First off, I just edited the previous post to remove the "f" word. I had a couple of complaints, one of which made a lot of sense to me. It's too long to post here but essentially, the guy said, "I encourage my kids to read your site because I like the way you express yourself. I don't want them to read sites which employ foul language and I don't like taking your site away from them because you curse once every four years. So either curse more often or not at all." I think it's wrong to pretend you can shield kids from such words and also wrong to make a big deal out of them. But I also think it's a parent's right to make that decision and the guy is right. I did kind of spring it as a surprise, so I took it out.

Secondly: My e-mail goes through a complex routing of various Internet Service Providers, some of which have been filtering to try and cut down on the percentage of messages that contain the "MyDoom" virus. At the same time, I deleted a few hundred infected messages on my end and I seem to have also nuked a few real ones in the process. So if I don't respond to an e-mail you sent recently, it may be because I didn't receive it. If it's important, please send it again. Thenk yew.

Political websites are currently erupting with the charge that John Kerry has had Botox injections in his face, especially his forehead. May I be among the first to ask, "Who cares?"

I've decided. I'm going to cast my presidential vote for whichever candidate runs on what they're actually going to do for the next four years, as opposed to trying to convince us that "there's something wrong" with the other guy. There actually may be something wrong with the other guy, at least in the sense that there's probably something wrong with anyone who wants to be President. But if Kerry's the nominee, I don't want to listen to months of hearing about his hair and his long face and how he almost looks French. Just as I don't want to hear that Bush's ability to scramble sentence structures proves that he's stupid. No, it doesn't prove that. Nor does it tell us a lot about a man that he was born into privilege or that he keeps marrying into it. To me, when they're bringing that kind of stuff up, it's because they don't have anything intellectually honest to say about the stuff that matters. (This also applies to trying to make the election about trivial issues like school uniforms, burning the American flag, steroid use by athletes and maybe even going to Mars. The space effort itself is not trivial but it is when it's not going to receive sufficient funding to actually do something.)

This personal crap is not new to politics. In the first presidential race I was old enough to follow, some were trying to make an issue of Kennedy's religion while others were telling us Nixon was too shifty-eyed to trust. Then Johnson was a wimp, whereas Goldwater was so pathological about Communism that he was going to get us into a nuclear war…and so on. It's a sad commentary on the American electorate that right this minute, there are strategists sitting around, trying to figure out how to market the notion that an opponent has serious psychological problems and/or that how he dresses, what he eats or other details of his life prove "he's not one of us." I don't think anyone who has ever gotten seriously near the presidency is "one of us." If you think they are, you're probably one of those people who thought John Wayne was a war hero, O.J. Simpson was a great role model, or that when Rock Hudson wasn't making movies, he was out banging hot chicks.

Someone suggested I tell the story about Jack Paar walking accidentally onto a live broadcast of a game show hosted by Merv Griffin. I already did: It's here. (Griffin told it the other night on Larry King Live. Not as well, I might add.) So instead, I'll tell the story about the time Paar replaced Walter Cronkite as the host of the CBS Morning Show. It was a killer assignment: A two-hour live broadcast each day, but because of time zone differences, they had to do three hours, repeating in the third hour some of the things done in the first. Some parts of the country would get the first two hours and some would get the last two, and Paar sometimes went crazy trying to remember not to refer to things said earlier in the show because for some viewers, those things hadn't been said yet. Anyway, Cronkite had failed and Paar, the all-purpose utility infielder TV host, was brought in. There was strong sentiment at the network to dump him and reinstate Cronkite so they kept a running tally of the mail…how many letters wanted Walter back, how many letters preferred Jack. Because his career was on the line, Paar would go by the mailroom every day and check the current tally. One day he walked in and they told him, "We're not sure how to score this letter." It was a handwritten note that said, "I'm sorry Walter Cronkite is no longer on the show because I always enjoyed him." And it was signed by Jack Paar's mother.

Here's an editorial in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution about the pending ban on gay marriage in Georgia. I agree with the view expressed and was especially intrigued by this part…

Ten, 20, 30 years from now, we're going to have to go back into the Georgia Constitution to pull this hateful language out. And some of the very politicians who today will vote in favor of that language will no doubt be there when it is repealed, sheepishly trying to explain how it wasn't really about hate and discrimination, how back then they were just worried about protecting marriage and the family.

That's playing the race card without playing the race card, if you know what I mean. There are a lot of politicians all over (and certainly in Atlanta) who once voted for segregation but now turn backflips to try and explain how such-and-such a vote wasn't really a racist act. The analogy between race and sexual preference only goes so far but I think it works here. We will someday regard "defense of marriage" as the same kind of hateful codewords as "separate but equal."

Dick Cavett, who worked for Jack Paar, writes about his one-time employer.

Over at Animation Blast (where there are great news items about the cartoon field but alas, no permalinks so scroll down a little) Amid Amidi notes that the makers of the recent Spider-Man cartoon show have picked up an amazing endorsement of their show which they are promoting in the hopes of getting an Annie Award. The endorsement is from one of the guys who created the character and who is still on the payroll of the company that produced it.

As I mentioned earlier, a benefit book is being prepared to help Dave Cockrum, a wonderfully-gifted comic book artist who is presently in dreadful health. You can order this book here but Dave's friends know it will not be nearly enough. Some of them are mounting a campaign to get Marvel Comics, which has made millions off Dave's character designs, to kick in with a tiny share of those millions. Here's Clifford Meth, who's publishing the benefit book and leading the charge, telling about Dave's background and his current plight. We're going to hear a lot more about this.

Over on Slate, Timothy Noah has a short but good article on one of Jack Paar's more dubious achievements: He helped finish off the career of the gossip-monger (and occasional tyrant-in-print) Walter Winchell.

In the essay, Noah makes reference to an anti-Winchell book published by Lyle Stuart. Stuart later became a wealthy (but still controversial) publisher with an empire that was financed in part by his profits from a libel suit against Winchell. At the time he published the book Noah mentions, his other line of work was serving as Business Manager for Bill Gaines at EC Comics. One of the many reasons EC was targeted by law enforcement officials and distributors was that Winchell was using his considerable influence to get them to go after Stuart. New York Police even once raided the EC offices, apparently at the incitement of Winchell, and arrested Stuart for selling what they termed pornography but what we would term great horror comics. (The reason they arrested Stuart and not Gaines was that Stuart, being of stronger stuff than Gaines, deliberately took the heat…a very heroic gesture. The case was soon thrown out of court.)

Paar had other feuds but the one with Winchell seems to have been the only one that proved fatal to his opponent. As Noah points out, Winchell was already in decline but Paar's evisceration of the man was much-welcomed within the show business community. And it was as good a piece of evidence as any that television had outpowered the power of the press.

We link to most Michael Kinsley columns but we especially had to link to this Michael Kinsley column.

I just received an e-mail ad telling me that there will be a great Super Bowl party this Sunday at the Bar Celona in Chicago. I entered its address in Mapquest and found out it's 2,034.25 miles from my house, or 31 hours and 16 minutes if I drive straight through without stopping.

I doubt I'll be making the trip. If I am suddenly seized by the urge to watch my first football game ever, I figure there have to be a few closer places…maybe in Denver or even southwestern Illinois.

For some reason, this kind of Spam annoys me more than the ones for penis enlargement and giving my bank account details to strangers in Nigeria. And I'm wondering if someone just bought a list of e-mail addresses scattered all over the world and didn't care that 99% of the ads were going to people far from Chicago. The only thing I can recall signing up for that was based in Chicago was many years ago when as a treat for a friend, I ordered some hot dogs from Fluky's, a famous Chicago frankfurter emporium. But I gave them my delivery address so you'd think that if they'd sold their mailing list, someone would have taken the 40 seconds to filter out non-Illinois zip codes. (I also signed up for access to the Chicago Tribune site but with a different e-mail address.)

Oh, well. If anyone's going to spend Super Bowl Sunday at the Bar Celona, tell 'em not to hold a stool for me.

If you share my view of how the press is overdramatizing and misreporting every step of the primaries, read this article in the Boston Globe by Brian McGrory. Oh, heck. Read it even if you disagree. It's funny.

Do you know how Jack Paar broke into show business? It's kind of an interesting story. Before going into the service for World War II, he did some local radio but it was in the Army that he became a star. Because of his broadcasting experience, he wound up in Special Services, travelling from base to base, doing shows for other soldiers. There, he developed a series of monologues that were almost exclusively on one topic: Insulting officers. He would get up on stage and do to officers what Don Rickles did to a fat black lady in the front row. I don't know if privates make fun of officers in today's army but they sure didn't then. Paar would talk about how the officers should have rear-view mirrors on their helmets so they can see the real soldiers going into battle. He did jokes about how a whole platoon of privates could live for a week off the food they throw out in the officer's mess. Jokes like that. Soldiers loved it and officers tolerated it…up until the time a general arrived at a show accompanied by two comely WACs and Paar remarked, "The girls were going to do the Dance of the Virgins for us but they went to the Officers' Club and broke their contracts." A furious general had Paar arrested, tossed in the stockades and prepped for court-martial. Only when the general was convinced it would harm troop morale did he relent.

While all this was going on, the war correspondent for Esquire Magazine was hearing about this unknown comedian. G.I. after G.I. told the reporter they'd loved it when Bob Hope came to entertain but this Jack Paar guy was their hero. The reporter caught up with Paar and interviewed him for what Paar figured would be a brief mention, if that. Months later, when Paar was mustered out of the service, he was wondering what he'd do for a career. That's when he heard that the current issue of Esquire had a full-scale article on him calling him the most brilliant undiscovered comic talent in the world. Suddenly, the movie studios and radio networks were calling.

The other interesting thing about Paar's success is that it didn't all flow from that. The Esquire article got him a number of breaks but one by one, he either blew them or they just didn't pan out. By the time he was offered The Tonight Show, he was to the point where one more flop might end his career forever. Fortunately for us all, it didn't happen.

Here, for what little these things may be worth, is my take on the Democratic Primaries. A week or two ago, the story was the inevitability of Dean. Now, it's the Kerry comeback and coming up, we have primaries in Arizona (where Clark will probably do well), South Carolina (which Edwards will take in a walk) and Oklahoma (where both those guys will do well). Ergo, before we get near a winner, we'll probably sit through a cycle of stories about Clark breaking through, and one comparing Edwards' performance to when Clinton came from behind in the primaries to seize the nomination. I dunno which of those four guys will triumph but I think they'll each have their turn in the spotlight. Dean will probably have at least one more turn and I'll bet that if and when it looks to be dissolving, he'll give the most tempered, non-screaming speech of his life.

I see a lot of weblogs and pundits moaning that Lieberman, Kucinich and Sharpton should have dropped out by now. The first two will probably do so before long but I have to assume that the Reverend Al is not at all surprised by where he stands and that it serves his purpose in running. He's much too smart a guy to ever have thought he had a chance to win. Going into a couple of past conventions, the oft-asked question was, "What does Jesse want?" meaning that the Reverend Jackson had just enough support that he had to be appeased with some sort of concession — a plank in the platform, a featured speech, a promised cabinet appointment, whatever. Soon, we'll be hearing, "What does Al want?" Based on his last few talk show appearances, I'd say he's already got it. Is there anyone else out there who can even suggest that they speak for Black America?

My mother loves to play Video Poker. Loves to play it in Vegas and loves even more to play it at home where she can play without fear of losing her son's inheritance. Years ago, I got her a little toy Video Poker machine. It was about a foot tall and ran on batteries and you didn't have to put coins in. You just pressed a button and it "dealt" the cards just like the machines in Vegas.

She played it for hundreds and hundreds of hours. She played it so much that she once got a Royal Flush on it. A Royal Flush is the rarest of all poker hands and the odds of getting one are one in 40,200, so you don't see them often. This thrilled her but presented a problem: She couldn't bring herself to push the button that would wipe the Royal Flush off the screen and deal the next hand, so she couldn't use her beloved Video Poker machine. I finally solved things by taking a Polaroid camera over, snapping some shots of the Royal Flush, then pushing the button for her.

This brings us to another of my infamous Public Appeals…

That machine was worn out and junked long ago. She would like a new one but I can't seem to find the perfect one. You can get computer software that will replicate a Vegas Video Poker machine but she doesn't have a computer. You can buy little handheld, battery-powered Video Poker games but the cards are too small for her to see. I can't find a toy to buy that doesn't require coins and has a large display. Anyone here know where I can get such a thing?

(Sarah…if you read this, please don't tell her about it. I want to surprise her.)

Here's a belated obit (on account of, I just found out) for Robert C. Bruce, who died August 24, 2003 at the age of 89. Mr. Bruce was a voice actor in many cartoons of the thirties, forties and fifties, most notably as the narrator of silly travelogues and newsreels. You know all those great Looney Tunes like Detouring America and Of Thee I Sting with a serious announcer who sounded like a real travelogue host? Well, that serious announcer was usually Robert C. Bruce. He was an announcer and actor on KFWB, a radio station then owned by Warner Brothers (note the "WB") and housed on the studio lot, not far from where they made Warner Brothers cartoons. He appeared on many shows for the station but the most famous was probably The Grouch Club, which also featured Arthur Q. Bryan, the voice of Elmer Fudd.

Bruce was heard on many radio shows and on what some call the earliest cartoon made for television. It was called NBC Comic Book and it consisted of several radio actors voicing what were very close to still drawings. Later, he had a company that produced TV shows that were not unlike real travelogues and newsreels. In the late sixties, he retired to a home in South Carolina.

Information on Mr. Bruce has generally been a bit elusive, in part because he has often been confused with his father, who had the same name. Robert C. Bruce Sr. was a cinematographer and still photographer whose work included some of the earliest silent travelogues, and he passed away in 1948. The Internet Movie Database has a page that confuses the two men to the extent of saying Robert C. Bruce died in '48 but kept on voicing cartoons until 1959.

That's about all I know about the man. But I sure know that voice and if you like great cartoons, so do you.