The soup can, as any fool can plainly see, is up. For those of you who don't know, the soup can is the symbol that I won't be posting much, if anything, today on this here blog. Usually, the mere posting of the soup can gives you more new content than most blogs but we have a high standard here for putting new goodies up here on newsfromme.com. In case anyone's interested, there are now close to 23,000 postings on this site, less than 100 of which are reruns.

I'm taking today off from it so I can devote all my attention to a special project which I may be able to tell you about later this week. Most of you will not be interested but you don't get to 23,000 without putting up a lot of real trivia. (When people ask me how I get to that total I tell them the secret: Make every fifth post a plug for Frank Ferrante.)

I would like to thank those of you who write me when you find typos on this blog. If you haven't spotted many, that may be because a few of my volunteer proofreaders are so fast that most of them are found n' fixed within twenty minutes of their posting. I don't acknowledge them all because usually, eleven people write in all at once but the fastest has got to be Mark Thorson. Ron Bauerle deserves special mention because he keeps catching errors in old posts, meaning that they were there for a while and no one noticed or reported them. Thanks to you all.

A number of you have written in to ask about the history of the memorable and covinous Dick Van Dyke Show comic books published by Gold Key in the sixties. I have updated my original article, expanding it, correcting some erroneous information and incorporating some better scans of the covers and you can see it right here.

Got this the other day from Elliott Kalan…

Long-long-long-time reader of your blog and your work, and I felt a foolish need to respond to something you said on Sunday in your review of this year's Emmys. I definitely agreed with your main point that this year's ceremony was as good as they ever manage to get, because most years it's pretty less-than-mediocre. But you parenthetically mentioned a trend among winners talking about how great the other nominees are and wondering if that's a way of bragging about how good the winner is because they managed to beat all these other supposedly great shows. So as the guy who accepted the Outstanding Variety Writing award for The Daily Show this year, in whose acceptance speech I mentioned how great the other nominees were, I want to clear my own name of bragging-through-compliment.

This year, for the first time in who knows how many that I can remember, I really felt like every nominee in the Variety Writing category had a strong shot at the title. Usually there's one or two nominees where I think, "If they beat us, I'm going to be pissed." But this year I wouldn't have had that consolation — if any of them had beaten us I would have had to admit, "Yup, they had a great year doing a great show and they earned it." It made me feel better about our winning that it came in a year when the other nominees were uniformly excellent, and I wanted to touch on that once I realized I was supposed to talk for the writers. Unconsciously, maybe it was a way for us to brag (my ego's just big enough to allow it), I'm no psychologist. But that wasn't my intended motive. I wanted the other nominees to recognize that we recognized how strong they all were. As for the actors, though, I can't speak for them.

And now having said my piece, I'll say keep up the great work with all of your work and thanks and I'll go!

You're quite right that this year's nominees were all outstanding. Feel flattered that I disagree with you that the others had a strong shot at the trophy. It's like the year two friends of mine were up for the writing Tony Award against The Book of Mormon. Everybody in the place knew long before it was opened what it was going to say in the envelope.

As I mentioned, I don't know how I feel about this kind of thing. There are times when a winner gets up at one of these shows and goes on and on about "what a great honor this is," and all they seem to be doing is inflating the importance of the award they just won. Other times, they seem honestly overwhelmed and grateful. I guess there's a humble way to praise the other nominees and a non-humble one and for what it's worth, Elliott, your speech sounded genuine and humble.

Speaking of genuine and humble: I thought it was kinda classy of Mr. Stewart to let a full-time writer accept the writing award on behalf of the staff, rather than to appoint himself spokesperson. Perhaps he had a premonition he'd be back up there to accept for Outstanding Variety Talk Series, as he was, but a star of greater ego and less consideration might not have taken that chance. I hope working with that guy was really as good as it appeared from afar.

They're saying Ben Carson is now tied with Donald Trump in some polls. That makes me even less likely to think Trump will be the nominee because I know it won't be Carson…and if he's doing as well as Trump, that means Trump's high polling numbers must really be meaningless.

Carson's running for the same reason Herman Cain (who at one time was the front-runner) was running last time. And why was Herman Cain running? Because none of us would have any idea who he was if he hadn't. It's just like Rick Santorum keeps running so we know who he is. He can't possibly think he has a chance to be the Republican nominee. He just wants people to know who he is so they won't Google his name to find out.

I have no idea who'll be the Republican nominee. If you forced me to predict right now, I'd say Rubio…but not that long ago, I would have said Scott Walker.

Not that I'm comfortable agreeing with Karl Rove but recently, he said — on Fox News, of course — "Let's just remember, we are at the beginning of this process. As of now, in 2012, Rick Perry was ahead at 29.9 percent, and we had seven more leads before it finally settled on Mitt Romney on Feb. 28 of 2012." He further said there might not be a nominee until March or April. Isn't it about time for Newt to get into this race?

Bernadette Peters, Julia McKenzie, and Ruthie Henshall perform "You've Gotta Get a Gimmick" from Gypsy. This was part of a 1998 tribute to producer Cameron Mackintosh…

I'm big on caring for animals and I donate regularly to a group that does what it can for the daunting feral cat population. Once upon a time, I think I donated to PETA, the so-called "People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals" but they lost me with one silly stunt or hysterical crusade or another.

Their latest publicity-seeking campaign — which of course does not prevent one animal anywhere from starving or being killed or maimed or anything of the sort — is to fight for the intellectual property rights of a black crested macaque. The primate took a selfie and they think it's entitled to the copyright on it and they're suing the photographer whose camera was involved.

I would be embarrassed if money that I donated to help animals was being used for this purpose. So I'm glad I stopped giving to them and I donate instead to The Stray Cat Alliance.

Did you know this is coming out on DVD? Do you even know what it is? The Great American Dream Machine was a PBS series that ran for two years starting in 1971. It was irreverent, controversial and often very funny.

Basically, it was a mess of freeform short films and sketches, some quite wonderful. Albert Brooks' "Famous School for Comedians" alone is probably worth the price of this whole set and I vividly recall a cooking lesson where Marshall Efron went through the ingredients of a popular brand of frozen lemon meringue pie and noted that it didn't contain a speck of lemon.

Among the others seen on the series were Charles Grodin, Penny Marshall, Henry Winkler, Andy Rooney, writer Studs Terkel, Martin Mull, David Steinberg, Carly Simon, Tiny Tim and a new kid named Chevy Chase who was still a few years from appearing on Saturday Night Live. Rooney contributed opinion segments which he later began doing each week on 60 Minutes.

I really liked this show back then. I'm hoping it's still as good as I remember and we'll find out when the DVD set comes out. Amazon currently says it'll be out September 29 and they're charging $49.98 for it. I just got a press release from the video company that says it's being delayed until October 27 and it's $39.98, which means it should be even cheaper on Amazon and with their price guarantee, you should get the lowest possible price. Here's the link when you're ready.

Jonathan Chait, who is fast becoming my favorite political pundit, has three pieces up that are worth a read…

This one is about how the continuing good news regarding Obamacare is creating problems for those who predicted it would be a disaster and now must twist themselves and the facts into the shape of Rold-Gold Pretzels to argue otherwise.

This one is about how Jeb Bush's economic proposals are really turning out to be, "Let's do all that stuff my brother did that worked so well but let's do more of it!" And while I'm on this topic, howcome nobody seems to be pointing out something about the former Florida governor's campaign that seems pretty obvious to me? It's that his buttons and banners just read "Jeb!" because he and his handlers decided it wasn't a good idea to remind people of his surname. He seems to have given up on that now.

And lastly, Chait has this article up that covers the "resignation" this morning of John Boehner as Speaker of the House. Chait's title is "Conservatives Hated Boehner Because He Couldn't Get Rid of Obama" and if you read the title, you almost don't have to read the article.

Hey, let's watch the Monty Python sketch where [SPOILER ALERT!] the guy goes to a cheese shop and finds they're all out of Red Leicester, Tilsit, Caerphilly, Bel Paese, Red Windsor, Stilton, Gruyere, Emmental, Norwegian Jarlsberger, Liptauer, Lancashire, White Stilton, Danish Blue, Double Gloucester, Cheshire, Dorset Blue Vinney, Brie, Roquefort, Pont-l'Eveque, Port Salut, Savoyard, Saint-Paulin, Carre-de-L'Est, Boursin, Bresse Bleu, Perle de Champagnem, Camembert, Gouda, Edam, Caithness, Smoked Austrian, Japanese Sage Darby, Wensleydale, Greek Feta, Gorgonzola, Parmesan, Mozzarella, Pippo Creme, Danish Fimboe, Czech Sheep's Milk, Venezuelan Beaver Cheese, Cheddar, 'Illchester and Limburger…

In the parts of Los Angeles where I travel, I have my choice of seven supermarket chains: Vons, Ralphs, Gelson's, Trader Joe's, Whole Foods, Albertsons and Jon's. I rarely go to Jon's. They carry very few of the items I routinely purchase and the ones they do carry are all available at Vons, Ralphs, Gelson's and Albertsons.

I occasionally pop into Trader Joe's and Whole Foods for items I cannot get elsewhere. I'm not wild about either. Trader Joe's, of course, has its corporate policy of discontinuing any item that I try and like. As for Whole Foods, a friend of mine once likened any of their products to a hooker you take home only to discover she's not as healthy as you thought and waaaay overpriced.

So I mainly shop Vons, Ralphs, Gelson's and Albertsons. Each has a few items I want but cannot get at the others. I shop at them in rotation and when I'm in each, I stock up on the things that only they carry.

One evening earlier this year, I decided to drive to the nearest Albertsons and get the things I can get at all four of the markets in my rotation plus the items I can only get at Albertsons. Included in the latter category are Hormel Roasted Chicken Breasts and Hormel Roasted Sliced Turkey, both in gravy, both in handy pop-it-into-the-microwave packages. I like these and the other local markets don't carry them.

I drove over to the market, snagged a shopping cart on my way in and began filling it. I had just picked up my Thomas' English Muffins (the original kind) and was looking for my favorite peanut butter when I noticed something odd. The employees were all wearing green aprons and/or shirts with a logo that did not say "Albertsons."

I went up to a gent who was neatening shelves and said, "May I ask you a question?"

He said, "Sure."

I said, "Where am I shopping?"

He said, "This is now a Haggen."

I asked what a Haggen was and the man explained to me that Haggen was a market chain that was well-represented in other states. Albertsons had closed or sold off about half their stores and Haggen seized the opportunity to buy a lot of them and instantly establish itself in Southern California.

I later did a little research and learned more. The Albertsons corporation is merging with the Safeway company, which owns Vons and another Southern California chain, Pavilions. Federal regulators said they would not approve said merger until those chains had divested themselves of many of their stores. Haggen swooped in and paid $1.4 billion for those stores.

In the Haggen store that evening, I had an immediate worry: Did they still carry the Hormel Chicken Breasts and Sliced Turkey? I asked the man in the green apron what had changed besides the name…

"Really nothing," he said. "There's a new sign outside. We have new aprons and uniforms. There's a new name on our shopping bags. That's about it. Everyone who was working here before the change is still working here." My subsequent exploration of the market would confirm that: Everything in the same place. They even still carried Albertsons brand milk and Albertsons brand potato salad and Albertsons brand rotisserie chickens. I was pushing an Albertsons shopping cart, though I would later notice some of them said Haggen on them.

"What's going to change?" I asked the man. He said, "We don't know. Haggen hasn't set up its supply chain yet. I mean, if they want other things on the shelves, they have to have warehouses and trucks and such. The same food is still coming to us on all the same trucks."

I went about my marketing, purchasing all the items I'd intended to purchase, including half-a-dozen each of the Hormel entrees. I recall fretting a bit that I might not be able to get them there or anywhere once the Haggen folks completed their makeovers of their new acquisitions. As it turns out in yesterday's news, I had more reason to fret than I imagined…

Haggen Inc. is leaving California after a dramatic expansion gone wrong forced the grocery chain to file for bankruptcy protection this month. The Bellingham, Wash., company said Thursday that it is closing all its stores in the state as part of a larger exit of its Pacific Southwest holdings, including in Arizona and Nevada. That would affect at least 100 outlets, with 67 in California. That follows the closure of 27 stores announced last month, including 16 in the Golden State.

Mark doesn't get this. The Albertsons/Safeway folks sell off a bunch of their stores. Presumably, they got rid of the least profitable locations. Haggen grabs them up, changes nothing but the name, does little or no advertising (I've certainly heard/seen none) and then something like eight months later, they're closing them all. What were they expecting?

The Haggen folks would probably say they could have made a go of their new stores but they've been sabotaged by the Albertsons/Safeway company. The two firms are suing each other — Haggen suing Albertsons, charging "systematic efforts" to eliminate Haggen as a competitor; Albertsons suing Haggen for non-payment of $41 million to cover inventory it acquired in the new stores.

Okay, maybe one or both sides' lawsuits have merit, I don't know. I just don't understand how you acquire a business, change nothing but a name (which has, insofar as I can tell, a lot of good history) and then declare the whole thing a failure.

And to be honest, I'm not spending a lot of time trying to understand that. I have more important things to think about…like where I'm going to buy my Hormel Roasted Chicken Breasts and Hormel Roasted Sliced Turkey. Sometimes, life is really tough.

This is an entry to Mark Evanier's list of the twenty top voice actors in American animated cartoons between 1928 and 1968. For more on this list, read this. To see all the listings posted to date, click here.

Most Famous Role: Fred Flintstone.

Other Notable Roles: Dum-Dum (sidekick to Touché Turtle), Boris the Russian Wolfhound in Lady and the Tramp, not much else.

What He Did Besides Cartoon Voices: Reed was primarily a radio actor who segued into television.  He appeared on hundreds of radio programs but was best known for playing Falstaff, the poet on Fred Allen's shows and as Pasquale, the Italian immigrant on Life with Luigi.  On television, it was mostly guest star roles.  You can see him (and fellow voice actor Howard Morris) in the episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show entitled "The Masterpiece."  That's the one where Rob accidentally buys a seemingly worthless painting at an auction.  Reed played the auctioneer.

Why He's On This List: Fred Flintstone was one of the most popular animated characters ever and a lot of that had to do with the casting of Reed, who was just plain a great comic actor.

Fun Fact: Reed wasn't the first choice for Fred.  Bill Thompson, who voiced Touché Turtle, was. But after several episodes were recorded, Thompson was having trouble sustaining the chosen voice and Joe Barbera also decided they needed a more natural-sounding voice for Fred. So Reed was hired — and at the same time, Mel Blanc replaced the first choice for Barney Rubble, who was Hal Smith. The first few episodes were re-recorded and no one ever regretted the change.

Additional Fun Facts: Late in his career, Reed sometimes shared the role of Fred (especially when the character had to sing) with Henry Corden, then Corden took over entirely after Reed died in 1977. Reed was also the first voice of Fillmore Bear on Jay Ward's Hoppity Hooper cartoons but when he got a raise and/or too busy as Fred, that role switched over to Bill Scott.

When I was in high school (1967-1969), this country was beginning to be rocked by protests of increasing length and breadth, mass demonstrations intended to urge Washington to get us the hell out of that war we were fighting in Vietnam. The war was unwinnable, some said. Others said that if it was winnable, it was not worth the cost in American lives and resources to win. Both groups argued with those who insisted that fighting it was a necessity to ensure the future of Democracy and…well, I don't need to revisit those arguments here and now.

At the time, I didn't buy that the war was unwinnable or unnecessary. I didn't particularly side with the protesters or the defenders of that military action but if pressed to take sides, I unenthusiastically sided with the latter. I suppose my main opinion — as a youth approaching Draft Age — was that whatever the merits of the war, I didn't want to go off and fight it. I didn't want to go into the Army at all and a few years later, thanks to a high-enough draft lottery number, I didn't.

If you want to fault me for my unwillingness to serve, fault away. I think I would have been a terrible soldier. If I'd absolutely had to join some branch of the military, the best thing I could do for my country was to go fight for the enemy.

Back when I was still attending University High in West Los Angeles, the campus was consumed by a big protest not unlike the ones we were seeing on the news. It was about 'Nam in a way but it was really about what then seemed like a much more important issue…

Mr. Foley.

Mr. Foley was the principal of Uni. He was a serious man, not particularly liked but for a long time, not particularly disliked. Before the protest broke out, I suppose the main thing most of us heard about him was that he often uttered what we now call "gaffes" — clumsy, insensitive things. Foleyisms, some called them. He tended to talk to us like we were tiny tots and not Young Adults who were soon to be entering the workplace, starting families and maybe even going off to fight a war.

Suddenly one day — and a key point here is that it was sudden — Mr. Foley had to go. I'm just guessing at percentages but it felt to me that out of seeming nowhere, 5% of the students at Uni were demanding that Foley resign or be fired…and 95% were going, "Huh? Why?" I did not fully understand the issues until years later when some articles were written about it, long after it was over.

The last straw — the Foleyism that triggered demands for his dismissal — began with an essay in the school newspaper, The Warrior.

(Why was it called that? Like all schools, Uni had a "theme" and ours was Indians of the American variety. Our mascot at football games was a gal or guy in an Indian suit. Our drill team dressed like Indians. Our football squad was the Warriors and the school paper was called The Warrior. All this, as you might expect, has since changed and the school team is now the Wildcats. Uni, by the way, was mostly white but we had a lot of black students, Asian students and Hispanics with no apparent racial tensions…and no apparent students of American Indian heritage.)

In this one issue of The Warrior, someone wrote an editorial urging support for the Vietnam War and harshly condemning those who were against it. One reason the whole protest came as an utter surprise to most of us is that almost no one who didn't work on The Warrior read it. I sure didn't — and an unscientific poll of my friends yielded a lot of shrugs and responses of "Who ever looks at that silly thing?"

Well, a few someones must have. One or more fiery rebuttals were submitted to run in the next issue of the usually-apolitical school paper. The Warrior's faculty advisor — surprised at the emotional blowback — kicked the matter upstairs to Mr. Foley. We later heard — and I still have no idea if this was true — that it had been run in the first place at Mr. Foley's urging. At the very least, it reflected his personal views.

In any case, he decreed that no rebuttal would be run and I believe he took the position that the first opinion piece should not have run. The Warrior wasn't a place for political debates, he now believed. The Warrior was to announce bake sales and football scores and vital news like that the horticulture area would be closed next week because it was being sprayed for aphids.

Most, I suspect, agreed with that but some students took the position that since the piece had run, the fair thing to do would be to grant Equal Time to the opposing viewpoint, then drop the matter. Foley's position was that to run the rebuttal would be to compound the mistake and extend it because then someone would demand that the paper publish a rebuttal to the rebuttal and so on. And it was on that decision that his long tenure as principal of University High School would end.

I am a little fuzzy on how this argument suddenly went volcanic but it was something like this: The outraged students, then small in number, demanded that the issue be decided not by Foley but by the Student Council. We had this thing on campus called the Student Council where every homeroom sent representatives to vote on certain issues affecting the students. Mr. Foley said no, the Student Council would not rule on this, then he wrote an article to run on the front page of the next issue of The Warrior. It said, in effect, "This is what I've decided, the matter is closed, I run this school, my word is law, there will be no further discussion." Those were not his words but they were the general interpretation of them. As I said, Mr. Foley was not good at communicating with younger human beings.

Before the issue had even been printed, the (then) small group of protesters knew about this and of course, it did not satisfy them. Some responded with an act of aggression of which I am still in awe. I never found out how they pulled it off but here is what they did…

The day the issue of The Warrior came out with Foley's decree, it was generally ignored by everyone on campus. They all were. I certainly didn't bother to pick one up.

As I walked to the bus stop to head home that day, there were students a block from campus passing out what appeared to be that same issue of The Warrior. It wasn't. It was an issue of The Worrier, a one-shot parody/replica printed on almost the same paper with much the same art direction and with the same photo of Mr. Foley on the front page. Needless to say, the text was quite different with "Foley's" little editorial reading like the ravings of a demented dictator.

I did not and still do not know who did this or how they financed it or how they got it printed. I was especially amazed and impressed that they somehow got their mitts on that issue of The Warrior before it was distributed and whipped up and published The Worrier so rapidly that it could be distributed almost simultaneously. It was free, though donations were accepted. Mostly out of admiration for the effort, I kicked in a buck…or as I then viewed a dollar, the cost of 8.3 new comic books.

The Worrier was such an amazing feat that everyone paid attention…and that's how most of the student body learned of the controversy and the protest and the drive to have Mr. Foley find a new occupation. Which is not to say everyone joined the cause. Most, it seemed to me, did not.

My sense of the campus was a huge groundswell of apathy. Maybe you could have worked up a widespread lather if the idea was to protest the War in Vietnam. The War in the Principal's Office didn't seem to be of the same urgency. There's a saying you hear now — "meet the new boss, same as the old boss." We hadn't heard that phrase then but most of us said something similar.

If Foley was removed, his replacement would surely be a guy enforcing the same rules and policies — at best, with somewhat better social skills. We were also told by the protest leaders that we had to fight for the power of the Student Council, which Foley was attempting to turn into his obedient puppets. Most of us thought Student Council was a pretty useless marionette show from the get-go and that it managed to do nothing with great pomp and puffery.

I'd served on it briefly and while I was involved, its biggest accomplishment was this: We launched a fund-raising drive to earn enough to buy paint and then we got students to volunteer to come in on a Saturday to repaint all the trash cans on campus. Even that had to be okayed at every step by the principal's office. In one meeting, just to make a point, I introduced a resolution to abolish Student Council. Our Faculty Supervisor consulted Foley's office and we were informed that Student Council did not have the power to abolish itself.

So no one wanted to fight for Student Council — which, by the way, did a pretty crappy job repainting those trash cans — and no one thought anything in The Warrior could possibly have even the teensiest impact on the Vietnam War. More importantly, no one thought that any demonstration was going to lead to a redistribution of power where the principal's office had any less than all of it. And frankly, most of us weren't particularly unhappy with the way things were run in this school we would soon be leaving forever…

…so none of this amounted to the kind of hill upon which one chooses to die. There are plenty of causes in this world worth fighting for. This did not seem to be one of them.

But I will say this: The protests were kind of a fun diversion. In high school, almost anything that disrupts the normal, day-to-day routine is kind of a fun diversion. This one took the form of boycotting one period of classes each day and it lasted for much of three days. The first day, it was fourth period and it felt to me like about a third of all students played Protest Hooky as a kind of a colossal mass dare: "I'll do it if you'll do it."

The prevailing assumption was that the school couldn't possibly discipline everyone who skipped Geometry or English or Chemistry that day if enough did…and enough did. Had the administration tried to dole out mass punishment, it would have served as an example of the kind of Draconian Principaling (I just made that term up) being practiced by Mr. Foley — further proof of why he had to go bye-bye.

I went to class that period but no actual teaching or learning occurred. The protest rally was too great a distraction. Outside the main building, there was a big grassy area where 1000+ students could congregate. Many hundreds did. Uni was on a hill so the campus was built in tiers and there were staircases all around leading up and down from tier to tier. Many of the boycotting students were massed in the grassy area looking up at a landing on one staircase from which speeches were being made.

Someone up there had a crummy portable audio system. I'm not sure if a student had brought in it or if it was something the school had and which the leaders of this rebellion commandeered for their purposes. But up on the landing, various speakers were fighting for the one microphone, taking turns having their glorious moments of leading the crowd, firing up whoever could be fired up, demanding in increasingly incendiary terms that Foley submit his resignation or be fired.

The next day, the jungle drums decreed that fifth period would be the boycotted period. The principal's office countered by sending around mimeographed announcements to be read in every room. They said that there would be no classes during fifth period that afternoon.

Fine with me. My fifth period was Gym and as far as I was concerned, any reason to not take Gym for a day was a darn good reason. I thought of trying to get to the protest leaders to urge them to make every fifth period a boycotted period, this plan to continue until my graduation day even if Foley committed harakiri.

We assumed it was Mr. Foley who decreed that there would be no classes during fifth period that afternoon, though we weren't sure of his reasoning. Maybe he thought this capitulation would somehow appease the mob. Maybe he was afraid so many would boycott that it would make the news that some high percentage of UniHi students were marching against him. This way, no one could say how many students skipped classes because there were no classes to skip.

Or maybe he just thought there was no point in anyone trying to teach anything while this kind of thing was going on. Whatever, we all found ourselves roaming the campus during fifth period like it was an extended lunch break.

I tried to listen to some of the speeches but it was hard. The portable audio device had apparently been borrowed from that guy who announces the next stop on the New York Subway. Students who couldn't understand what was being said were cheering the end of each sentence just in case that was an appropriate place to cheer.

I made out enough to come to this conclusion: That not only did I not know what greater good would occur if Mr. Foley was removed but the folks giving the speeches didn't seem to know, either. It was all talk about Lack of Communication and A Total Breakdown of The System and the word "power" popped up in every single sentence I could decipher. No one said Mr. Foley had hit a student or harmed anyone or violated his oath of office. He was just kind of guilty of being an asshole who somehow thought he was in charge.

The third day was the last day of the protests. It was sixth period this time — a bad tactical choice. Sixth period was the last period of the day so everyone just went home early. As I left, the protest leaders were up on that staircase landing, shouting to departing students that they had to stay and listen. I thought, "Gee, I don't know how inept Mr. Foley's supposed to be but he wouldn't be dumb enough to schedule a protest for last period."

Still as I recall, that was almost the end of the whole matter. The next morning, it was announced that Mr. Foley was taking a "leave of absence" and the Boy's Vice-Principal would take over as Acting Principal. The protesters declared victory and there was much glee and celebration and talk of Student Power. They didn't seem sure what they'd won but you couldn't tell them they hadn't won something.

A day or six later during lunch, a mutual friend introduced me to one of the main ringleaders of the protest, one of the guys who'd been up on the staircase landing shouting into the inadequate P.A. system. He was still glowing with victory when I asked him if he could explain just what he and his brethren had won. The fellow — his name was Tony, I think — talked about how Foley was a bad man, a tool of The Establishment, a tumor which had to be removed, a symbol of everything wrong with the world today, etc.

I said, "Yeah, but what did you get out of all that? What's different because you 'won?'" I think I even managed to pronounce the quotation marks around the word, "won."

Tony thought a moment and then admitted to me, "Basically, it was all about the win." In other words, we won in order to win. We proved we had some power. It doesn't matter how it directly affects anything. It might even make things worse for us. All that matters is that we won and they lost.

I think about that a lot as I watch grand-scale politics and I often find myself thinking, "This isn't about what they say it's about. This is all about the win."

Michael Dooley (Hi, Michael!) has written a good article about the Jack Kirby art exhibition out at Cal State Northridge. The exhibit is formally titled "Comic Book Apocalypse: The Graphic World of Jack Kirby" and it can be viewed there through October 10. If you can get there to see it, do. Here's the info.

In Monty Python's never-ending quest to get you to buy the same material over and over and over, they have a 40th anniversary Blu-Ray, DVD and "limited edition castle gift set" coming out of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. You can pre-order a copy of one of them here.

What this release will have that others haven't is a collection of out-takes and cut scenes. Here, co-director Terry Jones reviews the material and introduces portions of it…

James Bigwood writes to say this about the actor Alan Napier, who played Alfred the Butler on the Batman TV series…

Just a note about Steve Haynie's letter about Yvonne Craig that you quoted in your blog. Alan and Yvonne did not live in the same condo complex. Alan lived in a house (not a condo) in the Pacific Palisades which he bought in the forties. Yvonne lived in the Palisades as well, but about a mile's drive away. Far from seeing each other weekly, Alan and Yvonne did not re-connect between the time Batman was cancelled in 1968 and the cast reunions in the spring of 1988, twenty years later. She did attend his funeral later that year.

Glad to clear that up…and I should note that Mr. Napier had a pretty impressive acting career before he ever landed the part on Batman. It is quite apropos that his autobiography, which is finally being published next January, is entitled Not Just Batman's Butler. Here — lemme show you the cover along with another photo of Napier…

As I understand it, Napier wrote this book back in the seventies, well before he passed in 1988. He was unable to secure a publisher back then and it languished, unavailable to the public, read by only a few of those close to him. One of the zillion and one things the Internet and other has made possible is more niche publishing. You no longer have to write a book which the big retailers want to display in their front window in order to get published.

Jim Bigwood has prepped the material for publication and the book will at long last see print. There seem to be hundreds of books out now chronicling the lives of supporting actors and players who would not have warranted a book years ago, and that's a very good thing. Here's an Amazon link if you wish to pre-order the Napier book. Since it's published by McFarland, I don't think the price will come down but if it does, Amazon will give you the lower price.

William Saletan and Matt Taibbi both have interesting articles up about the current visit of Pope Francis…and it's interesting how many opinion pieces I've found online about how the Pontiff impacts this nation's political battle between Left and Right. I don't recall his predecessors having a lot to do with that kind of thing, except sometimes our eternal debate over the Death Penalty.