It’s easy now to look back and mock the George W. Bush who made this pronouncement about his new friend Vladimir Putin:

“I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy and we had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul.”

Easy to mock, yes, and no, I won’t resist.

Because now, seven years later, Pootie-Poot has announced himself as someone who is somehow resistant to the quote-unquote president’s  powers of telepathy and x-ray vision.  He did this by invading Georgia in a not-very straightforward or trustworthy way, darn it. It’s almost like this Russian guy has been thinking one thing and saying another. It’s too late to educate the quote-unquote in this sort of arcane behavior, which relies upon a skill set somewhat above that of walking while chewing gum, but I have confidence that his successor will be able to handle it.

At this point Bush isn’t the point, barring his late-term ability to further botch an international crisis (a topic which again raises the question of just how much damage he can do in the remaining months; this assumes, of course, that he actually leaves office). But while I’m tempted to leave aside further criticism that merely adds spittle to the hurricane, I just can’t part without enumerating the steps that led to this incursion by Russia into Georgia:

• The U.S. encouraging Georgia in its efforts to join NATO, and the U.S. angling to place missile-defense systems throughout that region bordering Russia.  It seems to me that when the shoe was on the other foot, in a little situation we now refer to as “The Cuban Missile Crisis,” we were apoplectic at the notion of the Soviets doing something similar to us.
• Encouraging “emerging democracies” without recognizing that not everyone wants every democracy to emerge — especially when it is next door and when it contains people you consider to be part of your own nation-state. (As the Russians consider Osetia.) As anyone who has played the board game Risk knows, one little foreign-controlled nation in the center of Asia throws the entire Asian continent (and its bonus armies) out of whack. But I take Bush for an Uno player, where you win by losing cards and points.
• A dangerous misreading of a foreign state and its leader. See “Pootie-Poot,” above.
• Invading Iraq, a nation that did not attack us, which directly ties to the rhetorical question voiced by a Russian commander the other day:  “If the U.S. can take Baghdad, why can’t we take Tblisi?”

Yes, Georgia is an independent nation — as independent as one can be when bordered by an overwhelming power willing to use overwhelming force, and abetted only by a feckless West that makes bold promises but never delivers. Now it’s time to rattle our swords and seem aghast, while maintaining the tacit admission that if Kansas ever decides to go Communist, it’s unlikely to be allowed to stand.

Since May, I’ve been in training to do an AIDS marathon this fall. (If you’d like to sponsor me and haven’t already done so, please click here.) In that time I have learned many things — things so astonishing to me that I’m considering collecting them into a book. Maybe it wouldn’t be this generation’s “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,” or even close, but it would be by me. Here’s just some of what I’ve learned.

1. Your achievement is your own. No one else cares.

On Sunday, I ran my furthest distance yet — 13 miles. To me, this is an amazing accomplishment. I came home and told my little boy and he said, “Oh, yeah? I can run a thousand miles.” His dead certainty was disconcerting. I told my wife I had run 13 miles and she looked at me said, about my forthcoming marathon trip in the fall, “I guess you expect me to change my work schedule.” Nobody at the training site was impressed either, because they had just run the same 13 miles.

2. The foulest place on Earth is not where you think.

Is it the bottom of the world’s largest garbage pit, in Lagos, Nigeria? No. Is it the drinking water beneath Pittsburgh, PA? No. It’s not even the dark thoughts in the furthest corner of Larry Flynt’s mind. The foulest place on Earth is the freestanding porta-potty in Griffith Park next to the training site. It is so foul that if I were to post a photo of its interior, the internet would shrivel and die. If I were to describe it in terms too readily understood, you would never return to this blog for fear I might do it again. Just imagine the very worst toilet situation imaginable, extending your imagination to all surfaces within (including the ceiling), and then add in the stench, then multiply by infinity. That approaches the state of this, the foulest place on Earth.

3. The laws of physics don’t apply to running.

I’ve been running since May, and I’m now running between 14 and 34 miles per week, depending upon what week I’m on in the training schedule. I don’t eat fast food, I don’t drink soda, I eat fish twice a week and plenty of fruits and vegetables, and I’ve cut out most alcohol. Guess how much weight I’ve lost. If you said “none,” you win. Not one ell-bee. Not a gram. Inevitably when I tell people this, they’ll say, “You’re gaining muscle.” I haven’t seen that. I have large calves, so you’d expect it there, but nope — same level of (or lack of) definition. How is this possible? Yesterday on that long run, I shared this question with a fellow runner. She replied, “Well, your ass looks great.” I didn’t ask if she meant it looks better now than it did, and whether therefore I had a saggy ass or maybe fat ass before this. In fact, I dropped the whole matter, though I did feel compelled to first respond, “Uh… yours too.”

4.  It may indeed be true that your parents walked nine miles uphill both ways to school through three feet of snow.

I say that because the training course — through Griffith Park, through the Equestrian Center, through the Rancho District, into Burbank and back — is uphill both ways. However, I can’t vouch for the three feet of snow.

5. Bum smell is mostly sweat.

You know that smell that bums get? Of course it comes from poor hygiene, unclean clothing, and bad diet. But I now suspect that, specifically, it’s mostly sweat. That’s because I’m smelling it on myself after long runs. Yes, after a long run I smell like a bum. (Or someone from a distant land with different bathing rituals. Say, France.) Of course I take a shower when I get home after one of these runs, but first I have to come inside. My children greet me this way: By covering their noses. Literally. This Sunday, my daughter and my little boy stood in the room adjacent and looked at me, each of them peering over an arm stretched across to cover a nose. They wouldn’t come any closer. At one point, my daughter added a comment:  “Ewwwwww.” I had suspected the situation even before getting home, when I stopped at the Smart ‘n’ Final two blocks from our house to get orange juice and hazelnut creamer so I could enjoy the sort of breakfast I now felt entitled to, having run 13 miles. Still wearing my soaking running clothes and staying respectfully distant from others, I grabbed what I needed, placed it on the checkout conveyor belt and backed up several feet. The cashier, a man in his mid-20’s, greeted me. Then there was silence as he scanned my goods. Finally I said, “I just ran 13 miles.” Without looking up, he said, “That explains it.”

More observations to follow, I’m sure.

We don’t have any troops left to send to Georgia.

Earlier this year, my world-traveling friend Doug Hackney took a long-distance view at the major candidates for president in his home country and did an assessment of each. Like most soothsayers, Doug got a lot wrong — but what he got right rings with insight, particularly with regard to the Democrats. A few samples:

• Hillary Clinton: “The candidate of the Borg… and the message so far echoes the Borg: ‘Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated.'”
• Dennis Kucinich: “Says what he believes and believes what he says. Especially the part about the UFO. Has a very limited grip on reality.”
• Barack Obama: “America really needs re-branding. … Barack Obama would be the best re-branding imaginable at this point in history.”

And finally, and most tellingly, Doug called John Edwards “a charlatan.”

That simple word has stayed with me all seven months since Doug wrote it. Because I was jealous. Doug had nailed the word I’d been searching for. As surely everyone else can see now, John Edwards is a charlatan.

Here’s why Doug thinks he’s a charlatan:

“In the last few years I’ve spent a lot of time around people with little to nothing. Their collective net worth probably wouldn’t pass 1/1000th of one percent of John Edwards’ multi-million-dollar net worth. John Edwards is running as the candidate of the poor, the downtrodden, the people with little to nothing. From what I’ve seen from being around these people, the only thing John Edwards has in common with them is that he’ll tell them anything they want to hear to get their vote. He’s a classic political charlatan. Luckily for us, he’s not the anointed one this year.”

What is a charlatan, exactly? It’s “a person practicing quackery or some similar confidence trick in order to obtain money or advantage via some form of pretense or deception.”

Like using your wife’s cancer as the backdrop for your first campaign video while you’re booking “consulting time” with another woman.

(And just to be clear — the relationship with the other woman is between Edwards and his wife. Repeatedly lying about it while asking us to believe that you weren’t doing it while she had cancer and while asking us to believe you didn’t father a child with her — that’s asking us to double down on your ponzi scheme.)

I could go on in further fashion detailing Edwards’ behavior and tactics in this scandal, but Mickey Kaus has already done that for me. I will say, though, that I’m thrilled to see Edwards go down in flames this way. I’ve never been so alarmed at any event as I was at the 2007 California State Democratic Party Convention, where Edwards threw out one crowd-pleasing and self-serving slab of meat after another and the people in the pit gobbled it up, no matter how wildly impractical, dangerous, and wrong it seemed. I felt like the only Jew at the Nuremberg Rally.

Twenty-five years ago, my then-five-year-old niece Lesley came to stay with me overnight at the house I shared with my then-girlfriend (now wife) Valorie. This was something that most of my nieces and nephews did, once their parents decided they no longer cared about our “living in sin.” I walked Lesley to the Ocean City shoreline and bought her a big hot pretzel, and as the little girl stood by the railing on the beach side of the boardwalk and prepared to take her first bite of that pretzel, a grimy seagull flew down, clamped onto it and flew off with it, leaving her shaken and sobbing.

When A Flock of Seagulls no-showed on Tuesday night it my reaction wasn’t quite that bad, but it was close.

Yes, the other acts played — Naked Eyes, ABC, Belinda Carlisle, The Human League — and they were great. But once again a seagull flew off with my pretzel and left nothing behind but hurt and anger. No explanation, no announcement, nothing.

Some years ago, when the U.S. was freshly mourning its lost innocence and bad music filled our airwaves, four lads from England arrived with offbeat haircuts, a look that was endlessly copied, and a sound we hadn’t heard before on the radio.

I speak, of course, of A Flock of Seagulls.

I saw A Flock of Seagulls (calling them just “The Flock” or “The Seagulls” won’t do) in a daylong show at Philadelphia’s JFK Stadium in the early 1980’s. They were opening for Robert Hazard and the Heroes, who were opening for Blondie, who were opening for Elvis Costello, who was opening for Genesis. In other words, they were the last-billed act. They stepped on-stage in the bright daylight, started their first number, and were immediately pelted with bottles. I couldn’t understand why — sure, they looked (and sounded!) different, but what was wrong with that? And it was a good different. A few short weeks later, “I Ran (So Far Away)” lit up the singles charts and dance floors — even of the formerly disco clubs — and everyone loved them and said they always had.

Tonight, for the first time in about 25 years, I’m going to see A Flock of Seagulls, along with other (almost as-) cool members of the Regeneration Tour: The Human League, Belinda Carlisle, ABC, and Naked Eyes. To say that I had — and have — CDs by most of these bands is a given.

One thing hasn’t changed. Despite their innovative look and sound, A Flock of Seagulls still can’t get any respect. On the box-office window of the Gibson Amphitheatre at Universal Studio (where the show is, tonight), and on the tickets themselves, the billing is as follows: “Regeneration Tour: The Human League / Belinda Carlisle / more.” Still, that’s somehow fitting. Twenty-five years later, A Flock of Seagulls is still more.

If you grew up in the northeastern U.S., you remember the laughably bad Carvel Ice Cream commercials, with badly ad-libbed voiceovers by founder Tom Carvel. Whatever happened to Carvel and his frosty creations?

Evidently, Cookie Puss (above) and Fudgie the Whale live on in 500 Carvel Ice Cream Stores around the U.S.

But founder Tom Carvel’s dream of leaving $80 million to small non-profits died with him, and the story of how that happened will melt your heart. It’s a tale of greed, skulduggery, and possibly murder.

Schlitz beer is returning, and I have one bit of advice for its brewers: Make it better.

As the story linked above notes, Schlitz was pretty bad, at least in the incarnation I remember. It tasted so bad and was so cheap to buy, that my father drank it. That’s how bad it was. The only beer I remember him preferring was Black Label, and that’s because it was even cheaper and even worse. Schlitz tasted like the can it came in, with rust added; Black Label tasted like the can and whatever died inside it.

I have no intention of switching from my occasional Newcastle, which I fully switched to when Anheuser-Busch bought out Rolling Rock and screwed up its formula — even while nervily retaining the slogan “Same as it ever was.” But if or when I run into Schlitz someplace I’m going to try one, just to see if I can keep it down.

One of the great pleasures of going to the theatre in Los Angeles is becoming reacquainted with wonderful character actors you grew up watching on TV and subsequently forgot about.

A few years ago I saw my friend Aram Saroyan’s play “At the Beach House,” which I knew starred Orson Bean. And it was a treat seeing Mr. Bean — er, not that Mr. Bean — onstage. The surprise was coming across Dena Dietrich in one of the other roles. Yes, she had a career on stage and television, but my generation remembers her more for this:

She was utterly delightful in Aram’s play.

Tonight I went to see a couple of other friends in the appropriately titled “My Old Friends” at the Victory Theatre in Burbank. Appearing in one of the roles was the terrific character actor Malachi Throne. Name not ring a bell? Mr. Throne played Robert Wagner’s boss on “It Takes a Thief,” which debuted in 1968, and, along with what IMDB pegs at 100 other television roles, played Commodore Mendez on the “Star Trek” two-parter “The Menagerie.” Here’s a picture.

Throne has a deep, rich, unforgettable voice. His performance tonight as a man who realizes he’s built nothing in his life was simple, touching, and true. I don’t know if I’ll ever see him on stage again, but I was glad to luck into him tonight, and told him so afterward.

(Hey, as an aside: Given Malachi Throne’s “Star Trek” work (including on “Next Generation”), this seems like a perfect news bit to be on my friend Larry Nemecek’s soon-to-be-renamed blog.)

As I reported here, the Los Angeles Times recently canceled its book section and its opinion section (which had been cohabiting like bad roommates recently anyway), the real estate section, the automotive section, and the magazine. While I was at the San Diego Comic-Con, the final Sunday Times with these sections appeared, wrapped with an editorial message that no one I know buys. To paraphrase:  “while we’re downsizing, we’re still going to be better than ever.” While acknowledging that it would be difficult for them to say anything else — other than the noble thing, like “This is a retreat and we’re saddened and ashamed” — this sentiment is so unbelievable it leaves my trust in the media even further diminished.

Tomorrow the first Sunday Times without all those sections will arrive on my doorstep. I’m not sure what I’m going to read in it. I suppose I’ll flip to the back of the front section to see what remains of Opinion, and I’ll take a look at the Calendar section now retitled “Arts & Books” to see how much book has squeezed out art, or vice versa. Or maybe I’ll subscribe to the Sunday New York Times, which has wisely done a major media buy in the area, aimed at people like me and like all the locals who’ve recently told me that if the LA Times doesn’t have a book section, it also won’t have them for long.

While we heretofore loyal readers scratch our heads and figure out how little newspaper still qualifies one as a major newspaper, we can take comfort in something new that the Los Angeles Times has added. That’s right — even in an age of cutbacks, they’re looking to expand coverage into vital new areas.

Click here for their new and much ballyhooed database of dog names in Los Angeles County.

It turns out that “Princess” is the most-registered dog name in Los Angeles County. And it turns out that there are 24 (!) other dogs in the County sharing the name of my dog, Gem.  I found this unsettling, knowing as I do that she is definitely one-of-a-kind, but was relieved to see that she’s the only Australian Shepherd in LA with that name. So I am vastly relieved.

I know that the LA Times’ new dog-name database will have snobs in other cities with other metropolitan daily newspapers howling in derision — people in cities like New York and Washington, DC — but I think they’re barking up the wrong tree. There are only so many dollars and man hours to go around at the LA Times. If I want to learn about books, I can walk into any mall and see what’s in that little window of the Borders Express, and if I want to know opinions about important issues, I can just listen to what the government tells me. But how else would I find out how popular my dog’s name is?