Way to make something totally new into something old again

As you may have heard, Beyonce will be one of those performing at the Inaugural Balls. Reportedly, the song she will be singing for the first dance of the Obamas as President and First Lady will be, "At Last."

Really?

I mean, obviously, nothing against Beyonce (more's the pity). And I'm mindful that the country electing its first black president is the rare, truly historical moment.

I guess it's just that "At Last" is one of those songs which has gone past being a staple into becoming a cliche.

(also see: "I Will Survive.")

And nothing about this Tuesday should be a cliche.

In Pam's case, shouldn't that be "Two Can Make A Difference?"

Sultry actress Pamela Anderson reveals she is planning to give U.S. president elect Barack Obama a book of essays, titled “One Can Make A Difference.”

(Yeah, I know, it's cheap, whadaya want from me?)

Where were you, When I needed you. Well you could not be found. What can I do. Oh, I believed in you ...

Let's see...I mentioned when I ran the video for "Lucky" that my first rock concert was Greg Kihn, didn't I? I don't know what else I can add except that this is his biggest hit.

Oh, maybe that I think I heard the spoof by "Weird Al" before I heard this original...



And the video is spooky.

You know, I'm really beginning to like this Eric Holder fellow

As you know, Holder is Obama's nominee for Attorney General.

Via Think Progress, check him out replying to Texas republican Sen. John Cornyn's softheaded attempt to justify torture using a hypothetical derived from...well, if you've been reading this blog more than, say "24" hrs...you can probably guess what it's derived from.

Holder doesn't merely smack him down. He can hardly keep himself from laughing in the senator's face. It's pretty cool. Like, whoa--an actual adult in a presidential administration!

And by the way, a word about Cornyn's understanding of civil rights: This is a man who thinks it would be perfectly okay to amend the Constitution to make it illegal for gays to marry. But waterboarding? That's all right.

Oh. My. God.

Say, you know what would be a really great model for Rick Warren's "christian" operation?

Hitler youth.

Or communists.

You know who says that?

Rick Warren.

I am not kidding. I am not joking. I am not exaggerating. Watch the video clip embedded in the comments of that entry (no, not the Monty Python one). President-Elect Obama: You're giving a dangerous psychotic a world-wide platform.

This is not the way to bring change.

No!

Oh, dear god, this cannot possibly be true. According to The Star, via PopCrunch, Anne Hathaway is considering getting breast implants.

The Star...well, that's a reliable source, right?

I'm sorry--even if there's a way-less-than 50% chance that this is correct, I must say something. Anne: You have the breasts of a goddess. Please don't go changing 'em.

I think it's time to start the countdown

How long before Pamela Anderson starts working at The Bunny Ranch?

Obama supported marriage equality before he was against it

Came across the darnedest thing on Pam's House Blend:

1996 documents surface proving Obama publicly supported marriage equality

It's unequivocal support:

[And here Pam's quoting from an article by Tracy Baim]

[A]s Obama has run for higher office, from senator to president, he has further shaped his views on marriage, and now he does not back same-sex marriage. In a January 2004 interview I conducted with Obama at the Windy City Times' office, Obama clearly stated that lack of support for full marriage equality was a matter of strategy rather than principle, but in even more recent comments, it appears he is backing off even further, saying it is more of a religious issue, and also a "state" issue, so he favors civil unions.

Obama's answer to the 1996 Outlines question was very clear: "I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages."

As long as full marriage equality isn't overwhelmingly approved by Americans, when it comes to running for federal office pols -- including Obama -- believe there's more to lose than gain if they take an honest position supporting full equality.

So what do you think? Is he just biding his time, or is he copping out?

A question.

Does anybody else think it's interesting that two men who starred in television series set on islands where, to say the least, unique things happened, died within a day of each other?

I refer of course to Patrick McGoohan and Ricardo Montalban.

I don't fully understand the enormity of Oprah Winfrey's success and power, but when she's right, she's right

And she is right about Kate Winslet's breasts.

Tender, too.

Mike Huckabee says Katie Couric Was "Extraordinarily Gentle" With Sarah Palin.

Tender, too. Their bodies coming suddenly together, a scared little tounge darting out from between--

I'm sorry.

In case you're wondering...

...about my new "About Me" quote...

It suddenly seems all too fitting that George Bush was-famously-reading "My Pet Goat" on 9/11

Because it's become apparent that the right wing still believes in fairy tales.

That's right kids, you knew it was coming:

A new season of 24, and the wingers go all soft in the head. Per Media Matters:

Fox & Friends hosts Steve Doocy and Gretchen Carlson, as well as Glenn Beck, cite fictional congressional testimony by 24's "Jack Bauer" in defense of torture

It's irrelevant, guys.

Headline:

Democrats seek criminal probe of Bush 'abuses'

I'll believe this is going to happen when the AP stops putting 'abuses' in quotes. As though any but the most foolish don't agree that Bush has abused his power at this point.

Still, you gotta admire the courage of the Democrats, waiting until Bush has exactly seven days left in office to seek such a probe.

No. You don't.

...Charge him, try him, convict him, send him to jail for a decade. Doesn't matter. Doesn't mean one goddamn fuck of a thing. What we needed was for him to be driven from office before he could do more damage.

He wasn't. And he did. Now the Democrats just look like they're picking on the guy who was on his way out anyway. Let the man go, let Karma be his judge, and Get On With It.

Horror news about a film franchise starting with "S," with a very courteous sicko (he always says "Hello") at the center

But not the one you're thinking of.

There's an outside chance that Scream 4, now in early development, might be worth watching.

Why? Because they've brought back Kevin Williamson.

Oh, and by the way...



Saw V will hit DVD on January 20th.

(You see? You see how I fake you out, and then double back?)

Dear Dick...

Via Think Progress:

On Dec. 16, 2005, the New York Times published an article by James Risen and Eric Lichtblau, revealing that President Bush had secretly authorized the NSA to “eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States…without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying.” The blockbuster article, which exposed one of the Bush administration’s biggest secrets, was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 2006.

Discussing the wiretapping program on Bill Bennett’s radio show today, Vice President Cheney called the program “important,” adding that it “always aggravated” him that the Times was rewarded for its reporting...

Dear Dick...

Do the words "to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable" mean anything to you?

I thought not.

"scout’s honor" ?

Mike Huckabee:

...I am definitely not pro-sodomy. I promise, scout’s honor.

Scout's honor:

President Bush is a stupid dirty crooked liar who should've been impeached years ago

Yeah, I know: So what else is new? What's new is...now it's personal.

Now, thanks to the fact that besides all of the above he's also such a bad actor he can't recognize the time to GET THE FUCK OFF THE STAGE...

...I have to wait another week for the return of Bones.

Dirty guy.

Damn.

You know, for someone who for much of his public life has been an arguably thug-ish, albeit entertaining, activist and troublemaker...sometimes Al Sharpton makes for a good poet.

Via Pam's House Blend:

"...We know you're not preaching the Bible, because if you were preaching the Bible we would have heard from you. We would have heard from you when people were starving in California--when they deregulated the economy and crashed Wall Street you had nothing to say. When [accused Ponzi scammer] Madoff made off with the money, you had nothing to say. When Bush took us to war chasing weapons of mass destruction that weren't there you had nothing to say.
"But all of a sudden, when Proposition 8 came out, you had so much to say..."

"There is something immoral and sick about using all of that power to not end brutality and poverty, but to break into people's bedrooms and claim that God sent you. It amazes me when I looked at California and saw churches that had nothing to say about police brutality, nothing to say when a young black boy was shot while he was wearing police handcuffs, nothing to say when they overturned affirmative action, nothing to say when people were being [relegated] into poverty, yet they were organizing and mobilizing to stop consenting adults from choosing their life partners."

I'd be shocked, but Chloe Sevigny has already swallowed cum on film, so...

Big Love's Chloe Sevigny picked up big bucks to celebrate New Year's Eve, the New York Post reports.

The 34-year-old Kids actress was among the many celebs to host New Year's Eve soirees this year. Chloe held court at the Gansevoort Hotel's celebration in Miami's South Beach.

For this task, Sevigny picked up $50,000.

Hmmm...

Some of us had a small problem with the choice of the bigoted Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at Obama's inauguration. Sometimes offered as counter to that was the fact that the benediction--my favorite kind of ediction--will be delivered by the Rev. Dr. Joseph E. Lowery. Lowery is an acclaimed and outspoken civil rights activist who worked with Dr. King.

But two other pastors will be appearing in the inaugural festivities.

Via The Washington Monthly:

The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, who became the Episcopal Church's first openly gay bishop in 2003 and last year entered into a civil union with his gay partner, will deliver the invocation for Sunday's kickoff inaugural event on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, with President-elect Obama in attendance.

President-elect Barack Obama has selected the Rev. Sharon E. Watkins to deliver the sermon at the national prayer service that is held the day after the inauguration.



Ms. Watkins, the first woman ever selected to lead the service, is the president and general minister of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), a small, liberal-leaning Protestant denomination with 3,754 congregations and about 690,000 members in the United States and Canada.

For those unfamiliar with the Disciples of Christ, it's a pretty liberal denomination, closely associated with the United Church of Christ (Obama's denomination), and Watkins' record on hot-button social issues is strong.

Is it just me, or is Obama starting to look like a stronger liberal than we may have feared?

Democrats.

They couldn't be stupider if they had the brains of dinosaurs.

It's called acting.

Interesting article here about how kissing another man is sometimes--more often than it should be--seen as the bravest thing an actor can do.

Excerpts:

Judging from their interviews over the years, actors who have filmed scenes in which they have pointed a revolver at someone's head and pulled the trigger still think gay kissing is the grossest thing they've ever had to do for a movie.

Women actors who've kissed other women in love scenes, meanwhile, sound like an enlightened other species in interviews about kissing. For them, it's no big whoop. The men, on the other hand, talk as if they've outdone themselves and are now ready to accept their golden statue.

A word about Robert Zemeckis' Beowulf

...which DVD I borrowed from my nephew's mother yesterday. That word is "sucked."

Ok, a few more. First of all, to call what this movie features "animation." Um, no. Toy Story 2 has animation. The Incredibles has animation. Even Sleeping Beauty has animation, and it's far from my most fave Disney movie.

See, making cartoon drawings move, by itself, isn't animation any more than putting piles of meat on sticks and moving them around--Meat Puppets, to coin a phrase--would be acting. For real animation, you need (not to be too didactic)...soul. And Beowulf doesn't have a drop of it.

The voice performances don't help either then. With the possible exception of Anthony Hopkins, a stooge on the Abbott and Costello radio show could give better performances than these.

So it's not good as animation, then. What about simply as a visual experience? Sometimes--not always, but sometimes, artful visuals make up for a few cracks in the characterization and such (look at Tron or even The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers).

And again...no. Visually, Beowulf is a computer game, and computer games cannot be art. As I'm at least half-convinced James Cameron is going to find out this year, to his frustration.

Holy Frijoles!

That was much easier than I thought it was gonna be (getting the changed layout back, I mean).

Blogger is just made for the electronically inept, like myself.

national apathy about scandals?

Mark Evanier linked to Frank Rich's Times Op-Ed column yesterday, saying,

A lot of us apparently don't care if billions of our tax dollars just wound up in someone's pocket.

For what it's worth, I don't agree. I think a lot of us care very much about these and all the other misdeeds of the Bush administration; would like to see them investigated and dealt with.

It's just that we're so incredibly freaking overloaded right now. We need jobs. We need health insurance. We need the war to end.

The walls are closing in and most of us just want it to stop. We don't have the strength anymore to get to the people who set the wheels in motion. We did once. Then the '06 Congress did jack-shit, and wondered why their approval rating hovered around Bush's.

It's not that we don't care. It's that we've accepted the bitter, hard reality that nothing is going to be done. And most of us, I think, would rather concentrate on those few things in this life we think that we do have some power over.

Or maybe it's just me.