Andrew Sullivan thinks all this talk about contraception is causing the extreme right-wing to place themselves precisely where Barack Obama wants them. Maybe so. I do think that trying to restrict birth control is a political loser. It may not be in the Bill of Rights but for most people in this country, the right to control when they have sex, and whether it's for recreation or procreation, is as sacred as anything covered by the First Amendment and maybe even the Second.

But then I think this whole "war on religion" thing is a bogus, ginned-up controversy to try and drum up votes against Obama. He's apparently also trying to take everyone's guns away even though he hasn't actually done anything to make that happen.

Someone named Kemstone has written a piece about Barack Obama that is well worth your time.

It was sad when they turned the last outpost of Woody's Smorgasburger, down on Sepulveda just South of LAX, into an International House of Pancakes. Lo, how the mighty have fallen. In the sixties, there were Woody's all over California, including a wonderful one in Westwood Village, a block or three from U.C.L.A., where I could often be found between (and once in a while, even during) classes.

Woody's was the first chain I know of where you could get a hamburger and then carry it over to a little self-service counter stocked with ketchup, mustard, onions, pickles, salsa, barbecue sauce, etc., and do whatever you wanted to it. Today, there are chains aplenty that offer this but at the time, it was something rather special.

Woody's burgers were pretty darn good too, with a nice barbecue flavor…and every Woody's also had a "make your own sundae" bar: You could get an empty dish at the counter, fill it full of soft-serve vanilla ice cream, then slather it in a diverse selection of syrups and sprinkles and crushed nuts and such. My old comic club buddies and I would practically have a contest to see how much sundae we could get in one dish, building structurally-unsafe vertical arrays, then trying to walk them back to the table and devour the top stories before it all collapsed like a Jenga tower in an earthquake.

One of the guys once asked if he was allowed to put the toppings from the sundae bar on his burger or vice-versa. When they told him yes, he began speculating on what hot fudge or whipped cream would do to a hamburger, and whether the maraschino cherries would blend with the mustard or if he should leave the mustard off. Each visit to Woody's, he'd say, "Next time, I'm going to try it," but he never worked up the courage. Or wanted to spoil a good smorgasburger.

As I understand it, authorities still have not determined the cause of death for Whitney Houston. One of the many sad things about all this is that so many people assume they already know. If the chatter on the web is any indication, all of America heard she was found dead and a nation shrugged and said, "Overdose."

I remember when it was announced that John Belushi had died. No cause was mentioned but everyone just nodded and thought, "Overdose." I believe some radio stations even received the wire report that said "John Belushi found dead" and went on the air and said, "John Belushi has been found dead of an apparent drug overdose." And if newsmen didn't insert the "o" word, a lot of listeners heard it anyway. A few hours later when the Associated Press or UPI had heard it from police and so reported it as news, everyone thought, "That's not news. They told us that when they first said he was dead." But most sources hadn't.

I always thought that mass deduction really said something about drug usage. It may well turn out something else killed Ms. Houston. That won't change the response much. People will just assume that whatever caused her death was caused by drugs.

This is not a warning that people shouldn't use drugs or a brag that the strongest one I ever put into my system is Omeprazole. I'm sure there are folks out there whose lives are made better and/or longer via pharmaceuticals, including even the kind that don't pass through any pharmacy. I just think users oughta keep the celebrity excesses in mind. And I guess I am a little proud that when word gets around that I've died, my friends are at least going to have to ask how it happened.