Monthly Archives: November 2007

The National Journal had a bunch of health care experts evaluate the various plans for "universal" (actually, expanded) health care from the various folks vying for the Oval Office. It should come as no surprise to anyone that the Democrats' plans fare better than the Republicans' if one really wants something that will achieve the stated goals.

I am reminded of a sketch that my friend/hero Stan Freberg used to do with a moon man puppet named Orville. Orville would announce that his people were offering to give Earth a nuclear device. The dialogue (Freberg providing both voices) went like this…

INTERVIEWER: We already have a nuclear device.

ORVILLE: Ours is better.

INTERVIEWER: Why is yours better?

ORVILLE: Ours doesn't work.

I was thinking of that the other day when I was listening to Mitt Romney explain the value of his. He was almost whispering aloud to his supporters, "Don't worry. Mine won't change anything. In fact, it may even make things so much worse that we'll all be able to say, 'See? Government health care is always a fiasco!'"

"Spleenk!" is the sound of me smiling. I've received and am generally enjoying MAD's Greatest Artists: The Completely MAD Don Martin, despite the fact that it's yet another fancy repackaging of stuff I already own. I did not resent paying for this collection of all the work "MAD's maddest artist" did for MAD Magazine. It's a handsome, classy two-book set with pages a bit larger than I was expecting. It also has decent reproduction, which has not been the case with every MAD project.

I'm happy to have these slipcased volumes on my shelf — or will be, just as soon as I can figure out what shelf the thing will fit on. If you'd like to go "Spleenk!" like me, here's a link to order your copy.

This runs six minutes and the video's terrible…but it's kinda funny. It's an excerpt from the Hollywood Squares game show during the period when it was hosted by Tom Bergeron. Let's go to Gilbert Gottfried for the win…