The only good red is a...actually, this is pretty dead-on

You Are Red Orange

You are a very genuine person, although it takes a while for you to show the true you. A bit introverted, you desire respect and affection from those close to you. You are quite empathetic, and you have a true concern for the well being of others. Many people have warm, heartfelt memories of you - even if you don't remember them well.

What Color Red Are You?

Y'hear that, Jenna and Barbara?

Prince Harry: Send me to war or I quit
Prince Harry has threatened to quit the Army if commanders refuse to send him to the front line.
He told senior officers before recently passing out of Sandhurst as a Second Lieutenant: "If I am not allowed to join my unit in a war zone, I will hand in my uniform."

On a completely unrelated matter, Jenna and Barbara Bush had a disturbing experience at their spinning class recently. Their teacher made critical remarks about their daddy, which made Jenna cry "oh pooh."

And just like a woman, she went running to a man (her boyfriend, one Henry Hager) to make everything all better. So he called the club to complain (instead of asking the teacher to step outside-y'know, like a real man woulda).

Poor dears. You'd almost think no one had instilled in them the notion that this "freedom" that other people are supposedly dying and killing for also includes the freedom to disapprove of their father himself.

That's the gayest thing I've ever seen

And I've seen The Lord of the Rings, the Golden Globes, and Pet Shop Boys live in concert. Nevertheless....

Oh, really

Josh caught an interesting paragraph in a Post story today about the firing of CIA officer Mary McCarthy...

The White House also has recently barraged the agency with questions about the political affiliations of some of its senior intelligence officers, according to intelligence officials.

Sing it, Mac

Blender's 50 Worst Things To Happen To Music. Seems pretty dead-on to me. Especially:

Number 07: Finding God.
Number 50: Sgt Pepper.

Now I know what you're thinking, but hear them out, read their reasons and see if you don't agree:

Concept albums, progressive rock, Brian Wilson's nervous breakdown, baby boomers yammering away about the Summer of Love, musicians taking themselves more seriously than cancer surgeons -- all the Beatles' fault.

Now think about it, is "When I'm 64" really worth all that tsuris?

Number 31: Jazz Fusion.
Number 06: Madonna's British Accent.
Number 44: Rock Poets:

Memo to aspiring rock stars: Lyrics do not constitute poetry. Neither do pedestrian observations your lifecoach thinks are profound. And despite what Jim Morrison seemed to believe, disturbed Freudian ramblings you howl while waving your dick around onstage are also, alas, not poetry. Please "cc" Jewel, Billy Corgan and Jeff Tweedy on this memo.

And perhaps best of all, number 41: Melisma. Oh yes, lord. This elevation of technical mastery over any genuine emotional life in the song is why I will never watch American Idol and why I will never forgive Mariah Carey...no matter how nice her T&A is (are?).

And some people tell me my beloved synth pop is soulless. Speaking of which, as a loyal Pet Shop Boys fan, I have to register official objections to the listing of Ecstacy and syn drums...but I understand what they're talking about.

Their number 43 seems to contradict itself. It's labeled: "Fake Non-Lesbians." Which would seem to be a wag of the finger at things like the "shocking" Madonna/Christina/Britney kiss. But their caption reads:

Don't get us wrong -- we love lesbians. Just so long as they're not playing music. From Melissa Etheridge to the Indigo Girls, real-live Sapphic rock stars are to blame for some truly awful trends: earnest coffeehouse confessionalism, the Lilith Fair, flannel.

Now t.A.T.u., on the other hand ...

So which is it? Personally, I can go either way.

...As it were.

I would have added to this list:

The big-hollow-dick swagger of Rock Stars. Then again, they do include both Van Hagar and Fred Durst on their list, so I guess they've got that covered.

The death of Kirsty MacColl. But I admit that's personal.

Indie movie soundtracks full of dreadful songs with "clever" titles riffing on pop-culture.

The Simpsons Sing The Blues.

Self-conciously political songs.

Morrissey's solo career(Viva Hate excepted, and maybe one or two other singles). That ought to get me knocked off Shakespeare's Sister's blogroll, but I stand by it.

And finally:

"Throw your hands in the air! And wave 'em like you just don't care!"

Okay, the Mary McCarthy thing

Greenwald's got it:

Deliberately obscured in the furor over the CIA's firing of Mary McCarthy is that she was fired for disclosing conduct on the part of our government which is plainly illegal, highly disturbing, and further reflective of the lowly and authoritarian levels to which the U.S. has descended under the Bush administration. What the story by Dana Priest revealed is that our government maintains secret prisons beyond the reach of the law, inspections by human rights organizations, and the knowledge of Congress or any other oversight body. Anyone who is kept in them is, by definition, disappeared and almost certainly tortured. How could it be anything but legitimate to reveal that our government is engaged in this behavior?

That is what the Bush administration is so angry about -- that leaks of this sort constitute the last remaining check on their power to act without constraints of any kind, including those imposed by law, and it is why they are waging war on it...

They better not use words like ideology

Semi-lengthy review of the Kos/Armstrong book 'Crashing the Gate' that articulates a coming schism in the "progressive blogsphere." It's worth reading the whole thing. Especially when the author, RJ Eskow, makes the point that the party dismisses so-called "special interest groups" at their peril.

But here are my responses to a couple of other key paragraphs. As Eskow defines the division:

One side would provide technical and consulting support to Democratic candidates that represent a wide ideological swath - and, not incidentally, would like to be the Party's new leadership. The other side, while having remained true to the Party by and large for many years, now stands ready to abandon it if need be - especially on the national level, should a right-leaning candidate (or one cynically assuming a right-wing pose) lead the ticket in 2008.

I find I am steadfastly in the latter camp. But I defend myself by asserting I've been forced to this position. By John Kerry, Al Gore, Joe Lieberman, and even Bill Clinton. No matter how much George W. Bush's performance has added to Clinton's stature, I don't forget what a political animal, not to say whore, he is.

I have seen what happens when Democrats try to appeal to the lowest common demoninator, and it ain't pretty. I'm not voting for a Democrat unless one shows up.

Another interpretation of Dean's candidacy can be taken as a direct refutation of the technocratic approach. Maybe Dean's campaign caught fire because of its ideology, and ultimately failed because of its dependence on the netroots. If that's the case, then forget all this new-tech stuff - be true to the 'Democratic wing of the Democratic Party' and you'll be in great shape. It's true that Dean raised a lot of money via the Internet, but maybe he started concentrating more on money (and technology) and less on message, to his own detriment.

For what it's worth, it's my feeling that we should be wary of any interpretation of Dean's losses that doesn't acknowlege the fact that he got well and royally fucked by the media. If you think you know what really happened on that night in Iowa, read this.

I wasn't as excited about his campaign as some of the "netroots" were. But he'll always have the distinction of being the only serious candidate to be right early about the Iraq war. And currently, he's just about the only biggie in the party that I can stand to see speak.

Which is probably why the rest of the party seems to distance themselves from him; they're still more interested it "having each other's backs" than in what "the base" wants. For example, see Ted Kennedy saying why sure, yup yup yup, he'd be glad to support John Kerry in 2008.

Stephen Sondheim is God

I've nothing to say.

You have many things.

Well, nothing that's not been said.

Said by you, though...

I want to make things that count,
Things that will be new...

Stop worrying if your vision
Is new
Let others make that decision
They usually do.

Anything you do,
Let it come from you.
Then it will be new.

from Sunday in the Park with George.

Signify Palo Alto, Motherfucker

Mercury News:

President Bush's visit to Stanford University's Hoover Institution was quickly moved to another location after more than 1,000 protesters converged around the Hoover tower.

The White House said the protesters blocked the only road into the central areaof the campus where Hoover is located, which forced a meeting with several Hoover fellows to be moved to the campus home of former Secretary of State George Shultz, a Hoover fellow who organized the gathering.

The motorcade instead traveled to the house, which is on the outer edge of campus.

The change in plans delayed the president's arrival by about 15 minutes.

That's my hometown, goddamnit. Thasright.

It's a hap-hap-happy day

As I sit here typing this, to my right there are two big brown shopping bags full of the following just-purchased books:

Bloom County Babylon
The People's Doonesbury
The PreHistory of The Far Side
The Billboard book of #1 Hits
The Devil's Candy
Murphy Brown: Anatomy of a Sitcom
The Moon's a Baloon by David Niven
King of the Night: The Life of Johnny Carson
Groucho, Harpo, Chico and Sometimes Zeppo
Doonesbury: The Original Yale Cartoons

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls
Much Ado About Me by Fred Allen
Until I Find You by John Irving
Prime Time Blues by Donald Bogle
My Father's Daughter by Tina Sinatra
Fletch Reflected by Gregory McDonald
Adventures in the Screen Trade
Down & Dirty Pictures
There Really Was a Hollywood by Janet Leigh
Show & Tell by John Lahr

...all for less than $20.

Library sales. Gotta love 'em.

Hey hey!

You Are Krusty the Clown

You were the class clown as a kid, and you still entertain people. From faking your own death to getting a wacky boob job, you'll do anything for a laugh. You will be remembered for: your face being everywhere, from cereal to home pregnancy tests Your life philosophy: "I heartily endorse this event or product."

The Simpsons Personality Test

Oh, $&#&&%%!

Amy Sherman-Palladino, the creator, chief writer, and showrunner of "Gilmore Girls"is leaving the series at the end of this season. Along with her husband, creative partner (and lucky SOB because he's married to such a writer), Daniel Palladino.

Around the web, this is being compared to Aaron Sorkin's quitting "The West Wing." I won't go quite that far. If only because while it's true that the Palladinos have written the lions share of "Gilmore" scripts, they still haven't written as much as Sorkin did of "West Wing."

But that's splitting hairs, and this is really upsetting news for fans, especially since next year is thought to be the series final. I've been meaning to post something about how I think GG has, in relative quiet, been having one of the best runs in TV history.

Unlike perhaps 98% of all shows that last more than five years, they have yet to have a bad season. Even their fourth year, which is generally held to have been a misstep, seems to me to be deeply underrated, with some of my favorite lines and characters.

I was really looking forward to the Palladinos "bringing it on home" next year. Now I just have two or three more episodes to go and then for better (not likely) or worse (probably) Stars Hollow changes forever.

Sigh...

Cut to Ben banging his head against the computer desk again

Or, "more things I shouldn't do." I shouldn't attempt to read "The Most Popular Lesbian Romance Novel Of All Time." Why? Because on one page....on one flipping page...I find not one, but two fairly specific character traits that I've already assigned to "my girls."

You have to understand, ladies and gentlemen, I have this terrifying fear of being unoriginal. That this thing I've been working on for years is going to come out and be judged "nothing we haven't seen before."

Or perhaps worse-that it won't even get to that stage because editors will say something like "We already have thousands of books like that-and they're written by real women, real lesbians."

The more sensitive among you are beginning to figure out why the notion that a vagina instantly confers upon one deeper feeling, greater strength and talent was such a touchy subject for me last week.

I'm as shocked as you are

At Shakespeare's Sister's, Waveflux found an item that says there's now actual scientific data to support this notion:

When heterosexual men are confronted with images like this we tend to lose all of our critical faculties, and it makes it hard...for us to make decisions.

I know I was having a heck of a time deciding whether to run a picture of Holly Hunter, Nicole Kidman, or both.

But getting back to this incredibly important scientific study, take heart, gentlemen, it's not that we're just dumb guys, apparently, it's that we've got testosterone oozing out our fingertips.

The more testosterone he has, the stronger the effect, according to work by Belgian researchers.

Hush little Cheney, don't say a word

Via The NY Post, Cheney taking a nap during a meeting with the Chinese President.

Ha ha, ha ha, ha

Former Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry said on Thursday he was seriously thinking about another White House bid in 2008 and will decide before the year is out.

"I will make that decision toward the end of the year, but I'm thinking about it hard," Kerry said in response to a question at the Latin Economic Forum at the United Nations.

"If you can get help me find 60,000 votes in Ohio ...," he joked, referring to the close race in that state on which his 2004 loss to President Bush hinged.

Via Pam's House Blend.

The lord helps those who help themselves, John.

This is just for those of you who love the piano as much as I do

And I mean the musical instrument, not the movie (of which I'm not a fan-Jane Campion's films would be better if all her characters were as mute as Holly Hunter in that one). But I digress. NPR's Fresh Air has a selection of appreciations of and interviews about Thelonious Monk.

It's the use of the words "semi-competent" that send a chill down my spine

Kos has a good post building on a piece in The Economist about the question most of us leftys are asking: Just how suicidal are the Democrats? The Economist sez:

The Republicans are so unpopular that any semi-competent opposition party should be sauntering to victory in the mid-term elections in November.

It's true; even Fox-flippin'-news yesterday had Bush's job approval rating at 33%. But as I say, it's those words "semi-competent" that scare me. Ted Kennedy was on Fresh Air and The Daily Show yesterday. I missed the radio appearance but I can tell you that judging from TDS, Sherman's right: It was very much a stay-on-the-talking-points kind of interview. But what were those talking points? The DNC-approved "we can do better" and "withdrawl from Iraq-but with honor!"

Seems to me I've heard the "with honor" thing before in histories of the Vietnam war. It seems to be what we say when, for some reason, we just can't say, you know what, this has been a complete and utter cock-up from the beginning, there is no getting out with honor, and so we just have to get out now.

But anyway, back to The Economist.

"For the Americans in the middle, who have no strong partisan allegiances, we have failed to articulate a real plan or vision," say Markos Moulitsas Zúniga and Jerome Armstrong, two of the most popular Democratic bloggers. "It's not that people know what we stand for and disagree; it's that they have no idea what we stand for," say James Carville and Paul Begala, two of the architects of Bill Clinton's winning presidential campaign in 1992. The junior senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, one of the Democrats' most admired politicians, has tried to make a joke of it. "You hear this constant refrain from our critics that Democrats don't stand for anything," he remarked the other day. "That's really unfair. We do stand for anything."

See, here's why I'm wary of Kos and have little or no interest in reading his book, though I do read the blog (obviously). On the one hand, he says the Democrats have to appeal to the middle. This is the thinking that brought us Kerry '04 and Gore 2000.

Then he says things like this-

The GOP WILL motivate its voters come November. They'll rail on abortion and gays and scary brown people crossing the southern border and how Democrats want to take their Bibles away. And their core supporters will turn out. And Democrats, unless they realize that they need to inspire, will find those huge gains will fail to materialize.

You cannot have leadership without offending someone. Someone once said you could measure Bobby Kennedy's greatness by the number of enemies he had. George Bush and Karl Rove know this, and they don't care who they offend as they seek to inspire and motivate their core supporters.

-with which it it would seem hard to disagree. Except that if memory serves, each and every time a pro-choice, pro-gay or other "special interest" group has stood up and demanded that the Democrats live up to their inspirational rhetoric...or they can't count on their vote... Kos is almost always among the first to say:

"Shut up, man, you're gonna queer the deal!"

I think women and gays and "scary brown people" are to the Democratic party what those not-at-all gullible folks who believe themselves to have a good dose of the Holy Spirit are to the Republicans: People you say the right words to in order to get their votes, regardless of whether you really mean them or not.

And then you turn around and do whatever shitty things will keep you in the lifestyle to which you have become accustomed. And I'm not sure, but I think Kos really, really wants to get accustomed to that lifestyle.

Ted Kennedy is a twit

I mean really, how do you louse up one of the greatest political quotes of all time, as he just did on The Daily Show? The line he tried to use was Will Rogers' "I am not a member of any organized political party...I'm a Democrat."

Only he forgot the word "organized," rendering the joke unfunny and meaningless.

I wonder if Ralph Nader will be any better on The Colbert Report.

Music to Play When I'm Dead

M' learned colleague James "the" Mann recently wrote to me to ask if I'd contribute to a project he's putting together; the idea, to assemble a collection of songs people want played at their funerals or like events.

I am happy to comply as I owe James a favor and as it happens I do have such a list, but I am now going to lessen the value of my contribution by repeating the answers here. Sorry, James. The order of the following has no signifgance...at least that I am aware of...

Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye/Bananarama

Many years ago I told a close friend I wanted this played when I was dead. I was kidding, but she said anyone who knew me would be crying, no doubt in remembrance of my puckish wit.

Frozen In Time/Thompson Twins

The American release of TT's "Side Kicks" (on casette) contained an extra side of remixes, including this mostly-wordless version of an album track. It's a song that, to me, may sum up better than any other my absolute and genuine love of synth.

Steppin' Out/Joe Jackson

The 1986 live version included on his "Live 1980/86" two-album set, wherein he slowed it down into a beautiful ballad that made the lyrics take on new meaning. "We were...steppin' out...into the night...into the light..."

Say Hello, Wave Goodbye (Almighty Radio Edit)/Soft Cell

This is reserved for one of my more toxically cynical moments, but sometimes I can't resist the drama of laying on a room full of dutiful mourners a song whose last words are "Take a look at my face for the last time...I never knew you, you never knew me, say hello, goodbye."

Bon Voyage/George Winston

Composed by Vince Guaraldi for a "Charlie Brown" special, this descending, minor key piece was originally meant to underscore a departure no more permanent than Snoopy being shipped to obedience school (it didn't take). But it's arguably my all-time favorite Guaraldi piece-Great Pumpkin Waltz is its only real rival. It was unrecorded by him, but included by Winston on his tribute solo piano album.

Even more words to live by

As quoted in If You Want To Write, by Brenda Ueland...

Van Gogh said:
"My only anxiety is what I can do...could I not be of use and good for something?...And in a picture I wish to say something that would console as music does."

Let's say I'm beneficent

Student, to Mel Brooks: I think your films are somehow more benevolent and affirmative than Woody Allen's.
Brooks: Let's say I'm beneficent. I produce beneficial things. A psychiatrist once told me he thought my psyche was basically very healthy, because it led to product.

As quoted in Show People, by Kenneth Tynan.

Nude women just can't get a fair shake in America

Texas college bars students from posing for Playboy

Someone call William Donohue, he'll want to speak out against this important affront to civil rights.

(Actually, my favorite thing about this item is these two final paragraphs)

The threatened punishment was met with a yawn by students on campus.

One woman, who professed no desire to pose for Playboy, said Baylor officials had "more important things to worry about" and wondered if male students would face similar punishment if they were seen reading an issue of Playboy featuring Baylor women.

BTW...

...prepare to see the words "Rove," "Karl" and "indictment" in a sentence, probably sometime in the next couple days.

And they fell for that? Wait a minute...

Philip Winikoff walked up to the door of the Lauderdale Lakes apartment carrying a black medical bag.

He told the woman inside he was a doctor from ''North Miami Hospital,'' going door- to-door offering free breast exams.

But authorities say the 76-year-old Winikoff was no doctor. And the medical bag wasn't his, but his wife's. She is a registered nurse.

On Wednesday, Broward sheriff's deputies arrested Winikoff on charges of sexual battery and simple assault. Winikoff allegedly fondled the breasts of two women and then sexually assaulted them.

It's a ''very bizarre crime,'' said BSO spokesman Hugh Graf. ``It may very well be a first.''

Ladies...I ask you...

Full story here.

You know, what's great about Michelle Malkin is that she has a vagina

Which automatically makes her better than someone who happens to have a penis, even when she does things like this (as described by Dave Neiwert):

There is a good reason that using the power of mass media to expose individual citizens' private lives to abuse and threats is considered unethical: It represents unchecked and abusive power. No one interested in holding the public trust should either want or seek it.

Yet this, of course, is exactly what Malkin did this week in publishing, on her blog, the home phone numbers of three students who led anti-military protests on the campus of UC-Santa Cruz.

Predictably, the students were deluged with hate mail and phone calls, including a number of death threats.

Malkin not only refused to take the numbers down -- in response, she reverted to her timeworn victimization schtick, posting some of the nasty e-mails she received in return and pretending there was nothing wrong or unethical in her behavior.

We're all too familiar with this routine. After all, it's what the entirety of her book Unhinged was predicated upon. Malkin, as I said then, is like the lunatic who walks around the public square and pokes people in the eye with a sharp stick, and then is shocked, shocked, that anyone would respond with anger and outrage.

This is not at all unlike something Ann Coulter did once, despite the fact that she too has a vagina...

Yeah, that's probably fair

Take the 100 Acre Personality Quiz!

HIPY PAPY BTHUTHDTH THUTHDA BTHUTHDY

I don't know the books, and I can't remember this character in the movies

Is this good or bad? I'm thinking it's bad.




As Neville, you may be shy and clumsy, but you are loyal, gentle and generous, admired for your easy going nature.

According to this quiz, I'm 15% more like this Neville fellow than I am like Hermione, who as we all know is my favorite character.

Wow!

So there's this fella named William Donohue. Mr. Donohue is the president of a group called the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. He is deeply, deeply concerned about civil rights and he knows that gosh darn it, Catholic people just can't get a fair shake in this America.

Every day, they are beaten down by the brutal, savage thuggery of shows like South Park, that hurt their feelings by suggesting that the things they hold sacred and dear may not in fact be sacred and dear.

And Mr. Donohue sees, quite clearly, that people like Trey Parker and Matt Stone-or as he calls them "The Man"-are keeping his people down oppressed, and by golly, he's angry about that. Or as he put it:

85 percent of the population is Christian in this country. Sometimes, I feel like we have an inverse situation here, somewhat analogous to what we had in South Africa, where the majority of the people who were black were dumped on by these white racists. Here, we have a small segment of the population, I call them the "secular supremacists," and they have it out against the 85 percent of the population who's Christian...

Yes. Catholics in America...blacks in Apartheid South Africa. That's roughly the same, yeah. Somebody call Little Steven!

Once again, I am absolutely not making this up.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

When this movie was new and in the theaters I wrote about why I found myself with surprisingly little interest in seeing it, but emphasized that as I hadn't seen it, this was an uninformed opinion.

Well, I've seen it now, so this is an informed opinion. It's a stiff. Bereft of life, it rests in peace. If we don't nail it to a perch it'll be pushing up the daisies. I didn't like it. A few jumbled thoughts on why:

First of all, the special effects, particuarly on the talking animals, should be lesson one in a class called "Why CGI is not always the answer."

And because the film is PG, there are some ridiculous cuts and story choices sparing us the agony of seeing children becoming involved in violence...which is only what the story's about.

Worst of all, there is a hushed, quasi-religious tone to much of the dialogue and the way it's delivered that's unbearable. It's the same sense I get for much of the Star Wars movies once Lucas stopped trying to make popcorn movie homages to saturday afternoon matinees and became reborn as George Lucas: Mythmaker. It's not as bad as the dialogue in the latter Star Wars movies (nothing, at no time, has ever been as bad as the dialogue in the latter Star Wars movies), but it's hideously bloated with self-importance.

"Bloated" is a good term to describe the whole film, actually. I believe judicious editing could have trimmed it down to a neat 90 minutes or so instead of two hours and 15 minutes. But it was made while epic film lengths were still hot (I think King Kong may have killed that for a while) and so we get lengthy battle scenes in which I didn't care about any of the characters, and so had no emotional investment.

Terry Gilliam once said that only when he saw Steven Spielberg's Hook did he appreciate how good his own Adventures of Baron Munchausen really was. Films like this and the aforementioned Lucas films underscore for me what an achivement the Harry Potter movies and Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy are.

I suppose I can offer sympathy to the director Andrew Adamson on two or three points. He's not as ood a filmmaker as jackson, but I think Tolkien was also a better writer than Lewis, so he wasn't working witb as rich source material.

Lewis' children heroes are uniformly horrible people to the extent that I was grateful for a wolf attack breaking up their innocent games. They're not inspiring, they're blah. Unlike the main trio in the Potter movies of Harry, Hermoine, and Ron-I think the characters are the best part of those films.

It's been years since I re-read any of the Narnia books, but I did try to read another of Lewis' works not long ago and couldn't even get through the first few pages.

Also, Adamson was between a rock and a hard place, really. He rarely even attempts any shots with the artistry of Jackson, true...but when he does, a voice that sounds remarkably like that little kid on South Park can be heard saying "Lord of the Rings did it!"

Push out the love, bring in the jive

Okay, enough of those lists of our favorite things. Q Magazine lists the 50 worst albums ever.

Confession time: I actually kind of like one or two of the versions on their pick for #15. Various – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band – OST. The movie's my best-ever pick for the school of bad movies I like to call what were they thinking? But the songs, well, it's hard to screw all of em up...

Then there's #28. The Rolling Stones – Dirty Work. Again, I actually kind of liked "Harlem Shuffle"-but then, as we've esatblished, I don't give a ratfucking piss about The Rolling Stones, so you can't go by me.

#29. Various – Christmas In The Stars: Star Wars Christmas Album. I haven't heard this, but it cannot possibly top the Christmas With The Super Heroes album on which Batman goes up against Rudolph, the red-nosed hitman.

#31. Stevie Wonder – Woman In Red. Oh come now! What about...no, they're right.

#42. Babylon Zoo – The Boy With The X-Ray Eyes. Dunno about that, but I still like "Spaceman."

As for albums I'd add, well, believe it or not...

Pet Shop Boys-Release. In which the boys distinctive songwriting skills desert them, it is to be hoped not forever.

Joe Jackson-Night & Day II. This misstep is the nadir of Jackson's recording career.

Okay, the Duke thing

I don't have too much to say about it-just that for my money, hands-down the best blogging about it is being done at TalkLeft: The Politics of Crime. Here is the most recent post, and here is a link to their archive.

The real reason the vile Rumsfeld won't be fired

I think Josh has got it.

...I think the real story here continues to be that things are so bad at the White House, the level of denial and secrets to be kept, the self-bamboozlement and bad-faith so profound, that they just can't manage to bring in any new blood.

With Rumsfeld, or any other cabinet secretary, there's a related problem -- the importance of which has, I think, not been fully appreciated or aired. If Rumsfeld goes, you need to nominate someone else and get them through a senate confirmation. That means an open airing of the disaster of this administration's national security policy. Every particular; all about Iraq. Think how much they don't want that ...

He's so photogenic

I mostly like Al Franken

I like his book Lies. I like his radio show-but more, I liked the televised version Sundance used to air. On the other hand, when Sundance aired what was supposed to be a victory celebration on election day '04 (and we all know how that turned out) it was one of the saddest things I've ever seen. On the other other hand, he annoys Bill O'Reilly, which is the most noble task ere given to man.

So I mostly like him. And I liked this thoughtful interview in which he discusses a forthcoming documentary about him (which I'll probably also like) and the possibility that he'll run for office in 2008.

Excerpts:

...[the Republicans] continue to make a lot of mistakes. There's still the profound lack of intellectual honesty and seriousness—in the way they approach the war, in the way they talk to Americans, in the way they approach the rest of the world. That hurts us every single day.

I get angry, too—especially when it has to do with the troops. These guys [in the White House] seem to be very blithely willing to risk other people's lives and then completely disrespect [the troops] on top of it.

First sign of a dumb rule

George Bush on how he responds to his critics:

Asked on Tuesday how he would respond to critics who equate his defence of Mr Rumsfeld with ignoring the military, Mr Bush said: "I'm the decider and I decide what is best. And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the secretary of defence."

Via Echidine, who adds

Reminds me of those t-shirts which say "Because I'm the mummy, that's why." Or the daddy in this case, perhaps.

PS: So he's the decider, is he? Reminds me of two things: The high priests Annas and Caiphas plotting to crucify Jesus in a song called "Then We Are Decided" in Jesus Christ Superstar.

And here's another one for the Doctor Who fans: Who remembers Full Circle?

"Hey, pay attention back there! Kang is talking!"

The link that remolded the web: Marvel Superheroes Secret Wars reenactors.

"Look, at no point in the series does the Hulk ever fight Dr. Octopus! Might as well have him fight Fin Fang Foom!"

"Fin Fang Foom wasn't in Secret Wars."

"My point exactly!"

Little dreamer, you're the DJ of your soul

You Are a Red Flower

A red flower tends to represent power, seduction, and desire. At times, you are loving like a red tulip. And at other times, you're very enthusiastic, like a bouvardia. And more than you wish, your passion is a bit overwhelming, like a red rose.

What Color Flower Are You?

Timely "Legal"

There's been a lot of talk of vaginas around this blog of late. First we discovered that the good Reverend Donald Wildmon's press people can't even bring themselves to type the word. Then Egalia taught us all that the mere possession of such an item instantly confers on one an inherent superiority to any and all possessors of a penis, whomever they may be.

Then to my surprise and delight, a subplot on "Boston Legal" tonight dealt with an idiotic lawyer ending a relationship with a beautiful, bright woman because she freely and frequently used the term.

This woman.

When I say idiot, I mean idiot.

Sing your life

Misty, via Shakespeare's Sister, asks:

What song (or up to three for a mini-soundtrack) currently describes your life?

Waiting For My Real Life To Begin (Colin Hay)

Time Will Tell (The Twins)

Field Work (Ryuichi Sakamoto/Thomas Dolby)

Oh. My. God.

This is going to be one of those posts that I feel compelled to start out by saying: I am absolutely not making this up. One or two of you may remember the Abstinence Clearinghouse, which, as it sounds, is a group that promotes saving sex for marriage.

I wrote about them late last year when they had the bright idea of merchandising cherry-flavored (I am not kidding) lollypops with "just say no to sex" messages on the stem.

But that was just kind of stupid, mostly, and also a little bit funny.

This is not funny.

The Abstinence Clearinghouse also sponsors something they call "the Father-Daughter Purity Ball."

Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy ride.

The "Father-Daughter Purity Ball" is a dance, you see, like a prom. Only at the end of this one, the girls recite a pledge to their "dates"....their fathers.

Digby says:

You have to see it to believe it. They are all dressed up like prom goers, the dads in tuxes and the daughters in evening gowns looking all grown up. They dance, they laugh, they giggle. And then father and daughter stand up, holding each others hands, staring into each others' eyes and the girls make these vows as if in a wedding ceremony.

The pledge goes a little something like this.

I pledge to remain sexually pure...until the day I give myself as a wedding gift to my husband. ... I know that God requires this of me.. that he loves me. and that he will reward me for my faithfulness.

Already, creepy enough, right? Wait, there's more. These are not 15 or 16 or 17 year old girls I'm talking about here, no no. This is what I'm talking about, in an actual picture from one of the balls.
As Digby also says, in a separate post:

I can understand why the little girls would want to do this. It's a chance to dress up and spend time with their father. If it were for another purpose, it might be sweet.

But instead, it's unspeakably corrupt.

This upsets me more than words can say.

Okay, Spade, I'll give you that one

As a rule, I like David Spade only slightly more than I like Rob Schneider. But there are occasional exceptions; I thought he gave a very likable vocal performance in The Emperor's New Groove, for example.

And this made me laugh...

"The National Enquirer has reported that Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes were married eight months ago by a chaplain in the Church of Scientology. The groom wore a casual linen suit while the bride wore an expression of slowly-awakening terror."
---David Spade on The Showbiz Show

-Via Daily Kos

Just when you thought The Colbert Report couldn't get any better

Not only do they reference one of the coolest videos of all time-The Cars "Magic"-but Rik-bloody-Ocasek appears and smacks down Todd Rundgren, currently touring as lead singer for the "New Cars."

Red Eye

This was my first extended look at Rachel McAdams in action. There are those-indeed, many-who think she's quite the hottie. I don't quite see it myself; no argument she's attractive, but for me personally there's something missing.

Or maybe it was just this role. I liked the film generally and McAdams certainly does a more than capable acting job in it, but her character makes too quick a change for the last act. As it happens, that last act is when I started liking her character (and the movie) a lot more, so I was okay with it while I was watching it. But sitting here, now, I wish her characterization could have been a little less plot-driven...and the plot a little more character-driven.

But, that's probably not a wholly fair thing to ask from a thriller, that's not what it's trying to be, anyway. As a thriller, Red Eye works well; the tension is neatly sustained with little or no gratuitious violence.

And I'm a sucker for "woman fighting back with smarts" stories anyway. One thing happened in the denouement that I wish they'd avoided; I won't reveal what, but it's not enough to capsize the movie. Hell, even a show as smartly written as Veronica Mars was its first season didn't avoid this particular trap.

If you see it, keep an eye on an actress named Jayma Mays, who plays Cynthia, a coworker of McAdams' character. The two have some nice "female bonding" moments throughout. I know nothing about her-this is apparently her major credit to date-but again, just to my personal taste, she is more of a sweetheart than the film's star.

(It says here she comes from Virginia, worked with Tim Busfield of The West Wing in the theatre, and "has appeared on the Los Angeles stage in several plays, including a production of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” in which she played the lead role of Janet." This explains everything.)

What's My Line?

The UK has done another one of those polls, this time to determine their favorite (single-line) song lyrics. U2 have come in at number one with this line from, drearily enough, "One:"

"One life, with each other, sisters, brothers"

Also in the top 20: The Smiths, Nirvana, Marvin Gaye, U2 again, Bowie, and The Police.

So, as you can well imagine, this started me thinking about a list of my own...which follows in no particular order:

My Favorite-Homeless Club Kids. "The ghosts of dead teenagers sing to me while I am dancing."

Bobby Darin-Simple Song Of Freedom. "No doubt some folks enjoy doin' battle, like presidents, prime ministers and kings, so let's all build them shelves so they can fight among themselves."

Pop Will Eat Itself-Can U Dig it? "We like the music, we like the disco sound...hey!"

Glass Tiger-Thin Red Line. "Red is for the heroes; green is for the brave; soldiers would you leave me with no souls to save?"

Howard Jones-New Song. "Don't crack up, bend your brain, see both sides, throw off your mental chains!"

Joe Jackson-It's Different For Girls. "You're all the same..."

Joe Jackson-Steppin' Out. "But nothing hides the color of the lights that shine..."

Tears For Fears-Shout. “If I could change your mind, I'd really love to break your heart”

Culture Club-Move Away. "I never wanted to be a hero; I never wanted to be a man"

Pet Shop Boys-It Couldn't Happen Here. "All dignity and injured innocence"

Human League-Love Action (I Believe In Love). "I believe in truth, though I lie a lot"

Kirsty MacColl-Don't Go Home. "Nowhere was mine, no one was home"

Kirsty MacColl-As Long As You Hold Me. "As long as you need me I will try not to die"

The Beatles-Strawberry Fields Forever. "It’s getting hard to be someone but it all works out...it doesn’t matter much to me."

A sobering post before 11 o'clock in the morning

Billmon gives a possible explaination for the United States' reported plans to attack Iran. And it ain't too damn good.

What we are witnessing (through rips in the curtain of official secrecy) may be an example of what the Germans call the flucht nach vorne – the "flight forward." This refers to ta situation in which an individual or institution seeks a way out of a crisis by becoming ever more daring and aggressive (or, as the White House propaganda department might put it: "bold") A familar analogy is the gambler in Vegas, who tries to get out of a hole by doubling down on each successive bet.

Classic historical examples of the flucht nach vornes include Napoleon's attempt to break the long stalemate with Britain by invading Russia,the decision of the Deep South slaveholding states to secede from the Union after Lincoln's election, and Milosevic's bid to create a "greater Serbia" after Yugoslavia fell apart.

As these examples suggest, flights forward usually don't end well – just as relatively few gamblers emerge from a doubling-down spree with their shirts still on their backs.

Read more. And give thanks to If I Ran the Zoo for the link.

And now, "Poetry Corner"

Okay, the "Generals speaking out against the vile Rumsfeld" thing, about which you may have heard. I think columnist Madeleine Begun Kane sums it up best...

Some Gen'rals are filling our ears,
With Rummy critiques and Bronx cheers.
What a shame they're so late,
And didn't join the debate
Before Bush got another four years.

Good news for people with vaginas

Got a comment from Egalia to an earlier post. She writes:

...the fact is people with penises continue to rule the church, the state, the corporation, ETC., and the world is a friggin mess. Both fairness and sanity suggest the world might be a better/warmer/saner place if people with vaginas get their turn.

This just in...

Cathy Guisewhite is automatically a better cartoonist than was Charles Schulz, because she has a vagina.

The L Word is automatically a better show than Huff or the first four years of West Wing because it's written by more people with vaginas than they are/were.

For that matter, Anna Faris is a better actor than Hank Azaria, because she has a vagina, and he does not.

Amy Ephron is a better novelist than Gregory McDonald-again, because of that whole vagina thing.

Mary J. Blige is a better singer/songwriter than Colin Hay. You know why? Vagina.

Paris flickin-Hilton is of more value, and stands a better chance of making this world a better/saner/warmer place than Muhammed Ali. She has a vagina too, after all (in case you hadn't heard).

Oh, and Margaret Cho is a more important comedian than Richard Pryor. Can you guess why?

In closing, I'm going to repeat something I said in replying to Egalia's comment:

What's between people's ears is more important than what's between their legs.

And thank you and goodnight.

Gay families screwed by White House at Easter Egg Roll

To shock and horror of all.

Every day is Breast Appreciation Day

An e-mail controversy has some people calling for the resignation of an elected official in Bucks County.

Republican Warminster Township Supervisor Fred Gold distributed the e-mail. Gold sent an e-mail picturing a topless woman to other township employees. It was sent back in January, but then photocopies started popping up earlier this month.

The e-mail supposedly celebrates the fictional holiday of National Breast Appreciation Day on Jan. 15. Accompanying the photo of the topless woman is the message "Beats the **** out of Martin Luther King Day doesn't it."

I don't know which I like more; the fact that this silly SOB thought this was a witticism he needed to share with his employees...or that the news story quoted felt the need to tell its readers this was a fictional holiday.

Oh good, I was hoping someone would post this so I could link it

Via Cartoon Brew, very funny Disney parody from last night's Saturday Night Live. Just what else is kept in "The Disney Vault?" One of the jokes you'll see coming-frozen Walt, ha ha-but it goes just a little bit further than that...

The Aristocrats

Directors Paul Provenza and Penn Jillette make a point in their commentary-which is surprisingly thought-provoking considering it's for a movie that consists of nothing but putting two cameras down (at most) and shooting people talking: This is about comedy as jazz.

As you've probably heard, what they did is take an old joke that every comedian seems to know and filmed about 100 comedians telling or commenting on or talking about it. It's a long, highly filthy joke with lots of room to riff and put your own personal stamp on, and they do. It's just about watching a bunch of different minds playing with the same concept.

You can see who can absolutely fly with it and who falls flat on their face (that will of course be a matter of taste) And since some of the minds are brilliant comic performers-

Hank Azaria seems to create a whole character (complete with backstory) just for the one joke.

Drew Carey insists that a physical bit of business is required to sell the punchline, something which seems to come as news to most of the other comedians.

Carlin, of course-another point Provenza makes in the commentary is that there are very few comedians he likes to listen to talk about the technique of comedy; Carlin is certainly one of 'em as far as I'm concerned (Provenza also mentions Paul Reiser and Larry Miller). It's like listening to Sinatra talking about singing...

Andy Richter lovingly tells the joke to his infant child...

After the first few times you hear the joke, you'll find, what kills you in the re-tellings is the little "licks" the players throw in. Steven Wright, among others, questioning the very reality of the joke, like "Wait...why would the man say that?"

Why would the man say what? Well, lemme tell you. A man walks into a talent agent's office, see, with his family, and he says, Have I got an act for you!

...oh just see the movie. In time, the actual content of the "Aristocrats" joke stops mattering because this is really a tribute to comedy and the way a comedy mind works.

40-Year-Old Virgin

I rented a few movies I've been wanting to see for the weekend...

You know, the thing about this one is that cast, directed or written wrong it could have been so mean, but it isn't, it's genuinely funny and "adult" without being "raunchy" in bad way. Actually it is raunchy, but in a good way.

This one is for the Doctor Who fans

John Nathan-Turner is alive and well and doing costume and set design for Mariah Carey.

Rad, trad, and dangerous to know

Glenn Greenwald has a post about the latest attempt to paint a vulgar picture of the liberal blogsphere, of which Dictionopolis in Digitopolis is a small and not very influential part. I recommend reading it in full, but the short version is that once again, someone dug down deep to find the most fringy and cringe-worthy comments from the left. Then labeled them representative, without noticing that the big boys on the right-people who actually are influential and representative- say worse every day, and have for years.

The Right's best-selling author calls liberals traitors and urges that they be beaten with baseball bats and attacked with bombs. Its most popular radio talk show host -- with his 20 million daily followers -- has spent the last 20 years urging that liberals be deported and praising the kidnappings of his political opponents, while other favorites on Right-wing radio routinely call for the imprisonment of leading Democrats. Similarly, some of the Right's favorite commentators have urged that those who espouse liberalism be tried for sedition, or worse.

And how fondly I recall these sentiments from Sen. Jesse Helms during the Clinton years:

In an effort to dampen the furor over his Commander-in-Chief remarks, on November 22 Helms told a newspaper reporter from his home state of North Carolina that the President should be careful about visiting military bases in that state. "Mr. Clinton better watch out of he comes down here," Helms said. "He better have a bodyguard."

Can one even contemplate the reaction if a Democratic Senator today warned George Bush to avoid military bases becasue he would likely be physically attacked by a military that hated him? Granted, those threats against the President were merely from a leading Republican Senator, not from an anonymous commenter on a blog, but...

Mystery homophobic (but pro-sexual abuse) irrelevant religious figurine theatre 3000

Pope Benedict XVI had some things to say during Good Friday observances in Rome recently. He said:

"Lord, we have lost our sense of sin,"

How true. The deadliest sins are said to include avarice or greed, sines "we" clearly have no sense of whatsoever. Then there's envy and lust, which I'm guessing for this pope's followers equals this. And of course sloth-I think you know that we here in the United States dislike sloth, and would never go so far as to make a sloth a movie star or anything.
His holiness also remarked:

"Today a slick campaign of propaganda is spreading an inane apologia of evil

But enough about the conservative republican blogs.

a senseless cult of Satan, a mindless desire for transgression, a dishonest and frivolous freedom, exalting impulsiveness, immorality and selfishness as if they were new heights of sophistication.”

You don't win anything for guessing who I'm sure the pontiff was thinking of. Some poor misguided souls are putting it about that he meant his comments as an attack on gay families, but that can't be right. Why would the symbol of doing good works on earth so that you might be rewarded in heaven so needlessly and wrongfully hurt people on these, his most holiest of days?

I mean, if he were the sort of person who'd do that, he'd be a miserable maggot-ridden scumsucker who deserves to die immidately and burn in hell's fire for the rest of eternity.

But of course, he's the pope, so he's not.

Happy Easter, everybody.

ETA-If I were a credulous, superstitious fool, this sort of thing might worry me: Literally moments after I first posted the above, it began to hail like a mofo here in Seattle.

Fortunately, I'm not.

There's everything in this show, everything that fits, from "The Bright Side Of Life" to girls with great big...

Courtesy of our man Mark Evanier, a little more than one minute of Monty Python's Spamalot, complete with one or two quick shots of Hank Azaria in outfits that ought to keep "Huff" in therapy for years...

And on the flip side of the Reverend coin

Contrasting with the scarred, tails side representing the likes of the Reverend Wildmon below, we have an interview with the Rev. William Sloane Coffin, recently deceased, representing the shiny, heads side.

It's on NPR from 1985 and is well worth listening to.

One of these days I'm going to write "The Penis Arias"

And when I do, I'll bet the Rev. Donald Wildmon will be able to speak the title aloud with a smile on his face and a song in his heart. Which isn't the case with The Vagina Monologues, which title the Reverend's AgapePress can't even bring themselves to type.

Seriously. Via Pam's House Blend, in an AgapePress report about protests of the play being performed on the Notre Dame campus, it is referred to throughout as The V Monologues. Because vagina is a bad word.

Of course, should this prove to be a production in which the lead roles are taken by Jane Badler, Faye Grant, Jennifer Cooke and June Chadwick, that would be entirely different.

(Come on...I know Bill Sherman gets it, anybody else?)

Every day, it's-a-gettin' closer

So there's a fella named Richard Ben-Veniste. He was the Commissioner of the 9/11 Commission. NewsMax and Powerline-type Republican conservatives don't like him because he acted like he actually wanted the truth.

See, he's the fella who elicited this response from Condoleeza Rice:

RICE: I remember very well that the president was aware that there were issues inside the United States. He talked to people about this. But I don't remember the al Qaeda cells as being something that we were told we needed to do something about.

BEN-VENISTE: Isn't it a fact, Dr. Rice, that the August 6th PDB warned against possible attacks in this country? And I ask you whether you recall the title of that PDB?

RICE: I believe the title was, "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States."

No, they really don't like him at all. Yesterday, he appeared on Hardball and said that in his opinion, the Bush administration should now be treated as Ronald Reagan always said (ad nauseum) he wanted to treat the Russians: Trust, but verify.

And he further went on to say (quote via Crooks and Liars):

On important, critical matters-ahh the President is now been shown not to be accurate and now hypocritical in terms of this leak investigation-the political fallout is huge in my view.

Soooooo close, Richard.

I'm telling you folks, the day people start going on television and just saying the plain and simple truth that anyone with a whole brain can see: The President is a liar-is the day we tear the roof off the place, and the walls come tumbling down.

Words are very important, and "now been shown not to be accurate" still leaves too much wriggle-room. The President of the United States is a liar. Repeat. Again. Again. Again.

My question is...

Ok, so there's a small to-do going on about the fact that Laura Bush has made it clear that gay families will be welcome to participate in the annual White House Easter Egg Roll. Yay. Egalia of the TGW feels this is proof that "the wrong gender is in charge of the country."

Yes, because Laura Bush is, automatically, much better than the man she married, because she has eggs. The fact that she's just standing by her man like a good little housewife should while a drunk drives his country off a cliff doesn't matter at all.

But hey, women goooooooood. Men baaaaaaaaad.

My broader question is, if you're a gay family, why the fuck would you want to go to George W. Bush's White House? (Other than to toss a few eggs in some well-directed places, perhaps)

I'm just trying to imagine what any self-respecting gay family could possibly be thinking...

"What's that, Mr. President? You say you want to make it unconstitutional for us to get married? You say you think we're a threat to marriage? You won't hesitate to "out" a gay reporter if he reports information that makes you look bad, you say? You say you actually pay anti-gay commentators? You say you refuse to formally recognize Gay Pride Month?

Oh, but if we wear ties and nice dresses we can still be used as political tools, you say? Oh, well, ok then! Dum de dum de dum de dumb..."

I say, let fools, whoops, excuse me I mean gay Republicans like Andrew Sullivan who've already twisted into pretzels trying to convince themselves Bush thinks they're human beings go. Let Matt Drudge and "Jeff Gannon" go, they're used to being used as Republican tools. And clearly intellectual honesty is not a problem for them, they don't have any.

Other than that, I can't think of one good reason why any gay family with a lick of pride would.

Still more words to live by

From Mastering Fiction Writing, by Kit Reed:

Being true to what you have to say, you will find your own level. If you're not true to it, you may not find any audience at all.

So long, Rev

The Rev. William Sloane Coffin, an inspiration for the Rev. Scott Sloan in Doonesbury, has died. Among other things, Rev. Coffin said this (via Daily Kos):

I think that hope reflects the state of our soul rather than the circumstances that surround our lives. So hope is not the equivalent of optimism. Its opposite is not pessimism but despair. So I'm always hopeful. Hope is about keeping the faith despite the evidence so that the evidence has a chance of changing.

Elsewhere, at Hullabaloo, tristero finds what he believes, and he makes a reasonably convincing case, is a lie repeatedly told about Dr. Coffin by none other than George W. Bush.

Reality and the right

And never the 'twain shall meet.

Give me a happy ending every time

Who Wants To Be A Super Hero, a new reality series hosted by Stan Lee.

Yes, really.

The eerily apt coincidence has just struck me

At the beginning of this season of "Veronica Mars," a bus full of Veronica's classmates took a dive off a cliff. It has now become unavoidable and undeniable that this is what the once "little series that could" has done as well.

Tonight's episode was a desperate attempt to make sense of several episodes worth of throwing everything they could at the wall in hopes that something would stick. You could almost hear the writers, stinking of desperation, crying, "See, see? It does all make sense, it does!"

Last season, it did. This season, not so much. And this episode had a couple of the weaknesses we've noted before as well-the insistence on introducing new characters we don't care about, and what is now clearly an obsession with cum jokes.

There are little flashes here and there of the show's former glory-putting Logan and Wallace together is inspired-but I gotta say I wouldn't be too disappointed if the forthcoming new CW network decided not to carry "Veronica" over after all.

I know most men undress women with their eyes

But in the case of Paris Hilton, I'll make an exception.

Yes, I should be paying more attention to Pink

Via Egalia, here are the lyrics to her new song, Dear Mr. President, and a link so you can listen to it.

Excerpts:

Dear Mr. President
Come take a walk with me
Let's pretend we're just two people and
You're not better than me
I'd like to ask you some questions if we can speak honestly

What kind of father would take his own daughter's rights away
And what kind of father might hate his own daughter if she were gay
I can only imagine what the first lady has to say
You've come a long way from whiskey and cocaine

How do you sleep while the rest of us cry
How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye
How do you walk with your head held high
Can you even look me in the eye

Now-I don't like 98% or so of all political songs, on a purely asthetic basis. For me, they sacrifice emotion for stridency.

This one works.

Pink is not my favorite singer, the odd single aside.

This one works.

The song is just human voices and a guitar, not Pink's usual dancefloor fare, which I probably would have preferred-I'm a Pet Shop Boys fan, you know.

This one works.

Backing vocals are by The Indigo Girls, a duo whose appeal I've never really understood (though they are the basis for one of my favorite jokes in My Girlfriend's Boyfriend, so I suppose I owe them something.)

This one works.

Anyway, go, read, hear.

Republicans: This is the world's smallest violin. And it's playing just for you.

Via AmericaBlog, another Republican crybaby comes out whining about how yeah, he voted for Bush (twice) and gave money to his campaign, but please don't confuse that with actually liking him.

In fact, gosh darn it, he doesn't consider himself a Republican any longer, so corrupt, incompetent and inept-he has suddenly realized-is the party today! Well, great timing. If you'd figured out that shit even two years ago, you could have saved this country untold billions of dollars and thousands of lives.

John at AmericaBlog sees the incredible disenchantment of the Republicans as a blessing fo the Democrats, a chance to woo the disgruntled over to "our" side. I'm sure that's quite the sensible, sane attitude to take and if I had traffic like AmericaBlogs, I might feel compelled to take it too.

But since, compartively speaking, no one is reading this, it gratifies me to be able to say: If you ever voted for Bush in your life (but especially if you voted for him twice): Fuck you. And if you know anyone who did, do something for all of us: Hit them.

I miss Tony

A kind of delayed reaction hit me watching tonight's 24...it finally sunk in that they really killed the character and he's never coming back. I think that may prove to have been a mistake. Probably not a show-killing, "shark-jumping" mistake, but a mistake nonetheless.

All I can say is, they'd better have a death in mind for Peter Weller's character that makes the torture he underwent as Murphy in Robocop look like a day at the fucking beach. He killed David Palmer. He killed Michelle. He killed Tony.

I want him deader than dead. I want him to suffer.

I'm also not sure I'm loving the relaunch they're doing of President Logan...it'll be interesting to re-view the season next year on DVD, to see if it fits together as well as previous seasons have. At the moment, I'm thinking not.

Billy Crystal did a funny routine about the series on The Tonight Show the other night, talking about the fact that basically, Chloe is god. He's right, of course.

I miss Tony.

Go, West young men (and women)

New York Times article on the final days of The West Wing. Interesting trivia: The writers had apparently intended to have the Democrat played by Jimmy Smits lose the election they've been running all year.

In the end, he won. The reason: They felt it would be too depressing following the death of the great John Spencer, whose character was Smits' running mate.

Some nice quotes from the actors who have been with the series right out of the gate:

Bradley Whitford, who portrays Josh Lyman, most recently
manager of the Santos campaign...

"This show is probably the first line in my obituary," Mr. Whitford said. "Everyone knows they got lucky with this one."

As the saying goes: The harder they worked, the luckier they got.

Mr. Sheen was offered an opportunity to see how his character's appeal would play in a real-life campaign. Not long ago,he said, he was approached by Democratic Party representatives from his native state, Ohio, to see if he would be interested in running for the United States Senate after he left the show. Though he would have had little trouble drafting a campaign platform — he is a fierce opponent of nuclear power and the war in Iraq, and a champion of human rights — he turned them down.

"I'm just not qualified," he said. "You're mistaking celebrity for credibility."

Martin Sheen: The flip side of Alec Baldwin and Richard "I'm speaking for the whole world" Gere, and one of the only exceptions to my general rule that actors shouldn't talk.

"In order to sometimes get a different perspective on what's going down in the world, to reach back to your humanity, you read novels," Mr. Sheen said. "We're like the reading of a novel."

And what will Mr. Sheen be doing now that the series is over?

At 65, he has decided to make good on a promise he made to himself long ago: to enroll, for the first time, in college. A graduate, though just barely, of Chaminade High School in Dayton, Ohio, nearly five decades ago, he will began taking classes next fall — in English literature, philosophy and, he hopes, oceanography — at National University of Ireland in Galway, in the country where his mother was born.

How can you not like such a man? I mean really, how cool is that?

From "One Sunday Morning," by Amy Ephron

Mary wondered, at the time, if Betsy hadn't commented on it or hadn't commented on it in quite the way she did, if it wouldn't have just passed, subsided, receded, if you will, into a faint glancing moment, one of the things you see and then forget about, rather than something as piercing as a shard of glass that becomes forever imbedded in one's memory, so that every time any one of them would see Lizzie Carswell after that, they would remember that morning when they saw her coming out of the Gramercy Park Hotel.

This is a sentence that got away from somebody.

Okay, the Seymour Hersh thing (updated)

You may have heard about a Seymour Hersh article that says Bush is planning to attack Iran, with the possibility of nuclear bombs very much on the table. And what's spookiest of all is, as Paul Krugman says:

Most strategic analysts think that a bombing campaign would be a disastrous mistake. But that doesn't mean it won't happen: Mr. Bush ignored similar warnings, including those of his own father, about the risks involved in invading Iraq.

Current polls suggest that the Democrats could take one or both houses of Congress this November, acquiring the ability to launch investigations backed by subpoena power. This could blow the lid off multiple Bush administration scandals. Political analysts openly suggest that an attack on Iran offers Mr. Bush a way to head off this danger, that an appropriately timed military strike could change the domestic political dynamics.

Or as JMM wrote in Talking Points Memo, is there anyone who thinks this presidency is not capable of this?

Meanwhile, on the talking heads shows, Hersh is saying why he feels Bush is doing do this.

HERSH: The word I hear is messianic. He thinks, as I wrote, that he's the only one now who will have the courage to do it. He's politically free. I don't think he's overwhelmingly concerned about the '06 elections, congressional elections. I think he really thinks he has a chance, and this is going to be his mission.

This goes just so far beyond this man must be stopped. This man must be stopped.

With a "hat tip" to TalkLeft.

I've been wanting to be asked these questions for about 10 years

And since I'm unlikely to be a guest on Inside The Actor's Studio any time in the near future, I scooped up this Meme, unbidden, from a fella named Tom Hilton. I may as well get my answers down somehow.

What is your favorite word? Brouhaha.

What is your least favorite word? Squat.

What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally? Good music...broadly defined, so we're not just talking about the kind you can hear on record or play on instruments (although we are talking about that). The music of birds, the music of talk, the hum of the universe.

What turns you off? Bad music. Ditto.

What is your favorite curse word? It's not really a curse word, and one or two of you will probably know where I got it: "Motherpusbucket!"

What sound or noise do you love? Gently running water. Like from a stream, trickling away low in the background. Or, waves on the beach.

What sound or noise do you hate? Loud engines like motorcycles.

What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? I would love to be able to be a pianist.

What profession would you not like to do? Hot Dog On A Stick girl.

If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?

"She's waiting for you."

Which yes, I know, begs the question:

Who is she? That changes.

I'm tossing this up to whoever wants it.

Ugly scars divide the nation (updated)

Update-Truthout contributor Jason Leopold:

In early June 2003, Vice President Dick Cheney met with President Bush and told him that CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson was the wife of Iraq war critic Joseph Wilson and that she was responsible for sending him on a fact-finding mission to Niger to check out reports about Iraq's attempt to purchase uranium from the African country, according to current and former White House officials and attorneys close to the investigation to determine who revealed Plame-Wilson's undercover status to the media.

The revelation puts a new wrinkle into Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's two-year-old criminal probe into the leak and suggests for the first time that President Bush knew from early on that the vice president and senior officials on his staff were involved in a coordinated effort to attack Wilson's credibility by leaking his wife's classified CIA status.

Emphasis mine.

Journalist Greg Palast on just what crime our president has committed-and what should happen to him as a result, if we were in fact a nation of laws and not of men.

On February 10, 2004, our not-so-dumb-as-he-sounds President stated, "Listen, I know of nobody -- I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action. And this investigation is a good thing. ...And if people have got solid information, please come forward with it."

Notice Bush's cleverly crafted words. He says he can't name anyone who leaked this "classified" info -- knowing full well he'd de-classified it. Far from letting Bush off the hook, it worsens the crime. For years, I worked as a government investigator and, let me tell you, Bush and Cheney withholding material information from the grand jury is a felony. Several felonies, actually: abuse of legal process, fraud, racketeering and, that old standby, obstruction of justice.

If you or I had manipulated the legal system this way, we'd be breaking rocks on a chain gang. We wouldn't even get a trial -- most judges would consider this a "fraud upon the court" and send us to the slammer in minutes using the bench's power to administer instant punishment for contempt of the judicial system.

(Aside from Ben-this is another one of those times when I'm really, really looking forward to seeing Bush's next polling numbers. Now, back to Greg)

Statements aimed at misleading grand jury investigators are hard-time offenses. It doesn't matter that Bush's too-clever little quip was made to the press and not under oath. I've cited press releases and comments in the New York Times in court as evidence of fraud. By not swearing to his disingenuous statement, Bush gets off the perjury hook, but he committed a crime nonetheless, "deliberate concealment."

Here's how the law works (and hopefully, it will). The Bush gang's use of the telephone in this con game constituted wire fraud. Furthermore, while presidents may leak ("declassify") intelligence information, they may not obstruct justice; that is, send a grand jury on a wild goose chase.

Thanks to litbrit (via Shakespeare's Sister) for the link.

So you want to see 250,000 multi-coloured 'superballs' bouncing down the streets of San Francisco

We here at Dictionopolis in Digitopolis have anticipated your every need.

I'm not following this

Those of you who read the old blog may remember last May, when the networks wouldn't run an ad by the United Church of Christ which said "like Jesus -- the United Church of Christ seeks to welcome all people, regardless of ability, age, race, economic circumstance or sexual orientation." Although ABC, at least, was happy to provide airtime to Focus On The Family, the pro-Bush, "pro-life," anti-gay group.

Now, the UCC has come up with another ad that they feel promotes their message of acceptance. And although the broadcast networks, with their typical courage, are refusing to run this one too, it is running on cable channels including A&E, AMC, BET, CNN, CNN, Headline, Hallmark, History, TBS, TNT, E!, and Lifetime. But not, however, on LOGO, which is (nominally) the gay and lesbian network.

I'll say that again: The gay and lesbian network...is refusing to run an ad...that promotes acceptance and tolerance of minorities, explicitly including homosexuals.

You'd be well within your rights to ask: Why?

A Viacom-owned network, LOGO is operated by MTV, which states that its standards and practices could not accept the UCC's 30- second commercial "because of the political nature of its content," according to a sales associate's e-mail response on March 30.


When asked for an official reason, MTV Networks responded, "Our guidelines state we will not accept religious advertisements that may be deemed as disparaging to another religion."

Ron Buford, director of the UCC's Stillspeaking Initiative, says the 1.3-million-member denomination's four-year identity campaign was created after focus group testing revealed the depth to which people felt alienated or rejected by organized religion. The church's new "ejector" ad uses humor to convey the message, "God doesn't reject people. Neither do we."

"I guess the idea of gay TV doesn't really mean it's your community's network," Buford told United Church News. "It's just something that's targeted at you to sell product."

On a completely unrelated matter, "The L Word" jewelry and perfume lines are now avalible.

This blog doesn't get a lot of traffic from Alabama

In fact, of our last 100 drop-ins (y'all come back now, y'hear?), exactly none have come from Sweet Home Alabama.

As you can well imagine, this has long been a source of shame to me.

But now, at least, I think I finally understand it. You see, I think it's because I have, on occasion, been known to run pictures that suggest some women-in fact most, if the truth be told-have breasts.

Apparently, this sort of thing just isn't done in Alabama. A state where, BTW, it is unlawful to sell dildos while wearing bowling shoes.

We know this sort of thing just isn't done in Alabama (via Pam's House Blend) because of a woman named Loretta Nall, who is currently running for governor of that state on the Libertarian Party ticket.

An Alabama newspaper recently chose to run a photo of the candidate (not supplied to them by her) that reveals a bit of cleavage. It's not cleavage likely to appall any of us who were born in the big cities, but the columnist with whose work the photo ran was shocked-shocked!

In 55 years of political writing, that was a first for me—-a picture in my column of a woman displaying cleavage. I can only hope that my mother...and I know for a fact where she ended in the after life...didn’t see that column. She wouldn’t have approved of that picture.

Now, we here at Dictionopolis in Digitopolis have certain mixed emotions about Libertarian women with large boobs at the moment, for entirely personal reasons. But can we agree that these $&#&*^% loons are ridiculous?

Nice

Every once in a while, This Modern World hits one out of the park.

Maybe I should be paying more attention to Pink

I mean at this point, all I really know about her is that I quite like one or two of her singles, and I've seen one or two images of her I'm not unenthusiastic about either. But in recent interviews she's coming off pretty sensible.

...Pink did plenty of promo this past week, playing a secret show in New York and taping episodes of "Dateline" and "The Oprah Winfrey Show," where she got the dialogue started on the story behind her hit single "Stupid Girls."

While the celebrity angle of Pink's neofeminist critique got "Dateline" interested, Oprah Winfrey was more concerned about the lack of strong female role models. Calling her episode "Stupid Girls," Winfrey also invited onto the program four teenage girls and Karrine Steffans, author of "Confessions of a Video Vixen," to bring the discussion back to how girls are taught to act "stupid" and how to change that.

"I personally need more examples of how to be better and how to be stronger and how to go a different way," Pink said on the show. "I need more examples, so I can't even imagine being in school and looking around. And now it's cool to have a sex tape. Are you kidding me?"

Pink said she's trying not to think about all the attention the song is getting, but at the same time, this is exactly what she wanted — to start a discussion about who we choose to celebrate and why. In a world where women are still reduced to what they look like versus what they have to say, Pink wanted to make her fellow females realize how much of that has to change from within.

At the same time, Pink said the attention isn't about driving her record sales higher. In fact, she told Lauer she wishes her biggest album, Missundaztood, hadn't sold as many copies. "What?" Lauer responded. "You now have become the first recording artist I've ever sat across from who said, 'I wanted that album to sell fewer copies.' Why?"

"It sold 16 million records," Pink said. "And I didn't want that. Where do you go from there? Anything you do after that's a failure."

Prudent thinking, Pink-thats one of the things that drove Michael Jackson so batshit insane: Watching his sales fall after Thriller.

A horse made all out of wood; a dragon made out of a straw

Via the MAKE Blog; the artist is Heather Jansch.



Via Neatorama; I couldn't find a credit for the artist.

As well they might

Via TGW.

Must be an even-numbered year

Because recent experience has shown, only in even-numbered years do I ever think an episode (usually only one that year) of SNL is funny almost all the way through. Last night's/this morning's was it for 2006, thanks for the most part to host Antonio Banderas.

With all the Philadelphias and the Zorros and the Pancho Villas and the Femme Fatales and the Original Sins, you can forget how funny that guy can be. How can you not like a guy secure enough to go out on live television, declare, "The truth is...I'm a woman!" pull off a breakway suit and stand there in a red mini-dress, complete with falsies?

I don't know about you, but I can't not like such a guy.

The Mexican soap parody was also great. I'm pretty sure at least one or two of the sketches were written by the women performers just to give themselves an excuse to give Banderas a lap dance, but who's gonna blame 'em? I'd probably do the same myself if Beyonce were hosting or something.

...but the cameo by Chris Kattan hurt like an earache. And, SNL being SNL, two or three of the sketches had no endings. The obligitory Zorro sketch made me miss Chris Farley (no mean feat, I assure you).

Cut to Ben banging his head against the computer desk

Saturday...The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation presented...the 17th annual GLAAD Media Awards...winners included [Charlize Theron, for the "Vanguard Award'], Felicity Huffman's transsexual road trip "Transamerica" for outstanding film in limited release; cable TV's chic lesbian ensemble "The L Word" for outstanding drama series, and NBC's "Will & Grace" for outstanding comedy series.

Sometimes I wonder why I even bother trying to write a love story about two people who happen to be lesbian, but more importantly, are loving, well-spoken people. I mean apparently, you can write about loveless people, give them laughably bad dialogue, and as long as you make them gay you'll win awards and get renewed.

In case you were wondering why I haven't said anything about the "Immigration Reform" thing

It's two reasons. One, I don't feel that I know enough about the issue, and although I'm sure I have, I try not to give uninformed opinions. Two, it's exactly what the GOP wants us to be talking about. It's this season's gay marriage.

Rep. J. D. Hayworth, R-AZ, declared on Meet the Press that "Immigration Reform" is the most significant issue facing America today...

In a sound bite laden appearance, Rep. Hayworth, representing a border state, and a Republican up for re-election, apparently feels that the wasteful and distasteful War in Iraq, our fostering civil war in Iraq, and the President's treason by security leak, can all be swept under the rug until after the election.

Another Example Of What John Kerry Has Done To Me

He's made me agree with Tracey Schmitt, RNC spokesman. See, Kerry has made what the NY Times (via Daily Kos' Georgia10) describes as "A Slashing Attack On The Bush Administration."

Find Osama bin Laden and secure our ports and our homeland. Bring our troops home from Iraq. Obey the law and protect our civil rights," Mr. Kerry said in ticking off his list, which also included supporting health care, education, lobbying reform and alternatives to oil, as well as reducing the deficit.

Georgia10 feels Kerry is

Plain-spoken. Blunt. Scathing in his rhetoric (yeah, I'm describing John Kerry, can you believe it?). A true Fighting Dem.

While as I say, I find myself in agreement with

Tracey Schmitt, the RNC spokesman, [who] responded in her typical catty manner and dismissed Kerry's statements ("John Kerry deserves credit for continuing to take himself so seriously, despite the fact that no one else does"),

I feel the need to say to anybody actually getting wet or hard about this "new" John Kerry something similar to that which I'd say to people star-struck by the "new" Al Gore: I am not impressed by what Democrats do when the heat's off.

John Kerry finally came to fight, eh? Woo! With the President's popularity tied to an anchor, that certainly takes bold political courage.

Blog headlines that should have been rephrased

Republican Dad gets son off in AZ sex case

Via Crooks and Liars:

"A 19 and 17 year old from Arizona, have been offered a plea deal which requires no jail time and virtually no penalty for crimes they admitted to commiting. What were these crimes? As counselors at a boys camp, the 19 and 17 year old punished 18 of the 11-14 year old boys by making them lay face down on their bed, in front of all the other boys, shoving a broomstick into their anus through their pants...One may ask how this could happen. It is really quite simple. The 19 year old, Ryan Bennett, is none other than the son of Arizona's Senate President, Ken Bennett, a Republican who is part of the effort to ban equal rights for same-sex couples in the state, viewing same-sex relationships as immoral...After his son's admission, Bennett wrote a letter to the D.A. handling the case informing her that his son could not rightfully serve time in jail, because he is prepared to leave the country on a mission - to teach the word of Christ to youth around the world..."