Some Tidbits That Caught My Eye at Week's End

Let the 'Trial' Begin. I say good for these kids. At the very least, they should learn something, and a whole lot more than from those mock UN debates that schools are so enamored of. Maybe the whole country will slowly begin following their lead and begin waking up from this six-year nightmare, holding this renegade administration to account.

Here's How Not to Search for a Mentor. From the casually brilliant guru of viral marketing, Seth Godin, comes a harrowing tale of a young author's search for a mentor gone bad. This made me alternately laugh and cringe. Just try to make sure you never do anything similarly bone-headed.

George Costanza is Now a....Writer. Jason Alexander, who achieved massive fame by playing my favorite character on Seinfeld, George, is apparently trying his hand at a new discipline. The poor guy has had some trouble finding his next thing (a couple of failed series). And because of his lack of ownership in the show, he's not growing nearly as rich on the rerun residuals as the show's two developers, Seinfeld and Larry David. But George always knew how to make lemonade from lemons, and his alter ego seems to have done so too. I noticed that he wrote a fun little piece a couple of weeks ago in the L.A. Times magazine. It isn't brilliant or laugh out loud funny (as his character always is to me). But it's just plain nicely done. In style and voice it reminds me just a bit of Woody Allen's celebrated ventures into comic writing in the New Yorker many years ago. Anyway, the piece made me look forward to more of the same from him. As George would say, at the top of his lungs as he charges out Jerry's apartment door and down the hall: "I'm back, baby, I'm baaack!"