If, like me, you're fascinated with the birth of the new baby panda at the San Diego Zoo, here's where you want to be. This weblog is updated by the zoo staff to report on what's going on around the facility and there are many postings about the little black-eyed new arrival. The zoo has many webcams around to satiate your voyeuristic tendencies and on this page, you can usually see a panda taking a nap or eating. Most often — since this her den is where the news is — it's Bai Yun, mother of the new kid. Supposedly, one can catch occasional glimpses of the baby. My mother had the same kind of set-up when I was born but since there was no Internet in 1952, no one watched.

We've been following (with great sadness) the story of one-time SCTV and Saturday Night Live cast member Tony Rosato. Here's the latest with our thanks to William Sinkins for letting us know.

Happy day of birth to America's greatest satirist, Stan Freberg, who is mumble-mumble years old today. In addition to creating brilliantly funny records and radio shows, Stan is an actor, an author, a cartoon voice specialist, an advertising genius and a personal hero. He is seen above with his lovely wife Hunter, who has been taking care of this wonderful force of nature for several years now and has done a superb job of, as the hillbillies say, youthening her man.

I've said many things elsewhere on this site about what Stan and his work have meant to me. And it isn't just me. Every time I've been with him, at least one person approaches the guy and gushes. One time, we were dining in Matteo's and the waiter brought over a note written on a napkin. Another diner in the restaurant had written, approximately, "Mr. Freberg…you don't know me but your work has meant so much to me over the years.  It's an honor to pay you back in even a tiny way by paying for your dinner tonight."

Stan gets this kind of reaction wherever he goes and with good reason.

Another time, Stan and I were standing in a parking lot at a recording studio where I had just — ahem! — "directed" him in something. (How To Direct Freberg: Hire Freberg, hand him the script, let him do whatever he wants.) A shiny sportscar was racing through the back alley doing about 80 MPH. It passed us and twenty yards down, it braked to an abrupt stop, then backed up, also doing around eighty. When it got back near us, the guy in the car yelled out, "You Stan Freberg?"

"I am," said Stan Freberg.

"You're a frriggin' genius," the driver yelled. Then he zoomed off doing about ninety to make up for lost time and I thought, "Well put."

Enjoy your day, Stan. And all others that follow.

Sez here that the New York Times is giving up on TimeSelect, their subscription section that charged people fifty bucks a year to read Maureen Dowd and a few other op-ed columnists. Also sez they had less than a quarter-million subscribers, which doesn't sound like a lot for a paper of that scope and importance. I'm wondering how many of those subscribers were libraries or companies that just ritually pay for a lot of online info services without paying a lot of attention to what they're getting for their moola.

In the case of TimeSelect, one of the things that obviously did them in was how much of their content was freely bootlegged and posted on free sites. I just did a quick search and without a lot of trouble, found Frank Rich's most recent column on twenty sites. A lot of the material behind the subscription firewall is also simply not worth paying for. I mean, it's not like there's a shortage of free stuff to read on the Internet.

The 24th Congressional District covers a lot of Ventura County and Santa Barbara County in California. Since 1987, it's been represented in the House by a Republican named Elton Gallegly, who votes a pretty consistent G.O.P. line: Against stem cell research, against abortion rights, against gay rights, against Medical Marijuana, etc. On Iraq, he's been right there with the Bush Administration. This probably does not put him in accord with most of the voters he ostensibly represents, and some observers say his seat in Congress may be ripe for Democratic takeover.

Who's the Democrat who can take it over? Well, some of us are hoping it'll be Elliott Maggin. Some of you may know that name because you're comic book readers, and Elliott was a pretty prominent comic book writer back in the seventies and eighties, primarily on Superman and the many books featuring The Man of Steel. (He was credited then as "Elliott S! Maggin," with the exclamation point after the middle initial.) Elliott's a friend of mine and a darn smart guy. We've had some long and interesting discussions about government and society, and though we didn't always agree on everything, I've certainly respected his views, and I think he'd make a dandy Congressperson.

He ran once before…in the 1984 race for a seat in New Hampshire. He didn't win but that was then, this is now…and I'd like to think '08 will be his year. Here's a statement from Elliott to his "pop culture brethren," which I guess means "comic book readers." We'll be monitoring this race and though I don't live where I can vote for the guy, I'm going to do what I can to help out.

Fifty years ago today, the world lost Oliver Norvell Hardy, one half of the greatest comedy act of all time (imho) and maybe our greatest comic actor. Unless you've seen as many old comedy movies as I have, you may not realize how revolutionary and special he was. He was darn near the first film actor to be funny moving in human rhythms. Hardy's mannerisms and movements in silent film were overflowing with delight and personality. It was funny and fascinating just to watch him ring a doorbell or pick up a pen. Before him, a comic either played it deadpan like Keaton, frantic like Chaplin or had no visible style to his humor. It's impossible to imitate the gestures of Harold Lloyd or Snub Pollard or Ben Turpin…but everyone can "do" Hardy. He was a big reason the cameramen at his studio stopped undercranking the cameras and began filming at normal or near-normal speeds. Hardy's timing was so delicious that it needed no enhancement.

His partner, Mr. Laurel, matched his pace and they became a seamless whole. When talkies came in, the switch was effortless for the men. They both had stage backgrounds so they knew how to speak. More importantly, sound meant that motion pictures could no longer be undercranked and the change didn't affect Laurel and Hardy. Their comedy was already moving at real speed.

Let's watch a couple minutes of The Boys. This is the scene from The Flying Deuces where Hardy, jilted in a love affair, decides to do away with himself and further decides that his partner has to join him. The clip ends a bit abruptly but it's Laurel and Hardy so it's good.

As noted in this article, the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States says that no person shall be deprived of property without due process of law. Despite this, Bush has signed an executive order that directs the Treasury Department to seize any and all assets of individuals who are deemed to pose a threat to the United States.

I don't know which is more annoying: Democrats who look the other way when this kind of thing is done…or Republicans who say it's necessary when you know darn well they'd be starting impeachment proceedings against any president named Clinton who suggested such a thing.

Oh, well. At least Abe seems to be okay.

It's been a while since I've checked to see if Abe Vigoda is still alive. Let's all go check together, shall we?

This runs eight minutes but they'll be eight minutes of your life well spent. In the mid-sixties, Jim Henson and his Muppet crew did a series of highly entertaining commercials for LaChoy Canned Chow Mein. How entertaining were they? A lot of people mistook them for Stan Freberg commercials. That's how entertaining. But they weren't by Stan (whose birthday, by the way, is tomorrow). Henson did them and even performed the role of his new character, the LaChoy Dragon.

And what we have here is a sales film for that ad campaign — something they showed retailers and wholesalers, I guess, to tell them about the upcoming commercials. At the end, there are some of those funny spots but the stuff that leads up to it is pretty good, too…

Okay, here's the quote…

We're about to enter the seventh year of this phony war…and we're losing. None of you should believe we are winning this war. There is no evidence that we are winning this war.

Obviously, I wouldn't be quoting it and asking you to guess if it came from some Liberal Democrat since so many of them are saying it. Obviously, it has to be some Republican stalwart turning on the dominant mindset of his party. But which Republican stalwart?

I may be wrong — I hope I'm wrong — but we may have seen the last of the Love's Barbecue Restaurant chain. Once a mighty network of places to get decent ribs and great beans, the empire has slowly eroded over the years. Most of them closed. A few turned into non-Love's restaurants featuring essentially the same cuisine. That's what happened out in Brea, California. The Love's there is now a place called Riley's that is similar but it's not a Love's.

Until recently, the Love's website listed three remaining outlets — one in Lakewood, one in Chula Vista and one in — of all places — Jakarta, Indonesia. This has now changed. The one in Lakewood appears to have gone out of business. At least, there's no answer when I phone its number and it's no longer on the Love's site. The one in Chula Vista is off the site as well but is still operating, a la Riley's, as The Great Rib Restaurant, which was an occasional subtitle of some Love's advertising. The site now only lists the one in Jakarta, where I'm not likely to be visiting any time soon.

So is that it for one of my favorite chains and the place that served the best barbecue beans I've ever had? I hope not. I'm going to do a little legwork and see what I can find out but I'm not hopeful.

About those beans…

If you do a search, you can find two different recipes posted online that will allegedly yield Love's famous beans and while I haven't tried whipping up either, I can't believe they're legit. One is often attributed to the L.A. Times as a source and either is sometimes identified by someone saying, "I used to work at a Love's and here's the recipe we used." But neither one, for example, involves any use of either Love's barbecue sauce or the listed ingredients for that sauce…and I'm pretty sure the beans incorporated either the sauce or something similar. Also, of course, the fact that there are two different recipes is a tip-off that at least one is bogus and makes you suspicious about the other.

A few years ago, the Love's site announced that they'd soon be selling their beans online but they never did. One can still supposedly buy their sauce that way but I wonder if it's even being bottled any longer. I have two or three bottles remaining from the last case I ordered and when they're used up, I suppose I'll find out.

It's no longer on this site because I included it in one of my books but I once wrote a piece about how much I liked Love's. The article drew a lot of responses from folks who agreed and who longed for the beans…and I think I'll stop thinking about this now. If I keep on the topic, I'll be forced to hop in the car and drive to Brea or Chula Vista for some of the beans at the non-Love's outlets there. They may not be precisely the real thing but they're probably close and in this life, you take what you can get.

Gabe Kaplan, for whom I once wrote, hasn't really been away. He's been touring with his stand-up act and in plays. He's been hosting sports shows and playing in poker tournaments where one can win six figures…and he occasionally has. He's been pursuing a wide array of professions of things and now he's writing again, which is nice to see. I've encountered lots of comedians who were unethical, unkind and/or unclever. Gabe, at least when I knew him, was the exact opposite of those things. Thanks to Marina Stern for calling this piece to my attention.

Michael Ignatieff, a member of Canada's Parliament and deputy leader of the Liberal Party, was once a supporter of the Iraq War. Now, he writes about the necessity for admitting when one is wrong.

A nice little dance number with Dean Martin, Buddy Ebsen, Lee J. Cobb, Charles Nelson Reilly and Jackie Vernon. Dino was one of the very few performers ever on TV who could make a bit like this work.

I've been telling you here that the crows in my area are getting larger and larger…but are you worried? No. Well, maybe this will get you to start worrying about crows. Two dead ones in Southern California have been identified as carrying the West Nile Virus. Now, granted this is in West Covina, which is about thirty miles from me…but that's thirty miles as the crow flies.

Stop worrying about terrorists, people. Worry about the crows. They're going to kill us all. (Thanks to Corey Klemow for calling my attention to the news item and ruining my sleep for the next week or so.)