Sunday, October 26, 2008

Recommended Reading

You probably wouldn't know it from most election coverage but there's still a war on in Iraq. People are still dying over there and we're still spending money we don't have over there. Joe Conason gives us a nice summary of the current state of play...which doesn't look like much more than us trying to get out with a minimum of damage and embarrassment.

• Posted at 8:15 PM · LINK

More Live Soupblogging

Guess where I am and what I'm eating.

• Posted at 3:41 PM · LINK

Taking the Initatives

If you live in California and you're struggling with all them weird propositions, take a look at this blog post by Kevin Drum. I don't quite share his automatic denials of bond issues, though I guess I agree with the theory. I voted for two of the ones he says no to, but otherwise, I think he's correct.

Methinks we especially should not pass Propositions 4 and 8 — for reasons that should be obvious — and Proposition 10, which looks at arm's length like something that will advance the cause of "clean energy." Actually, it would more likely advance the financial well-being of oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens, who seems to have decided there's serious money to be made if you can out-Algore Al Gore. This editorial explains why. Mr. Pickens is turning up on my TV more often than the Geico Lizard and looks even slimier.

There are folks who don't believe in Global Warming simply because Gore says it's so and they think anything Al Gore says must be automatically disbelieved. I don't think that makes any sense...stopped clocks and all that. But I am skeptical of anything T. Boone Pickens says, especially when he's pouring millions into advancing a cause that should net him billions. If Pickens wants to convince America that he has the world's best interests at heart, he oughta do it as a pro bono project. And it would help if he apologized for funding all those Swift Boat ads against John Kerry.

• Posted at 10:47 AM · LINK

Today's Video Link

Here's another clip from Weekday Heroes, that 1984 special on the kids' show hosts of Los Angeles. This one is about Sheriff John. (I linked to a clip about Chucko the Clown in this post. Again, that's Tony Dow hosting.)

John Rovick was another one of those staff announcers and TV personalities in local television who was told one day to come up with a costume and a persona and to go out and host cartoons. Almost everyone who was on staff at a local station in the fifties got such orders and some of them became so popular that they did it for years and became part of countless childhoods. Sheriff John was on KTTV from '52 (the year I was born) until 1970. He then continued to work as a staff announcer at the station for at least another ten years before retiring to Idaho where, we hear, he's still alive and well.

I used to see him occasionally in the hallways and I always saluted him and said something like, "Afternoon, Sheriff." He always seemed pleased that adults remembered him that way.

• Posted at 12:38 AM · LINK