I moved from Austin to San Francisco and everything anybody ever told me about California has proven to be wrong. It's not a beautiful city on a hill. It has great weather and a scenic landscape, that's about it. I prefer NYC over SF any day of the week. At least there you know where people are coming from. Californians? Fake lying liars hiding behind their bonded teeth and designer handbags, and I am including Northern California in that milieu. I would encourage you to move back to New York.

I think Tennis is right. People do move to California in search of something. We still believe in the wild west, the American frontier. We believe that we can carve ourselves into something new. It's a nice thought! Maybe you moved to California to discover that you can be anything you want, and you can do it close to home.

And, anyhow, when are we going to forgive ourselves for loving the ground on which we grew up? I think Americans love to think of themselves as self-invented, rootless.

I got lost in Emeryville the other day and out of eleven people I asked on the street, one person knew where the nearest subway station was. Actually, two of those asked pretended that I wasn't there. For half an hour I wandered around trying to find my bearings. I began to hallucinate that I was in a ghost town where all the buildings were false fronts, wood and brick propped up to resemble civilization.

To young people, Goldblum must seem like one of those stars who did cameos on "The Love Boat." As kids, we knew that Carol Channing and Mickey Rooney and Zsa Zsa Gabor must've done something at some point, but to us, they were just cheesy, seemingly talentless old people who fell in love on a cruise ship, and slipped their old bones into "something more comfortable," all of which grossed us out and made us count the seconds until "Fantasy Island."

Yes! You get me; When all those stars would walk onto the Loveboat I instinctively knew that they were "someone" very important. (Maybe soundtrack told me?) I just couldn't tell who, so I took their word for it.

Dear Tom Tomorrow,

You seemed to have turned a corner. At one point in your career you addressed vital issues that few were covering or dared to touch. Now you seem to be sleepwalking through your job: Draw some hilariously retro 1950's businesmen and housewives arguing for the conservative corporate estabblishment and -- Boom! -- There's your cartoon for the week. It never varies, you seem to repeat the same messages endlessly and you never show any signs of hope, just droll criticism for a hopeless future. I myself am a depressing cynic and you are bumming me out! But this isn't just about politics, it's about the corners that cartoonists back themselves into when they draw a comic that they are no longer interested in really making, were it not for the steady paycheck: Groening, Schulz, Davis, Breathed and now, so it would seem, Mr. Tomorrow. I realize that you probably make substantially less than any of those dudes, but the result is no more readable.

1.) Truth has always been the core ethic of journalism. And as such, Indymedia has a fantastic tradition of reporting dissenting voices throughout the world, particularly regarding the Bush administration. If Josh Wolf's credentials as an indymedia journalist are in question, then let's look at the facts. Indymedia covered the nationwide public dissent of the Bush administration more thoroughly and before anyone else. They continue to cover grassroots movements while the rest of the press marginalizes and belittles most forms of protest and dissent.

2.) Another core notion of journalism is that one must be aware and honest about your own biases. Josh Wolf has been completely forthcoming about his bias; He's a radical with an outspoken opinion. Salon, another news source whose journalistic style holds a very particular bias, is not always honest about the angles that it's running. (Try reading their articles on the Democratic presidential frontrunners for a taste of what I'm talking about.)

Josh Wolf is exactly the kind of minority opinion that our constitution is designed to protect. Katie Couric is not on trial, nor for that matter is Bob Novak, a man who has nuzzled up to this administration while still enjoying all the honors of a free press, a column and various talk show invitations.

Freedom of the press is not just about protecting the jobs of a middle-class elite. It's about broadcasting the truth, which in this case meant covering a protest against global corporatization, a protest against a world where a few people become phenomenally wealthy and the rest of us pay the price. Most people who read Salon understand that there are far-reaching consequences for our consumer culture, but they don't like the kids who take the streets against it. They don't want Halliburton and Diebold, but they don't want to speak out. I guess all the armchair quarterbacks out there who think Wolf's rights are unimportant have a game plan for us, but I've yet to hear what it is.

Riveting. Thank you for the insight.

Okay, okay. Here's my theory. Stephen Colbert sometimes gets a little handsy when he's in character. Witness the The Daily Show segment wherein Colbert goes to the Republican National Convention, starts boogeying to whatever rally cry theme song the floor is playing and ends up putting his hands on some random conservative lady's rump. It's a funny piece, but not exactly consensual.

Okay. I think Fonda was playing chicken; Whoever breaks character first loses. Maybe, for whatever reason, she wanted to challenge his television personae. Fictional or not, the Colbert bluster begs to be jacked with, just the same as he enjoys messing with others. That's my theory.

And yeah! It IS gross! Yuck!!!!