Monthly Archives: August 2006

And Jacob Weisberg provides the argument that the Lamont victory is bad for Democrats. I'm not sure if I think he's wrong or I just hope he's wrong…but his view is worth considering.

Joshua Micah Marshall on why Joe Lieberman got defeated yesterday.

I keep warning you folks: If you want to get a parking space at the Comic-Con International in San Diego, you have to leave early. Lines are already forming for the 2007 and 2008 conventions. See here if you don't believe me.

You guessed it: Another Tom Lehrer song done for The Electric Company. I think this is the last one of these I'm going to feature but it's my favorite…the saga of Silent E.

I haven't particularly followed the Floyd Landis "testosterone" scandal so I have no opinion on whether he did or he didn't or what it all means. But I did see him this evening on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno…and I must say that he couldn't have done a better job of seeming guilty and evasive about it. I don't know why someone goes on a program like that to defend his innocence without at least figuring out a real answer to the question Leno asked: "Why should we not go by the tests?"

Jay did a good job with the questioning but the best line of the night came from Bill Maher, who was the previous guest and who was seated on the couch. He remarked, "It seems like we're having a giant debate about a sport no one gives a [BLEEP] about. Does anyone ever watch people bicycle racing, except for the last 10 seconds?"

A quick survey of pundits commenting on the Ned Lamont victory shows that no one has a clue what it all means. Neither do I but I know what I hope it means. I hope it means that Democrats will wake up to the idea that the mainstream view in this country is that the War in Iraq has been a colossal mistake. It is not a fringe, extremist view or even an exclusively Liberal view that any good office-seeker would be wise to keep at arm's length. It's the view of 60% of the country and there are even Americans who approve of the war but think the Bush administration has done a poor job of waging it. More Democrats need to stop hedging their statements in this area for fear of being accused of being branded unAmerican or pro-Saddam.

I love the many Republicans who were offering "advice" to Democrats on how to handle the Lamont-Lieberman situation. A lot were just being helpful (no other motive, of course) to suggest that if Lieberman lost the nomination and ran as an Independent, he'd split the Democratic vote. Maybe. But maybe he'll split the pro-Bush vote. Who knows? I just think the Lamont victory legitimizes the majority view a bit more tonight and makes it seem more politically viable. At least, I hope that's what it means.

Not going on The Colbert Report.

Fred Kaplan wonders if George W. Bush even understands his own foreign policy.

This is one of the things that Bush-backers either don't "get" about criticisms of him or choose not to recognize because the truth is just too painful. There is a real sense of disconnect between what the man says and what his administration does. So even if you think one of those things is the right course of action, you get really worried about the other. And of course, it's also possible for neither to be wise.

A brief (but good) article about Jack Kirby.

As we all know, just about the only thing that can hurt Superman (besides copyright lawsuits) is the mineral known as Kryptonite. The history of this plot device is a bit convoluted and there are those who disagree about some aspects of it. But it is known that the idea began with a script that Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel wrote in 1940. In that 26 page story, Superman encountered a substance called "K-Metal," a radioactive remnant of his home planet of Krypton, and found that it weakened him to the strength of a normal man.

The story was illustrated by Siegel's partner Joe Shuster before the editors at DC Comics decided against publishing it. Various reasons have been cited for this decision. It was too long. They didn't want to introduce that vulnerability into the Superman strip. And there was a scene in which Lois Lane learned Superman's secret identity. In any case, the story was never printed. Years later, researchers came across Siegel's original script and collectors found a few pages of Shuster's artwork.

K-Metal was never seen in the comics but in 1945, Kryptonite — based on the same premise — was introduced into the continuity of the Superman radio show. And a few years later, it began turning up often (some felt, too often) in the comics.

Now, the folks at a prominent Superman website have embarked on an ambitious goal: Restoring (and in some cases, illustrating) that "lost" story from 1940. The extant Shuster pages are being retouched and colored…and where the pages are missing, artists are drawing them in the Shuster style.

So far, they only have a few finished pages online but if you'd like to follow the progress and learn more about this, go over here. It's quite an endeavor.

I'm withholding this correspondent's name but this seems to be a real letter and it summarizes another, important aspect of the problem we've been discussing here. I'll meet you on the other side of it with my reply.

I really didn't want to respond to your DUI comments, because you obviously have very strong feelings in the matter, but I can't help it.

I'm a convicted drunk driver who made a mistake one night and got caught. I won't get into details, but I spent two days in jail and had to go to counseling, have high insurance, restricted driving privileges, etc. For me, and I would think for most people, that was enough to keep me from drunk driving again. I never drink and drive anymore. Ever. And I tell everyone I know not to drink and drive. But a year in jail would have ruined my life. I'd have lost everything. Job, house, girlfriend, money, everything.

I'm now a very productive member of society, which is something I definitely wouldn't be right now if I'd have spent that year in jail. Not to mention the fact that jail is not a nice place. I was put in with serious criminals. Violent people. Being the comic geek I am, I'm sure I'd have been harmed during a longer prison sentence. Even those two days really changed me mentally. People who haven't been in jail don't really understand what people have to deal with in jail. It's more than just an extended vacation from the outside world. It destroys that person's life and everyone connected to them.

I realize that what I did was stupid and it could have hurt somebody. I deserved the punishment that I received, but that was enough to stop me from doing it in the future, and it's enough to get me to stop others from drunk driving. Isn't that what you want?

I don't think harsh sentences are a deterrent. Most people know that drunk driving is wrong, but they think they're not "really" drunk. They think they're "fine to drive." They don't realize how serious the courts take DUI offenses until they're standing in front of a judge. They know drunk driving is wrong, but they think only very drunk people get arrested.

Unless you carry a breathalyzer with you, you don't know how high your BAC is. Mine was only .01 over the limit, and I passed all the roadside tests. All I did was drive over the speed limit, which is what I do when I'm sober. I couldn't imagine being thrown in jail for a year over that. (Now I simply take a cab or walk, but public transportation is almost non-existent or very expensive outside of cities).

There have also been new studies that show driving just over the BAC limit is better than driving while talking on a cell phone (even the hands free models) And who sets the BAC limit? It's currently .08 in most states, but are you really impaired at that limit? That's three beers. I don't even feel drunk after three beers, which is why there are so many DUI arrests, I think. Is this limit being pushed on us by the insurance companies and politicians that want to show how tough they are? In Washington, they told states to lower their BAC to .08 or lose highway funding. It wasn't just science that lowered the limit, it was blackmail.

It's too hard to tell if someone is incapable of driving a car, the real purpose of the law. I don't think BAC alone is the answer. How accurate are breathalyzers? If they're going to give harsh punishments, they should be as accurate as possible, but they wouldn't give me the more accurate blood test when I was arrested. And a .08 for me can affect me differently than it does other people. My arresting officer said I didn't seem drunk, but I admitted to having a few drinks so he had to go through the process. He almost let me go. Maybe that blood test would have put me under the limit. Unfortunately, if you blow over a .08 then you're automatically convicted, and no amount of testimony will get you out of a conviction in my state.

I'm surprised you're not nervous about mandatory sentencing, considering your other political views. A mandatory sentence would give me the same punishment as someone who blew a .20. Are we saying that all cases are exactly the same and that judges can't be trusted to give a just punishment? As an aside, are you in favor of the three strikes and you're out laws?

I want to stop people from drunk driving, but I wrestle with what's fair and what's overkill. The only difference between you and I is where the line should be drawn. I don't expect to change your opinion on the issue, I just wanted to give my side of the story (even if I did ramble on a bit).

Love the site by the way…

Thanks…for the compliment and the letter. I do have strong feelings about this but if you've followed this blog, you know that I think the stupidest thing you can do is form your opinions and then close your mind to new evidence or arguments. I still think we need to get stricter with drunk drivers but you've put a little dent in my attitude about just what should be done. I'm also concerned that my own experiences — the loss of loved ones due to intoxicated motorists — can cause me to view this problem through too much emotion, and your note provides a nice bit of humanity on the other side.

Certainly, if the laws and technology can be improved with regard to how we measure intoxication, they should be. But I still think anyone who has even three beers and gets behind the wheel deserves to be slapped…and hard. One of my friends was killed by a drunk driver who probably hadn't had much more than that…and it was a first offense.

I don't know exactly how I feel about a blanket "three strikes and you're out" law. I keep hearing about — and these may be apocryphal — theoretical criminals whose three strikes were shoplifting food when they were starving. But certainly some crimes are serious enough that a person shouldn't be able to commit them three times and get out of jail…and for those offenses, yeah, I guess I'm fine with a three strikes law. The main thing that gives me pause is my lack of faith in our judicial system to convict the right people.

Maybe a year in prison is too strict for a first drunk driving offense. When I said that, I wasn't thinking of someone in the situation you describe…someone who just edges over the legal definition of drunk driving. But I've heard people talk about the crime in the same category as failing to signal for a left turn, and I think we have to do something to get it off that level and closer to the more serious violations. Let me think about it some more and get back to you. And thanks again for writing.

Another Tom Lehrer song from The Electric Company. Enjoy.

The new issue of Playboy carries a long interview with Michael Brown, the infamous "Brownie" who took much of the blame for the terrible handling of Hurricane Katrina. Brown makes a not-unconvincing case that he did little wrong and that a lot of other folks screwed up, starting with George W. Bush. Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff comes in for an especially large chunk of criticism.

When I say it's "not-unconvincing," I'm not saying I'm convinced. I'd want to hear some rebuttals and responses before I believed all that Mr. Brown has to say. But the man does make a strong case and if the topic interests you, you might want to check it out. The interview does not seem to be available online so you might have to look at an actual magazine. Rumor has it that somewhere in the publication, there's also at least one photo of a nude woman, too.

And if you're near a newsstand, take a look at the new issue of Emmy, the official magazine of the TV Academy. This one's crammed full of good articles about old TV shows and stars, including a "reunion" of the cast of The Bob Newhart Show. There's also a nice piece on Yarmy's Army, the comedians' club I mentioned in this piece.

One other thing about DVD sets. Amazon currently has an offer to sell you the first nine seasons of M*A*S*H (the individual season releases) for $323.99. I'd post a link to the page but I'm afraid someone might click on it and order. You shouldn't…because Amazon is selling those first nine seasons for $23.47 each. In case you can't do the math, nine times $23.47 is $211.23. So it's kind of a quantity increase.

You can also buy that package deal plus the tenth season for $351.76. They currently sell Season 10 for $27.77 so this is another one of those Amazon package deals that gives you nothing off the price of buying the items individually.

Or you can wait until November 7 for the deluxe, complete set. It will give you all eleven seasons plus the original M*A*S*H movie plus two discs of bonus material and a slipcase for a suggested retail price of $199.99, which probably means the Amazon price will be $179.99.

My experience with comic fans is that nothing drove them away from the market faster than when they bought something for one price, blinked and found it was a lot cheaper. I can't believe it won't have a similar effect on some folks who are buying sets of old TV shows on DVD.

My chum Earl Kress has a post up responding to my gripe about TV shows being released on DVD as single volumes and then again as full sets. You can read the whole thing here but I'll post one paragraph before I respond…

But the one problem with Mark's argument is that it's a Catch-22. He says wait for the Ultimate Box Set, which has all the seasons of your favorite show. However, if the individual seasons don't sell well enough, companies are now starting to reassess midway through and cancel series. For instance, Huckleberry Hound Volume 1, pictured at left, may turn out to be the only Huckleberry volume released due to low sales. Other series which have recently been shelved after one or more seasons were released are Boy Meets World, Murphy Brown and Night Court. If the sales aren't good enough to release the entire series individually, they'll never get to that ultimate box set.

Earl's right that this is a problem…but I would hope that if people buy the way I'm going to from now on — wait for the series to finish and see if there's a complete set issued — it will lead to companies releasing these things as complete sets at the outset. Certainly, F Troop (a show Earl mentions he hopes will be go the distance) could have been put out in one volume.

The other thing they could do is make the extras available to folks who buy the set volume by volume. In the example of M*A*S*H, if you're a devout fan of the show and you bought the DVD releases season by season, you've sunk a nice piece of change into getting all the episodes but you don't get all the bonus material that comes when you buy the forthcoming complete collection. What they should do is include a coupon in every season set and if you send in all the coupons, you can purchase for a nominal cost, the bonus discs and the slipcase. But they won't do that. The goal here is to make the most fanatic M*A*S*H fans buy all the seasons a second time.

I think Warner Home Video dropped the ball on that first Huckleberry Hound set. It's great material but they brought it out at a time when the market was being flooded with complete sets of classic TV shows, especially cartoon shows, many of them Hanna-Barbera releases from Warner Home Video. Ol' Huck got lost amidst the release of the better-known Yogi Bear, Flintstones and Scooby Doo sets. I hope they'll reconsider and try the second and final collection.