Here’s one of the featured books in the window of the bookstore at Los Angeles International Airport. Nice to know we’re peddling this to the world. The most chilling aspect is the top line. It’s hard to believe that the people who buy this book can read. But maybe it’s purely ornamental. “Look what we have on our coffee table:  The TRUTH.” Because, you know, I’m sure that the recognized leader of the free world, the head of the world’s most powerful nation, a man who came from extremely humble origins and rose to the highest station achievable, is eagerly working in secret to advance someone else’s agenda. Yes, that’s how egoless someone who is that driven must be.

When a gnat flies into your wine and you immediately drink it down, thinking, “Mm. Protein.” Which I just did.

Yesterday, my son was home from college for all of about five hours. At around hour three, his 8-year-old  brother said, “Hey, Lex, aren’t you supposed to leave? ‘Cause you suck up all our food. No offense.” He then added that, “You can say anything if you add ‘No offense.’ “

Seems true!

Southern California is in the beginnings of an historic heat wave. Today it was 113 degrees in downtown Los Angeles. In Burbank it wasn’t much cooler — especially after one of the air conditioning compressors powering my office chose today to go on the fritz. When the indoor temp hit an honest-to-God 97 degrees and I started to feel weak in the knees I announced, “We’re all going to Yogurtland!” And so the six of us in the office at the moment trooped down to get frozen yogurt and cool off. The frozen yogurt helped, but here’s the irony:  It turned out that Yogurtland’s a.c. wasn’t working either. Before my no-fat frozen blueberry coolant had its desired effect on my insides, I was melting along with it. We finally returned to the office and found the a.c. restored and struggling to bring the temperature below 87.

My kids and I just returned from our nightly bicycle ride with the dog. (We ride bikes; she runs alongside. She still hasn’t learned how to pedal.) We passed my daughter’s school and read the temperature on the big sign outside:  96. At 8 o’clock in the evening. On the ride back I kept wondering why my bare foot kept getting splashed with water. Where was it coming from? Finally I figured it out:  The wetness striking me was drops of saliva being flung from my dog’s panting tongue.

Tomorrow I’ll be in Colorado Springs, where the temperature is predicted to be a comparatively balmy 88 degrees. Thursday through Sunday I’ll be in Baltimore, DC, and Virginia, and then I’ll be in southern New Jersey for about 24 hours ’til Monday. I’ve been to all of those East Coast destinations before, and they strike me collectively as exemplars of the maxim that “it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity.” Today I definitely felt there’s something to be said for “it’s the heat.” But I’ll save my final judgment until my return next Tuesday.

What if the Tea Party takes over more than just the Republican Party? The Boston Globe shows us what would happen if they took over the comics as well.

We’ve seen Lord knows how many different takes on Batman, “Star Trek,” “Romeo and Juliet,” “Dragnet,” and any number of other literary creations.

But I have to say, I was completely unprepared for this bold new take on Harry Potter, as shown just now on the LA Times website.

We’ve written here before about our enjoyment of Sir Ian McKellen. Here’s a photo of his participation in the recent protest against the Pope. (To quote a gay friend of mine, “Just say nope.”)

By the way, posting this image earlier a little bit ago on my Facebook page resulted in the following dialogue with a Facebook friend (whom I actually know but haven’t seen in… 10 years?). This little exchange really shows how issues of sexuality, politics, and Sir Ian McKellen, all intersect over the all-important topic of Marvel Comics.

• LEE:  Mind you, I had my doubts about Gandalf, but I did not realize that Magneto was gay. What about his two children, Wanda (The Scarlet Witch) and Pietro (Quicksilver)? Which brings us to the question of “how exactly do you define ‘gay’?” At least with regard to Marvel comics characters. By the way, Magneto himself is confused — 40 years as a villain, but with recurring stints as a hero. What’s up with that?

• FB FRIEND: And ‘Scarlet Witch’ married an android — what do we call THAT orientation?

• LEE: And then they had “children” who, it later turned out, where magical constructs who destabilized the entire Marvel universe. Things were so much simpler when relationships were between one human and another. Now you’ve got mutants and androids and magicians and supervillains. And whatever The Beast is, what with the blue fur and flews and all.

• FB FRIEND: I didn’t know that about their kids. (Sorta wondered how they could…you know.)

• OTHER FB FRIEND (whom I also haven’t seen in at least 10 years, and probably more like 15): I think he is saying he is both Gay (Gandolph) and Straight (Magne to),,,right?

• FB FRIEND: I want to go on record, though, in supporting equal marriage rights for mutants, androids, Inhumans, aliens, cyborgs, wizards, ghosts, angels, demons, demigods, elementals, monsters, talking animals, and humans exposed to radiation (that somehow made them stronger, faster and better looking).

• LEE: What kicked off Avengers Disassembled was the Scarlet Witch’s discovery that her “children” were magical constructs accidentally created by her chaos magic. From there, things got worse: She wished into existence the notion of “No …More Mutants,” which recast the entire universe into one without mutants. When the “real” Marvel Universe was finally reconstituted, most of the mutants were gone, and no new mutants were being born — a problem that has bedeviled them since. Recently, the first new mutant, named, of course, Hope, and related, of course, to Scott Summers (as, seemingly, all red-haired women in the Marvel Universe are), was born. Once you put it all down in writing as I just did, it’s easy to understand, though it does give succor to the notion of certain Evangelists and U.S. Senators that mutants and androids should not procreate. (Lest we all wind up in an alternate universe. Which seems like a danger we’d all want to avoid. Unless we’re working a dead-end job at 7-11.)

• FB FRIEND: Yeah, “Disassembled”, “House of M”, “Civil War”… Ya notice that all the major trouble used to come from the bad guys, but now it’s mostly traditional heroes causing all the strife? Is this meant to mirror the divisions in our own “real”… universe?! Hmmm… The Republican party IS disassembling itself, and the Scarlet Palin’s ‘House of Tea’ is taking over. Whoa! I need to get current in my comic reading! I believe ‘Daredevil’ is the heavy now? Who could he represent? Maybe Rahm Emanuel quitting the White House to run Chicago. Yeah…I see it now…

• LEE: You are mostly right, although we should remember that the Skrulls were stirring up trouble as part of their Secret Invasion. Re Daredevil, he is some combination of the Tea Party, the Minutemen, and U.S. black ops — he’s lost all faith in the system and has now built his own Guantanamo Bay beneath the streets of Hells Kitchen. He’s also running The Hand, but in the belief that he’s using them as a force for good. And he’s switched his costume color to black — need we say more?

A friend posted on his Facebook page that he just missed getting hit by an SUV running a red light. Had he not taken a right turn, he would’ve gotten creamed — so the BMW driving next to him got hit instead.

Below his post was this comment:  “How great is our God! He said He would be our shield and He just gave you an awesome testimony of the manifestation of His word for you!”

Well, maybe.

But what about the poor guy driving the BMW? What did he do to deserve this?

And why is God personally intervening in traffic accidents? Where was he during Hurricane Katrina (if not the Holocaust)?

Here’s someone else who’s not buying Meg Whiman’s bid for governor of California:  the founder of EBay, who hired her to run the company.

In fairness, he notes that she was “a fantastic executive” while at EBay. But how that translates to running the state of California remains to be seen.

My wife and I spent the ninety minutes after dinner helping our kids with their homework. Our 12-year-old daughter labored over subtracting fractions by first converting them to decimals and performing long division, a task that I first demonstrated, then wondered about, then completed by saying “Ask your mother” and returning to my reading. Our 8-year-old son’s homework involved rounding numbers to their nearest hundred.

Wife:  “Does he know how to round?”

Me:  “More or less.”

I give her this:   She laughed, and it even seemed genuine.

Later,  she and I were discussing the degree to which he understands sarcasm.

Him:  “I understand sarcasm just fine, Dad.”

Me:  “You’re just saying that.”

Him:  “My head hurts.”