst about the opposition and to avoid evidence that might upset their worldview.

Watching clips of the Coretta King event, I actually felt a little sorry for George W. Bush. Like his father, he's not good at concealing when he's bored or restless with an event that isn't serving his immediate interests. He seems especially uncomfortable in front of audiences who aren't eager to believe every word he says. Frankly, I think it was nice that Bush was there, if only because that meant six or eight hours that he wasn't back in the White House, working for some legislation that Martin Luther King and Coretta would have opposed.

To my loved ones — assuming I have any left by the time I go — I say this: If there's a memorial, say or do anything you think is right or that will give you comfort and closure. If you all want to show up in clown suits, get out of one tiny car and spray the coffin with seltzer, that's fine with me. The only thing that would be inappropriate would be for someone to criticize what you want to do. It's not their event.

You probably know how this works by now but for the benefit of those who came in late, I'll go through it. We have here links and descriptions to five websites. Four of these are real, meaning that if you click the link, you'll be redirected to the site described — unless, of course, it's overloaded with traffic due to its being listed here. That has happened. One of the descriptions is bogus. Phony. Not real. We made it up. If you click on that link, you'll move to a page that will tell you so. Ergo, your mission is to figure out which is the website that ain't real. Go for it, dude.

• Call It Macaroni – How many different shapes of macaroni have been produced around the world? More than you'd imagine.
• Name That Candy Bar! – Can you identify popular candy bars just by looking at photos of their innards? Here's a website where you can hone this vital skill.
• Bad Sweater Guy – A fellow models ugly sweaters he acquired while working at Marshall's, which is apparently the place to go when you want an ugly sweater.
• The Loincloth Site – Want to make a loincloth? Pose in your loincloth? See other people in loinclothes? This is the site for you.
• The Virtual Corkscrew Museum – Someone has actually amassed a collection of vintage corkscrews…and they're nice enough to share them with us.

This time around, the real but fake-sounding websites were suggested by Tony Isabella and Kevin Aitchison. They receive our thanks and nothing else, but the thanks oughta be enough for them. Thanks for playing There's No Such Website!

Just to remind you all: Tomorrow (Thursday) evening, if you're in Santa Cruz in Northern California, there'll be a new edition of Quick Draw! at the Veterans Memorial Building on Front Street. Sergio Aragonés will be drawing. Scott Shaw! will be drawing. Bill Morrison will be drawing. Batton Lash will be drawing. I, with the help of the audience, will be telling them what to draw. Details are here, and a splendid time is guaranteed for all.

June Foray's appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, announced for tomorrow, has been postponed. They're covering the Olympics and the Grammys and they have no room for the woman who voiced Rocket J. Squirrel at the moment. It'll be rescheduled, they say, and you'll read about it here when it is. Might be a month or so.

David Cook reminds me that in North by Northwest, the mother of Cary Grant (who was born in 1904) was played by Jessie Royce Landis (who was born in 1904).

Jim Newman reminds me that in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the father of Dick Van Dyke (born: 1925) was played by Lionel Jeffries (born: 1926).

Galen Fott reminds me — well, actually informs me since I didn't know — that in the original New York company of The Fantasticks, 30-year-old Kenneth Nelson played Matt ("The Boy"), while 24-year-old Jerry Orbach played the older, wiser narrator El Gallo.

And Erik Peek, Eric Newsom, Steve Darnall and Alexander Pascover all remind me that in The Manchurian Candidate, Angela Lansbury (born in 1925) played the mother of Laurence Harvey (born in 1928).

Fred Kaplan parses the defense budget for us.

A couple of folks have written to me to say they don't think I made it clear that even though Attorney General Gonzales wasn't put under oath, he can still be prosecuted for lying to Congress if it's determined that he did. Frankly, I think Gonzales could get up there and insist he's Captain Marvel and can fly around the room and there's zero chance of the Republican majority doubting him, let alone allowing a prosecution. But what I don't get is the argument for not treating him (or those oil company execs a few months ago when another committee leader waived the swearing-in) like anyone else. Why are some people put under oath and not others? Aren't they all supposed to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Why are there two classes of witnesses?

Here's another thing I don't understand. Gonzales kept talking about how Franklin Roosevelt and other past presidents had conducted very extensive electronic surveillance. Okay, that might be a good argument for why a president of the U.S. needs to do that. But the question before this committee and this country is whether Bush's actions violated the FISA law established in 1978. So I don't get how anything before that is particularly relevant. It's like they passed a law banning smoking in restaurants, and then someone got caught smoking in a restaurant and his defense was, "Yeah, but look how many people smoked in restaurants before that law."

It seems to me that the Bush administration position is that they think the '78 law was unwise and maybe, by their definition of the responsibility of the Chief Exec, even contrary to the Constitution. I don't know that I'd agree with that but it would be a more coherent, and perhaps more honest stance. But for some reason, they don't want to suggest the law is wrong; only that they can ignore it if they so choose. I don't think that's how this kind of thing is supposed to work.

Many sites seem to be discussing the raging controversy over the true birthdate of the late Al Lewis. A consensus seems to be emerging that he was definitely born in 1923, and he began saying 1910 when he did The Munsters. He was playing the father of Yvonne DeCarlo, who was born in 1922 and either (a) Lewis was afraid someone would think he was too young for the part so he fibbed or (b) the studio thought it might bother someone and they asked him to lie. I'm not sure either would be a very good reason but his being younger than Ms. DeCarlo seems to have been part of the reason.

Actually, there are plenty of instances of actors playing parents where the real ages don't match up. Maureen Stapleton was the same age as Dick Van Dyke when she played his mother in Bye Bye Birdie, and I'm sure other examples will come to me later. There might even have been something colorful about Al Lewis being younger than the woman playing his daughter when they were both portraying vampires. Maybe it's that they feared it would call attention to Yvonne DeCarlo's age and she (or the studio) didn't want that.

I agree with Bill Sherman's statement of political intent.

Browsing my e-mail, I sometimes wonder if some people understand that a weblog is something you do when you have time, and only when something pops into your head that you think is worth sharing with the world. My penchant for obits has caused some readers here to presume that if someone famous dies and I don't respond immediately with an anecdote, it must be that I have something against that famous person. No, I just may not have an anecdote or anything to say beyond the obvious or the time to write something.

Here's a big reason people thought "Grandpa" Al Lewis was born in 1910 when he was actually, they're now telling us, born in 1923. Kip Williams sent me a link to this interview in which Lewis was asked his birthdate and he gave it as April 30, 1910. And if he said it in one interview, he probably said it in others.

So what happened here? It's possible that whoever transcribed the interview misheard him but that sure doesn't sound likely. So either his family, which announced the 1923 date, is wrong…or Lewis, for whatever his reason, chose to lie about his age. But why lie to add thirteen years? And if that's wrong, a lot of stories he told are probably wrong too, including his war stories and his tales of getting involved in politics in the thirties. Among many other accounts that don't fit the corrected timeline is that he sometimes claimed to have been involved with the defense of Sacco and Vanzetti, who were executed in 1927. (Hey, maybe that's why they got the chair. They had a four year old kid defending them.)

My hunch is that the family is not wrong; that Al just thought it made him more colorful to have all those colorful experiences in his past and that he had to lengthen his past a bit to accomodate them all. But we may never know for sure.

Testifying today before the Senate committee, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said, "President Washington, President Lincoln, President Wilson, President Roosevelt have all authorized electronic surveillance on a far broader scale."

Right. Washington was sending eels to spy on the British.

No wonder they didn't dare put this guy under oath.

The New York Times has a nice article on DC Comics head honcho Paul Levitz. Why is it a nice article? Because it quotes me, of course.

Many years ago, Senator Arlen Specter from Pennsylvania was one of the main architects of the "single bullet theory" of the Kennedy assassination. I happen to believe that theory is correct and I have a new one. It's the "double Arlen Specter theory." My theory is that there are two senators from Pennsylvania named Arlen Specter who look exactly alike but who have totally different sets of principles and moral conduct.

Anyone who has followed this man's career (or rather, these men's careers) could cite many examples. No representative who has held office for any length of time has had quite the capacity to get both parties mad at him, often for the same actions. Browse Democratic websites and you'll see people cursing him as a Republican. Browse Republican sites and you'll see them cursing him louder as a "RINO" (Republican in Name Only). Ordinarily, I'd admire the seeming unwillingness to toe any party's line. But in this case, it's mostly a matter of one Arlen Specter subverting the other's agenda, making sure that any stand that puts principle over partisan concerns is soon neutralized.

The other day, UPI reported…

Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, says President George W. Bush's warrantless surveillance program appears to be illegal. Appearing on NBC's Meet the Press, Specter called the administration's legal reasoning "strained and unrealistic" and said the program appears to be "in flat violation" of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Now, the lede is a bit overstated, given that Specter also said the problem may have been with the law itself. But it takes a certain amount of political courage to say as much as he did, and to make all those other statements about pursuing the truth, no matter who it embarrasses.

This morning, chairing the committee investigating these charges, we got an Arlen Specter who didn't feel the Attorney General needed to be sworn in before testifying. If you or I testified in a case involving a discrepancy of twenty dollars somewhere, we'd have to be sworn in and say whatever we said under oath. Judge Judy puts people under oath before she'll let them state their names in her TV court. Today, rather than spend the thirty seconds necessary to do that, Specter spent many long minutes defending that decision. He stated that the Attorney General had said he was quite willing to take the oath but that this particular Arlen Specter decided it wasn't necessary because, if I understand him correctly, somewhere there was precedent that showed this occasionally was not done and he didn't feel like doing it this time.

Sorry…I don't get it. The only conceivable reason to not take any kind of testimony under oath is to give the witness a smidgen of wiggle room if later, it's necessary to prosecute them for lying. This should not even be an option and I'll bet you that one of the Arlen Specters agrees. At least one of them must remember John Mitchell, a former attorney general who was convicted and sent to prison on charges that included obstruction of justice and perjury.

Some of you may be skeptical of my theory, and I can certainly understand that. You might be thinking, "Hey, how can Pennsylvania have two Senator Specters? States only get two senators and don't they have another one? No, not really. Take a look at some of the posturings and contradictions of this Rick Santorum guy who is sometimes passed off as "the other" senator from Pennsylvania. That's not a real senator. He's just some sham someone arranged to mask the fact that there are two Arlen Specters.

Come back later and I'll tell you about the three Joe Bidens. That's how many there'd have to be for there to be that many Joe Biden speeches and Sunday morning news show appearances.

Jay Shull, who reads this site, sends me a link to the work of another great pavement artist, Kurt Wenner.

The press services are now correcting their obits on "Grandpa" Al Lewis, saying he was born in 1923, which would have made him 82 at the time of his death, not 95. I seem to recall a number of past instances where press reports confused his past with that of a couple of other gents in show business with the same name, and several Internet sites clearly had it wrong. So that may have been the source of the error.