This is, by a wide margin, the greatest article I have ever seen.

You in my vast reading audience are well aware of my feelings regarding the state of Tennessee (in two words: They're insane). We could get into why I feel that way, but most of you either know the story, or don't care.

Suffice it to say I have come to depend upon Tennessee to give me periodic examples of that insanity. So when I saw this New York Times headline--

In Tennessee, Grand Plans for a $750 Million Theme Park Raise Great Doubt

--I clicked away with great interest. What I found was a treasure trove of insanity beyond my wildest dreams. The deeper you go, the crazier it gets. To begin:

SPRING HILL, Tenn. — Earlier this month, at a news conference in an empty field on the east side of the city, a man named Dennis W. Peterson announced that he was bringing a theme park to the Tennessee countryside.

People had a few questions: Who was this man? What was his background? Where was he getting the money for all this? What happened to his front teeth? (They were recently lost, he explained to reporters, to a crispy chicken wing at Hooters.)

Already, I love this. A bumpkin would-be theme park owner. But as I promised...there's more...

Michael Dinwiddie, the mayor of Spring Hill, was one of the only people to know about the project, having quietly worked on it with Mr. Peterson for two months. It thrilled him. For a small city like Spring Hill, 45 minutes from Nashville, it was the magic kingdom of economic development.

"Mayor Dinwiddie." The man's name and title is "Mayor Dinwiddie." What is this, an 18th-century children's book?

"Mayor Dinwiddie and the Mystery of the Empty Chair."

"Mayor Dinwiddie and the Ice-Cream Social."

"Mayor Dinwiddie Takes a Wife."

"Mayor Dinwiddie Has Two Mommies." (OK, maybe that last one's not from the 18th century)

We continue:

Still, there was something curious about the whole thing. For one, no one had contacted state authorities about the plans.

Hmmmmm. Yes, that does seem curious. You'd think Mayor Dinwiddie would've thought of that.

Local reporters and bloggers uncovered more oddities, starting with Mr. Peterson’s company, the Big International Group of Entertainment. The company, it was discovered, had its license revoked last year by the State of Nevada. The company’s president, Roger Kidneigh, who did not return messages seeking comment, had declared personal bankruptcy, claiming assets of less than $200,000.

Okay...first of all...just how Pythonesque is that company name? "Mr. Peterson now formed a big international group, which he called, 'The Big International Group." Further:

Reached by phone, the woman listed as the company’s treasurer said she had never actually worked for Big International Group and did not want her name associated with it.

"I don't know them, I tell you! Leave me alone!" Before the cock crows, you will deny the Big International Group three times.

Festival Tennessee was not the company’s only dream. Several music magazines had been discussed, as was a theme park in Las Vegas. There were plans for “The Way of the Unicorn,” an animated movie about an orphan named Sailor — to have been voiced by Michael Jackson — who saves the world with the help of some endangered species.

They fell through.

Pity, that sounds as if it could've been a right winner. I'll bet you Robert Zemickis is still kicking himself (not hard enough for my liking...but that's another post).

Thomas Maierle, who is listed as a former officer of Big International Group, said Festival Tennessee would be different.

“It’s not easy putting something like this together,” said Mr. Maierle, who has something of a troubled record himself but says he still advises Mr. Peterson on business dealings. Asked what his position was with the company now, Mr. Maierle, who is on parole in Michigan for possession of “child sexually abusive material,” said that was “a subjective question.” But he said he had faith in Mr. Peterson.

Follow along with me now: A "Magic Kingdom"-style amusement park, which by definition would attract a largely child clientele, and they also wanted to be in business with Michael Jackson, and one of their former officers is a pervert. Are you beginning to sense why this article simply made my heart sing?

Still something missing, though...

David Anthony, a Nashville lawyer, had heard about Festival Tennessee before just about anyone around here. Last year, he said, a man facing foreclosure on several homes came forward with a promise that a millionaire in Florida was planning to buy three of the homes, at an inflated price of around $7 million. As proof of his financial resources, Mr. Anthony said, the millionaire — Mr. Peterson, as it turned out — sent the man a packet of material about vaguely planned projects, including Festival Tennessee and the “Unicorn” movie, with promises that the money would come later.

“These were magic beans,” Mr. Anthony said. The bank he represented in the case was unmoved.

That's it! Magic beans!

But of course, you know, not all the lawmakers of this Tennessee town can be such credulous fools.

This sort of thing gives pause to many Spring Hill residents, including Jonathan Duda, a city alderman. Mr. Duda said he had the same concerns now as he did last year when a man identifying himself as a Nigerian king — a claim viewed skeptically by everyone from the State Department to the Spring Hill police chief — was received with a ceremony on the steps of City Hall.

Bwa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, I mean err um, see?

(He didn't even have to do it through Cyberspace, for god's sake...)

Finally, to return to our hero, Mayor Dinwiddie...

“It should be a very positive story,” Mr. Dinwiddie said in an interview at the Cracker Barrel, where the hostess urged him to ignore all the negativity and asked if her daughter-in-law’s Irish dance troupe could get a show at the theme park.

"In an interview at the Cracker Barrel."

I just love any article that can justifiably use that phrase.

Wave comes in, wave goes out. Never a miscommunication.

In April 1997, Anne Leibovitz shot one of her series of three page cover foldouts for Vanity Fair featuring a group of young actresses who were considered, at the time, "The Next Wave." For no particular reason, I thought it might be fun to see what those actresses are doing today.



From left to right:

Cameron Diaz. Diaz is at least as well known today for who she's dating, but is still considered a big star, in spite of not having made a well-reviewed film in years.

Kate Winslet. Stars in HBO's series remake of Mildred Pierce for which, I'm going to make a prediction without having seen a foot of film, she will almost certainly bring her a nomination for and/or win her an Emmy. Has also become something of a godmother to younger actresses, particularly on the subject of whether or not they should go nude for a film; she tends to be quite pro-strip. For which I am thankful.

Claire Danes. Still considered a beauty, though I find her considerably lacking in charm, and can still be seen at "Hollywood elite" events. Best remembered for a TV series she made when she was 15.

Renée Zellweger. Like Diaz, her social life seems to make most of the headlines these days...and has an even bigger need for a shit detector when choosing projects.

Minnie Driver. Driver is working the indie-film circuit; filming a pilot for CBS. Was allegedly so disliked by the crew of her film High Water that they took the opportunity to relieve themselves prior to her having to film an in-the-water scene.

Alison Elliott. If your response is "Who?" You're not alone. In 1996 she attracted attention as the lead in The Spitfire Grill, which seems to have developed a cult following. Since then, however, she seems to have made a series of films most of which either nobody wanted to see, nobody liked, or both. It is unclear whether this is due to poor choices or just plain bad luck, but I'm inclined to suspect the latter, if only because she probably has fewer choices than Diaz and Zellweger.

Jada Pinkett. At present best known as the mother of Willow and Jaden and wife of Will Smith, also stars in and exec-produces the TNT series Hawthorne, which from the one episode I saw last year is actually pretty solid.

Jennifer Lopez. American Idol judge, diva, still a popular singer, launching a new fragrance. Probably fair to admit, she's aging better than I might've thought.

Charlize Theron. Will appear in new Snow White movie; a sexy & photogenic young woman.

and Fairuza Balk. In some ways has it even worse than Claire Danes, in that she's best remembered for a film she made when she was 11, and which film (Return To Oz) absolutely died at the box office when it was first released, tho it has a cult following today. Seems to get a lot of "girlfriend" roles, playing Adam Sander's in The Waterboy and Moby's in the video for "Natural Blues." Appeared in the Sundance-winning Personal Velocity.

"...if you choose the quick and easy path as Vader did - you will become an agent of evil."

From a Time magazine article on what our intervention in Libya means for President Obama's foreign policy:

In his two years in office, Obama's approach to foreign policy has emphasized the limits of American power more than its reach.

This is probably an obvious question to ask, but is it possible his approach appears that way because the last president overreached to such a horrific degree?

Oh, and why the Yoda quote? Because:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Barack Obama Is Luke Skywalker
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

Thank you, Keith

The greatest defense of our way of life and our democracy is not vigilance nor protest nor political skill, but the rampant and always-to-be-relied-upon stupidity and avarice of the Republican Party.

Keith Olbermann

"Everyone," Victoria?

Everyone knows that two men on a wedding cake is a comedy skit, not an 'alternate lifestyle'!

-Victoria Jackson

A poll released by Washington Post and ABC News concludes that 53 percent of Americans are supportive of gay marriage and equal rights for homosexuals in the US.

PS: Later that same article, Jackson says,

"Did you see 'Glee' this week? Sickening! And, besides shoving the gay thing down our throats, they made a mockery of Christians – again!

Believe me, Victoria: No one wants to shove anything down your throat. And "Glee" doesn't have to make mockery. "Christians" like you are doing that themselves.

Psst! Former Mayor Giuliani! You're sliming the wrong president!

From Mediaite:

In a non-campaign stop for the 2012 presidential race, former NY Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R-9/11) lashed out at President Obama for “dithering” (or engineering a UN-led no-fly zone over Libya, instead of overcommitting the US military to another Middle East quagmire. Tomato, tomahto.), and mocked the President’s manner of speech with a stuttering impression.
From The Associated Press:

Speaking at a Manchester Republican Committee fundraiser, Giuliani said he hasn’t decided yet whether he will again seek the GOP nomination. But he sounded a lot like a candidate, calling Obama’s handling of the uprising in Libya in the last week the worst foreign policy-decision making – or lack thereof – he’s ever seen.

When France proposed instituting a no-fly zone, “Our president, the leader of the free world, said, ‘A what? That’s hard! A no fly zone is r-r-r-really hard!’ ” Giuliani said to laughter.

That's the way most sites are reporting this, focusing on Giuliani saying President Obama was Colin Firth in The Kings Speech or sumthin'. But I noticed something else. A president blubbering about how hard his job is, while stumbling over his words?

That reminds me of something...now what was it?



Oh, that's right...

I think we'd all feel better about this if we hadn't spent so much life and treasure on Iraq, but...

For what it's worth, I think I agree with our intervening in Libya. Certainly the reasons for it make a lot more sense to me than our invading Iraq did, even back before we learned all we have about Bush & Co's lies.

Yes, we have our own problems. But I think I agree with this intervention because, when I think of my country sending people to risk their lives in the name of all of us...this is what I want them to be doing it for.

One of the many faults with the Iraq war, as I have come to see i,t is that we couldn't spark a rebellion at the point of a gun. In the case of Libya, the rebellion has clearly already been sparked...and not by us.

What we're doing, and fortunately we're not alone, is going in to stop a rebellion from being violently quashed. That's what we should be doing, I think (this puts me in a minority, BTW). I look at it this way:

You're walking along and across the street you see a man and woman fighting outside a cafe. From what you can hear, she's leaving him. She gets up from the table and starts to walk away. Whereupon, he says "Oh no you don't," grabs her from behind and smashes her head onto the sidewalk.

Do you go over and try to stop it? I sure hope I would.

I know Adrianne Palicki to be a gifted actress

She deserves better...

A Tale of Two Teen(ish) Stars

The CBS late show lineup gave me a look at a couple of young stars on their shows last night.

First, David Letterman had as his second guest (following Steve Martin, a position I wouldn't give to a monkey on a rock) the young actress/singer Selena Gomez, 18.

I know one or two of my readers (hello, Calvin) have crushes on or otherwise admire Miss Gomez, and who am I to call them creepy old guys?

But for myself, what I saw in the interview was a perfectly attractive young woman...with whom I have no references in common.




In the past, thinking like this is what led me to my Women my own age series, which turned out to be a good idea, being devoted to appreciations of women who remember the same television as me.

But then something made me wonder: Is it truly age? Or is someone like Selena Gomez someone who I'm just not going to have much of anything to talk about? No matter how lovely she is; how wide or narrow the gap in our ages? Here's what happened.

Craig Ferguson's second guest was Brie Larson, 21, also an actress and singer, whose work was unknown to me. She knocked me out. Why would I find Selena Gomez to be someone I could either take or leave, and Brie Larson so very charming, in consecutive television appearances?

(Hell, Larson even makes me want to see Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, something I had no interest in previously.)

But back to Brie Larson vs. Gomez: Look at all they have in common. Here are two young women, in the same situation (being interviewed by a late night host), who do exactly the same jobs.

Who are quite close to each other in age. Certainly more so than either is to me. Though, I would imagine that a girl could learn a lot in those three years. For the record, that last line wasn't meant as a smutty comment. For once.

Both started acting as pre-teenagers, and recording in their mid-teens. I had a look at the videos for their most successful songs (successful in this case being a relative term--neither has exactly burned up the top 40).

They even make approximately the same kind of music: "Power girl" with a touch of the Lolita.

(Gomez tends towards dance and Larson a little more towards pop rock.) And they both sound as if they've been helped to greater or lesser degrees by studio technology.

Gomez's solo single, "Tell Me Something I Don't Know," strikes me as a fine mass-market teen pop song, but what I can't quite see is what she brought to it.

What makes her performance better than any other adorable young lady in a recording studio with Autotune might have done? (Or, bending over backwards to be fair, any worse.)

Larson's "She Said" I don't think is as good a song as "Tell Me Something," (though it's definitely better in the radio mix than on an in-studio live clip I saw), but as the old saying goes, it's got a good beat and you can dance to it.

So why my preference? Let's start with the obvious: As Feguson says, Brie's adorable.

Just look at that dress. To say nothing of the way she practically flies into his arms for a hug when she comes out. (This reminds me...I must kill Craig Ferguson.)

(It's a joke, Craig, we're cool).

But seriously: What is the difference? Is it simply a matter of taste? Probably at least in part, tho I think it's also partly that Larson appears to have a vocabulary. Girls who can talk are so sexy.

But maybe that's another part of the answer there. Based on these clips--and what better way to judge two women you've never met and don't know than by seven minute clips of them on television? Based on these clips, Gomez is still a girl.

Nothing wrong with that. All the women I've ever liked were girls once. But Larson seems to me to be already a young woman.

(Again, I'm not making a cheap sex joke there. There's a lot more to being a woman than just having had sex, just as there is to being a man.)

I'm a fairly unabashed Duran Duran fan, especially the classic stuff

I've actually got two of their greatest hits collections (in my defense, they were going cheap). I think they're better when they keep to the clubs ("Sunrise") instead of trying to make dreary rock albums (the rest of that album), but that's a matter of taste.

And I especially like this interview. Here's a taste, on what one member (Nick Rhodes) thinks of:

Testosterone-fuelled ROCK critics...If you look at musicians, we've always been very respected for what we created, whereas a certain breed of [music journalist were never gonna like us.

Elsewhere in this interview, you may learn some things you didn't know. I did. Such as that, one of their former guitarists is now in the gay porn world and is selling models of his own penis. Fancy.

Apparently in Australia, it's like 1970 or somethin'.

Actual headline:

Out-of-wedlock pregnancies: a sin?

Now this is the New York I wish I could've visited

I just haven't felt like going there, since they scrubbed away all of the graffiti. But even if you're not with me on that, just try to stop watching this. Go on, try. I dare you. I double dog dare you.

Then you're not doing it right.

In 2003, Piscopo was convicted of sexually assaulting a female church member during a deliverance ceremony in which Piscopo said he expelled the devil from the woman's body.

Blame Canada

Time once again for another exciting episode of...

"Who's searching for me now?"

Only this time, we have a clue!

Today's contestant comes to us from an IP Address for Telus Communications in Abbotsford, British Columbia. In Canada, home of at least two of my vast reading audience as well as six of the seven Saw films.

But here's the clue: Whoever this is, he (or she) found this blog by Googling for "ben saulchurch varkentine." "Saulchurch," as at least one of you knows, is the screenname I used to use about 10-15 years ago on rec.arts.drwho...

Charlie Sheen's managers are two of the producers of the Saw films

I'm sorry, I'm sure this makes me a bad person, but the truth is I'm enjoying the Sheen meltdown just so much more since I realized that. Now it makes sense. This whole thing is just karmic payback for Saw 3D sucking so bad and so loud.

Especially since one of the manager/producers in question is the one generally blamed by obssessive fans like me for killing the series-rightly or wrongly; I don't want to get into that and you don't want me to either.

(That manager is also the one about whom Sheen allegedly made anti-semitic comments. Which I in no way condone, of course. Fucking up my most-loved recent film franchise is one thing, but I see no reason to bring a man's ancestry or culture into it).

So it's come to this

Oh, fuck

Robert Reich on why Barack Obama is going to lose the election in 2012:

Shortly after the Democrats' "shellacking" last November, I phoned a friend in the White House who had served in the Clinton administration. "It's 1994 all over again," he said. "Now we move to the center."

As someone mentions in the comments on HuffPo: That's great--as long as he remembers that "the center" is somewhere to the left of where he is now.

...many in the Obama White House have concluded that the president should follow Clinton's campaign script -- distancing himself from congressional Democrats, embracing further deficit reduction, and seeking guidance from big business. If it worked for Clinton, it must work for Obama -- or so it's supposed.

If you remember, this is exactly what I was afraid of.

Say, in case you've been wondering what Keith Olbermann thinks about the doings in Wisconsin...

...when you accomplish all this by parliamentary trick – after your national party has spent two years and more decrying Congressional reconciliation – when you deny the minority the right to participate in the outcome whether by compromise or protest, you cut through the cacophony of political-speak in this country and you transmit your sneering indifference towards democracy to ordinary citizens who do not normally pay attention.

...the Republicans have overplayed their hand in a way that seems startling even for them, and they shall inherit the proverbial wind.

.

I'm sure Steve Ditko and Stan Lee will be glad to hear that

Julie Taymor has been removed as director of the troubled Spider-Man musical. I have nothing to say about that, not having seen it. However, this paragraph in an NYT article (linked above) on the subject did catch my eye:

“Julie’s an extremely sensitive person, and she has always felt like a mother to her plays, a mother to her characters,” Jeffrey Horowitz, a friend and artistic director of New York’s Theater for a New Audience, said Wednesday. “This is like a mother being taken away from her family. She loves that family. She wants that family.”

Mr. Horowitz, repeat 3,000 times:

They're not her characters.

They're not her characters.

Geena Davis is wrong.

Davis, the actress perhaps best known for "Thelma & Louise" and the failed TV series "Commander in Chief" in which she played the president of the US) gave a speech last month in which she criticized the stereotyping of female characters in films and television.

"Gender stereotypes remain deeply entrenched in today's entertainment and there has been no significant progress over the last 20 years," Davis was quoted as saying at the gala held at UN Headquarters by the Agence France Presse.

I wasn't sure if I agreed with that, so I went to look at a list of popular films of 20 years ago, in order to compare them with those of today. What I found saddened and surprised me. Turns out, it's not merely that there's been no progress.

There's actually been a decline in the presentation of non-stereotyped female characters in films and television over the past 20 years. Check this out. In 1991, these were some of the most popular films of the year:

"Silence of the Lambs," with Jodie Foster as the FBI trainee matching wits with Dr. Lecter.

"Terminator 2: Judgment Day," with Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor, one hell of a female role model as far as I can see (as was Lena Headey, in the same role, in the much-missed-at-least-by-me TV version).

Then there's Disney's "Beauty and the Beast," in which care was taken to make Belle more than just the beauty of the title, but well-read and outspoken as well.

This brings me to “The Addams Family." Well, that whole movie is about people who behave in ways which the mass of their culture find unusual or odd (and don't care that they do).

The women certainly aren't left out of this. Morticia (Angelica Huston) may be, as she defines herself in the sequel, "...just like any modern woman trying to have it all. Loving husband, a family..." But the way in which she tries to have it all is, shall we say, outside the realm of what is considered normal.

And Wednesday Addams (Christina Ricci) is a deeply weird child; I mean that in a good way.

So that's movies. And who were women television watchers finding on their sets 20 years ago?

Women like Roseanne, Clair Huxtable, Murphy Brown, Jessica Fletcher, The Golden Girls, Lisa Simpson. Even the female students on "Head of the Class" (who were, by virtue of the show's premise, by definition exceptional young women).

Powerful woman characters all--whose shows may or may not have ever explicitly invoked feminism--I'm honestly not sure--but were feminist all the same. And check out that demographic spread!

Before I go on, I wanna go back to Davis' speech for a second.

"What message are we sending to girls if there are so few female characters. If the characters are devalued, stereotyped, sidelined or simply not there at all," Davis said.

Remember that, as I move onto looking at the most popular films of today: Now I have to admit upfront that I haven't seen any of the current top five. If you have, and I'm wrong about what I'm about to say, please write in.

But I see a lot there that evidently either have no female leads, or limit them to girlfriend/romantic interest/wife parts. "...devalued, stereotyped, sidelined or simply not there at all."

As for popular contemporary TV?

I see shows that are willing to showcase talented women...but only if they sing. Not if they are committed to an ideal, even if that ideal is their own intelligence. I see shows with admittedly popular female characters...that nevertheless are subservient to men in their jobs. I see a show whose whole premise, as I understand it, was about two men raising a child without a woman. I see a show about "Desperate Housewives." I see the show "IJust Wanna Man!" excuse me, "The Bachelor."

But mostly, I see I see shows with women who are mostly young, white; white-collar, and successful. As compared to the variety in the 90-91 batch cited above (with the possible exception of "Mike & Molly").

(Even "House," which I think used to have some pretty good images for women, has either driven those women away or drained them of their strength.)

So what's the answer?

Darned if I know. I just know...it saddens and surprises me.