Saturday, June 20, 2009

This Just In...

I just went over to Salon and found a news item, the headline and first paragraph of which are reproduced below...

Obama and daughters snack on frozen custard
By CHRISTINE SIMMONS Associated Press Writer

Jun 20th, 2009 | ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- The first family was in the mood for something sweet -- something like vanilla custard, fudge and sprinkles. On a muggy Saturday just before Father's Day, President Barack Obama took Sasha, 8, and Malia, 10, to The Dairy Godmother, a frozen custard shop just outside Washington.

...and then it goes on to tell you that the president had a vanilla custard with hot fudge and toasted almonds in a cup and that Sasha ordered a brownie sundae treat with vanilla custard, hot fudge and chocolate sprinkles. And so on. That's really all this news story is about.

Below it, I found the following...

Salon provides breaking news articles from the Associated Press as a service to its readers, but does not edit the AP articles it publishes.

Nice to know that on a day when car bombs and rioting are killing people in Iraq and Iran, the president taking his daughters for custard can still qualify as breaking news. If they spilled any, CNN would probably cut in with a bulletin.

• Posted at 3:26 PM · LINK

Still Guilty

Here's another article on that Supreme Court decision that says convicted criminals do not have a constitutional right to DNA testing after their conviction. It still sounds screwy to me. I can understand that the High Court might decide this is a matter for the states to decide...but should an innocent person be sitting in prison because he's in a state that hasn't gotten around to upgrading its laws to deal with the new technology of DNA testing? Seems to me human rights and decency oughta trump that little obstacle.

Of course, I come to this situation with a long-held (and ever-growing) belief that our court system ain't as good as we'd like to believe and that innocent folks are convicted all the time. I felt that way even before DNA testing began exonerating convicts left and right. I also feel that most (not all) authorities go out of their way not to let convicted folks prove their innocence. It's too embarrassing, plus you can get sued. Better to leave the wrongly-convicted behind bars, even though that means that the real criminal gets away with it.

That really is The Perfect Crime, after all. Not only do they never pin it on you but they convict someone else...so they stop investigating and try real hard not to let him prove he didn't do it. Next time I kill someone, that's how I'm aiming to set things up.

I understand that in the case the S.C.O.T.U.S. decided, the guilty party had previously waived DNA testing, and that he'd also made confessions he has since recanted. He may well be as guilty as a body could be and is just grasping at the flimsiest of straws, looking for a way out of the slammer. But DNA testing doesn't take long and isn't expensive (the convict has even offered to pay the costs) and it has a way of settling things, once and for all. It would have taken a lot less of the government's time and money to test the DNA, rather than let this thing linger on through appeals. Moreover, doesn't the state have a compelling interest in proving they got the right guy? Even if it turns out he's guilty?

• Posted at 12:57 PM · LINK

Air Fair

Bob Elisberg sent me to this article about how airlines are all inventing new fees (for things like checking our baggage or giving you an exit-row seat) in order to generate more revenue. Welcome to another reason to curse the airlines. Among the many annoying things about this is that when you go online to compare fares and books your tickets, you can't get an accurate fix on what a flight will really cost. If one airline is cheaper but is charging for checked luggage and for seat belts and air, it might not really be cheaper.

You know, I knock Southwest a lot, mostly because they have this quaint idea that my suitcase needn't arrive at the same airport and time as me. But they're doing better than most carriers these days because they don't make you feel gouged at every turn. The price you pay is the price you pay. They also do a better job than most of going where I want to go at the time I want to go. Maybe I oughta start seeing if I can do carry-ons.

• Posted at 10:31 AM · LINK

Today's Video Link

You know, you forget how many wonderful movies had scenes that involve balloons. Here's a brief retrospective. (Credit to Jerry Agostell for letting me know about this fine compilation.)

• Posted at 10:07 AM · LINK

Typecast

The Writers Guild of America, East is doing something intriguing. On Monday, June 22, they're presenting an evening of readings. What are people reading? Excerpts from new, as-yet-unfilmed screenplays.

One of them is a script called Dick Cavett Ruined My Life, which was authored by Craig Shemin. Craig described it as "...a comedy about a regular guy and how he continuously has his life wrecked (albeit inadvertently) by talk show host Dick Cavett." These readings are all cast with professional actors and they had to find someone appropriate to play the role of Dick Cavett. They got — you guessed it — Dick Cavett.

Here are the details. If I were closer to New York, I'd probably go.

• Posted at 10:05 AM · LINK

Sergio Gets Hung

That's a pretty old photo of my best friend (male division), Sergio Aragonés. I took it at the third (I think) Comic-Con, which was in 1972 — the first of many at the El Cortez Hotel. They didn't call it Comic-Con International back then. It went through a couple of names to which no one ever paid any attention. We all just called it the San Diego Comic-Con. I think the '72 one was formally called San Diego's West Coast Comic Convention.

But this item isn't about the convention. It's about Sergio. Sergio now lives in Ojai, California where he seems to know everyone. In a long overdue move, the Ojai Valley Museum will host a big exhibit of his artwork August 7 through October 4. He will also be hosting a couple of seminars there during the weeks of the exhibition. Details can be obtained at this here website. I'd make some snide, derogatory remark but this is actually a great honor for a great talent and even I can't find anything negative to say about it. Congrats, amigo.

• Posted at 12:52 AM · LINK

Drug Music

If you grew up in Southern California in the sixties, you're going to thank me for this. Because since then, you've had a song running through your head...over and over, haunting you, pounding on you from within. It got into your brain during that decade because you innocently turned on a radio one day and heard it. And heard it. And heard it. And heard it some more. You couldn't go four minutes without hearing it because it was on every channel, mocking you and refusing to be denied.

Even when you didn't have your radio on, you often heard it because someone else had a radio on and it was always on their radio. At some point, there probably didn't even have to be a radio within earshot for you to hear it. It was a part of you. If a doctor had put a stethoscope on your chest, he would have heard it.

I am speaking, of course, of the Sav-On Drug Store jingle.

They may have had it in other cities, too...but they sure had it in Southern California. There were times when even though I didn't need anything at a Sav-On Drug Store, I went to a Sav-On Drug Store. Just because I had to. Other people had dogs barking in their heads. I had the Sav-On Drug Store jingle.

As jingles go, it wasn't one of the better ones. Whoever wrote it thought "parade" rhymes with "save." It didn't then, it doesn't now, it never will. The pounding kettle drum sound was addictive, though. Another local jingle writer named Stan Worth admitted to being inspired by it when he wrote the theme for the George of the Jungle TV show.

I don't know when they stopped using it on the radio...some time in the seventies, I guess. I just know I continued to hear it somewhere in my soul for years after...until finally, one melancholy morning, it just went away. I was amazed to discover that I missed it.

Just the other day, after all these years, I heard it out of my computer speakers. Someone sent me an old air check of a KFWB broadcast from 1962 and there it was in all its primal glory. I think this was the only version Sav-On ever recorded of it. I just had to edit a clip and put it up here for all of you, just so you could experience that memorable melody one more time.

Sav-On drug stores are still around but slowly going away. The two I used to go to are both now CVS Pharmacies and I suppose they're just as good if you need a bottle of Maalox or a bag of Baked Ruffles (the good kind, the kind with cheddar cheese and sour cream flavoring) or a pack of 9 volt batteries. But they don't have a jingle this good — and they never will...

• Posted at 12:11 AM · LINK