I'm swamped with things in dire need of handling so I'm going to take a day or two off from blogging. Please forgive me for that...and if you've sent me an e-mail lately, please forgive me for probably not answering it yet. All will normalize soon.
Here from some time in the fifties is a Disney commercial for Jell-O spinning off Walt's animated feature of Alice in Wonderland.
It features two characters from the original book — the Gryphon and the Mock Turtle. There seems to be some argument among Disney scholars if they were designed for the movie and didn't make it in or if they were only designed for this commercial. Kathryn Beaumont, who voiced Alice in the feature, did her voice here and Sterling Holloway, who spoke for the Cheshire Cat, is the narrator. The voices of the Gryphon and the Mock Turtle are not easily identifiable, though I suspect the latter may be Bill Thompson. But your guess is probably as good as mine...
A consensus seems to be emerging in my state that the recall of Governor Gray Davis in 2003 was a mistake. A lot of folks are writing articles like this one by George Skelton, a prominent California commentator. I have seen no pushback anywhere. No one is writing, "Thank God we got rid of Davis" pieces. And it seems to be true what Skelton writes; that the entire recall movement was not because Californians were eager to rid themselves of Mr. Davis. It was more or less ginned up by Congressman Darrell Issa, who wrongly thought it would put him into the governor's chair. Issa now seems poised to try and stampede some sort of impeachment move against Barack Obama.
In his defense, Arnold Schwarzenegger is reduced to insisting that serving as governor cost him $200 million in lost earnings. That's probably true though I don't see why anyone should feel sorry for him. So let's do some math here...
Issa spent a reported $1.7 million to collect the signatures necessary to trigger the recall. The recall and special election cost the state an estimated $75 million and then there was around $20 million spent in state transition costs to go from Governor Davis to Governor Schwarzenegger. Add in Arnold's $200 million and what various candidates (including Arnold) spent to campaign for the seat and you easily have over $300 million bucks spent or foregone to make a switch that in hindsight, few think did any good. With financial wizardry like that, is it any wonder this state is in debt to the tune of...what is it this week? $250 billion?
I don't think, by the way, that's all (or even mostly) Arnold's fault. I think this state's governance has serious structural problems. There's this theory out there that if you limit a government's ability to raise taxes, you will "starve the beast" and spending will fall into line. That has not happened here. There is no connection between what the people demand in services and what they're willing to pay to get them. This is not a Democratic problem and it is not a Republican problem. It's a problem that people want to spend no more than ten cents in taxes but receive a dollar's worth of government. I think (hope) Jerry Brown will do better than any of his recent predecessors...but even if he does a lot better, the crisis will persist to some degree. I still think we oughta consider burning the whole state down for the insurance money.
Have you ever wondered how Google Maps takes all those street view photos? Here's a picture someone took of a vehicle that was driving around my neighborhood taking such pictures recently.
I recognize the location. Here's the current Google Maps photo of the Walgreen's you see in the photo. As you can see from the different signs on the store, the new photo has not yet displaced what was there. But some day soon, it probably will.
January 15, 2011
