A baby otter with his or her mommy…

Like a lot of you, I'm pretty irked by all the Republican-controlled state legislatures that are now trying to rewrite voting rules to make it more difficult for non-Republican votes to be cast. The one in Georgia is pretty bad. I actually took the time to read it and it does indeed say what Kevin Drum summarizes here.

And like a lot of you, I am unsurprised that Donald Trump's fund-raising, supposedly to "stop the steal," resulted in lots of that money going into various Trump and Trump-related bank accounts. Also unsurprising is that a vast number of donors thought they were signing up for modest, one-time donations and later found their credit cards charged repeatedly for higher amounts. Read all about it here.

The theme song from The Flintstones — the second one — big band style…

Before he was a TV host, Jerry Springer was a member of the Cincinnati City Council…that is, until a sex scandal forced him to resign. Police raided a "massage parlor" (actually, a brothel) and found, pinned to a wall, a check that a customer had once written to pay for services. The check had bounced so, as some businesses do, they'd posted it for all to see…and the check was from Mr. Jerry Springer.

Mr. Springer was roundly condemned and ridiculed, partly for patronizing a sex business but also for being dumb enough to pay with a check. I was reminded of that as I read today's latest chapter in the ongoing investigation of Florida representative Matt Gaetz…

Reporters…retrieved receipts of payments that Gaetz and Greenberg made via Cash App and Apple Cash to one of the women involved. This particular detail raised eyebrows on social media, mostly because it seems foolhardy for a high-profile politician to commit a crime using something as traceable as these two extremely popular payment apps.

Springer actually managed to overcome his scandal and resignation. His confessions were so humble and candid that he later got re-elected to the City Council and actually served as Mayor of Cincinnati for a while. Mr. Gaetz does not strike me as the kind of guy who could pull off a self-effacing, contrite mea culpa. But we'll see if he even has to.

It's been over a month since I had my second hit of Moderna so I'm about as immune as I'm going to get. So is everyone who comes into my home and while we don't wear masks on the premises, we do whenever we venture outside. There are folks who would say we don't need to but we all feel like we need to. If we're wrong, then at least we're erring on the side of caution…and not making others feel as uncomfy as we all do to be around unmasked strangers.

When the history of The Great Pandemic of 2020 and Beyond is written, I believe it will show that the disease was prolonged by cities "opening up" too soon, people not wearing masks and too many "super-spreader" events held by people who thought it was over — or some sort of hoax — when it wasn't. It certainly isn't being prolonged by too much mask-wearing.

Here's an article about The Shaming of Those Who Break COVID Restrictions. I haven't done a lot of scolding because of my "a-holes will be a-holes" philosophy. It generally seems saner to try avoiding those people instead of engaging them and thinking you can change a mind set in Lucite.

The ones I've encountered up-close and personal all seem to think that "the government (or popular opinion) keeps telling me to do it" is reason enough to not do something. I've tried to point out to a few that the government (or popular opinion) also tells you not to consume a lot of alcohol and then drive a car but they don't get it. I don't think I've ever met anyone who said "If I'm wrong, I'm only hurting myself" who only hurt themselves.

These past 387 days haven't been bad for me, largely owing to the fact that I'm in a profession where I work at home. And I want to thank whoever arranged it that we didn't have this lockdown before someone had invented The Internet, ZOOM, FaceTime, e-mail, file transfer services like Dropbox, Home Video and Streaming, Grubhub, DoorDash, Uber Eats, etc. When people talk about plagues of the past, they're talking about a world that didn't have any of those things.

Still, I feel for those who've lost lives and loved ones, jobs and careers, income they'll have a hard time replacing, precious time with others and all the other catastrophes, large and small. And I worry for one friend in particular who doesn't think he needs to get vaccinated.

Last August or so, he felt like crap for a couple of days, then recovered. No doctor or test told him he'd had Coronavirus but he decided he had…so he now insists his body has all the antibodies it needs to keep the beast at bay. As if COVID-19 is the only thing that could possibly make you feel bad for a few days. As you well know, before it came along, none of us ever felt bad for a few days…

For Easter Weekend, the company of Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber has, like they did last year because of The Pandemic, put a full video of Jesus Christ Superstar online. This is a concert production staged in the U.K. in 2012 which stars Tim Minchin, Ben Forster, Spice Girl Melanie Chisholm and Chris Moyles and it'll be available for viewing for about the next 46 hours.

I'm not a huge fan of this show but last year when they put it up, a friend who loves it wrote to tell me this was the best-possible video version of it; that it was one of the few shows that is more effective in concert/rock opera style…and I can see why that might be. Anyway, if you want to watch it, there it is until Sunday evening…

Here we have three minutes from "All American Co-Ed," a 1941 college comedy and I call your attention to the young actor doing the impression of Gary Cooper and, later, Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy. That's Kent Rogers and if you've watched a lot of old cartoons, you've heard his voice, especially in old Warner Brothers cartoons like Hollywood Steps Out that featured a lot of celebrity imitations.

He was the first voice of Henery Hawk, Junior Bear and Beaky Buzzard, among many other roles. He was also one of the many actors who spoke for Woody Woodpecker for a time. And the other day here, I mentioned the little pig in Tex Avery's cartoon, One Ham's Family. If I remember correctly, Rogers did the Red Skelton impression as the pig.

He was very good and what could have been a great career — both on-camera and off — was cut short in 1943 when he went into the Navy and was killed in a plane crash during training exercises. Thereafter, Mel Blanc spoke for Henery, Stan Freberg took over as Junyer Bear and they took turns playing Beaky. Thanks to whoever found this clip and uploaded it to YouTube…

• Every day, Matt Gaetz does something to undermine his own defense. If he really wants to go to prison, wouldn't it be faster to just hire Rudy Giuliani?

We're all well aware — maybe too aware — of the divides in this country over race and gender and whether you love or loathe Donald Trump. Another one that I'm surprised we don't hear more about is covered in this article by Eric Levitz. The divide is between people who attend church and people who do not attend church…and according to Levitz, the latter are now the majority.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that if you've been vaccinated, you not only probably can't get COVID-19 but you probably can't spread it. I wish they'd say those "probablies" louder because we don't need more people thinking The Pandemic is over and no more precautions need to be taken. New cases are still turning up and people are still dying.

I have no idea if Rep. Matt Gaetz is guilty of sex trafficking or anything else he's being accused of…but I do know that if the same allegations were made about a Democratic Congressman, Gaetz would be on every channel saying they're true, demanding the Democrat resign immediately and chanting "Lock him up! Lock him up!"

David Marron ASKS me…

I've been watching Toon In With ME on MeTV in the mornings, and I've noticed that M.G.M. had about three "cartoon stars": Tom & Jerry, Droopy, and Barney Bear. How come they didn't create as many characters for their "stable" as Warner Bros.?

Well, they did try…a little. Tex Avery made several cartoons that introduced characters who would have been in more cartoons if their first appearances had aroused more interest. "One Ham's Family" (pictured below) was one of them. The little pig who talked like Red Skelton's "mean widdle kid" character was one of 'em.

Tex made five cartoons with Screwy Squirrel (aka Screwball Squirrel) before they got feedback that audiences found him more annoying than adorable. And he did a few with variations on George and Junior, who also didn't become stars.

But it didn't matter as much then as it might today in an animation industry when licensing drives so many decisions about what shows are produced and films are made. Back in the forties, the primary goal was to keep theater owners happy…and theater owners were generally happy with films that audiences liked, recurring characters or not.

Even over at Warners', "One Froggy Evening" went over big and no one (then) thought to give the frog a name, bring him back again and again, and slap his froggy face on t-shirts and toys. The cartoon had served its purpose because theaters kept booking Warner Brothers cartoons…until a few years later when they didn't.

I like these videos where you see the whole orchestra on your screen, even in tiny boxes, playing a lusty piece of theatrical music. Here's the overture for 42nd Street, which was the first Broadway show I ever saw in the geographic area they call "Broadway"…

• So far this evening in Los Angeles, we've had a huge fire in Compton, a shooting spree in the City of Orange and four televised car chases. I'm thinking they were all arranged by Matt Gaetz so the news wouldn't all be about him.

• I don't understand all these chefs on YouTube who try to replicate McDonald's food at home. Seems to me that if you succeed, you spend several dollars and a half hour or more to save yourself a ten-minute drive and three bucks.

There are a lot of obits up for the famous Watergate burglar G. Gordon Liddy, who died the other day at the age of 90. A lot of them make him out to be a colorful figure…and I suppose he was. Liddy obviously relished being a celebrity and he often displayed a great sense of humor about his image.

But I don't think we should forget that he was a ruthless political operative who was quite willing to murder opponents of Richard Nixon, who kept up a relentless hate/revenge campaign against John Dean for testifying against Nixon and who constantly urged political violence and spread insane conspiracy theories. The nicest thing you can say about the guy is that he was so inept in his service of President Nixon that he helped bring down President Nixon.

Kevin Drum points out a mistake that this country seems to be making over and over with regard to COVID-19…

…time after time, we ignore it. We see that the case count is declining and start opening things up well before the count is even in the general neighborhood of zero. When the case count begins to plateau, we look the other way and hope that it's just a blip. When it becomes clear that it's not a blip, we shrug because, hey, there's nothing we can do about it now.

People who are in a rush to say, "The Pandemic is over! Open everything back up! Stop wearing masks and let's party!" will keep it going way longer than necessary.