Oh, wow

ETA: Called it! I hope you were watching. Jon was absolutely on fire throughout the first segment of the show. Meanwhile, Joe from AmericaBlog points out something interesting...about CNN's treatment of Novak, who has been suspended as a result of his little on-air temper tantrum:

So Ed Henry was going to ask Novak about his role in the Plame Scandal. Amazing, it only took CNN 25 months to ask him about it.

Original post: Somewhere, Jon Stewart's eyeballs are rolling back in his head with pleasure. That douchebag of liberty, syndicated columnist and spy-revealer Robert Novak just had what I believe is technically called "a shit fit" on CNN, tore off his mike and walked off a show.

Oh, yeah. Oh, boy. I think this is enough lead time for Stewart and his crack staff to have something on it by tonight, but if not, monday's show is gonna be golden. Seriously. Stewart must be kvelling so hard right now.

"What do you say we lighten things up..."

"...and talk about abortion? I feel like I'm losing some of you, and I want to win all of you back with this one. Let's talk about abortion. Let's talk about child-killing..."
-Bill Hicks, 1993

But seriously folks. Jessica, a blogger at BushvChoice, makes what I think is a good point:

[W]hat’s disturbing is that choice and abortion are being discussed—in blogs and in the media—more as a political tool than as an issue that affects women’s lives.

She recommends the ladies start taking control of more of the discussion, and lists some well-known progressive blogs as a place to start. Sounds like a plan to me.

Stupid people

This is...really fucking bizarre. So there's this guy named David Parker. Mr. Parker is a homophobe. Mr. Parker is also the father of a five-year-old son. The five-year-old-son was sent home from school one one day with a book about different kinds of families, one of them--the horror, the horror--a gay family.

Mr. Parker objected to this.

After meeting with school officials, Parker refused to leave unless they agreed to notify him in the future if similar material is again offered to his son. He was arrested and banned from school property.

Now, obviously I don't think much of a man who seemingly goes into conniption fits at the notion of his son being exposed to the idea that gay people exist. But that's not what's so stupid about this story.

I think a parent should have the right to dispute the books his or her child reads--though, if I were the child, as I got older I'd be more and more curious about what it was my elders didn't want me to know. But here's where it gets stupid and bizarre.

A right wing group has obtained what are apparently authentic e-mails between the parent and school. Pandagon has excerpts. Now, I'm assuming that almost all of you reading this share my scorn for homophobia and closed-mindedness, but for once, I'm asking you to put that out of your head.

Regardless of whether you agree with Mr. Parker's position or not, have you ever read a less coherent series of arguments in your life?

It is one thing to endorse to not persecute/harm homosexuals/lesbians, it is another to teach young children implicitly that these values are acceptable. Some may maintain that if they can not present homosexual situations in school--- this is a form of persecution and harm. To us- this is a very contrived argument. The real question is-do parents have the right to exclude/shield their children from these contrary values being pushed upon young children in elementary school.

Our parental rights and Christian belief system will be respected in this diversity- oriented, anti-biased school community.

This last, one, believe it or not, is from their lawyer, who presumably had to go to school:

the Parkers find it alarming that the definition of diversity does apparently not include people with views such as theirs. Moreover, although this town claims to be "no place for hate" there seems to be no shortage of hate for people who do not agree with the norms endorsed by segments of the populace.

To hell with offending me as a left-winger. This offends me as a writer. And that's when you're really in trouble.

What?

So there's this thing called Godwin's Law. Briefly put, it states that:

As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the
probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler
approaches one. There is a tradition in many groups that,
once this occurs, that thread is over, and whoever mentioned
the Nazis has automatically lost whatever argument was in
progress.

For a fuller definition, see here.

I find that this law can be expanded beyond Usenet. Whenever I see or hear someone reaching for such a comparision in just about any context I almost always assume they know, deep down, that they're wrong.

Or at the very least, that I should treat anything and everything they say with great, great suspicion. Which brings me to this little item:

James C. Dobson, founder and chairman of Focus on the Family, compared embryonic stem cell research with Nazi experiments conducted on live human patients during and prior to the Holocaust.

It's a real simple rule. When someone reaches for the Nazi comparison, you know they have no really convincing argument.

This is why I created Keitha and Annabel, isn't it?

Or, She Blinded Me With Science (science!)

Cornell University researcher Robb Willer used a survey to sample undergraduates. Participants were randomly assigned feedback that indicated their responses were either masculine of feminine....
But the guys' reactions were "strongly affected," Willer said today.

"I found that if you made men more insecure about their masculinity, they displayed more homophobic attitudes, tended to support the Iraq war more and would be more willing to purchase an SUV over another type of vehicle," said Willer said. "There were no increases [in desire] for other types of cars."

Those who had their masculinity threatened also said they felt more ashamed, guilty, upset and hostile than those whose masculinity was confirmed, he said.

The women had no discernable reaction to either type of feedback in a follow-up survey.

Prepare yourself for a shock

The Catholic Church has a hypocritical position on birth control. Yes, I was surprised too. From Pandagon:

Turns out the Catholic Church is adamantly pro-birth control in one very special circumstance--when you're fucking the clergy and the church doesn't want to pay to support your child.

For that certain class of right-wingers who live near a river in Egypt.

I like what Mark A. R. Kleiman has to say to conservatives who are shocked--shocked! that their president has come out in favor of "intelligent design."

Look, my conservatarian friends,=: If you like tax cuts, union-bashing, loosening environtmental controls, right-wing Supreme Court justices, and the War in Iraq enough to make you willing to vote for a party dominated by people who prefer what they call "faith" and "values" to logic, science, and fact, then go ahead, hold your nose, and vote for them. The same is true if you simply loathe liberals and Democrats so much you simply need to vote for the other party.

But don't fool yourselves, and don't look surprised when it turns out that the party of the Christian Right is against evolution, stem cell research, and the morning-after contraceptive. That's who they are, and they've never pretended to be anything else.

There's a problem here, Georgie

President Bush lamented the deaths of 14 Marines in Iraq Wednesday, calling the deadly attack a ''grim reminder'' America is still at war.
''These terrorists and insurgents will use brutal tactics because they're trying to shake the will of the United States of America. They want us to retreat,'' Bush told some 2,000 state lawmakers, business leaders and public policy experts gathered here.

Not the will of the United States of America, Georgie. Yours.

''Make no mistake about it,'' Bush said. ''We are at war.''

Enjoy your vacation, Georgie. Try not to think too hard about the men and women who are dying because of you--and no one else. When do you suppose the Republican party lost every last bit of shame?

He said the families of fallen troops can know that the United States government will ''honor their loved ones' sacrifice by completing the mission.''

I am fortunate enough not to have any loved ones who have served or are serving, much less any of the fallen. Knock wood. But if I had, I have to think those words would be cold comfort. What, you mean you're going to send even more troops to die FOR NOTHING? Woo!

Kitty!

(click to enlarge image)

New blog entry #101! Over the hump! Soon to be a major unpublished novel or unproduced screenplay!

Well, like it says up there, with the preceeding joke, my new blog has cracked 100 posts. How do you think it's all going so far? I don't know if this is something you guys think is working, or care about, or even notice, but I have been trying to make this different.

Beyond just having found an easy way to post pictures, which I'm still tickled to death about. For one thing, I'm trying to stay away from the straight links and especially lists of links. What I used to call the "Recommended reading...about which I have no witty remark to make" entries on The Sound of the Crowd.

Now I'm trying to make it that I only link to something if I think I have actually got something to say about it. If it's witty, great. But I'm also trying to make the posts here a little more thoughtful and I hope, thought-provoking. If not scary as hell.

For this reason some of the entries have been getting a little longer, too, and I hope that's OK with y'all. Of course, some things will never change. Like the fact that if you don't get one of my headlines, Google-ing the phrase will usually find it's an obscure Soft Cell or Dean Martin lyric or something...

Hope you're all digging it.

A little dry humor, to leaven the tension before the attack we all know is coming

Found this on Tennessee Guerilla Women; egalia found it in her inbox. It needs must be shared.

"This test only has one question, but it's a very important one. By giving an honest answer, you will discover where you stand morally. No one else will know, so you won't be fooling anyone but yourself if you give anything but a truthful answer. The test features an unlikely, completely fictional situation in which will have to make a decision. Remember that your answer needs to be honest, yet spontaneous. Please read slowly and thoughtfully, giving due consideration to each.

Here's the situation:

You are in Florida; Miami, to be specific. There is chaos all around caused by a hurricane with severe flooding. This is a flood of biblical proportions. You are a photojournalist working for a major newspaper, you're caught in the middle of this epic disaster. The situation is nearly hopeless. You're trying to shoot career-making photos. There are houses and people swirling around you, some disappearing under the water. Nature is unleashing all of its destructive fury. Suddenly you see a man floundering in the water. He is fighting for his life, trying not to be taken down with the debris. You move closer...somehow the man looks familiar. You suddenly realize who it is....It's George W. Bush, President of the United States!

At the same time you notice that the raging waters are about to take him under... forever.You have two options-you can save the life of G.W.Bush, or you can shoot a dramatic Pulitzer Prize winning photo, documenting the death of one of the world's most powerful men.So here's the question, and please give an honest answer: would you select high contrast color film, or would you go with the classic simplicity of black and white?"

This is what staying a republican woman does to you

You may have heard about an election in Ohio that some of the "progressive" blogs have been tracking with wet fingers in the air. Trying to see which way the wind of the country is now blowing.

Well, the Democratic candidate lost, but by only a four-point margin. In Ohio. Some of the blogs are calling this remarkable. I don't know about any of that, but I do know that this is the face of the woman who won.

Ladies, this is what remaining in the Republican party can do. "I'll get you, my pretty...and you little war dissenters, too!"

For the love of god, think of this the next time you register your party affiliation. Thank you.

What?

Bush goes on five-week vacation, longest presidential retreat in 36 years

Uh-huh. Say, anyone remember something that happened right around the last time Bush took a long vacation? Something the anniversary of which is almost exactly five weeks away?

My god. Now it's not only that he's a bad president. He's not even good at PR anymore.

I hear a calling that's hard to resist

A blogger named Hugo, whose blog is new to me, wrote a thoughtful if somewhat-lengthy post about something of concern to me. Hugo, it seems, is a college teacher who teaches courses on lesbian and gay American history and women's studies. I don't know whether he's straight or gay, but he's obviously not a woman--not even a short haired lesbian. He writes:

even though I believe passionately that men can and should teach women's studies courses, I also believe we must do so with a profound sense of humility. Ultimately, no matter how strongly we sympathize with our sisters, no matter how committed we are to women's liberation and equality, we can never claim to be equally affected by the issues we are discussing. If Roe v. Wade is overturned, I will have not suffered any loss to my personal autonomy. Regardless of whether or not I am pro-choice or pro-life, I am incapable of truly understanding -- on a visceral and emotional level -- what it means to live as a woman in a body that many believe ought to have its natural processes regulated by the state. That's not a personal failure on my part, and it's not something for which I feel compelled to apologize. But while men can be deeply interested in women's issues (I am) we cannot claim personal expertise in what it means to live as an embodied woman.

It must be obvious where I feel a twinge of recognition. I'm a male writer who likes writing women characters, and in the last year or two gay women characters. And so I have some expectation or fear that somebody, somewhere, sometime, is going to ask how I can be so immodest? How can I claim I can write about "The Woman's (Or Lesbian) Experience?"

Writing fiction about people different than you is different from teaching college courses about them, of course, and the artist does get some dispensation. But if someone asked me, my answer would be something along the lines that the Keitha and Annabel stories are not actually about The Lesbian Experience. They're about me. I'm writing about lesbians in order to listen to and speak through voices, or parts of myself, that are harder to deal with as "masculine."

But anyway, this Hugo makes some thought provoking and well-worth reading points.

When in doubt, blame a lesbian

The weasel Tucker Carlson's show on MSNBC has not been getting the ratings they'd hoped. In fact, the ratings have been sagging like...well, I don't actually have a full metaphor worked out here, but it's something like Jessica Biel something something.

Anyway, according to Accuracy in Media editor Cliff Kincaid, the reason for this isn't the aforementioned big weasel-ness of Carlson, or even that the country is finally starting to get sick of the conservative POV.

No, it's because of that mean old Media Matters having encouraged the show to be a little more "fair and balanced," and because--pause for gasps of horror--the show regularly features-- ---a short-haired lesbian as a guest.

I, for one, am appalled.

Okay, this is now officially getting weird

American Heritage says:

adj. Abbr. PC 1. Of, relating to, or supporting broad social, political, and educational change, especially to redress historical injustices in matters such as race, class, gender, and sexual orientation. 2. Being or perceived as being overconcerned with such change, often to the exclusion of other matters.

The latest TV series to receive more attention than it may deserve even before it premieres is a Fox sitcom titled The War at Home, created and exec produced by a man named Rob Lotterstein, an openly gay man who has written in the past for Will & Grace and Ellen. According to a report in the Philadelphia Inquirer (via IMDB News),

Fox Entertainment President Peter Liguori has ordered one line to be rewritten and is considering having another line changed...War [at Home] stars Michael Rapaport and Anita Barone as parents in constant battles with their three teenage children. A story line in the pilot revolves around whether one of their two sons (Kyle Sullivan) is gay.
In one scene, his sister (Kaylee DeFer) says to the parents, "He's not gay, he's just a fag." That line set off sparks with the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), which met with Fox officials. The line was changed.

Another line that might end up on the cutting room floor comes in a scene in which the mother remarks, "He's not gay. He's a normal kid. ... Well, he's not normal, but he's not gay."

Now, as most of you probably know, I tend to be a little more sensitive than most straight men to things that I think are offensive to gays. For a number of reasons, not least of which is that I have these couple of lesbians living in my head.

But...obviously I'll have to see the show to be sure of the full context, but as presented, those lines look funny to me. Sorry. This just looks like another case of TV people making cosmetic changes that don't adress real issues, and/or gay advocacy groups going after flies with pepperspray.

Poor GLAAD. They seem to have the worst sense of what to protest against. Between Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back, this show, even Basic Instinct (arguably), they've really made themselves out to be examples of Political Correctness gone too far.

I don't like using that term much, but feel it's appropriate here. Or to put it another way, if GLAAD ever said anything about Sin City, or (god forbid) Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I missed it.

Shut up, Dan

"The press is a watchdog. Not an attack dog. Not a lapdog. A watchdog. Now, a watchdog can't be right all the time. He doesn't bark only when he sees or smells something that's dangerous. A good watchdog barks at things that are suspicious."

-Dan Rather in Esquire

"Look, when a President of the United States, any President, Republican or Democrat, says these are the facts, there is heavy prejudice, including my own, to give him the benefit of any doubt, and for that I do not apologize."

-Dan Rather in a panel discussion

"George Bush is the President, he makes the decisions and you know as just one American, wherever he wants me to line up, just tell me where, and he’ll make the call..."

--Dan Rather on The Late Show with David Letterman

Dan? Shut up, go away, and leave us alone. You and the rest of the network news anchormen had a chance to be "watchdogs" when, as Eric Alterman wrote:

a President of the United States was able to mislead the people of the United States based on what, even then, were demonstrably false arguments.

But you thought it would be better for your ratings to cry crocodile tears and swear allegiance to George Bush. You abdicated the responsibility of the press to not give anyone the benefit of the doubt, no matter how powerful they are.

You are, finally, no better than John Kerry, and I don't know how much more damning I can be. Shut up. Go away. And leave us alone.

What?

We have more on the inexplicably frenzied reaction of conservative bloggers to the very idea, the very notion, of the upcoming television series Commander-In-Chief, starring Geena Davis as a female president. Tennessee Guerilla Women and a blog called The Carpetbagger Report found the following gems from the conservative "blogsphere".

James Dobson's Focus on the Family, in its daily alert to supporters, said yesterday that Geena Davis's character name, Mackenzie Allen, "sounds remarkably, poetically like" Hillary Clinton

Um...okay, you know, speaking as a writer who has something of an ear for the swing of language...no. No, it doesn't.

"[T]his show is a nefarious plot to advance the notion of a Hillary Clinton presidency. The thought is that if we, the submoronic television viewers, get used to seeing a woman president on TV, we'll be more inclined to vote for one in 2008. This is what the TV industry thinks. They don't view us as being rational actors, able to vote for a President based on our own reasoning, but instead as sheep to be herded and trained."

Ah, see, now I start to see what this is. I ran into this once or twice when I was writing my essays about the West Wing books. There is a school of thought that cannot conceive of a writer for whom politics is not the primary motivating factor. And so, CIC creator Rod Lurie must be thinking not, "I want to tell some stories about a female president," but rather, "I want to make people vote the way I do!"

But if the people are not as easily led as all that, what's the problem?

Speaking of The West Wing...in October 2001, Playboy ran a group interview with the staff and cast of that show. When asked, "Why are Republicans less fun?" writer/creator Aaron Sorkin replied:

All I can tell you is that they are...I met with people in the Bush administration. I have never met a less funny group of people in my life. By God, they're not funny.

That's hard to believe when you read some of the suggestions the aforementioned macho boys of the Corner have come up with as alternate titles for a series about a female president.

Get ready to hold your sides.

THE BREAST WING [Warren Bell]

THE OVULAR OFFICE [Jonah Goldberg]

Can't beat it with a stick, can you?

Why is it I just know these guys don't watch Two And A Half Men because they object to the implication?

This is the funniest thing I've seen in weeks

Amanda Marcotte found a so-creepy it's funny article on another one of those "ex-gay" ministries. Herewith we have a few of the tips offered on how gay man can stay straight and true.

Responses are by a blogger named Anne Zooks (in italics), Amanda (in bold), and one or two other guest commentators (in regular text).

men need to become “hard and masculine” in order to be able to enjoy the soft, mushy feel of a woman. In order to become firmer it is all right for a man to work out a little bit, he said, just don’t work out too much.
Mushy? On behalf of non-oatmeal women everywhere, hey!

“A man should also have three years of celibacy,” he said, “and have been free of pornography and masturbation for some time.
The theory being, I guess, that after three years of celibacy, the gay man in question will be so horny that any human touch will do. And maybe that does work the first night of marriage, but good luck after that.

“What should be done if a man begins to have same-sex fantasies while making love to his wife?”
An eager participant in the audience said he and his wife pray whenever they make love.


Because if a woman doesn't arouse him, then I'm sure the thought of god watching him try to have awkward, un-satisfying sex with a woman will

physical intimacy should proceed slowly, and it is best to wait until marriage to experiment with deep kissing.

Annabel: How come we never experiment with deep kissing?
Keitha: Shut up.

Every time he thinks he's hit bottom, a hole opens

Poor Bush. Via Political Wire:

Bush Approval Drops Further
A new Gallup Poll finds a decline in President Bush's job approval rating to just 44%.

"The poll also shows a drop in Bush's favorable rating to 48%, which is the first time it has dropped below 50% since Gallup began tracking this opinion in 1999."

This is an administration in flames.

You know, if we actually had a...whadayacallit...opposition party, I'll bet they could take advantage of this.

Pity, really.

My man John Edwards is coming back

Damnit, I miss this guy. I mean yeah, he had the same albatross around his neck as John Kerry did when in comes to having voted for the war. But as a speaker, he made Kerry look sick...well, at least he helped.

I think I'd be happy to see him again on either end of a 2008 ticket--with Clark or Obama as VP, or running as Veep with Hillary.

And, of course, I still have the major hots for his daughter, Cate, the future first babe of the United States of America. Seen here (in the green), with John Kerry's daughters. Both of whom, I assure you, are looking at her and hating their parents.

I just wish I knew what Edwards' father had done for a living. You'd think that might have come up in the campaign.

Dick & George's Excellent Adventure

In Pandagon, Amanda Marcotte has one of her typically-excellent posts, this one responding to an article in Harper's on just how much people in our so-called "Christian" nation actually know about their professed religion.

From the article:

Only 40 percent of Americans can name more than four of the Ten Commandments, and a scant half can cite any of the four authors of the Gospels. Twelve percent believe Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife. This failure to recall the specifics of our Christian heritage may be further evidence of our nation’s educational decline, but it probably doesn’t matter all that much in spiritual or political terms. Here is a statistic that does matter: Three quarters of Americans believe the Bible teaches that “God helps those who help themselves.” That is, three out of four Americans believe that this uber-American idea, a notion at the core of our current individualist politics and culture, which was in fact uttered by Ben Franklin, actually appears in Holy Scripture. The thing is, not only is Franklin’s wisdom not biblical; it’s counter-biblical. Few ideas could be further from the gospel message, with its radical summons to love of neighbor.

And now, here's Amanda, proving once again why I think she's the hottest blogger on two legs.

we have an epidemic of false piety in this nation. It's real easy to go to church every weekend and sing loudly so everyone sees you and avoid actually thinking about what Jesus said and dealing with it. And into that vaccuum of actual knowledge of belief, it's easy to pour a bunch of angry bullshit about how god is sitting in heaven wringing his hands all the time and saying, "My god, why won't they stop fucking?"

Strong like an Amazon, baby

If you look over to the right there and click the View my complete profile link you'll find, among other things, a link to my Amazon.com Wish List. If you're amazed at the quality of posts on this site (I know I am), please consider making a small donation to the Buy Ben Those CDs He Can't Score Through The Ink 19 Gig Fund. I thank you.

Um...

Okay, so there's a new TV series coming this fall called Commander In Chief, in which Geena Davis will play the first female president. Now, I don't know how you feel about this, but I think it's got potential; Davis is certainly an attractive and talented actress with a pretty solid record. Series creator Rod Lurie has had a more mixed but still interesting career in films.

Certainly, it would seem to me, the most the prospect of such a series should arouse in anyone is either "that sounds cool, I look forward to giving it a try," or "nah, doesn't seem like something I would be interested in."

Sound good to everybody? Rational? Fine. Meanwhile, over in conservativeland, the macho men of The Corner are absolutely throwing a wingnutty. Armchair warrior Jonah Goldberg goes to great lengths to prove that:

The idea that a female liberal president would be more "feminine" than Bill Clinton is absurd, laughable, factually untrue. Bill Clinton was weepy, huggy and at all times pain-feeling. He'd wax eloquent on the glories of talk and empathy. At the end of one marathon meeting which accomplished nothing, he stretched out in his chair and said "That was great" as if he was about to light a cigarette. Feminists declared him the first female president. He talked of security not in the sense of blowing up terrorists but of leaving no children behind...And, sad to say, it was so successful that George W. Bush and Karl Rove copied it with their treacly "compassionate conservatism." It took 9/11 to remind George W. Bush why Republicans are called the Daddy Party.

Um...okay, can anybody...anybody at all...possibly find a flaw in his logic?

Like the fellow once said, ain't that a kick in the head?

Via Digby at Hullabaloo:

It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can't get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile.

The joke is that they're not kidding.

Kissing Jessica Stein

So here we are with Kissing Jessica Stein, the third in a trifecta of films that one person or another has suggested that my script, My Girlfriend's Boyfriend, reminds them of. So far this has left me feeling either embittered (my characters reminded them of that?) or arrogantly superior (fuck, my screenplay's better than that).

Kissing Jessica Stein is again, somewhat predictable, though not as much as Object Of my Affection. And more earnest than funny (though it is that in fits and starts). The truth is that there's really not much wrong with it. One or two of the triter scenes could have been replaced with more belivable dialogue, but how many films is that not true about?

(The answer? New Waterford Girl, which you have all called your video stores and put on hold, haven't you?)

It's just that it didn't sing to me the way great drama does. The way, picking something totally at random, Aaron Sorkin's best episodes of The West Wing do....the way I want my work to sing to people.

I'm also thinking about the fact that some feedback I got on my script recently said that "the dramatic shock value of the gays has decreased in the last decade."

Well, I'll tell you something. Not to make myself out to be "the noble heterosexual" or anything, but...I never made Keitha and Annabel gay for dramatic shock value. And if that's the only way I can "sell" them to even a quasi-mainsteam audience...maybe I don't want to do that.

Oh, Evelyn

Pierce Brosnan stars in this movie that he also co-produced, using some of the money and clout he has from being James Bond (I imagine mostly the clout). He plays an Irishman who almost loses his kids after his wife takes off.

It's all very Lifetime, with the twist being that it's a man saying "I want my babies back." And almost as sentimental as The Object of My Affection...but it works, and it's at least a diverting way to spend an hour and a half.

Memorable Presidential Quotes

"I cannot tell a lie."-George Washington

"We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness..."-Thomas Jefferson

"You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time."

"I wish some of you would tell me the brand of whiskey that Grant drinks. I would like to send a barrel of it to my other generals."--Abraham Lincoln

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself..."

"Yesterday, December 7, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy - the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan."--FDR

"The buck stops here."--Harry Truman

"Ich bin ein Berliner."--JFK

"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall."--Ronald Reagan

"The only time I ever hit two good balls is when I step on a rake."-- George W. Bush

Misguided optimism

Tennessee Guerilla Women found a couple of polls that say that

1. Not only has support for George W. Bush hit an all-time low, but
2. A majority of Americans support Roe v Wade and
3. They want Supreme Court nominee John Roberts to publicly state his position on abortion.

So you know what I'm thinking tonight? Go ahead, Mr. Bush. Keep fighting your manical "war on terror." Overturn Roe v Wade. Jam your far-right partisan hack onto the Supreme Court. All you're doing is just ensuring the fact that the backlash, when it comes, will last longer and longer and longer.

As I said, misguided optimism.

In a Good acting Company

Now, that's a lot more like it. I'd been meaning to see this film for a while--the ads made it seem promising and reviews praised the script. But somehow, with one thing and another, I only got around to it today.

"Charming" is a good word for it--not particuarly groundbreaking but a well-made film with a strong script. Excellent performances right down the line--besides the main three parts the roles are filled out by well cast character actors nearly top to bottom. Including a couple of unbilled cameos.

Dennis Quaid maybe hasn't always gotten the vehicles he should have as a young man, but he's aged into a wonderfully likable actor. And Topher Grace? Well, first of all, he still looks like Dave Foley's little brother to me. And I admit I resent him getting paid to make out with Laura Prepon on "That '70s Show." But I gotta give the boy props--he seems to have a good sense of humor about himself. And he can play comedy but also be real.

And I continue to be impressed with Scarlett Johanssen, after this and "Lost In Translation." She's got a really great face--not just beautiful, which she is, but interesting-given good material, she can be lumionious.

Oh, and no, no gay people--although there is a line about rumors that Johanssen's character is a lesbian. I just can't get away from them.

That's right.

Shut up, Keitha.

The Object Of My Aversion

Well, I'm 0 for two when it comes to seeing movies people tell me that my screenplay reminds them of. Some of you might remember my embittering experience with a film called Love And Human Remains.

The Object Of My Affection is a better movie, but not by a lot. Those of you who know me probably know that I can be a sentimental fool. I refer you to my recent list of favorite films. But this movie is almost overpoweringly sweet, like a too-strong perfume.

I felt at least three steps ahead of the screenplay at all times. This doesn't have to be a stake through the heart--if a movie is sufficiently funny, which this one is not. And the visual symbolism is about as subtle as the keyboard hook on Europe's "The Final Countdown."

For example, in the scene where Jennifer Aniston asks her gay male roommate to help raise her child, she does it when they're on a roller coaster. See, because they're about to embark a journey that has a lot of ups and downs. Everybody got that?

Aniston is actually fine when she's given enough to do, which she isn't often enough. So is most of the cast. However, given the pat nature of the script, it's unfortunate that so many of the actors are recognizable from sitcoms. Many of them good sitcoms, but sitcoms nevertheless.

(Meaningless, trivial observation: Both of the actors who played the brothers on the TV show Wings have now played gay men in movies--Tim Daly in this one, and Stephen Weber in Jeffrey, a film I adore.)

I hate to say it, but the finger of blame must point at the screenplay. I'm a fan of Wendy Wasserstein's The Heidi Chronicles, but fuck, my screenplay is better than this. I figure, in a movie, you can either show something or you can have people talk about it. Most of the books say it's better to show, but I'll stand up in defense of a good talking-about-it movie, Again, I refer you to my recent list of faves.

But to show something and then have people talk about it...that's just belaboring a point.

Ah, but there's good news tonight. One thing I salvaged from my viewing of Love And Human Remains was:

a good warning sign, or reminder, not to lumber my characters with unneccesary "plot points," like this movie which tosses a serial killer into the mix because...I dunno, somebody must have thought it was a good idea.

I've been getting some advice lately to "up the stakes" in my screenplay(s). My problem is, every time I try to think of ways to make the stakes "higher" it feels forced. And I write by basically deciding who is "on stage" and then listening to my characters. And Keitha & Annabel would tell you the stakes are quite high from where they're sitting! :-)

Anyway, to get back to The Object Of My Affection, I will say that the ending was another reinforcement of something I don't want to muck up my movies with. It makes sure you know that every single character's arc has a "feel-good" resolution. I like to leave a few things unresolved.

So, now on to Kissing Jessica Stein...well, probably not right now, I rented a couple of other films too that (as far as I know) don't even have any gay people in 'em...

Say!

Remember just over a week ago, when I said that Judge Roberts was a far-right, partisan hack? Well, to further back that up, here's a little info on his role in the 2000 recount.

strung out on heaven's high, hitting an all time low

Oh, this is good. Once again, luxuriate in Bush's incredible plummeting poll numbers. I suppose Democrats could take advantage of this, if only they weren't all made out of jelly. Remember to get those abortions in now, girls...but the good news is, we'll probably all be killed by a terrorist attack Bush spectacuarly failed to prevent anyway.

They've got to be kidding me

Apparently, a recent issue of Oprah's magazine has some advice for women on the ways of men (according to Pandagon). Now, my vast reading audience: Ladies, please tell me if the men to whom this advice seems to apply seems like anyone you would want to spend a hot night with. Gentlemen, same question in reverse--if the woman in your life thought so little of you...

(Gays and lesbians, redistribute as necessary)

PS: For bonus points, try to tell me which sex you think is being more insulted here. Being a guy, I'm gonna go with the men. See what you think.

Now, on to the valuable pieces of advice.

Don’t try to talk to him during football season.

Ok, so maybe my disbelief about this one is based on my almost total ignorance of sports, which is well-nigh legendary amongst my friends. But still: Really? In 2005 we still have that hang-up?

If he tries to cook, get out of the kitchen until it’s time to clean up.

Oh those darn men, puttering around with their pots and pans. Gosh, I love the little goofball.

Don’t be argumentative. Admire him for being tough. Shut up.

Yeah, that's a good idea. For god's sake, don't have opinions of your own but if you must, don't actually, you know, express them. And in the name of all that is holy, don't have anything to back up those opinions.

Somehow, I just know a Buffy fan came up with that rule.

Acquaint yourself with the career of Peyton Manning.

Yeah, I had to look it up, what's your point?

Meet every protest and argument he makes, no matter how ridiculously false, with the observation that he is absolutely correct...in boxing this is called rope-a-dope.

"Correct as usual, King Friday."

Rent a Steven Seagal movie.

Oh yes, do indeed, please. I heartily recommend "Hard To Kill," in which his unfortunate then wife, Kelly LeBrock, testifies to the massively overpowering size of his penis.

If the guy these pieces of advice are describing is the kind of guy I think he is, he'll love that part.

Accept that the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue is one of his favorite things.

I suppose I should be making a separate list about "things men are supposed to love that I just don't get." Okay, the swimsuit issue. I understand the premise. But...but you know, Playboy magazine has been on the stands for over 50 years.

And anyone with a computer has access to pictures of some of the most beautiful women in the world. Some of them, the same women who appear in the swimsuit issue. Only stark naked. And some video stores actually have entire shelves of the likes of Ginger Lynn performing certain acts that would make steam come out of John Ashcroft's ears.

I mean, so I've been told.

...anyway, to get back to my point, is the swimsuit issue really that big a deal for men over 17 anymore?

If you want him to fix the shower drip, whatever you do don’t nag; instead, remove the shower head, bring it to him and say “uh-oh, stupid me, I tried to fix it myself but now the drip is worse!” Then offer to bring him his power drill

.

Actually, this would probably work on me. Except, you'd have to replace the words "power drill" with "phone book" so I could call a plumber to fix the damn thing. Any woman who's ever dated me is gonna know that I don't have a power drill.

Wait a minute...

If you want to comfort your man, don’t try to soothe him with a home-baked pie; for the lovagod, tell him how powerful he is.

Actually, something in a lemon or key lime pie might be nice. Or you could just give us some kind of sex, that works too. Because, you know, we don't have...what are they called...feelings. No, we just want to get laid and fed and NEVER, EVER TO BE QUESTIONED YOU STUPID BITCH CUNT!

Sorry...but if magazine articles like these are to be believed, I have every right to act this way and no woman in my life should ever expect anything less.

Or better.

A small shame

I can't say that Danny Simon, the comedy writer who just passed away, was a big hero or influence of mine. But he turns up in a lot of books about television in the '50s and '60s, and those by or about his brother, Neil.

And so I have a real sense of his presence, if not his loss, if that makes any sense. Anyway, Mark Evanier has more, as well as a couple of the classic "Danny Simon stories."

It's the birthday of an American hero

Over on Cartoon Brew, Jerry Beck reminds us that:

65 years ago on this day, Warner Bros. released a Merrie Melodies short called A Wild Hare.

Happy birthday to one of the all-time greats.

A rant about...

Mark Evanier has one of his political rants--much shorter than usual--about a new poll saying that 51% of all Americans believe the Bush administration deliberately misled the public about whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

The new motto of the Republican party

"When we obstruct justice, we really obstruct justice."

Smoke, smoke, smoke that cigarette

Ok, now, I don't smoke. Never have. On a bad day, cigarette smoke gives me a headache. I have, and have had, one or two friends who do, and of course I wish they'd stop. But I have to admit, almost to a person as best I remember, they've all been very considerate about sitting near windows or going outside, or not smoking at all when they know it would bother me.

Banning smoking completely from restaurants, as opposed to clearly differentiated smoking and non-smoking sections, seemed to me a tad extreme. And even I have to admit...this is insane, on at least a couple of levels.

Bill Pushed to Stop Drivers From Smoking
Ashtrays have been disappearing in cars like fins on Cadillacs, and so could smoking while driving in New Jersey, under a measure introduced in the Legislature.

You don't have to be George Carlin or even Jon Stewart to see the joke potential in trying to stop drivers from smoking while driving...IN NEW JERSEY. The garden state...if you're growing smokestacks, or so I've heard.

Some lawmakers may fear the bill is frivolous compared with more pressing issues like taxes, said political analyst David Rebovich.

Y'think?

Mitchell Sklar, of the New Jersey State Association of Chiefs of Police, said police departments may balk at enforcing such a law. "In general, we'd rather not try to incrementally look at every single behavior and make those a violation," he said.

A tip of the hat to James "the" Mann for the pointer.

Intelligent Design

In Pandagon, Jesse Taylor comments on some responses to an article that appeared on so-called "intelligent design," which is the latest attempt by the religious right to retard the teaching of evolution to schoolchildren. One no doubt world-class scientist wrote:

How is it that scientists can examine a rock specimen from Mars and "affirm" that there was once water on Mars (which has no water), and look at our planet, which is 70 percent water, and declare that there is no evidence of a worldwide flood?
Scientists and religious authorities are, indeed, fallible.

To which Mr. Taylor replies:

It's called "science". You see, massive flooding leaves evidence. You do know what evidence is, don't you? It's that stuff that convicts the B-list celebrities on Law & Order. Think about that...but on a big, global scale.
You see, one thing has nothing to do with the other - whether or not there was ever water on Mars has no bearing on if the entire planet flooded several thousand years ago. It's not like Noah built an intergalactic starship and bumped his ass to Mars to dump off the extra water, all the while bringing the pure power of funk to benighted Martians.

I'm linking to this for two reasons. One is because I know, I just know, that somewhere, right now, some sci-fi novelist or b-movie producer is preparing a story with precisely that premise. The other is that it gives me a chance to use one of my all-time favorite quotes:

The effort to reconcile science and religion is almost always made, not by theologians, but by scientists unable to shake off altogether the piety absorbed with their mothers' milk. The theologians, with no such dualism addling their wits, are smart enough to see that the two things are implacably and eternally antagonistic, and that any attempt to thrust them into one bag is bound to result in one swallowing the other.

The scientists who undertake this miscegenation always end by succumbing to religion; after a Millikan has been discoursing five minutes it becomes apparent that he is speaking in the character of a Christian Sunday-school scholar, not of a scientist. The essence of science is that it is always willing to abandon a given idea, however fundamental it may seem to be, for a better one; the essence of theology is that it holds its truths to be eternal and immutable. To be sure, theology is always yielding a little to the progress of knowledge, and only a Holy Roller in the mountains of Tennessee would dare to preach today what the popes preached in the Thirteenth Century, but this yielding is always done grudgingly, and thus lingers a good while behind the event. So far as I am aware even the most liberal theologian of today still gags at scientific concepts that were already commonplaces in my schooldays.--H. L. Mencken

Hey, now, wait a minute

Hoffmania observes:

When wingnut cartoonist Scott Stantis uses his comic strip real estate on the DNC chairman like this, you know Dean's getting under their skin...Stantis has Tinsley's Disorder. He forgot to tell a joke.

Now, leaving aside the joke, which no, isn't so great, the poster in the first panel...that's supposed to be an image of Howard Dean?

Looks more like Spiro Agnew, W.C. Fields, Boris Yeltsin, Karl Rove...even Bill Clinton is a closer like-a-look match for what Stantis drew as "Howard Dean."

I mean it's not like I was expecting Mort Drucker caliber caricature, but...

The Bad Dudes? Where?

The ever small-minded Rick "man on dog" Santorum was on The Daily Show last night, publicizing his timely response to Hillary Clinton's book.

ETA: I hope myself will forgive me for interupting like this, but I just found a quote from old woman-in-the-home, man-on-dog that's just too delightful not to post here:

When I asked him if he viewed gay marriage as a threat to his own marriage, he answered quickly. ''Yes, absolutely,'' he said. ''It threatens my marriage.

Oh, reeeally?

And now back to our earlier scheduled post.

A couple of the liberal blogs are feeling let-down that Stewart did not "go after" Santorum more wholeheartedly.

I know what they mean. There were certainly times when I wished Stewart would have rebutted one of Santorum's talking points with shall we say, harder logic. But at the same time, one of the things I think Stewart does best is something 98% of the other talk show hosts don't do: Try to engage his guests in conversation; making clear where he disagrees, which I think he did, but not hitting them with pepper spray a la Hardball.

Anyway, a blog called towleroad has a partial transcript of the appearance. I also recommend reading the comments, which mostly seem uncommonly well-informed and reasoned for blog readers (no offense, my vast reading audience).

Except, of course, for the guy (I'm guessing) who wrote in "You are all a bunch of AIDS Monkeys."

It's Fan-tastic

In his answerman column, Roger Ebert responds to comics fans who have queried his review of "Fantastic Four." Not because they disagree with it, but because Ebert revealed an insufficient (to them) knowledge of the characters' mythos and history.

He writes:

What I learned while reading dozens of messages is that comics fans have made enormous psychic investments in their favorite characters, and follow their origins, adventures, opponents and character changes with an attention bordering on obsession. I saw a bad movie. Many of them saw a movie whose goodness or badness was secondary, since whatever happened on the screen was linked in their imaginations with an extensive pre-history.

Welcome to my world, Roger. Visions of debating with "Buffy" and/or "Star Wars" fans (often one and the same, and comics fans to boot) dance in my head. I don't know what it is that makes fandom, for some people, about a combination of loss of objectivity and a willingness to be exploited.

The will of the people and the voice of the problem

1. The friendly Tennessee Guerilla Women found a poll that says more than three-quarters of Americans want more info on Supreme Court nominee Roberts, to decide for themselves if his views represent the "mainstream."

And also an article saying that republicans, for some reason, don't want the American people to have said information. Pro-lynching senator Orrin Hatch plays the "partisan" card in explaining why Democrats have no right to ask for it.

Egalia sez:

Yeah, it’s pretty friggin' outrageous for Democrats to inquire about the record of a man who seeks a lifetime appointment on the Highest Court in the land. So friggin' outrageous that some Republicans believe “the demands may be early signs of a stealth campaign by Democrats to kill the Supreme Court nomination by demanding documents they know they won't get.”

“Some Republicans” have more faith in Democrats than I have.

I don't know what's she's talking about--the heat wave in Tennessee must be getting to her. Lack of faith in Democrats, come on, what is that? Oh. Unless, of course, it's stuff like this:

2.

"You're gonna miss a great speech there. Same one I've given for 40 years. It's going to be breathtaking."

-- Sen. Ted Kennedy

--Political Wire's Quote of the Day.

Okay, the nanny and Jude Law thing

I've only been keeping one eye, if that, on this story, because...well, if I spent too much time obsessing about Jude Law, it might cut into the time I spend worshipping the twin goddesses, Virginia Madsen and Anne Hathaway.

But Amanda Marcotte, as might be expected, has a good take on it.

the story of Jude Law fucking his nanny to get revenge on his fiancee for daring to continue in her career when he apparently expected her to throw it out the window now that she's got him in her life. This is truly an odious story and I wish I had never heard it, because that is such a lowdown, asshole move that it immediately destroyed my crush on Law, a crush formed strictly on the basis of his hotness alone, since I can't, off the top of my head, think of a single movie he's in that I like. But it's hard to have deviant fantasies about a man you know is so damn selfish and arrogant, because it becomes impossible to imagine he'd be an ounce of fun. But I digress.

Jesus

Things I don't understand:

there was a female security guard more-or-less watching the cubicle next to where we were, and I got into a conversation with her. The patient within was a semi-coherent woman who'd been brought in by the police, complaining of "brain injuries." Her boy friend, she mumbled, had inflicted them. He had been beating her and hitting her for years now, and this was not the first time she'd been in this emergency ward due to his handiwork.

So why did they need to have a security guard watching her in there? Was someone afraid "the boy friend" would get in and resume smacking her around in a hospital emergency room? No, the guard explained. It was to keep her from sneaking out of the ward and hurrying back to Mr. Wonderful. This, the guard said, is not uncommon: "They suddenly realize someone is talking about going and arresting the S.O.B. and they either get worried about losing him or afraid that he's going to get mad at them and make their lives even more miserable." The lady in question had done that every time she'd been in before. There was also the worry that she would do something suicidal there...which wouldn't have been all that different from going back to her beau.

Mark Evanier notes this and another "slice of life" anecdote.

John McCain: The "good" republican

Via AmericaBlog,

On ABC's This Week, Stephanopoulos just read the text of the Classified Information NonDisclosure Agreenent that White House employees are required to sign:

"I have been advised that any breach of this Agreement may result in the termination of any security clearance I hold; removal from any position of special confidence and trust requiring such clearances; or the termination of my employment..."

Stephanopoulos: Do you believe that this agreement should be abided by?

McCain: I do, but that also implies that someone knowingly revealed...

Stephanopoulos: This covers negligent disclosures

McCain: Again I don't know what the definition of "negligent" is.

"Guilty of a lack of due care or concern." As in, Rove was negligent in his ethics when he leaked classified information about a CIA agent to reporters and lied to the FBI about it. As we've seen, even Ronald Reagan knew that.

Or to put it another way: John McCain is negligent both as a man, and as a father. Because he is bending over backwards to protect men who not only smeared him but tried to use his own child against him in the 2000 election. And did it in a racist, cynical way.

But apparently, this matters less to John McCain than the prospect of occupying the oval office one day. I wonder how you explain that to your kid.

John McCain, ladies and gentlemen....there are no good ones.

A random glimpse into the lives of others

A site that lists the last 50 images posted to livejournal. Found via Pandagon, where Amanda notes:

It's addictive because you spend all your time wondering what this picture is about.

She's right, it is addictive. It's also damned educational. For example, here are a couple of things I've already learned from the site:

• Teenage girls really like taking pictures of themselves and their friends.
• There's a lot of narcissistic fuckers out there, teenage girl or not.

The site is voyeuristic, fun...and leaves you feeling vaguely dirty. What more do you want on a Saturday afternoon?

Separated At Birth

Well, at least he has a sense of humor about it

Crooks and Liars unearthed a photograph from June 2003 of Karl Rove and Robert Novak standing together at a party.

At the event a number of people [including Rove, who is pictured wearing his] wore buttons reading, "I'm a source, not a target."

This brings to mind two things, the first of which is the headline of this post. The second is...Republicans are really, really unattractive people. I mean seriously, look at this picture and then compare it to oh, say, I don't know...this photo of eight Democrats, chosen completely at random.

A big day for Egalia

Her blog made the Washington Post. First line, too, of a pretty good story about how bloggers are responding to the nominaton of Roberts. But let the clicker beware! When I first tried to call up the story, I was greeted by an ad featuring a fullscreen shot of that big weasel, Tucker Carlson.

That's a terrible thing to inflict on someone before 10 o'clock in the morning.

Oh, good. Now Michael Medved is involved.

Medved is a right-wing former film critic (saw Tomcats just a few seats down from him, myself) and author turned family-values hack. He appeared about a week ago on Larry King and stated the right-wing "talking point" that Valerie Plame deserved no protection because after all, the CIA wasn't doing much to give her any:

"And let's be honest about this. Mrs. Plame, Mrs. Wilson, had a desk job at Langley. She went back and forth every single day."

There are those who are offended by statements like these. Like, say, the 11 former CIA agents who signed this letter explaining logically why Medved's thinking (and the thinking of those like him) is screwed.

Now, I don't know who you're more inclined to trust in a case like this, but...

Speaking of questions I want to ask

Jesse Taylor has a good one for Roberts.

Burton Returns

Letters, oh we get letters...

My friend Corey Klemow sent a note querying me on this sentence from my earlier entry on Tim Burton (and other so-called artists of whom I'm less than fond):

And I'm sorry, anyone who makes Mars Attacks! and Planet of the Apes and the Batman movies and Edward Scissorhands doesn't get to play the artist card for a long, long time.

Corey writes:

How does "Edward Scissorhands" fit into that list... ? All the others are based on licensed properties; "Edward Scissorhands" is an original tale.

Which I suppose is a fair cop; Corey's caught me out there. He also likes the movie wholeheartedly. I don't, which is why I included it. I think it's a Tim Burton movie. Which means, as somebody sharp once observed:

Having started out as an animator, he knows how to make pretty moving pictures. But being able to make pretty moving pictures is not the same as being able to make pretty moving pictures, if you take the point...To move us, a film must engage us, and that means that at some point, a film must give us humanity, even if the characters are not human. Make that especially if the characters are not human.

Corey also rises in defense of "Big Fish," which he thinks was [Burton's]

best film ever, with his excesses reigned in and a very real emotional undercurrent.

Maybe. I'll admit I haven't seen it. By the time it came out, the ship had already sailed for me as far as Burton was concerned. However, I should have said a few words about Ed Wood, which I think is Burton's best film ever (of those I've seen, of course).

Why? Well I'm always going to think it's because he was working from an actual...what's it called...script.

(An interesting aside: The screenplay was written by Larry Karaszewski & Scott Alexander. According to the IMDB, Karaszewski is currently working on research for a film about the Marx brothers. Considering that he & Alexander went on to write Man on the Moon and The People vs. Larry Flynt, I hope there's action on this)

Anyway, I should have cited it as an exception to my generally low opinion of Burton's work. I also should have posted the question I most want to ask Burton: What is his deal with casting nominally brunette actresses opposite Johnny Depp and making them into blondes?

Uncharacteristically kind words about Tennessee

As most of you reading this know, I have certain "issues" with the state of Tennessee, god's gift to the collector of human oddity. For those of you who don't know, these stem almost wholly from my experiences with the Tennessee Stage Company.

This group produced my play The Girl in the Boat in 2003, and thanks to some diva actors and an amateur director, screwed it up all to hell. In these things, I take as my role model Sweeney Todd: He never forgets and he never forgives.

Hence, on occasion, I've been known to be a tad knee-jerk, some might even say blanket judgemental, in my remarks about the state. However, when I can, I do like to acknowledge the one or two good things (apart from the music) that have come out of the duck-humping, racist, rock-stupid, anti-sex, hillbilly, legalized wife-raping...sorry.

Anyway, one of those good things is bloggers, specifically female bloggers. I've linked to the Tennessee Guerilla Women many times, both here and on the old blog. Today they led me to a new (to me) blog called Tiny Cat Pants where I found this saddening, but probably not totally inaccurate, monologue headlined It Starts When You're Always Afraid:

This brings me to the second (the first being that our very bodily incarnation is seen, rhetorically, as some kind of appropriate insult), but closely intertwined way we live lives very different from yours: We don't trust you. We trust particular individuals of you, more or less, but in general, we don't trust you not to hurt us.

Here's why. You've raped or almost raped one in six of us and two-thirds of us knew you when you did it. When we love you, we have a one in three chance that you're going to beat us up at least once.

Another good blogger with the misfortune to live in Tennessee (Knoxville, yet) is hanging up his spurs, so I suppose it's good to know women like these have it covered.

I think it's just about time for another rousing game of...

Who Said It?

Specifically, who made the following remarks at CIA headquarters?

Whether you work in Langley or a faraway nation, whether your tasks are in operations or analysis sections, it is upon your intellect and integrity, your wit and intuition that the fate of freedom rests for millions of your countrymen and for many millions more all around the globe. …

Like those who are part of any silent service, your sacrifices are sometimes unappreciated; your work is sometimes misunderstood. Because you’re professionals, you understand and accept this. But because you’re human and because you deal daily in the dangers that confront this nation, you must sometimes question whether some of your countrymen appreciate the value of your accomplishments, the sacrifices you make, the dangers you confront, the importance of the warnings that you issue.

Now, Who said it?

From the cartoon to the comic book super-villainy

1.Click to read fine print.

2. This guy is a disgrace to the forces of evil. Seriously. Somewhere, Dr. Doom and The Scarecrow are going "Dude! Even we had more honor and class than that!"

To mark the passing

I've just learned that Frances Langford died a little over a week ago. Being born some 25 years after the end of WWII, but a fan of old radio, I know Langford best from her performances on Bob Hope's radio show and especially The Bickersons. This was a series of sketches she did with Don Ameche in which they played, in a way, the grandparents of Peggy and Al Bundy, only a lot wittier. She had a terrific way with a comedy line.

My favorite story about her takes place one night when she was performing for American soldiers with one of Bob Hope's USO tours during the Second World War.

So the story goes, she had just started to sing her trademark song:

"I'm in the mood...for love..."

--when a soldier in the audience stood up and yelled "You've come to the right place, honey!"

And James Doohan, "Scotty" of "Star Trek", is dead at 85. There was a time when I was a child when if you'd asked me who my favorite "Star Trek" character was, I would have said Scotty. I couldn't have told you why, I think I just decided I needed a favorite and there he was.

As I got older and moved on to the glories of the Spock/McCoy/Kirk triumverate, I still retained an affection for the man. Like most of the cast apart from the lead trio, he only rarely had a chance to show any chops, but when he did, he did well by them.

I've read his autobiography, co-written with Peter David, and some of his military service during WWII was truly impressive; he was wounded during the D-Day invasion of Normandy and lost a finger in battle.

I don't know what else to say because I'm trying to avoid the cliche or bad taste of saying either of the two obvious catch phrases. I enjoyed his work, and he seemed like a nice man. I guess that says it all.

These are a few of my favorite flicks

Bill, that Pop Culture Gadabout, has tossed down the gauntlet of movie meme. And since I recently gave you a little play on what I don't like about movies of today...

...I thought it might be a cheery thing to do to list some of the movies of which I do think fondly. Meaningless defining rule: I'm speaking not necessarily of Great Works Of Film As Literature, but to those perennials that have stood the test of time for me personally.

But first, in Bill's words, the following disclaimer:

Of course, this list'll most likely change in my mind tomorrow, but for now it'll do.

Now then. Wendy, is the water warm enough? Shall we begin?

'80s:

Broadcast News. One of the most influential movies on what, if you squint, you could call my style.

Radio Days. Almost the only Woody Allen film I actually like, but I do like it a lot.

Aliens. I still think I think a reason the last two Aliens movies didn't work is because they killed Newt at the beginning of the third one.

The Big Chill. As a rule, I hate boomers, and yet I love this movie. Go figure.

The World According To Garp. No, not just for the "good parts."

'90s:

The Hunt For Red October. "No, you don't understand. I'm Sean Connery. I don't learn Russian, you hire a scottish crew, so I blend in."
(Still my favorite Rick Overton line)

Silence of the Lambs. It's amazing what a bang-up script can do to make art out of horror.

The Fisher King. Screw Good Will Hunting. Williams deserved the Oscar for this.

Groundhog Day. Besides just being a great comedy, it was the first Bill Murray movie where you buy the romance. I was going to say "the only," till I remembered Lost In Translation.

The American President. My first Sorkin. Blow to the target, blame Cupid, Cupid...

Leaving Las Vegas. That beautiful soundtrack. Elizabeth Shue. Do I have to go on?

The Usual Suspects. It's not just what it's about. It's the way it is what it's about.

It's My Party. Again, for a lot of things, but I'm trying to keep these short so I'll say for a truly gifted ensemble cast.

Boogie Nights. Point in its favor: It gave us Heather Graham. Point against it: It gave us Heather Graham.

My Best Friend's Wedding. Yeah. I'm so tough...

The Iron Giant. All honor to The Incredibles, but this is Brad Bird's best film.

Early 21st Century:

New Waterford Girl. Absolutely terrific Canadian movie that won praise from critics but was sadly unappreciated by audiences in this country. They run it occasionally on Sundance, but it's worth checking your video store; if this post makes you watch only one film, this should be the one.

The Lord Of The Rings. Yes, all three. I don't have to give reasons, do I?

Finding Nemo. Not just the greatest CGI film ever made, not only one of the greatest animated films ever made...one of the very best films of any kind ever made.

Ice Age. Okay, so this is only about three-quarters as good...but that's still pretty good.

Sideways. If you're a writer, and/or if you read the old blog, you know why.

The Concert For George. Everything you want in a tribute concert.

Ocean's 11. Proof that light all-star fluff doesn't always have to be insultingly painful, or vice versa.

For fucks sake, that's the same age as my nephew

A nice Christian father just beat his son to death because he was afraid the boy might be gay.

The boy was three.

Here's what I've got on Judge Roberts, but let's not rove too far afield

For the one or two of you who actually use my blog as a primary news source (more fools you), here's two or three points that I think are important.

From the Human Rights Campaign:

Judge Roberts has disputed the right to privacy laid out in Roe v. Wade, and urged that the case be overruled. Reversing Roe could undermine fundamental rights to privacy and liberty that are the legal underpinning for the freedom of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans.

Judge Roberts has advocated for prayer in public schools and for weakening the wall between church and state.

From Jeffrey Toobin's book "Too Close To Call," via Digby's Hullabaloo:

The president's first two nominations to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia curcuit --- generally regarded as the stepping-stone to the Supreme Court --- went to Miguel Estrada and John G Roberts Jr., who had played important behind-the scenes roles in the Florida litigation.

(Emphasis mine)

Okay, everybody got that? He's a far-right, partisan hack. Get it? Got it? Good. And now, back to Karl Rove. My, my. He may be in even bigger trouble than we ever dreamed. A little something called lying to the FBI...

Mighty hath fallen

I've long suspected you have to have been a teenager in 1988 to understand just how huge INXS were. But trust me, those Aussie boys were BIG, and Kick and Listen Like Thieves rarely left my walkman. Yes, I know I've just made the equivilent of an eight-track-tape reference in 2005 terms.

And Michael Hutchence? That year, there wasn't a teenager who didn't want to either be or be "with" him (you'll back me up on that, won't you ladies?).

And then the poor dumb bastard went and killed himself.

And now, now it's come to this. A loser reality show.

Sigh...

Well that ought to do it, thanks very much Daryl

Movie beauty Daryl Hannah has turned her back on her acting career to focus on saving the planet.

Y'hear that, folks? Power-mad politicians, an indefensible war that's formented a seemingly-unstoppable insurgency, innocent people held captive and tortured, natural disasters, and a public with no confidence in their leaders.

But hey, the star of Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman and Addams Family Reunion is on the case.

I, for one, feel much better.

Talking about presidential candidates as if they were erectile tissue

Tennessee Guerilla Women comments on a recent poll...

86% of Americans think women are "tough enough to be President of the United States." And 85% have "a willingness to cast a ballot for a well qualified woman presidential candidate."

When the choices are Clinton and Rice, thankfully Hillary Clinton comes out ahead.

Fully 58% say Clinton is 'tough enough,' while only 46% feel that way about Rice.

I'm happy to hear that more people are comfortable with the thought of a woman president than they have been in the past, but can we please reframe the question?

If we're going to use yesteryear's stereotypes to assess a woman's chances at the White House, then how about a little gender fairness in the stereotypes?

Can we please have a poll asking if the male candidates are 'soft enough' not to strut around the world stage in macho dress-up insulting and ostracizing everyone who disagree with them?

Can we please have a poll asking if the male candidates are 'soft enough' to be above making enemies and insulting girls, women and others by calling people names like 'girly-men'...

TGW also links to a Washington Monthly article by Carl M. Cannon, making a compelling case for Hillary's electability. There's also a counterbalancing article by Amy Sullivan. I haven't read it yet, but I've had a lot of love for Sullivan pieces in the past.

Side note: Cannon starts with a vignette about his father, Lou Cannon, the author of several books about Ronald Reagan that are definitive and well-worth reading. I'm not saying that only from a left perspective--Cannon's third book on Reagan was produced in association with the Ronald Reagan Library and Museum, and contains a CD of his speeches. And I'm still recommending it. If that's not a ringing endorsement, I don't know what it.

To coin a phrase...

...who do you have to blow to get someone impeached around here?

from Blah3:

January 2001...


President Bush witnessed the swearing-in of his White House staff Monday and said he expected them to avoid even the appearance of impropriety and to conduct themselves with humility and civility at all times.

Bush warned that he expected his White House staff to meet the highest ethical standards, avoiding not only violations of law, but even the appearance of impropriety.

I repeat: Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...

It's beautiful. It's just so beautiful.

New ABC poll, from Atrios via John at Americablog:

Just a quarter of Americans think the White House is fully cooperating in the federal investigation of the leak of a CIA operative's identity, a number that's declined sharply since the investigation began. And three-quarters say that if presidential adviser Karl Rove was responsible for leaking classified information, it should cost him his job.


Skepticism about the administration's cooperation has jumped. As the initial investigation began in September 2003, nearly half the public, 47 percent, believed the White House was fully cooperating. That fell to 39 percent a few weeks later, and it's lower still, 25 percent, in this new ABC News poll.

So long, sucker.

ETA: Taegan at Political Wire adds a little more analysis.

Ron Brownstein noted this morning that Republicans "lined up last week to defend Rove as if they were constructing a human shield." Based on this poll, that's a trend unlikely to continue.

You know, when I think of the republicans, I think of their remarkable political courage. They're not ones to put power before principles, or anything like that. Not at all.

Some evenings you just feel more isolated from your culture than others

I do, anyway. And tonight, looking at the list of the top films at the box office, is one of those evenings. In the top 25, there is only one that I might even consider going to see, Happy Endings.

I liked Don Roos' The Opposite of Sex a lot, and this one has been getting some good reviews. But I can't shake the feeling based on summaries that I've read and clips that I've seen that it's something of a retread. God knows I'm not one to criticize a man for returning to his basic themes, but...

Moving up the list, we find at #11 Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. I discussed this at length on the old blog; I guess a lot of people like paying for George Lucas' ranch expansion and his children's college. They're so generous. Me, I would rather have actually been awed and overpowered, but hey, what do I know?

Before moving on to the top two, I want to draw a perhaps-thin distintion. I don't like to see anyone criticise things they don't know about; so I'm going to be trying not to do that in what follows.

What I will be talking about is why, based on what I know about the top two movies at the box office this week, I have no interest in seeing them. And I'll acknowledge up-front that they've both been getting generally good reviews, and it's entirely possible that I'm "wrong."

So: Wedding Crashers. Rolling Stone is comparing its stars to Belushi and Akyroyd. I can''t accept that. Acording to the RT consensus:

Wedding Crashers is both raunchy and sweet, and features top-notch comic performances from Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson.

Maybe. But the trailer sure made it look like another one of those sorry, I'm just a dumb guy, can't be blamed for treating women like cattle even if it means tricking a girl into losing her virginity, stories.

And AmericaBlog informs me there is what John calls

a gratuitously homophobic thread running through the movie that's kind of surprising for a movie made in 2005

Now, on to number one. Sigh. I was really hoping Charlie and the Chocolate Factory would be a flop. I think even more than I want Joss Whedon's Firefly movie to be flop, though for related reasons.

Not to go all Catcher in the Rye on y'all, but one of the things that really pushes my buttons--as perhaps many of yours--is hypocrisy. I don't think I would have had quite as negative a reaction to the misogynistic, sexist turns Whedon's series took in their final years, had it not been for the fact that he promotes, and his fans and friends in the press perpetuate, the image of Joss Whedon: Champion of Feminism.

Similarly, perhaps Tim Burton's movies wouldn't be such a pet peeve of mine if it weren't for the fact that his accepted image is that of the fey, pretentious beret-wearing dark visioned, pale-skinned artist goth.

Nonsense. He's a talentless mainstream hack; okay maybe not talentless, but his talents don't extend to storytelling. He makes movies not to tell stories but for McDonald's tie-ins. And I'm sorry, anyone who makes Mars Attacks! and Planet of the Apes and the Batman movies and Edward Scissorhands doesn't get to play the artist card for a long, long time.

That's right, goddamn it

In the New York Times today...

Eric Rudolph, who has confessed to the Atlanta Olympics bombing and three other explosions that killed two and injured 150, received two life sentences today for a fatal abortion clinic blast.

Emily Lyons, the nurse wounded by Eric Rudolph's bomb, told him in court today, "Do I look afraid? You damaged my body, but you did not create the fear you sought."

Judge C. Lynwood Smith of Federal District Court in Birmingham said Mr. Rudolph postured himself "as a superior human being" and compared him to the Nazis, who "sought to eradicate a segment of the population."

Judge Smith is not exaggerating. Mr. Rudolph is a real piece of work.

Under a plea agreement that allowed him to avoid the death penalty for the four bombings, Mr. Rudolph also confessed in April to the bombing at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics that killed one woman and injured 111 people, and the bombing of a gay and lesbian nightclub and an abortion clinic in Atlanta in 1997.

During the sentencing hearing, Felecia Sanderson, the wife of the slain police officer, said that the bombing destroyed her family by taking away a man who "touched many, many lives."

"My son Nick lost the only father that he ever knew," Ms. Sanderson said. "I never forget the look on my son's face when I told him Sande was gone."

Look at that picture closely, friends--that's the face of evil.

Words and points on Rove and Plame

1. Mark A. R. Kleiman provides links to a column and two profiles on various aspects of and fgures in the Rove/Plame story that first appeared in Newsweek. I recommend them in the order that they appear.

You know, sometimes I wish the kind of people who were inclined to defend Karl Rove's actions on this were the kind of people who read this blog. Because I'd like to ask someone: Can you really look at me with a straight face (virtually speaking) and tell me there's an honest reason his ass doesn't get fired and stay fired?

2. Oliver Willis makes the darndest comparison between the man who won and the man who lost the last presidential election.

3. A friend of Josh Marshall raises an interesting question about the president's new policy. And as TPM also points out a few entries lower, way to set a high standard for the White House, Mr. Bush: No felons on staff.

I'm so proud to be an American sometimes I could throw up.

I have nothing to say about the new Harry Potter book

However, I do enjoy Lindsay Lohan's breasts.

Say...

Remember those Iraq Elections? The ones even a lot of critics of the current administration were willing to concede were a heartening glimpse of a potential future, a sign that the seeds of Democracy had, indeed, taken root in a barren land and were well on the way to bearing fruit?

Well, guess what. It's all a bunch of shit.

I'd say, is it any wonder I'm cynical with clowns like this in power, but the truth is, I was cynical long ago...

It's too calm around me and it can't happen here

The FBI reportedly has collected 1200 pages of material on the ACLU alone, and it's been monitoring other legitimate American civil rights and environmental groups, over the past several years, and they've collected it as part of the war on terror, because, apparently, the ACLU has something to do with harboring or fomenting terrorism.

Yeah, pick on an organization filled with teams of lawyers who are the best experts in the country on government officials who pick on organizations illegally.

Lovely, isn't it? Your goverement, ladies and gentlemen.

John A. has more.

ETA: Greenpeace, yet. Somehow I missed that. yeah, sure, I can see the connection. Bin Laden is all about saving the whales.

Denny Crane could get him off

Saddam Hussein has now offically been charged in a criminal case, to wit:

the 1982 massacre of dozens of Shiite villagers in retaliation for a failed assassination attempt against the former leader

Now, you have to wonder, as Hoffmania does:

when in the trial he tells where he got the weaponry to gas the Kurds and Shiites...

You know who I really miss on the national scene? Jimmy Tingle, who as far back as 1995 was satirizing the holes in the arguments of those short-memoried republicans who want to "get" Saddam Hussien.

"We gotta get that Saddam Hussien, he's got chemical weapons."
"How do you know?"
"We sold them to him."

Now that's a review

Rick Santorum has a new book out called It Takes A Family. It's a sort of snide response to Hillary Rodham Clinton's 1996 book It Takes a Village, you see. I hold no brief for Clinton's book (I haven't read it), but I've got to say I admire ole' "man on dog," who joins Ben Creekmore and Bruce Tinsley in the timeliness sweepstakes.

One Rochelle Riley (cool name, by the way--sounds like a Superman character) has written a review of Santorum's new book, originally for the Detroit Free Press but picked up by other papers as well.

Sometimes, in our pursuit of winning and of being right, we say some stupid things.

That's what happened to Sen. Rick Santorum, who either is gearing up his 2008 presidential campaign and needs to rally his conservative base - or is on drugs.