Kelly Freas will probably be remembered by the majority as the creator of the image of Alfred E. Newman that appeared on the cover of Mad magazine, but I was more familiar with his work on many science fiction magazines and book cover art for which he received many awards.

If those I highlight seem odd to some, I prefer to highlight those who others may overlook. It isn’t that one is more important than another.

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were. Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

John Donne

Unable to fake sympathy, Dubya has asked his father and Bill Clinton to convince people to donate. I assume he doesn’t intend to cancel the coronation and donate the $40+ million price tag to the victims of the tsunami. He knows that he is not going to get any money from the Religious Reich, who have yet to even acknowledge the disaster and are unlikely to ask their mailing list to display “Christian” charity when there are people left to hate.

George H.W. Bush can appeal to real Republicans, and the Big Dog can appeal to real Christians.

The M$M has been running stories about the declining number of murders in major cities. They are claiming that the decline is due to the hard-nosed policing pioneered in NYC under Mayor “Giggles” and his “no jaywalking” crusade.

Real slowly for the journalists: all reliable research shows that the crime rate is directly proportional the number of males between 15 and 45 in society. The crime rate has been going down since 1992 because the leading edge of the “Baby Boom” hit 46 in 1992. As the “Boomers” age the number of people available to commit crimes go down. Nothing else that has ever been done has shown anything more than a “noise-level” effect on the crime rate: not community policing, not longer sentences, not an armed citizenry, not get tough, not sentencing reforms, not the death penalty, not planting flowers, not et cetera . . . ad nauseam.

How many prisons are needed, how many cops are needed, how many courts are needed? How many males between 15 and 45 do you have? I’m sorry, but that’s all there is to it.