Should you feel inclined to donate to relief efforts for victims of Gustav — or any other recent tragedies — I would like to remind you about my charity of choice, Operation USA. I looked around at many organizations that ask for money and promise to good with it…and many do. Many, it should also be pointed out, spend way too much on their own bureaucracy and salaries so only a small part of each dollar you give actually helps out folks in need.

After a fair amount of research and asking folks who know this kind of thing, I decided that whatever money I can afford to donate could not be put to better use than it is when I give to Operation USA. They have a small staff (small, considering how much they accomplish) and they don't spend a lot on themselves or on frills. Give them a buck and something like 95 cents of it is spent feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, helping control disease, etc. Not only that but they do it all with a minimum of delay, often before any other organization can get its act together.

As for why you might not want to donate to the Red Cross, read this article by Richard Walden, who's one of the guys behind Operation USA. He's not shilling for the interests of his own charity. He's telling you the kind of bureaucratic hinderances that plague the big charities and prevent them from doing as much good as the small ones.

Folks often hail the Swamp Thing comic done in the seventies by Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson…and in so doing, they leave out a key credit. The evocative logo above and the lettering in most issues were the handiwork of one of comics' great unsung talent, a gentleman named Gaspar Saladino. If you read comics in the so-called "Silver Age" (especially those edited by Julius Schwartz) and for years after, you read word balloons lettered by Gaspar and you probably saw his sharp, commanding lettering on covers and in ads.

I'm not going to write a lot about him here because I want you to go check out two other places. "Robby Reed," the creator of the Dial B for Blog website, is offering up an extraordinary tribute to Mr. Saladino that will tell you a lot more than I can possibly relate here, plus its loaded with examples. It all starts here.

And then over the next few days, drop by the weblog of Todd Klein. Todd's the guy who wins the Eisner Award for Best Letterer so often that it has been suggested that they just hand him one every year when he arrives at the con, and then at the ceremony, they'll have a category called "Best Letterer Other Than Todd Klein." As Todd explained on a panel when I interviewed him at the last Comic-Con, Saladino is a special hero of his and he's also posting examples of the man's craft. That starts here.

Not much I can add to those two celebrations of the man, other than to say I think he's every bit as important an artist as anyone who drew on the pages he lettered. It's about time he got more recognition.

In a world where the top voiceover artist in the business passes away at age 68 from a collapsed lung…

If you want to keep up with Hurricane Gustav, click on over to the journal of Dr. Jeff Masters. He knows of what he blogs.

A lot of folks seem to have forgotten that the Screen Actors Guild is still operating without a new contract. If one scans the Hollywood trade papers, one doesn't even find much information about what's happening. This is mainly because nothing is happening. The two sides have not even met since July 16. The Producers basically said, way back on June 30, "We'll give you the same thing AFTRA got and not a penny more." SAG basically said, "That deal sucks and we won't take it." And that's where it's been ever since. I still can't envision a scenario where SAG wrings any sort of victory out of this situation. I'd like to see that happen but I just can't imagine how.

The next event that may trigger some kind of movement will occur September 19. That's when the results will be announced in the current election for SAG leadership. There are essentially two factions — a group called Membership First is attempting to stay in power. An "upstart" party that calls itself Unite for Strength is seeking to take over control. If you have an interest in the issues, check out their respective websites. If you have the interest and a couple of hours to spare, you can watch interviews with reps from both groups on this page.

There are also a number of unaffiliated candidates. I have friends on all sides of this and do not feel qualified to say who will be better for SAG or who'll prevail. Whoever it is, they're going to have to either mend a lot of fences with AFTRA or figure out a way to do a hostile takeover.

As one might expect, the election is getting nastier than it should and that's not the end of the disharmony. The current leadership of SAG Hollywood is currently exchanging angry words with the heads of the New York division. On 9/19, something will change…one hopes for the better. In the meantime, since it's in no shape to negotiate a new version of the soon-to-expire commercials contract (which is separate from the film/TV contract), SAG has extended the current one for six months.

In other news: Various factions within IATSE are making noise about their union's deal with HBO. It was lowballed long ago as a means of getting union representation established there. Now that HBO is healthy and thriving, a lot of folks feel it's time they stopped paying discount rates for their labor. That's sure starting to sound like a strike waiting to happen. It may even happen for many of the same reasons that the former head of IATSE was condemning other unions' strikes.

Lastly: There's also an election ongoing in the Writers Guild and that's led to a round of post-mortem discussions of our long and recent strike. The topic's being debated both by those seeking office and by industry reporters. I'm endorsing no candidates and am not even sure who I'm voting for…but I sure don't agree with anyone who claims we could have attained the same contract without a strike. It's easy to say that and hard to disprove but I don't think that's true. I don't even think it's true that the DGA and AFTRA could have achieved their contracts — even the lousy one AFTRA accepted — if not for our strike. It's a sad fact of business that every so often, someone tries to screw you and you have to say no. If you say yes, they just screw you more next time. If you don't believe that, just look at the offer AFTRA gets when their current contract expires.

Wolf Blitzer on CNN is currently interviewing politicians about Hurricane Gustav. Apparently, the most significant concern about the storm is how it might impact the presidential contest.

The people in the path of Gustav may wind up getting attention and help that they wouldn't get if this thing hit on November 5. Maybe we can figure out some way to make sure natural disasters only occur in election years.

Our nation's population has increased by one baby panda. And he or she (they don't know yet) may still turn out to be one of a pair of twins.

The annual Jerry Lewis Telethon is upon us and once more, I'm confused as to its length. This year, I seem to be able to pick it up on three different channels on my DirecTV feed. All times given below are Pacific, on account of that's where I am.

KCAL Channel 9 is running it from 6 PM Sunday night until 5 PM on Monday. That's 23 hours.

WGN, which is in Chicago I think, airs the show from 8 PM Sunday night until 1 PM on Monday when they stop for a Cubs-Astros game. They're then scheduled to come back at 4 PM for another hour. That's 18 hours of Jerry and his friends and his kids and his tote board.

WDCW in Washington, DC starts at 6 PM Sunday night and airs it 'til 3:30 PM the following day. That's 21 and a half hours.

The WDCW feed may be the most interesting because according to the official MDA site, the whole telethon is 21 and a half hours. This, of course, raises the question of why KCAL is running 23 hours of it. I believe the answer is that even the 21.5 hour version contains some hours that are repeated, and that KCAL is repeating more of them than most cities in the Love Network.

Co-hosts, taking over while Jerry is napping, will include Norm Crosby, Tom Bergeron, Jann Carl, Nancy O'Dell, Alison Sweeney, Ace Young and Billy Gilman. Tony Orlando is hosting the New York end of things and Ed McMahon, complete with broken neck and financial problems, is back to anchor and announce. The MDA site does not list any of the performers but I have a hunch that they'll include most of the acts currently playing Vegas plus Maureen McGovern. If you hear that Charlie Callas is making an appearance, drop me an e-mail.

Tune in. Donate whatever you can spare. And if you're thinking of stiffing them, just remember: Jerry's packing heat.

I've been watching CNN's coverage of Hurricane Gustav, which is currently at Category 4 strength and almost certain to do a lot of damage to someone somewhere.

It makes me wish there'd been more mention at the Democratic Convention of Katrina. There are still people out there who I suspect have filed that one away in the "Act of God" file, denying how much of that disaster was man-made. It's arguable how much of what went wrong was because the levees that were built in and around New Orleans were shoddy and inadequate, and how much was due to inept rescue and response. Clearly though, a lot of people didn't do their jobs and as a result, lives and homes were lost.

Gustav is looking real scary. I sure hope someone learned something from Katrina and was able to apply it.

The person named Pat Buchanan who appears on MSNBC (obviously no relation to the old Pat Buchanan) called it "The Greatest Convention Speech of All Time" or something equally effusive. Oddly enough, I felt a tiny letdown when I finally watched the Obama stemwinder. It probably achieved what it was supposed to achieve in terms of vote-wrangling but I guess I was waiting for a little more poetry…some line that people would be quoting for decades after. If there was one in there, I missed it. For me, the best line of the convention was still John Kerry's "Talk about being for it before you were against it."

Then again, I'm not the audience that matters. Obama already has my vote — a vote, I might add, which won't make much difference since there's very little chance of him not carrying California. To the extent I could imagine myself in the position of an Undecided Voter, I think it may have been fine. He seemed smart and patriotic and passionate and — most important to some people, apparently — a good family man. He also managed to make a pretty good case that four years of McCain equals Years 9-12 of Bush-Cheney — and I don't believe that even most people who say they're happy with Bush want more of him.

So I was satisfied but that was about it. And in politics these days, that's not bad. I mean, I'll settle for just not being totally disappointed.