Thursday, October 1, 2009

Post Marx

A letter from Groucho Marx to T.S. Eliot. Thanks to Seth Rosenblatt for the referral.

• Posted at 10:44 PM · LINK

Death Panel

As mentioned back here, there is plenty of evidence that Cameron Todd Willingham, who was executed in Texas in 2001 for (they said) starting a house fire that killed his three children, was innocent. As I said then and have said elsewhere here, it's tough to prove conclusively that a wrongful execution occurs. Once the state kills a guy, they do everything they can to make sure no one can prove the guy was innocent.

Now, Governor Rick Perry — on whose watch Willingham was terminated — seems to be doing everything he can to make sure no one proves the guy was innocent. Barry Scheck, co-director of the New York-based Innocence Project and man I'd really respect if he hadn't worked for O.J., compared the move to Nixon's infamous Saturday Night Massacre. One hopes Perry's move will be just as effective as Nixon's was.

• Posted at 12:18 PM · LINK

Today's Video Link

Folks keep telling me that Glee is a great TV show...and it may well be. But so far, the entire run of episodes is sitting unwatched on my TiVo, pending sufficient time to start viewing them. Here's a little segment on an appearance by Kristin Chenoweth. The blond and bearded gent playing the piano for her is Brad Ellis, who works on the show both behind the scenes and on-camera. About half the time when I write song lyrics for cartoons or club acts, Brad's the guy who writes the music. If he ever hits a period in his life when everyone in the world isn't hiring him to arrange or play music, Brad and I are going to write that musical we keep talking about. In the meantime, you may be amused to hear Ms. Chenoweth be compared to Jesus Christ. I think Jesus was a little taller and not quite as adept at show tunes.

• Posted at 12:03 AM · LINK