Monthly Archives: March 2010

I dunno if you've all been following this moronic argument, voiced most loudly by Dick Cheney's daughter, that lawyers who represent those accused of terrorism are doing so because, deep down, they want to see terrorists free to roam our boulevards and kill more Americans. I have no great love for lawyers as a whole but I like and respect certain ones and, you know, some of them do have something to do with the law functioning properly. When the law functions as intended, we all benefit. Even the sickest, most reprehensible ax murderer is entitled to counsel and that doesn't mean the attorney who represents him is in favor of ax-murdering. The attorney is just in favor of our justice system functioning as it's supposed to.

I no longer remember enough about the case to give the specifics but back in the early seventies, there appeared to be a serial-type killer in some town in Northern California. A man was accused of — I think it was — nine murders. There was pretty solid evidence against him on one or two and enough similarities to the other cases that he was charged with all nine and it looked like he'd be easily convicted of them all. A court-appointed lawyer stepped in and took a lot of heat for even representing the man. People protested outside the attorney's office with the predictable arguments: The accused is guilty as sin. A monster who did what he did doesn't deserve a trial, let alone a lawyer. Let's string him up and not waste our tax dollars. Et cetera.

Well, obviously, I'm bringing this up because that "conventional" wisdom was wrong. The lawyer proved that the defendant was innocent in six of the cases. He did hard time for the other three — he may still be doing it for all I know — but he had nothing to do with the other six. I recall some suggestion that the cops and prosecutors knew or suspected as much but they had these unsolved murder cases on their hands and it seemed convenient to just blame this guy so those cases could be marked "closed." Later, there were actually some arrests made in those six cases — arrests that probably would not have been made if the first guy had been convicted of all nine.

It was to our advantage — society's, that is — that the defendant had a fair trial with actual legal representation. It helps us to make certain that the guilty are truly guilty and that the precise nature of their guilt is accurately determined.

One of the troubling things for some people about Guantanamo has been the number of detainees who, by the Bush administration's admissions and actions, should never have been there at all. Some were there for years and that doesn't help us one bit. It hurts us, in fact. But Dick "we never made mistakes" Cheney is angry (I guess) that some lawyers participated in a process that pointed some of that out. Fouad al-Rabiah was kept in prison for seven years after authorities had determined he had done nothing to warrant arrest and that there was no crime with which they could charge him. The lawyers who helped free him didn't "help the enemy." This guy wasn't the enemy. But they did point out where the Bush-Cheney policies had done enormous damage to an innocent man.

After I wrote the above, I noticed that my BBQ-dining buddy Kevin Drum wrote on the same topic yesterday. He links to this piece by Orin Kerr that makes a major point: There is this anger against lawyers for arguing that certain detainees be freed. Why is there no anger directed at the judges who said in response, "Yeah, you're right," and freed them? I guess lawyers are an easier target…and I suspect some of those lawyers were Bush appointees and the Cheney forces can't very well admit/argue that they put terrorist sympathizers on the bench, can they?

Hey, you know who that is? That's a rather old photo of my friend and hero, Stan Freberg. Stan is an actor (on camera and voice), a writer, a director, a producer, a composer, a puppeteer and an all-around satirist. As a kid, I got a lot of my sense of funny from listening to funny records he made and watching funny cartoons in which he did funny voices and later, watching all those funny commercials he made. And the thing about Stan was never just that he was funny. He was always smart funny.

Our friends over at Shokus Internet Radio will be saluting (and welcoming) that smart funny guy next week. Commencing Monday, two of their shows will feature Freberg-intensive programming. In the descriptions I'm about to give you, I'm using West Coast times…so add hours or subtract depending on your time zone.

Crazy College, heard at 2 PM each day, will look at Stan's United States of America records. Volume One has been called either the funniest historical work ever or the most historical comedy album…or something like that. Anyway, it's a grand and silly look at the founding and evolution of this nation.

Joe Bev's Cartoon Carnival, which follows at 3 PM, will cover some of Stan's other great recordings as well as his 1957 radio series in which he appeared with Daws Butler, June Foray and Peter Leeds…and Joe tells me he's also including a few of Stan's great commercials.

Then! On Wednesday, and rerunning for six days after that, Stu's Show (4 PM to 6 PM) will welcome as its guest…Stan Freberg! I'll tell you more about that as the day draws near but I figured you might want to plan your week accordingly. In fact, you might want to practice listening to this fine, free radio station. Point your browser to Shokus Internet Radio and click where they tell you to click. Lots of folks tell me they've given it a try and gotten hooked.

The non-partisan analysis by the Congressional Budget Office says the Health Care Reform bill passed by the Senate would lower the federal deficit by $118 billion in its first ten years and at least $600 billion in its second ten years. It would also insure more than 30 million Americans who currently do not have health insurance and will therefore all be ahead of you in line the next time you need to go to a hospital emergency room. Sure sounds like a good deal to me. Here's a link to a PDF of the report.

I finally received, as a lot of you apparently have, a message from Amazon explaining why they cancelled most of my order and giving me $25 in credit as an apology. Darned decent of them. I mean, I know they were probably worried about customer hostility but a lot of companies wouldn't have thought that far.

Quite a few people e-mailed me to say they recognized Gene Wood playing the bellman in the early part of the show. Wood was later a prolific game show announcer and occasional host.

And quite a few asked if I knew how to see that Eric Idle concert if they're outside its exhibition area. I have no inside info but is it even remotely possible that it won't be available to us? A DVD seems certain and an airing on cable, pretty likely.

Gene Lyons on Republican fund-raising strategies. I am reminded of the book by Thomas Frank, What's the Matter With Kansas? that advanced the following theory: That the G.O.P. has been highly successful in whipping up Middle America to vote its way, promising to outlaw abortion and bring back school prayer…but then Republican leadership takes the clout they get from those election victories and uses it, not for those issues but to push for economic policies that help mega-corporations and the super-rich, often at the expense of Middle America. I thought that book was right when I read it and it's more right today.

Paul Waldman likes the post office. This is another one of those "Hey, he wrote the article I was thinking of writing" articles. Which is great because linking takes a lot less time than writing.

Remember the "Filegate" scandal? When it broke in 1996, detractors of Bill and Hillary Clinton said it was a major outrage, a crime the equal of Watergate and maybe even a reason to drag the Clintons from the White House and toss them in prison. Clinton supporters said there was nothing there, no wrongdoing, no scandal. Turns out the Clinton supporters were right.

Hey, remember that unintentional sale Amazon had on comic book collections and graphic novels? I'm hearing from some folks who got their mispriced bargains and others who didn't. I seem to be among the "didn't" group. I've yet to hear a thing from the Amazon folks about it but the online invoice for my order is mysteriously missing most of the items. They just removed them from my order without telling me, which is a bit odd. I'm not surprised not to be getting 'em but I was expecting some sort of note or notification.

Going to WonderCon in San Francisco? You should. It's April 2-4 and a great time is already had by all. I'll be moderating a bunch of panels. On Friday, I get to introduce Stan and Hunter Freberg. On Saturday, I interview Murphy Anderson, discuss Creator Rights, appear with my friend Sergio and interview Joe and Adam Kubert. On Sunday, I host "Art of the Cover," a great shop talk panel where great cover artists discuss what it takes to make a great cover. If you click on the banner above (or here), you'll get all the details. See you there.

This evening, superstar publicist Jeff Abraham and I went down to the new Grammy Museum in downtown Los Angeles for An Evening With Bob Newhart. The museum has been doing these events with important folks in the recording industry and Mr. Newhart was the first honoree in the category of Comedy, as opposed to Music. A loving and respectful audience turned out to hear him interviewed and he closed by favoring us with one of his earliest routines — the one about the submarine commander briefing his crew. Gosh, he's a funny man.

Let's see what I can recall that will translate to this format. Someone in the audience asked him who his favorite comedian was. He immediately said, "Well, this is not to get back to Rickles…" His answer was Peter Sellers and he explained why — because he never seemed like he was trying to be funny — and then did a suprisingly good impression of Sellers in one of the Pink Panther movies.

He talked about his early days as an accountant and how his first, best-selling album came to be. He was writing and performing his little monologues in and around Chicago, occasionally on local TV. Disc jockey Dan Sorkin became familiar with his material and recommended him to Warner Brothers Records, which was then a new, struggling company. The execs there liked what they heard and said, "We'll record an album next time you play a night club." Newhart had to inform him he'd never played a night club and had no plans to start. Because of their offer though, he began to look for one that would take him in.

That took several months. Finally, on his first such date, they recorded The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart, which became one of the best-selling albums of all time…not one of the best-selling comedy albums. One of the best-selling albums, period. It not only put Newhart on the map…it put Warner Brothers Records there, as well.

From there, it was on to more records and to TV. Asked which of his two long-running sitcoms he preferred, he said he couldn't pick. He discussed the wonders of Suzanne Pleshette and the odd trio of Larry, Darryl and Darryl. He talked about being best friends with Don Rickles. He told funny stories about appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show. Answering a question from an up-and-coming stand-up comedian in the audience, he spoke of the plain, old-fashioned bravery involved in getting up in front of an audience that you have to make laugh. It was all quite wonderful. But then you'd figure two hours with Bob Newhart would be, right?

Bruce Bartlett explains about the National Debt: What it is, how bad it is, why certain proposals to curtail it don't make sense. I won't pretend I understand this whole thing but that's okay. Neither, apparently, do a lot of professional economists.

Well, as expected, it turns out those great prices on Amazon yesterday were a computer-type error and folks who ordered are now receiving e-mails telling them so. In some cases, Amazon is just cancelling the entire order. In some, they're reportedly saying they will honor portions of the orders that were placed. A number of customers ordered dozens, maybe hundreds of books and Amazon is going to send them a few of what they wanted at the prices that were posted.

I have no idea how they're determining who gets some of their books and who doesn't. Maybe it has to do with what they ordered…how many copies are available, what it will cost them to make good on certain items. Maybe they're taking past customer loyalty into account…I dunno. I ordered a few books that weren't mispriced and seven that were…and I haven't heard anything yet. I'll let you know what happens.