The Walt Disney Company is offering a modem-load of children’s books online for an annual subscription fee of $79.95. The service, called disneydigitalbooks.com, is designed for children ages 3 to 12 and is organized by reading level. Children who aren’t reading yet can have a book read to them over the Internet while words on the screen are highlighted when they’re read out loud. "For parents, this isn’t going to replace snuggle time with a storybook," says Yves Saada, vice president of digital media. "We think you can have different reading formats co-existing together."

QUOTE: "Three networks (once) controlled a sense of informational priority in America, and it had a reassuring consistency. Now we’re on a giant planet of non-stop yakking—all of us, all the time—and we’re redefining what it is to be informed. And the traditional sources are no longer the defining ones."

—Diane Sawyer, in an interview with Capitol File magazine, on how the world of journalism has changed in the Internet age

Movie director Roman Polanski, 76, has been arrested in Switzerland for his drugging and rape of a 13-year-old girl in 1978, a crime to which he pleaded guilty before fleeing the United States, where those acts were committed. Polanski has said he will legally fight extradition to the U.S., and many in Hollywood have come to his defense. Among the actors and directors who’ve either signed a petition defending Polanski or made sympathetic public statements on his behalf are Debra Winger, Harrison Ford, Harvey Weinstein, Whoopi Goldberg, Martin Scorcese, David Lynch, Wes Andersen, Darren Aronofsky, John Landis, Tilda Swinton and Woody Allen.

QUOTE: "I used to think that when conservatives denounced the so-called ’Hollywood liberal elite’ as being essentially amoral and out of touch with real Americans, they were being a bit harsh. … Thanks to Harvey Weinstein and Co., now I [understand]. While our country is engulfed in two wars, struggling to climb back after falling off of an economic cliff last year and trying to find a way to provide health care for nearly 50 million uninsured Americans, I am glad to see that some of Hollywood’s elite, (including Mr. Weinstein and Woody Allen, among others) have found a truly important cause worth fighting for: defending a pedophile."

—Huffington Post contributor Keli Goff

QUOTE: "It is outrageously offensive to see the outpouring of support for Polanski from the world’s elite artist-class. Are there two sets of laws according to these people? One for artists and another for everyone else? And are we supposed to be influenced by what these apologists have to say in trivializing Polanski’s despicable acts, especially Woody Allen, who married the girl who was basically his own stepdaughter after raising her since childhood? Shame on them all."

—political analyst Andy Ostroy

During the Oct. 1 broadcast of CBS’ The Late Show, host David Letterman asked the audience, "Do you feel like a story?" He then spent much of the program confessing the details of a lurid narrative involving illicit sex and extortion. Longtime CBS employee Robert J. Halderman had allegedly blackmailed Letterman for $2 million, threatening to reveal Letterman’s liaisons with several of his show’s female staff. Letterman admitted that the allegations in the plot were true. "I’ve had sex with women who work for me on the show," he said, even labeling his actions "creepy." About the extortion attempt, he added, "I want to reiterate how terrifying this is. I’m motivated by nothing but guilt. I’m a towering mass of Lutheran Midwestern guilt." Halderman was arraigned on a grand larceny charge on Oct. 2.

QUOTE: "I don’t know where to begin with David Letterman’s bizarro, play-it-for-laughs on-air admission that he had sex with staff members. On the one hand, good for him for telling a fairly unvarnished account of being blackmailed by a Connecticut man for $2 million and admitting to the ’creepy things,’ as Dave kept putting it, the blackmailer was threatening to take public. On the other hand: Couldn’t somebody have gone out between the first and second act and said, ’Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Letterman is about to talk about something very difficult and though you might be tempted to laugh, please don’t.’ Instead, Letterman (whether by accident or design) wound up playing the story for laughs, and even drew applause with his admission that he’d had affairs with employees."

—Kansas City Star blog contributor Aaron Barnhart

In the wake of One Day at a Time actress McKenzie Phillips’ declaration that her father raped her when she was 18 and that the two subsequently had an ongoing sexual relationship, the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network said calls to its hotline have gone up 26% and that traffic to its website jumped 83%. "You know, whenever a person hears another person’s story about being assaulted, that gives them the courage to come forward," says Ajia Meux, a supervisor for the network. "So I imagine that hearing a celebrity disclose their abuse, that gives so many other people the courage to do it."

QUOTE: "I’ve worked with some of the biggest names in Hollywood: Cary Grant, Tony Curtis, Gregory Peck, Mary Tyler Moore. [But] the biggest honor I have ever had was to play the role of Jonathan Sperry in this simple but special film."

—78-year-old actor Gavin Macleod, best known for his roles as Capt. Merrill Stubing on the Love Boat and Murray Slaughter on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Macleod told Fox News that he became a Christian when his mother was facing a serious medical condition in 1984. He says of his latest cinematic endeavor, The Secrets of Jonathan Perry, "The film is about forgiveness. Forgiveness is one of the greatest tools God has given us."

QUOTE: "I won’t blaspheme God. This immediately eliminates most scripts. … The spirit of a film is decisive. With the least bit of discernment, you can figure what motivates a person, their business, the movie they produce or direct, or the character they play in it. The spirit of a character can be discerned and matched up against the Spirit of God. Is it a spirit of hope and love, or the result of their lives being a series of angry blasts and fears? I try and discern the spirit of a script—what does it do in the final analysis, what is its effect upon an audience, how will they react? Will they leave the theater anxious and angry, or will they see a way, as a result of what’s in the film, to attack the problems they face? In other words, does the movie produce good or evil? That’s the bottom line for me."

—78-year-old actor Dean Jones, former Disney icon and star of such films as The Love Bug, Snowball Express and That Darn Cat, on how his Christian faith guides his choices when it comes to the films he’s making these days. Jones’ latest role is in the independent Christian film Mandie and the Secret Tunnel.