So a few nights ago I'm walking my kids past Mel's Drive-In at Highland and Hollywood, when we get flagged down by a strangely chimerical penguin (a penguin, I later learned, with longer, airworthy wings and the head of an eagle). He's Norky, an all-purpose mascot whose press materials describe him as "the Hybrid Peneagle from the North Pole" and also "'The New Original GOODWILL Character' who appears anywhere any day of the year." Norky and his handler, Brady Farmer, were working bystanders for a free-food offering from a local ad hoc committee to save the Hollywood Christmas Parade. The guy in the Norky suit was pretty good: He successfully engaged my five-year-old for a couple minutes without scaring her, and when Farmer namedropped Mickey Rooney as a supporter of the save-the-parade campaign, I said "Hey, isn't that Mickey in the Norky suit?" and Norky without missing a beat squatted down until his peneagle suit was almost a perfect sphere and began waving: "No this is Mickey in the Norky suit," he said—which wasn't the funniest gag ever but was fairly witty for an on-the-spot reaction.

Anyway, the save-the-parade meeting was sparsely attended. For a story about the campaign in late March, an aide to Councilman Eric Garcetti told the L.A. Times' Bob Pool, "[O]ur office looks forward to learning more about their efforts," but sadly, neither Garcetti nor Councilman Tom LaBonge responded to invitations. Melrose Larry Green, on the other hand, was in attendance, and I wish the activists the best in their efforts. A recent Times Op-Ed mourned the passing of the parade, and it seems strange that the center of the global entertainment complex can't compete in the parade market with Pasadena or Philadelphia: I'd suggest moving the resurrected parade away from the Macy's Thanksgiving competition and into an early-December date—maybe Día de la Inmaculada Concepción (12/8 this year) or even Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe (12/12), both of which would seem to fit L.A. to a tee. The Christmas-parade niche is wide open, but not if you hold it on Thanksgiving weekend.

But it's Norky who's really fired my imagination. Just what is the peneagle's status in the lovable-character/mascot pecking order? The enthusiastic Farmer assured me that the character does solid business in Kentucky Derby appearances, has TV deals in 30 countries and, after five years in action, is set to expand into a range of media. Eight-year-old Christian A. Henley, for example, has authored Adventures with Norky: Teamwork. For more documentary evidence, here's a gallery of Norky photo opps. This pic of the peneagle, Santa Claus and L. Ron Hubbard's spirit all supporting the U.N. Declaration on Human Rights is from Norky's site, which ominously warns that Norky "even shows up in your dreams."

The one place Norky hasn't shown up has been on my radar screen, and while I don't like to brag, the last few years have given me more than a passing acquaintance with sub-A-list-level kid-friendly characters. If you're talking Miffy, the strangely deathless Noddy, even Jakers! The Adventures of Piggly Winks, you're talking my language. But Norky? Never heard of him until the other night. And not to put too fine a point on it but it's a seller's market these days for penguin avatars; if anything we're rapidly approaching the saturation point. I'd suggest Norky ditch the half-eagle stuff in a hurry and just start marketing himself as a magical penguin who flies and plays Polar Ball.

Norky's also got an uphill climb in terms of brand recognition. While he tops the Google results for a search on "norky," the first results page also turns up entries on Norky's Peruvian restaurant in Tampa, Florida; a seemingly more swank Norky's in Lima; and most disastrously, several mentions of a character named Norky who showed up on the Ewoks television show in the eighties, and is described by witnesses as "a marsupial-type creature" and "an obnoxious kangaroo-like creature." At the very least, Norky is going to have to close out the competition in the imaginary-creature space, and also distinguish a separate brand identity from the various bulletin-board Norkys who self-identify as Opera browser users, Buddhist guitar fans, and the "King of Kings."

Nevertheless, Farmer, who recently took charge of building the brand as Norky Entertainment's director of entertainment and community affairs, says the company is doing well enough to employ 20 people, including an assistant for himself—and to my rather too blunt question, he replied that yes, they are making payroll. He also promised to send some Norky swag my way, and I will be sure to give my report when that arrives. And in fact, I intend to keep an eye out for Norky in the future. While I hope he can help lead the Hollywood Christmas Parade to a triumphant return to life, I'm mainly just fascinated by the franchising prospects. Every day people are striking it rich on brands you've never heard of—another fascinating region of the Long Tail era, even if penguins don't have very long tails.

Former secretary of State Henry Kissinger remembers lessons from Vietnam:

A point was reached during the Vietnam War when the domestic debate became so bitter as to preclude rational discussion of hard choices. Administrations of both political parties perceived the survival of South Vietnam as a significant national interest. They were opposed by a protest movement that coalesced behind the conviction that the war reflected an amorality that had to be purged by confrontational methods. This impasse doomed the U.S. effort in Vietnam; it must not be repeated over Iraq.

And, for the sake of Lindsay Lohan, writer Eric Lucas remembers lessons he learned when he was a "booze-and-drug-addled lunatic." Contributing editor Max Boot explains what's behind a recent string of firings in the Navy.

The editorial board weighs in on Bush's nomination of Robert B. Zoellick for the World Bank presidency, and asks the Supreme Court to be more realistic in its discrimination rulings. The board also wants more marijuana for medical research.

On the letters page, Brea's Jack Jansen sums up why Iran needs oil: "[A]s the world's oil runs out and international order deteriorates, small nations with oil will be put in peril by big nations attempting to secure their supply of oil."

Online, editorial writer Michael McGough claims we're all Alberto Gonzales, and Wendy McCaw, owner of the Santa Barbara News-Press, answers an op-ed that attacked her and her publication. This week's dust-up continues with Tom Tanton and Judy Dugan debating whether government should step in to regulate gas prices and profits.

The sad thing about President Bush's disastrous image, both domestically and overseas, is that he doesn't even get credit when he does something right. Europeans revile him for his Iraq policy but seldom mention that he has done more to relieve poverty and disease in Africa (supposedly an issue of great concern in Europe) than any other American president. I have friends who are such committed Bush-haters that they find it impossible to believe that he has ever done anything morally right or geopolitically beneficial; when I point out that his global AIDS initiative has saved thousands and possibly millions of lives, they quietly admit they didn't realize that.

Today, Bush upped the ante by asking Congress to double the size of his AIDS program, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, to $30 billion over five years. That is a vast commitment that dwarfs past efforts and provides real hope that humanity will in the near future be able to stop the spread of AIDS—an accomplishment akin, at least in scope, to putting a man on the moon. This disease has killed 25 million people so far and is still raging out of control, especially in Africa. PEPFAR has come in for its share of criticism because of some rules that seemed based more on evangelical ideology than science, but most of its critics have quieted down in the face of its obvious successes.

It's very cheap and easy for a lame-duck president to make financial commitments his administration will never have to keep. Bush's extension is aimed at keeping PEPFAR going after 2008, by which time he will have left office. But his successor will pay a political price if he or she breaks this funding promise.

None of this, of course, makes up for Bush's blunders in the Middle East and elsewhere, but at least give the guy his props. He's showing people overseas that the United States isn't just about bombs and oil.

The editorial board points out that the road to stopping genocide in Darfur travels through Beijing's 2008 Olympics:

[W]hen director Steven Spielberg, an artistic advisor to the Games, sent a personal letter to Chinese President Hu Jintao requesting a change in policy toward Sudan, it got attention. Shortly afterward, Bashir permitted the 3,000 U.N. peacekeepers, and the timing may not have been coincidental.... China, which sees the Games as a sort of coming-out party, is desperate to avoid an embarrassment like the 1980 boycott of the Moscow Olympics.

Taking up the cause of the little (or littler) guys in two other editorials, the board suggests Microsoft may not be able to bat down the open source movement, and asks the Securities and Exchange Commission to support the UC Regents in their case against Enron's bankers.

On the op-ed page, former Associated Press Venezuela correspondent Bart Jones describes the shenanigans got RCTV kicked off air by Hugo Chavez. George Washington University's Walter Reich explains why King Herod's tomb is the latest hurdle for peace in the Middle East. Patrick Brady asks for amnesty for doping cyclists, and columnist Ronald Brownstein asks why Democrats are harking back to Clinton-era healthcare reforms.

On the letters page, Darcy Vernier of Marina del Rey has figured out how to get U.S. troops out of Iraq: "When every family is looking at their son (and maybe daughter) possibly heading off to deadly war, the resultant outcry will bring the country and the war to a stop."

Online, Tom Tanton of the Institute for Energy Research and Judy Dugan of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights discuss rising gas prices in this week's Dust-Up. Today they consider whether there's a right price for a gallon of gas.

The Manhattan Institute's Tamar Jacoby says the Senate immigration deal does exactly what compromises are supposed to do, making it so that everyone "sacrifices a little so that we all can win big":

The group had spent two hours a day, three or four days a week for many weeks, stuck in a small, stuffy room talking about the details of immigration policy. Voices had been raised, ultimatums leveled. On at least one occasion, lawmakers stormed out. And in order to get to a deal, they all had to compromise — to listen, really listen, then stretch and give up things they'd long believed in. But this painful process was precisely what the senators found so gratifying.

Sarah Miller explains how reading "About a Boy" with her after-school students got her fired, and Steve Ettlinger describes his quest to find what exactly goes into a Twinkie. Columnist Jonah Goldberg compares presidential candidate John Edwards to a "toothy door-to-door salesman."

The editorial board warns legislators to think twice about mandating vaccines like Gardasil when pharmaceutical companies are lobbying hard for them. The board describes how eminent domain reform has moved from the courts to the ballot, and applauds George Lucas for finally encouraging Star Wars mash-ups.

On the letters page, Tom Lubisich of Malibu explains high gasoline prices: "Refinery shutdowns and increased consumption? No. Increased profits? Yes!"

The RIAA has taken a full ration of abuse for suggesting that local radio stations pay royalties to record labels, too, instead of just to songwriters' performance royalty organizations (e.g., ASCAP). It's probably just an academic debate; I doubt Congress would ever enact something so fiercely opposed by the National Association of Broadcasters. Nevertheless, unlike the steep increase pending in webcasting royalties, the RIAA's argument for radio royalties doesn't deserve the battering it's taking online. Read more at the Bit Player blog.

Shaul Bakhash relates his wife's experiences as a prisoner in Iran, accused of plotting a "velvet" revolution:

Since her incarceration 17 days ago, Haleh has been allowed only one- or two-minute phone calls with her mother. She speaks as if a minder is present. No visits are allowed, no legal representation. With so little contact, I have every reason to assume the worst: that she is subject to blindfolding, solitary confinement and harsh, even brutal interrogation calculated to extract a false confession.

Columnist Rosa Brooks explains why a navy lawyer's decision to leak information about Guantanamo detainees was the wrong move for the right reasons, and David O. Stewart argues for the abolition of the electoral college. Columnist Joel Stein tells a few members of the L.A. Philharmonic what not to wear.

The editorial board wonders whether Alberto Gonzales' Justice Department has crossed too many lines, and if Congress is ever going to stop blaming oil companies for high gas prices. The board also thinks reality TV can be too real, particularly if the subject is the L.A. County Sheriff's Department.

On immigration, letter writers have varied views on reform. Claremont's Owen Keavney, citing the Emma Lazarus poem on the Statue of Liberty and saying it doesn't reflect American values anymore, asks, "Are we a better nation today?"

The editorial board debunks claims of Kentucky's new Creation Museum:

Young Earthers believe the world is about 6,000 years old, as opposed to the 4.5 billion years estimated by the world's credible scientific community. This would be risible if anti-evolution forces were confined to a lunatic fringe, but they are not. Witness the recent revelation that three of the Republican candidates for president do not believe in evolution. Three men seeking to lead the last superpower on Earth reject the scientific consensus on cosmology, thermonuclear dynamics, geology and biology, believing instead that Bamm-Bamm and Dino played together.

The board urges state legislators to "microstamp" gun cartridges to make solving crimes easier, and asks the MTA to find the middle ground on fare hikes.

On the op-ed page, columnist Patt Morrison tries to stick to her vegetarian diet on a food-stamp budget, while writer Caroline Paul tells the story of her animal rights activist brother, "considered one of the biggest domestic terrorists in the country." Lewis & Clark Law School professor Robert J. Miller writes of the pope's near-apology for forced conversions of natives of the New World.

Readers respond to the Democrats' decision to give up a timeline for the Iraq war. Peter Magill of South Pasadena writes, "Wow. And just like that, I'm no longer a Democrat."

Looking for a book full of insights about the next general election, but don't have time to do the booksore browse? Here's a highly abbreviated tour of Divided America: The ferocious power struggle in American politics, by Earl Black and Merle Black:

Page 1:

America's tight national battle results from opposing political developments in five different regions.

Page 4:

As late as 1976, the Democratic Party included almost as many white conservatives (19 percent) as white liberals (22 percent).

Page 9:

White Americans have a plurality—rather than a majority—party.

Page 16:

If the Republicans continued to lose moderate whites by large margins, and if they lost liberal whites and racial/ethnic minorities by even wider margins, even the most solid bloc of white conservatives could not possibly overcome Democrats' strength in the rest of the electorate.

Despite the increased bandwidth and improved capabilities of the mobile-phone networks in the U.S., relatively few people use their cell phones to watch video. At the iHollywood Forum's Mobile Entertainment Summit this morning, several speakers opined on what's holding up the market. The consensus: advertiser-supported programming is the way to go, but carriers and content providers haven't agreed yet on a way to do it. Read more at the Bit Player blog.

On the op-ed page, fired U.S. attorney for New Mexico David C. Iglesias asks if Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales will "cowboy up":

No one can deny [Gonzales] his life's story, which is the American dream writ large. It began in Humble, Texas, born of impoverished Mexican American parents. He, like me, is a veteran of the U.S. military. He went to some of the best schools in America, including Harvard Law. Yet, somewhere along the line, he drank the loyalty Kool-Aid. Watching him testify before the Senate and House was painful for me. He had been a trailblazer for the Latino community, and then, in the space of a few hours of tortured testimony, he became just another morally rudderless political operative.

Will he "cowboy up," as we say in New Mexico — that is, find the courage to do the right thing? Or will he make the Senate go right up to the precipice of a no-confidence vote?

The Eurasia Group's Clifford Kupchan and Council on Foreign Relations' Ray Takeyh explain why threats won't work against Iran. Matthew Cobb of the University of Manchester remembers the man who invented the term Homo sapiens, and columnist Ronald Brownstein argues that Democrats and the Bush administration could cut car emissions if they really wanted to do it.

Even with 820 acres burned in Griffith Park, the editorial board demonstrates why it might be wiser to wait before reseeding. The board isn't pleased with state legislators misusing Proposition 84 money, and thinks Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) could be a liability for the Democrats.

On the letters page, William L. Imhof of New Jersey says of the people behind Kentucky's new Creation Museum: "In their ignorance, they deny mankind's greatest gift from the creator — the human mind."

Confused by the Pew Research Center's new report on Muslim Americans? Various good people of the anti-idiotarian-fightin'-the-islamofascists-jihadi-hatin'-non-dimmi variety are hoppin' mad about the way the MSM have been downplaying evidence of extremism in the survey results—Exhibit A being an AP headline that changed from emphasizing that the majority rejects suicide bombings to one that notes a substantial minority does not reject suicide bombings. I'll split the difference and say there are far more Muslim Americans who defend suicide bombings than I would prefer, and note that the L.A. Times has stuck with the following headline throughout the day: "Some younger U.S. Muslims say suicide bombings could be justified." I don't see any problem with that version of the story, but maybe I'm not trying hard enough.

In any event there is plenty of interesting stuff in this report, including the tidbit that while U.S. Muslims are more likely than U.S. Christians to claim religion is “very important” in their lives, Christians are more likely to claim they pray every day and attend a house of worship every week. Some of that may be explained by pious perjury, but then substantially more Christians (54%) than Muslims (43%) agree with the statement "Mosques/churches should express views on political & social issues." Given the received wisdom that separation of mosque and state in Islam presents unique religous problems, that's pretty interesting.

If that's encouraging, however, I'm less sanguine about the question of whether you prefer a larger or smaller government: More than two thirds of U.S. Muslims prefer a larger government that provides more services. That makes my heart sink. Go ahead and chortle at my libertarian lunacy, liberal friends; it won't seem so funny when you get an idea of how poll participants view the government's role. Nearly two-thirds believe "society" should discourage homosexuality, and almost that many believe government should do more to promote morality. On all these questions, the Muslim majorities are widely out of step with the overall American population.

And that's not even touching on views about the GWOT, the invasion of Afghanistan, and related issues. But don't take my word for it: Read the whole report. [pdf]

Update: Little Green Footballers respond—calmly! coolly! with debonair suaveness of unflappable serenity!—to my "hoppin' mad" characterization right here and in the comments. (Mini-update: Don't believe the sloppy reporting at LGF! I am not Tim Cavanagh the song parodist. I've been battling these rumors for years!) Celebrity commentators Charles "MC LGF" Johnson, Ben Hur and even the Bay Area's mysterious and intriguing Zombie weigh in. Welcome one, welcome all! Increase the peace.

The editorial board wants to withhold Cal Grants from undocumented immigrants:

As it is, many eligible students who qualify for state financial aid don't get it. Cal-Grant Competitive Awards — the primary source of financial aid for community college students — went to just 17% of eligible applicants last year. That left 112,000 students who went unaided.

Reserving state financial aid for legal residents doesn't mean undocumented immigrants cannot go to college. There are private resources available that did not exist a generation ago. Banks offer loans, credit cards, mortgages and other products to illegal immigrants. And there are scholarships too.

The board also urges the City Council to vote for a rent stabilization measure to close a legal loophole, and points out why not every law enforcement misstep deserves its day in court.

On the op-ed pages, author John N. Maclean explains why Southern California fires are only going to get worse. Dan Schnur, a veteran of Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) 2000 presidential campaign, explains why New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson was right to announce his desire to be the first Latino president in Los Angeles. And columnist Jonah Goldberg argues that if former Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft can be redeemed, so can anyone.

On the letters page, Pacific Palisades' Cynthia Cuza responds to the Bush administration feeling pressure to remove Iraqi political leadership: "This is bringing democracy to Iraq?"

So our editorial way back when urging the Walt Disney Co. to sic its lawyers on Hamas for infringing Mickey Mouse's copyright was mostly in the way of a wouldn't-it-be-nice proposal. But apparently it was less outlandish than it may have seemed. As we noted at the time, the company is "understandably reluctant to give extra attention to a news-of-the-weird story," and Disney is under no obligation to start suing terrorist organizations to prove a point about how things are supposed to work in a lawful society. But apparently the company did give some discussion to the idea of taking action against Hamas TV's "Farfur," a knockoff of Disney's trademark mouse (though confusingly, farfur means "butterfly" in Arabic). And the idea received enough attention that Disney has finally addressed it.

Disney CEO Robert Iger is now speaking out about the company's decision to ignore Farfur's blatant mouse-baiting. "We were appalled by the use of our character to disseminate that kind of message," Iger tells AP. "I think anytime any group seeks to exploit children in that manner, it's despicable... I just didn't think it would have any effect... I think it should have been obvious how the company felt about the subject."

Well, yes, that much is obvious: I think all Americans would already agree that Disney is not a Hamas supporter (well maybe not all). But the interesting possibility in this wasn't about American public opinion but about the teachable moment for the Levant: i.e., a chance to stick a pin in the idea that you can pick and choose what you want from modern society and popular culture, without assuming any responsibility. If the author of Air Pirates Funnies is liable for infringing Mickey Mouse, why isn't Hamas? It would have been nice to see the standard applied to one and all.

Is there any proposal so suited to Berkeley's hyper-progressives than the recent anti-smoking/homeless/car plan by Mayor Tom Bates? The gist: Bates wants to ban smoking on Berkeley's streets ostensibly to force its homeless population (who, in his words, "almost always smoke") off sidewalks and into support services. To fund the pumped-up policing this would require, Bates wants to increase parking meter prices by 50 cents an hour and install several new curbside meters near a popular Berkeley supermarket. Of course, the freedom-loving progressives on the Berkeley City Council, according to member Kris Worthington, will give Bates their OK.

My immediate reaction is, why would a city like Berkeley need to use homelessness as a pretext to ban smoking on its streets? Granted, Calabasas' homeless situation doesn't begin to compare to Berkeley's, but the L.A. County city banned smoking in public last year simply because the habit is a "public nuisance." I'd bet my meager savings account that Berkeley residents would have supported an anti-smoking plan that doesn't rely on the homeless bogeymen. Besides, you can already get cited in Berkeley for smoking within 20 feet of a door, vent, window, etc.—which practically bans smoking on most sidewalks already. Why can't Bates just tell his cops to enforce the existing law on smoking when it comes to homelessness?

Notice above that "Bates" and "existing law" appear in the same sentence—a segue to the "me" part of this post's title. In 2002, the day before he was elected mayor, Bates scooped up about 1,000 copies of a newspaper that endorsed his opponent and dumped them in the trash—obviously a major free-speech no-no (and against the law). The newspaper was UC Berkeley's student rag, The Daily Californian, and the unsigned endorsement that enraged Bates to the point of making free-speech faux pas was penned by yours truly, during my tenure as the paper's opinion editor. (If you read the endorsement, keep in mind I was just starting out as an opinion writer.)

So it seems as if Bates has recovered from his own run-in with the law enough to the point that he's comfortable curbing the freedom of his own city's residents—by passing a law. Only in Berkeley.

The prospect of a Senate “no-confidence” vote on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has some commentators wondering if the United States is inching toward a European-style parliamentary system. But before Europhiliacs get carried away, they should ponder the speculation by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) that Gonzales might resign before his incredible shrinking attorney generalship is formalized on the Senate floor.

Specter, who has calibrated his disaffection with Gonzales, may be offering the embattled attorney general (the “embattled” now seems like part of his job title) a relatively face-saving way out: I’m a good man, but I won’t be the means by which the Senate smuggles parliamentary notions of checks and balances into the American political system.

Specter is not only an expert on constitutional law (if he says so himself). He’s also a shrewd tactician who, as a moderate Republican from a Democratic-leaning state,  was triangulating long before anyone had heard of Bill Clinton.

As chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee during the confirmation hearings of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, Specter made it clear that he considered Roe v. Wade a “super-duper precedent.” Yet Specter—whose chairmanship was almost taken away from him by right-wing colleagues—ended up voting for both nominees.

But—get this—he offered a pro-choice spin on his Aye for Alito: “I think it is important for Judge Alito have supporters who favor a woman’s right to choose, so that he does not feel in any way beholden to or confirmed by people who have one idea on some of these questions.”   For what it’s worth, neither Roberts nor Alito signed a recent concurring opinion by Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia suggesting that Roe should be reversed.

Hmm. Maybe someone so adept at juggling politics, policy and principle should be the next attorney general.

Ralph James Savarese answers all the insensitive questions about his decision to adopt an autistic child:

To this day, I can't believe how callous people were; the strange anxiety that adopting a child with a disability provoked. And the anxiety just kept coming. "Healthy white infants must be tough to get," a neighbor commented. No paragons of racial sensitivity, we were nevertheless appalled by the idea that we'd do anything to avoid adopting, say, a black child or a Latino one....The last eight years have been devoted almost exclusively to my son's welfare: literacy training, occupational therapy, relationship building, counseling for post-traumatic stress — the list goes on and on. But what strides he has made.

The World Policy Institute's Frida Berrigan names the U.S. the world's number one arms pusher. Columnist Niall Ferguson says global politics is a lot like Shakespearean tragedy, and we're at the start of Act V. And columnist Gregory Rodriguez interviews "M. Butterfly" playwright David Henry Hwang in what may be his "post-multicultural phase".

The editorial board berates the county for failing to put its campaign finance data in a searchable online database. It urges the House of Representatives not to go easy on lobby reform, and tells the FCC it went too far in censuring XM shock jocks Opie and Anthony.

Letter writers aren't too keen on the Senate immigration plan. In the words of Sierra Madre's Rosemary Hagerott, "it's 1986 again."

Fairly obscure SCTV and Saturday Night Live legacy Tony Rosato has apparently gone bonkers and is at the center of a fascinating miscarriage of justice north of the border. Back in the Carter-Reagan era, Rosato made a brief splash when he and Robin Duke joined the SCTV cast at the end of its first-era instantiation. (I've always found the crabbed releasing and syndication history of SCTV impossible to untangle, but Rosato, I think, was there in the post-Harold Ramis/pre-Rick-Moranis interregnum.) And he was pretty funny, there and later at SNL. Like all the SCTV vets, Rosato ended up having a career about a tenth as large as it should have been, but things really began to head south a few years ago:

According to his Toronto lawyer, Daniel Brodsky, Rosato was arrested after repeatedly complaining to police that, in a scenario reminiscent of the film Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the actor's wife and their infant daughter had gone missing, having been replaced by imposters.

Initially charged with public mischief for trying to get the police involved in the search for his changeling wife, Rosato eventually saw that charge dropped and was charged instead with harassment. They take a different view of public records in the Great White North, so some of Rosato's court records are unavailable. Thus it's not entirely clear why he has been in jail for more than two years without trial, but some elements are known:

Arraignment documents show Rosato was denied bail almost three months after his arrest, after undergoing a mental fitness assessment.

He has never had a bail review, and his trial (by judge alone) isn't scheduled until Nov. 13.

Whole story. His lawyer notes that the period Rosato has spent in jail awaiting trial exceeds the prison sentence for people actually convicted of criminal harassment in Canada. Is this out of concern for the estranged wife's safety? Dissatisfaction with the pace of SCTV releases on DVD? The curse of the Not Ready For Prime-Time Players? Just about everybody quoted here seems to believe Rosato belongs in a mental hospital, not a jail (with the notable exception of Rostao himself).

It's opening night for the latest Shrek epic, and the advertising and promotions team includes the government of the City of Los Angeles.

L.A. is hanging banners that promote the movie from streetlight poles that usually are allowed to carry only banners for neighborhood councils, official city programs or events put on by nonprofits, like the Museum of Natural History or the Music Center. The Shrek banners were allowed because, officially at least, they were deemed to be promotions for the city's Million Trees campaign. And sure enough, there on the banners below "DreamWorks," "Shrek the Third," "GO GREEN!" and the giant image of the Shrek character, way down at the bottom, there is the city seal and a message to log onto www.milliontreesla.org.

Restrictions on use of city streetlight poles for advertising have been around for a long time but crystallized in the 1990s after city officials, and an executive with CBS, saw long boulevards lined with yellow banners on city streetlights promoting ABC's fall TV season. Lax oversight at City Hall had inadvertently put L.A. into the advertising business, and at rates that were an almost literal steal compared with what real advertisers would charge. That's because streetlight poles were never seen as a revenue producer. The city imposed nominal fees meant to cover the wear and tear on the poles caused by the additional wind stress from the banners flapping in the breeze.

The CBS exec complained and the City Council put attorneys and analysts on the case. They came up with an ordinance and regulations that solidified the policy of keeping streetlights off limits to purely commercial ventures. Now each banner is scrutinized by a city lawyer for compliance with law and policy.

But there are creative ways to finesse the law. For example, the historic San Antonio Winery sponsors banners promoting the Lincoln Heights Neighborhood Council. Included is the winery's logo, which is allowed as long as it takes up less than 20% of the banner area. Most of the banner is taken up by an ethereal but striking painting by acclaimed artist Irene Carranza. So far, no problem. Then the winery reproduced the same painting, with its logo, on giant billboards on Spring, Broadway and other streets north of downtown, turning the banners into an integral part of a brilliant—but legal envelope-pushing—advertising campaign.

The city continues to grapple with its uncertain role as a advertiser. Should it allow ads on DASH buses, as the MTA does? How about on residential trash cans? On City Hall? Where's the line between raising as much cash as possible—to pay for city services and put less tax pressure on residents—and presenting a decent cityscape not overly junked up by even more advertising?

The Shrek banners, by the way, were approved by the City Council in April as an important part of the tree campaign, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's project to green the city and improve the environment by planting trees. To me, they mostly shout out SEE SHREK THE THIRD! and only quietly whisper, after you've been staring awhile, anything about trees.

I should probably point out that the Shrek advertising campaign is carried out around the city on, among other things, MTA buses. And Los Angeles Times news boxes.

The MPAA and the National Association of Theatre Owners announced this morning that a whopping 31 people had been stopped in the act of videotaping Spider-Man 3 in multiplexes around the globe. To paraphrase Peter Parker's Uncle Ben, with great revenue comes great response from piracy. Read more at the Bit Player blog.

Retired Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, once chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, wonders how Paul Wolfowitz went from being considered among "the best of the best" ambassadors to a "petulant old man...fighting unsuccessfully to keep his job":

He had no idea how to make the trains run on time — and seemed to have no inclination to do so. Talented people left his shop saying they could get nothing accomplished. Papers sat in in-boxes for ages with no action, and the need to deal with daily mini-crises was supplanted by the desire to turn out hugely complicated but elegantly expressed "concepts" and "strategies".... When Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld picked Wolfowitz in 2000 as his deputy — to make all the trains in the Pentagon run on time — those of us who were familiar with Wolfowitz knew a train wreck would occur.

Former deputy secretary-general of the United Nations Mark Malloch Brown explains why now's the time to loosen the grip the big powers have on top positions at global institutions. Columnist Rosa Brooks calls the second GOP debate a contest to see who could do the best impression of "torture enthusiast" Jack Bauer. Joel Stein, like George Lopez, wonders why his sitcom got the ax and "Cavemen" didn't.

The editorial board praises the Senate's innovative immigration deal but acknowledges that its odds for passage are slim to none. The board takes then-White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales' sick-bed appeal to then-Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft as reason enough for Congress to give the White House a tough time passing new eavesdropping laws. Finally, the board highlights Amazon's decision to sell music in MP3 format.

On the letters page, readers react to Gonzales as well. Valley Village's Cliff Caballero recalls "The Godfather": "Can someone now send Gonzales a fish with the Bill of Rights shoved in its mouth?"

The news this week is all about less-than-full confidence. While Attorney General Alberto Gonzales still enjoys the President Bush's "full confidence," outgoing World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz is not so lucky, with the cautious chief telling a press conference gaggle, "I regret that it's come to this... All I can tell you is that Paul Wolfowitz has an interest in what's best for the bank, for making sure that the bank focusses on things that matter." Commentators are making much of Bush's decision not to reiterate his "full confidence" in Wolfowitz, but as Dana Milbank noted a few years back, the Bush Administration's Full Confidence can be as much an expression of support as the kiss of death is a gesture of affection.

How are we supposed to negotiate the tangled lianas of full and less-full confidence? More importantly, why aren't we getting help from the people whose job is to help us put our inchoate thoughts into polished words? Hallmark puts out cards for such uncomfortable situations as "loss of a baby, the death of a child, military death, an unexpected death, a child who has lost a loved one...belief in life after death...'still thinking of you'...anniversary of a death...cards for someone late in learning of a death...pet sympathy cards for both cats and dogs," as well as greetings "marking a half birthday, becoming a U.S. citizen, adopting a baby, joining the military, celebrating a 100th birthday, acknowledging a divorce, getting a child potty-trained, and thanking a daycare provider." Why hasn't the greeting-card giant rushed in to support leaders with weak spines? Some suggestions:

• Cover: Confidence?
• Inside: I'm full of it!

• Cover: In this difficult time...
• Inside: In the face of such pressure, we're troubled by the mistakes you've made. Yet the solace you seek may not come from this office. So we look for comfort in the hope that we'll be missing you soon.

• Cover: Thinking of you...
• Inside: ...but no longer stressing about it.

• Cover: Congratulations!
• Inside: Opportunities come and go, year by fruitful year; so best of luck, and don't let the door hit you in the rear.

• Cover: "Support is like the constant moon...
• Inside: "...You can't actually see it when the weather's bad." — Khalil Gibran

• Cover: Your First Career Debacle
• Inside: The memories you've made today will follow you throughout your life. Unfortunately, I won't.

• Cover: I'm behind you 100%
• Inside: The times when you only saw one set of footprints, my child, those were the times that I was hiding under a rock...

• Cover: There are no words for me to express my confidence in you...
• Inside: So I won't. Good luck with your new girlfriend.

The editorial board is optimistic about schools after Tuesday's school board wins for reform-friendly candidates:

At this point, the most regressive force in the L.A. Unified School District is its teachers union, which has wielded inordinate power via donations to school board campaigns. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's fundraising ability, though, was more than a match for United Teachers Los Angeles in Tuesday's election. So, for the first time in decades, UTLA might be ripe for an overhaul.

The board details the DaimlerChrysler "fire sale" and reflects on Rev. Jerry Falwell's place in a long tradition of mixing church and state.

The New America Foundation's Steven Hill and Lynne Serpe look at the downside of Tuesday's election -- high costs for a low turnout. Columnist Patt Morrison takes on another perennial local problem, droughts, and wonders why no one's rushing to save water. UC Davis' Colin A. Carter and the Hoover Institution's Henry I. Miller set politicians straight on ethanol, while the Center for Genetics and Society's Osagie K. Obasogie sets Oprah Winfrey straight on blacks' high blood pressure.

On the letters page, Middle East Forum Director Daniel Pipes responds to William Dalrymple's op-ed, which called Pipes an orientalist with no experience of the Muslim World: "I happily accept the Orientalist charge.... But Dalrymple should have checked my resume."

So much for our half-a-huzzah for Harry. When Britain's redheaded prince was getting ready to ship to Basra a few months back—amid much handwringing about putting the royal life in jeopardy—the Times' editorial board gave the pot-smokin', Nazi-impersonatin' young royal a cheer:

Nearly every British war features a version of this drama, in which cautious elders try to dissuade a young noble from putting himself in harm's way but the young noble insists on serving his country without special treatment or advantage. This supposedly private drama of stoic courage inevitably receives extensive press coverage, and Harry's case is no exception. But, in the end, it's hard to gainsay the physical courage required to deploy to Iraq at all.

Not so fast! The prince will not be serving in Iraq after all:

In a statement released on behalf of Prince Harry, the prince said he was "very disappointed" but would not quit the army as a result.

I don't know much about royal protocol or post-Sandhurst commitments, but was quitting the army an option?

General Sir Richard Dannatt says the deployment would have exposed the prince and soldiers serving with him to "a degree of risk that I now deem unacceptable," noting that the apparent capture of three U.S. soldiers Saturday had influenced his decision. Then there's this:

Abu Zaid, a brigade commander in Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army—the most powerful of the Shia militias—said they had been circulating pictures of the Prince taken from the internet to other insurgent groups. "We are awaiting the arrival of the young, handsome, spoilt prince with bated breath and we confidently expect he will come out into the open on the battlefield," he was quoted as saying.

Which just shows that the faulty intelligence isn't all on our side: It's the other prince who's the handsome one. The decision makes sense, and there's no getting around the potential for a PR and morale disaster if Abu Zaid got a chance to carry out his dastardly scheme. But from a historical perspective, this puts the danger of Shiite insurgents above that posed by Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo, who were opposed in active service by various lords, princes, Mountbattens, and so on—such as the notorious bon vivant Prince George, Duke of Kent—and even the awesome power of the Argentine war machine, which collapsed like a house of cards before the heroics of Prince Andrew in the Falklands War. It's good to know Harry's out of danger, but this one is embarrassing no matter which way it breaks—a timely reminder that the real duty of royalty has never been military service so much as public humiliation.

Writer Zev Chafets remembers the late Rev. Jerry Falwell:

No chicken was safe within Falwell's grasp, and he liked them deep-fried. I dined with him several times, and he ate with the aplomb of a fellow whose cardiologist was Jesus. A pre-millennial Baptist, he believed that God sorted things out in God's own time. He also expected to go to heaven.

Falwell was a theological fatalist but a political activist. If this seems like a common combination today, that is largely due to Falwell himself.

Columnist Ronald Brownstein and Ian Kershaw of Britain's Sheffield University offer different reasons why British Prime Minister Tony Blair ruined across-the-pond relations.

The editorial board commends former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani for telling it like it is to the GOP base on his pro-choice views, chastises politicians for making impractical promises on global warming, and does a bit of both to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for his revised budget.

In letters, Los Angeles' Carole Myers, a descendent of the Jamestown settlers, begs to differ with President Bush's comparison of the settlers' mission to spreading freedom in the Middle East: "The only comparison is that the early settlers were no more looking to spread freedom than Bush is. Both the settlers and Bush planned to exploit the riches of someone else's land, only the settlers admitted it."

Recent feedback from our readers...

David Bright of Dixmont, Maine, replies to "Paging Dennis Kucinich" by Paul Thornton:

Dennis Kucinich is one of a very few members of Congress who is an member of the AFL-CIO. It would be highly unlikely that he would cross a labor picket line.

My advice to UC Berkeley would be to resolve its labor issues with its employees first, then go looking for commencement speakers.

Responses are still coming in for Michael McGough's Opinion Daily "So what's illegal?" Writes Joe Hale of Atlanta, Georgia:

One reason many Americans may be ambivalent about enforcing immigration laws is because lots of Americans broke Mexican immigration laws by sneaking over the border into Texas, California, New Mexico, etc in the 1840s.  And before that the Spanish violated the borders of the Comanche, Apache, Ute, etc.  If you go back far enough, everyone comes from somewhere else.

Fiery responses to Sonni Efron's "Can we make them hate us less?" From beautiful Coronado, Tom C. Stickel writes:

I was amazed to read Sonni Efron’s concluding editorial claims that stated: “the bigger battle against Islamist fanaticism” has “data that suggests we have already lost”.

Following the Efron logic, where do we pragmatic American’s now surrender? What country or Islamic government will be the location for us to sign our official surrender documents? Efron’s suggested no mas fighting of “Islamist fanaticism” is so remarkable that I wonder if Efron now believes American Christians and Jews need to convert to Islam immediately to save ourselves? Is our certain defeat (as seen by Efron) the end of our Western civilization?  Please, now that Sonni Efron has declared us the loser to our Islamic radical enemies in this battle of cultures, when will Efron be so kind as to illuminate all of us on what our children’s future will look like under Islamic law? Is the L.A. Times soon to write a number of feature stories by Efron on how we should plan on living our lives under Islamic law? Inquiring minds want to know!

Hey, Sonni Efron, when passing out the white flags of surrender, skip sending one to me!

Fox News Channel's no-spinmeister Bill O'Reilly continues his Diana Ross-level hissy fit over Rosa Brooks' recent column "Sweet Jesus I love Bill O'Reilly!" You'll recall that we generously afforded Wild Bill's producer an opportunity to respond to Brooks' column, but the powerful elite-media insider fumed that our forum was too small to contain the kind of Rumpelstiltskin rages that have made him a superstar. Now O'Reilly puts the ad in ad nauseam by, um, raging about it again:

Most Ridiculous Item: No Fairness in L.A. Times

I don't want to belabor this L.A. Times thing. But you should all know what's going on out there. The Times pays a columnist, Rosa Brooks, who is actually a lawyer representing George Soros's Open Society Institute.

But the L.A. Times has not told its readers that. That's amazing.

Now, Ms. Brooks, obviously a far-left person, used a bogus Indiana University study to attack me. Not fair, not good. So we contacted the L.A. Times with the facts, asking them to run a column explaining the dopey study. The Times agreed. Instead of putting it in the paper, the column wound up on their Internet site. By the way, BillOReilly.com, our web site, has that if you want to check it out.

The bottom line, all we want is fairness from the L.A. Times and every other media organization. Is that too much to ask? Apparently, in L.A. it is. And it's ridiculous. All over the country, these people, they hire people, and they don't tell you who they are. It's just dishonest.

I'm guessing O'Reilly read our response to his previous Ridiculous Item—even though that too only appeared on these here Interwebs—because he's now backpedaled from his earlier, false characterization of Mitchell's column as a "correction," and now lamely (but more accurately) refers to it as "a column explaining the dopey study." But his acquaintance with truth remains doubtful: Here's the L.A. Times not telling its readers about Brooks' affiliation with the Open Society Institute.

And for good measure, here's the Karl Popper-influenced, anti-communist, pro-market, pro-democracy Soros being called not only a leftist but a rightist, a shill for President Bush's forward strategy of freedom and a few things not fit for a family newspaper. And because not enough O'Reilly is always too much, we'll have a response to Mitchell's article coming up shortly, by the authors of the study that started the current round of name-calling. And of course we welcome any response from O'Reilly's camp, confident that the readers will tire of this matter long before we do. Watch this space! 

Update: Here's the response from the professors.

Is the Consumer Electronics Assn. picking sides in the battle between Apple's iPod and, well, everybody else? The group just unveiled a new standard for connecting portable media players to car stereos, boomboxes and other audio-visual gear, and it certainly looks like an effort to undermine Apple's advantage in the market. Read more at the Bit Player blog.

Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent David L.  Brewer III responds to the barrage of criticism recently levied against the district for its lack of accountability, its poor implementation of a payroll system, and its discipline policy, among other things:

Urban school districts are shot full of holes from silver bullets. The pressure to "do something now" is immense, often leading to underdeveloped programs that do not work, resulting in cascading pressure to "do something else." I will not be caught in this vicious, failing cycle. The reforms I put in place will transform the system because the old way of trying to fix our ailing schools will take longer than any of our lifetimes.

Allstate Protection President George Ruebenson is on the defensive as well, explaining why it was the right choice to cut off new homeowner policies in California. Author Pamela Druckerman explains why the French are more forgiving when it comes to infidelity, and columnist Jonah Goldberg explores the Democrats' "paranoia problem."

The editorial board offers its endorsements for today's local elections. It also urges California to give its National Guard tuition assistance and tells Senators not to fiddle with taxes on private equity funds' capital gains.

Readers respond to Erika Schickel's anti-Mother's Day op-ed. Carpinteria's Bud Fink notes, "Schickel is 100% correct. Now if only her sentiment is extended to Father's Day, Christmas, and birthdays...."