James Langdell informs me that A. Whitney Brown has been writing blog-type columns for Bill O'Reilly's favorite website, Daily Kos. Here's a link to a page of Brown's commentaries there.

And speaking of folks who used to be on Saturday Night Live: A. Whitney Brown was a terrific stand-up comedian and a writer-performer during one of the better periods of that series. I've asked a few times on this weblog (like here) what had become of him. I still don't know much but he does have a couple of commentaries now up on the Internet. Here's one of them…

The legal problems of former Saturday Night Live and SCTV cast member Tony Rosato may be nearing their conclusion. Thanks to "ptshghnssy," who sent me the link.

Mario Cuomo surfaces from the undisclosed location where he's been hiding for so many years to remind us of something. It's that Congress has the power to declare war and the President of the U.S. does not.

A lot of people have built some amazing things with Lego blocks. But as you'll see if you scroll down his page a ways, Andrew Lipson has been building replicas of M.C. Escher works. This is not humanly possible.

I don't understand much of what you're about to see. Some years back, the beloved childrens' entertainer Raffi recorded a nonsense song called "Banana Phone." Someone who heard it got the idea that the record could be improved by being sped up…and they're right. It's very catchy that way. So people began speeding it up. Keith Olbermann often uses a sped version to lead into commercials and there are dozens of places one can find the song on the Internet and it's almost always sped up, sometimes too much. The following video doesn't have the greatest visuals but it seems to have the pace about right…

Jeffrey Rosen profiles law professor Jack Goldsmith…who not that long ago was advising the Bush Administration on what was legal and what was not. That all ended when he started telling them that some of the things they wanted to do were not legal. Goldsmith has solid Conservative credentials and I think his outrage at the current White House definition of Presidential Power is more in keeping with a true Conservative position.

Evgenia Peretz (that is not a typo, at least not by me) has a powerful article in Vanity Fair this month about the press mistreatment of Al Gore during the 2000 election. I thought for a time that Gore would soon jump into the '08 presidential sweepstakes but with the low profile he's been keeping lately, I'm inclined to think not. Given this article, he may just be waiting until Maureen Dowd and Katharine Seelye are dead.

The slang expressions and vocabulary from Operation Iraqi Freedom.

A few years ago, back when Cartoon Network used to run cartoons, they commissioned a batch of short animations under the category of "Cartoons That Never Made It." One was this great one-minute episode of Rupert the Grouper…and for several weeks, I went around with Rupert's theme song resounding in my head. Now, it's your turn…

Electricity just came back on here, a little over twenty-four hours after it went away, which is just about long enough to ruin the bulk of what's in the refrigerator. A weary crew of D.W.P. workers has been outside for about three hours. I kept taking bottles of water out to them and apologizing because the H2O wasn't chilled. "My power is out," I told them…as if they didn't know that better than anyone. One told me he there were so many outages around town that he was on a triple-shift — well into his third consecutive eight-hour stint. Tough way to make a living…especially working thirty feet above the asphalt in a little basket attached to a crane arm.

While waiting for power to be restored, I mused on how much of my life — not just professionally but personally — is entwined with computers and how I have trouble functioning when I don't have access to one. The battery on my laptop lasted only so long and after it went out, I was rather paralyzed. Never mind not being able to write all the scripts and assignments and e-mails I have to write. It was worse than that. A thought would come up and my first instinct would be to go Google the topic for further info and —

Whoops. Can't do that. Can't do a lot of things I need to do. Fortunately, I have my new Blackberry so I was able to do some of the more vital e-mail and to even post a little here, plus I have my whole phonebook on it. About an hour ago, I was sitting here in my office, talking to someone on my Bluetooth-enabled cellphone/PDA interfacing with my Bluetooth headset. I was the picture of high-tech splendor except, of course, that I was sitting in the dark without electricity.

Anyway, it's good to be whole again…though I think I'll keep a flashlight handy and wait a while before I start resetting clocks. Just in case.

Still ain't got any.

And we're still powerless here in the otherwise-luxurious newsfromme offices. But then you don't really need electricity when you have scripts due, vital e-mail to answer and it's only (only!) a huindred and two degrees. If only I could watch Jerry…

You can always count on it: Just when I have me a ton o' work to get done tonight, power is out all over Los Angeles, including at my house. Judging from the note of despair in the voice of the guy on the D.W.P. recorded announcement, it's gonna be a while before they figure out what caused it, let alone get the juice flowing again.

So what can I do with this time? I mean apart from lamenting that my TiVo is not recording Jerry.

Carolyn just suggested this might be a good time to do the laundry…since no one else is using power. I'm thinking about trying to figure out if I can use my new Blackberry to post to the Internet. This is how our ancestors used to blog in the days before electricity.

Charlton Comics was a low-low-budget firm that published comics from the mid-forties through the mid-eighties. They published a lot of ho-hum books produced on the cheap but there were occasional treasures…probably more than the company deserved, given how abominably they paid their talent. One fine (though brief) body of work emerged when a writer named Will Franz scripted (and occasionally co-drew) a combat series called "The Lonely War of Capt. Willy Schultz." An accomplished artist named Sam Glanzman was his collaborator and what they produced was several cuts above Charlton's usual war material, and probably as good as any such tales ever produced anywhere.

Mr. Franz didn't write many comics then. Truth to tell, I don't know much about him other than that he was responsible for a small number of gems. More recently, we're hearing that he is ill and in a bad way, financially. To help him out, Sam Glanzman is selling the original art for four of his collaborations with Franz. They're up on eBay — here's a link — and 100% of the proceeds will go to Willy Franz. As a sad indicator of how poorly guys like him were paid…if just one of these stories goes for the minimum bid, it will probably bring him more money than he grossed in his entire career writing comic books.

I expect the stories to go for way more than the minimums. First off, it's Sam Glanzman art. Sam has been a true professional in comics since 1939 and he has an awful lot of fans out there. Of all his many projects, none is loved more than the work he did in tandem with Willy Franz. In fact, I'd bet Sam has held onto these originals for some time, well aware of their value. Now, he's selflessly turning loose of them because someone is in trouble and that fact alone oughta prompt some of you to bid up the prices. Here's your chance to do a good turn AND (big "and" here) get yourself some fine and precious comic book art for your collection. Go for it.