Glad of the Weekend

I'm more than usually tired after this week. Yesterday's marathon commute to Federal Way really took it out of me. I'm damn glad that I've worked the business out so that I have three-day weekends because tonight's commute looked even worse. Now I can rest, recharge, finish reading a book, see bitterspice, and put the last ten or fifteen pages on the new novella. (This one will complete the linked-novella collection Escape Velocities which I started seven years ago.) The Raider game won't be on TV up here, but I'll monitor it as best I can.

All in all, I hope to take it easy. The upcoming week doesn't promise to be a whole lot of laughs.

Thought for the Day

"I Gave Up Hope And it Worked Just Fine"
--"Advice and Self Help Titles" George Carlin

Katrina Victims About To Get Hammered Again

Thanks to the Republicans' refusal to given them an exemption to their scummy, putrid, awful new bankruptcy law. You can read about it in the New York Times. Those who know me understand that I have personal feelings about this. I won't get into them. I'll just say this. The whole point of bankruptcy laws is to give people who suffer enormous losses--as most of us are bound to at some point in our lives--a chance to emerge from crushing debt and start their lives over. Half of personal bankruptcies owe to massive medical expenses. Most of the rest come from natural disasters, layoffs, job loss, divorce, deaths in the family or other bad circumstances. It's sickening to see a gaggle of pampered congressmen, whose every breath is covered by the best insurance taxpayers can buy, drafting laws to punish people who find themselves in these positions. It's one thing to have government by benign neglect (the best outcome we could have hoped for from Bush); it's quite another to have a government that seems to actively hate the people it governs.

Taste the arrogance in this statement by James Sensenbrenner:

Representative F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. of Wisconsin, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, rejected the notion of reopening the legislation, saying it already included provisions that would ensure that people left "down and out" by the storm would still be able to shed most of their debts. Lawmakers who lost the long fight over the law, he said, "ought to get over it," according to The Associated Press.

Uh-huh. They'll be forced into Chapter 13 if the income they had before the storm rubbed out their jobs indicates that they have enough disposable income to pay a high percentage of their total debt. And they'll have to attend "consumer counseling" classes which will advise them to--what--live in a place that doesn't suffer from storms, floods, or earthquakes? Then they'll have to go through a six month waiting period, during which creditors will treat them oh, so gently, with the lawsuits and wage garnishment and other fun stuff. They'll need to have enough to hire a lawyer because Sensenbrenner and his buddies complicated the law to make filing bankrupcy pro se nearly impossible. And they'll still have to spend money paying off debt that they could have otherwise spent rebuilding their ruined lives.

Thanks large, Sensenbrenner. Fuck you and your mamma.

Religion may be the opiate of the masses...

...but what's even more like an opiate, is the opium. (Or the methamphetamine, as the case may be.) I will have to remember this if I'm ever picked up for drug possession--not that I would be. "Officer, I was only carrying this brick of high-quality Cambodian heroin in my ass because you never know when you might be taken hostage."

Now That's Good Watchin'

Cosmos, Carl Sagan's landmark science series, will be back on television, digitally remastered, starting tonight. If I had a TiVo it would be so totally filled. Sagan made me want to become an astronomer. I didn't, as it worked out; but I still find the series inspiring.

New Raider Blog

Quaketown has a pretty good little Keebler tree running, and I'm not just saying that because I am the Official Raider Take Technical Advisor, with all the rights and responsibilities appertaining thereto. Now if only I could get Norv Turner to return my calls. I've won dozens of John Madden Super Bowl titles. I can cure what ails them, Norv! I can cure it!

Anyway, check it out. No other fan writes better haiku about Raider defeats.

Why Am I Not Surprised?

The Patriots' thrilling come-from-behind win apparently got a little help from the refs. (I know you're all shocked, shocked, shocked to learn this.) Apparently, the Patriots got 52 more seconds than they were entitled to to mount their game-winning drive. Their last drive should have started with 29 seconds on the clock.

Now, in fairness, the error goes back to a play early in the 4th quarter, and undoubtedly both teams would have managed the game rather differenly if the clock had been properly set. Still, it would have meant the Steelers had that much less clock to run off once they had the lead, and as we know, every second can be huge.

Still, it's stuff like this that explains why I don't hate the Buccaneers or the Ravens, who ended our other two runs at a championship this decade, but I loathe the Patriots. The referees supply the deus ex machina for them with a regluarity that's awfully tedious.

There is some fun to be found in the league, though. The Colts and Steelers look great, and the Buccaneers and Bengals should be fun to watch. It looks like I'll have a fun season rooting for Anyone But the Patriots, even as my beloved Raiders struggle.

Finally, a candidate who really cares about San Diego-er-Seattle-er-Whatever

From today's Seattle Times:

"Ángel Bolaños was the only Seattle City Council candidate to take a firm stand against taxpayer support for the NFL's San Diego Chargers.

"That's right. Bolaños, who finished fourth in a four-candidate primary Tuesday, lifted almost verbatim the campaign platform of San Diego City Council candidate Kathyrn Burton and put her policy positions on his Web site.

"In some cases, Bolaños replaced references to San Diego with Seattle. But he didn't catch them all."

I don't think he should have backed down, the sellout. It's high time someone in this city stood up to the San Diego Chargers. Indeed, I propose that the City Council pass and then rescind funding for the Chargers as a gesture of defiance. What kind of politician is this guy, anyway? Rather than admitting to plagiarism, he should have said that he stands shoulder to shoulder with Kathryn Burton and any other politician who has the guts to oppose the San Diego Chargers--that he calls upon officials in other cities to make the same strong stand against their cruel, championshipless tyranny.

At least he had the political savvy to blame his unpaid peons. Now wave goodbye, Mr. Bolaños, and tell us you're happy to spend more time with your family.

TV Presidents

I don't write all that much about TV, because aside from the NFL, I don't like much that's on TV. Still, having seen the ads for the new Geena Davis presidential drama "Commander in Chief", I feel an urge to say a few things. The ads tells us, in big bold shocking letters, "A WOMAN WILL BE PRESIDENT". The ad makes it sound like a more remote prospect than it really is. I doubt that any Democrat will win the White House in 2008 (how many of us will Bush have to kill before the Democrats get their shit together? It's way past urgent, kids.), but among the field so far it looks like Hillary Clinton may have the best shot. There are other several female senators--Boxer, Feinstein, Mikulski, Granholm, Murray, Cantwell, Dole, and Hutchinson. Among them, Dole has already taken a shot at the presidency. There are also many female governors and House members. It's not a huge talent pool compared to the guys, but it is growing all the time.

The really remote prospect, a favorite convention of the more gutless species of TV writers, is an Independent Vice-President ascending to the top job. What color is the sky in their world? There are, at this moment, no independent governors. We have one independent senator--ex-Republican Jim Jeffords of Vermont, who became an Independent because the White House insisted on treating him like something the cat dragged in. He caucuses with the Democrats. There is an independent House member, Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a lovely freedom socialist (bless his Eugene Debsian heart) who also caucuses with the Democrats. (There's something about Vermont. It must be the syrup.) The bench is awfully shallow there, as it always has been for 3rd party types. And further, why would a hard-line conservative administration choose an independent at all? If tacking to the middle is an issue, and it hasn't been for national Republican campaigns in a while, why not use one of the northeastern moderates that the party keeps around as pets? How do you think Colin Powell ended up as Secretary of State? Because he would bring a strong credible voice to foreign policy? Don't be silly. He was there so that people could look at the Bush cabinet's group picture and say, "Any administration that has Powell in it can't be all that crazy or incompetent." The Republican party still has enough of those guys lying around that they don't really need an independent whose loyalty might be less reliable.

TV writers love political independents for shows based in D.C. It doesn't automatically piss off half the audience, and allows the lead character to seem like a throughtful, good-hearted public servant who struggles against all the nasty partisan politics in Washington. (That many political independents, like Jesse Ventura and Ross Perot, turn out to be cranks fails to register with them.) Partisan=bad. Moderate=good. Focus group tested and family approved TV, as bland as plain nonfat yogurt mixed with Wonder bread. Gutless, cheap, predictable, and unwilling to take a stand. Tired.

The West Wing has its own problems as far as the Republican party is concerned. The Republicans in that alternate universe nominated a centrist agnostic as their candidate, and the show portrayed him as a preordained juggernaut. I guess the Christian Right vanished into that other alternative universe where Spock has a beard. The Alan Alda character would never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever get within a thousand miles of the Republican convention hall. He would be the sort of person in the party whose very existence would be denied. Agnostics rarely get elected to anything in this country. Churches are just too big a part of the organizations of both parties to allow that to happen. The Alda character is a non-threatening Republican for a show whose audience craves a weekly escape from the world where Bush is in charge, but his stature in the fictional Republican party strains the willingness to suspend disbelief. I can understand the desire, the deep desire, to imagine a different world from the one we inhabit, but this is a situation where the reality-based community needs to get real.

Raiders 20; Philly 23

The Raiders could have won but...The Raiders could have won but...The Raiders could have won but...The Raiders could have won but...The Raiders could have won but...The Raiders could have won but...The Raiders could have won but...The Raiders could have won but...The Raiders could have won but...The Raiders could have won but...The Raiders could have won but...The Raiders could have won but...The Raiders could have won but...The Raiders could have won but...The Raiders could have won but...The Raiders could have won but...The Raiders could have won but...The Raiders could have won but...The Raiders could have won but...The Raiders could have won but...The Raiders could have won but...The Raiders could have won but...The Raiders could have won but...The Raiders could have won but...

And I Thought Richard Lee Was Fucked Up

From AP:

"IDAHO FALLS, Idaho – A Pocatello weatherman who gained attention for an unusual theory that Hurricane Katrina was caused by the Japanese mafia using a Russian electromagnetic generator has quit the television station."

What a frigging loon! The only question is when he'll get a job in the Bush Administration.

Friday Random Ten

From iTunes Party Shuffle

1. Airport...Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers (She's the One)
2. Irish Rover...The Clancy Brothers (Ain't It Grand Boys)
3. "Il tempesta di Mare" III. Presto...Antoinio Vivaldi (The Four Seasons and other Concertos)
4. Layla (Live at the Hammersmith)...Eric Clapton (461 Ocean Blvd.)
5. I'm a One Woman Man...Hindu Love Gods (Hindu Love Gods)
6. Waiting For the Miracle...Leonard Cohen (The Future)
7. Kokomo...The Beach Boys (The Greatest Hits)
8. Tivo!...Patton Oswalt (Feelin' Kinda Patton)
9. Wish You Were Here...Pink Floyd (Wish You Were Here)
10. Don't Fade On Me...Tom Petty (Wildflowers)

Saturday

By the way. I'm thoroughly enjoying Ian McEwan's latest novel Saturday. It's an odd thing, but I have more of an affinity for British novelists than I do for American writers. (My appreciation for my righteous MFA classmate Doug Heckman notwithstanding.) I suppose the connection for me springs from a shared interest in incorporating scientific discourse in narrative. I like exploring the ways in which science affects the way we think about, and talk about, one another, and the Brits just seem to work that theme harder than Americans do. Amercian fiction writers seem to be, for the most part, either uninterested in or afraid of science, and I find that sad. While I've lost interest in being a science fiction writer, I think that writers do themselves and their readers a terrible disservice if they cut themselves off from that segment of the academic conversation. Charles Johnson, my mentor at the UW, puts it, not surprisingly, better than I do:

"If you are a writer who regards literary creation as, not merely a possible profession, but as a passion, there is always something to do. If you are not writing fresh material, you are revising; if you are not revising, you are reading--litearture, philosophy, mythology, the sciences--everything that employs the world."

McEwan's novel employs the world. He takes it all, literature, medicine, the arts, terrorism, civilization, and puts it on the page. It's something I always try to do in my own work, and it's an inspiration to see him do it in his. Check it out.

Admitting Defeat

Kevin Drum on the CNN/USA Today poll numbers for the Iraq War:

"If you add up the numbers, 63% of Americans think it's still possible for us to win in Iraq. And no matter what they tell pollsters, my guess is that anyone who thinks we're capable of winning the war won't trust a politician who advocates withdrawal. This is the Democratic dilemma in a nutshell, and it probably explains this Knight Ridder report:

"'Nationally known Democratic war critics, including Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Russell Feingold of Wisconsin and John Kerry of Massachusetts, won't attend what sponsors say will be a big anti-war rally Saturday in Washington.'

"For more on this, see Lorelei Kelly. As a conservative journalist told her today, "The liberals were pretty much right on Viet Nam. And what did that get them? They destroyed their reputation on national security for three decades." I have a feeling that's a widespread attitude."

I wonder if Americans actually understand what victory in war really means. World War II is the war we typically refer to whenever we set off on a military adventure. Images of Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler, the press for total subjugation of Germany military forces, and Parisians dancing in the streets were used as metaphors to help us understand the stakes in the War with Iraq. The UN, ostensibly, was Chamberlain, weakly offering concessions to the maniacal aggressor Hussein. The objective of our forces was nothing less than an advance to Baghdad, just as the allies had pushed into Berlin. And our forces, like the forces that liberated France, were to be greated with flowers and parades.

Why did these metaphors fail to match the realities of this war? Because, in almost every way, World War II was an anomaly in the history of warfare. Very seldom in human history has a figure like Hitler risen to power in a state capable of conducting war on a global scale, and then used that power as aggressively as Hitler did. Hitler not only felt a need to attack and conquer his neighbors, but he also felt that this had to be accomplished as quickly as possible. Nazi ideology, unlike that of Soviet Communism, made it necessary for Hitler, personally, as the one leader destiny chose for the Reich, to accomplish his mission to acquire lebensraum and annihilate the Jews while he was still young enough to carry it through. (He turned fifty the year the war began). Nazi ideology permitted no compromises with enemy powers, nor tactical withdrawls from tenuous positions. This made him impossible to deal with by any means short of total victory. We could not, as we did at the end of World War I and most conflicts in years and ages past, conclude the war by a negotiated settlement.

Hussein, obnoxious and thuggish though he was, was not Adolf Hitler. He did not pose a unique threat. His assaults on his neighbors--the Iranians and the Kuwaitis--were bloody and expensive to reverse, but were reversed without the need to press into Baghdad and overthrow the regime. Even the Iranians, who despised Hussein, were able to reach a negotiated settlement to end the Iran-Iraq war. Though Hussein does subscribe to a crude kind of pan-Arabism, he never possessed the military or economic resources to make himself a hegemon, much less the undisputed master of the region. He was, at most, a local irritant, a sociopathic thief who robbed and murdered his own people. He was clearly no good for the Iraqi people, but was not the serious threat to those living far outside his borders that Hitler was.

Further, Hussein, unlike Hitler, was sensitive to outside pressure. In the months before the invasion, Hussein had allowed inspectors into his country to examine WMD sites. He did his best to slow them down, not so much because he wanted to conceal his chemical and biological weapons as because he didn't want his enemies inside Iraq to know that he didn't have chemical and biological weapons. Hussein was, in comparison with Hitler, a rational actor, and would back down if clearly outnumbered and outgunned. Up to the moment the war was launched, the possibility that the whole Iraq question could be resolved through diplomacy was still out there.

The metaphor connecting the UN (or France) with Chamberlain also fails under scrutiny. By the time Chamberlain went to Munich, the Germans had already annexed the Saarland, remilitarized the Rheinland, murdered the Austrian president, and annexed Austria. It was tragically clear what Hitler was after by the time Chamberlain met with him in Munich. Appeasement was not only a disaster, but a predictable one, given the character of Hitler's regime. The outstanding question with Iraq was, if the UN had gotten its way and the inspectors had been allowed more time to complete their examination of suspected Iraqi WMD sites, what would the harm have been? Was Saddam about to invade another country? Was he, at the time, even threatening to do so? How indeed, would allowing the inspectors, whom Saddam didn't want in his country at all, to continue their work constitute appeasement?

We need look no farther than the news dispatches from Iraq to realize that our armies were greeted with rather more explosives than flowers. This too was predictable. Iraq's major ethnic groups have had incompatible political goals ever since the British manufactured modern Iraq in its partition of the Ottoman Empire's old holdings. This has not changed and will not change. Ethnic ambitions are almost impossible to supress without the application of spectacular amounts of violence and intimidation, and even then, they fester and wait for the oppressor (whether native or foreign) to tire. So it will be in Iraq. The Iraqis, when they're not too busy killing one another, will kill us until we leave.

And don't let's start the nonsense about there not being enough troops in Iraq. We don't have, and did not have before the invasion, enough troops for this sort of mission. Our military resources, already somewhat strained by Afghanistan, were broken in Iraq. Recruitment has collapsed. We're shoveling billions of dollars into the fire just to get the horrible results we're getting now. We don't have what it takes, and neither does the rest of the world. And while it would be nice to get other nations involved in bailing Iraq out, it's questionable that they would do so because they would see it as sending good money in after bad. Why should the French or the Germans or the Russians, who told us not to go in, now sacrifice their blood and treasure because we insisted on ignoring them? In the meantime, as we saw with Katrina, we've blown both financial and human resources that we need to cover our own problems on our adventure in Iraq.

I don't know what victory in Iraq would look like, but I know a defeat when I see one. Aside from overthrowing Saddam, we have failed in every political and military aim that this war was supposed to gain for us. We are isolated from the world. We're still under terrorist threat. We've exposed our inability to cope with terrorist threats. We've created a new middle eastern hegemon in Iran. We've emboldened the North Koreans, and we've produced a simmering civil war in Iraq that will propogate new and exotic terrorist threats in the future. I'd love to think that we still have cards to play there, but we don't. We can withdraw now, and admit failure, or we can take more casualties, withdraw later, and admit failure. If Americans can't see that, it's because they're still deluding themselves with glorious memories of a war that bears no resemblance to what's going on in Iraq.

As George Kennan put it:

"Except for our own Civil War, which was quite a different thing and was fought for a different purpose, our involvements with the use of armed force in the modern age have occurred primarily in the confusing and to some extent misleading experiences of the two world wars of the [20th] century. Both these wars ended in unconditional surrender, encouraging us in a view that the purpose of war was not to bring about a mutally advantageous compromise with an external adversary seen as totally evil and inhuman, but to destroy completely the power and will of that adversary."

Our distorted, World War II/Greatest Generation view of warfare led us to suffer greatly in Korea, Vietnam, Lebanon, and now in Iraq. How long do we have to bleed before we realize that our country can lose, has lost, and is losing? What kind of national security can we expect to have if our leaders can't tell the difference between a win and a loss, and don't know what's at stake when they take risks in foreign affairs? What has our erroneous conviction that America has never lost a war (not counting, I guess, the War of 1812 and Vietnam) done to the way we approach armed conflict? In light of this poll, I have to wonder about the 65% of the American people who see a prospect for success where there is none. It is a shame that Democratic politicians won't take the trouble to cure America of this delusion, because when a nation's politicians are no longer capable of responding to the realities of the world, it isn't long before the barbarians arrive at that nation's gates.

We're headed for a lot of grief, aren't we?

I've Crapped Bigger Than This Name

The Jack Palance reference in the quiz made me do it. That and several viewings of the MST3000 version of Outlaw. Anyway, I took a quiz because Larry did (and I follow him as blindly as Renfield follows Dracula). Here are my results:

My pirate name is:

Iron Morty Read

A pirate's life isn't easy; it takes a tough person. That's okay with you, though, since you a tough person. Even through many pirates have a reputation for not being the brightest souls on earth, you defy the sterotypes. You've got taste and education. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from fidius.org.

Update on My New Orleans Relatives

My Aunt Anne and Uncle Stanhope are in Houston now. Their house, under seven feet of water the day after Katrina hit, is now under four feet of water. They'll have to raze it because it's now infested with toxic mold. My cousin, Stanhope Jr., and his family are planning to settle in Houston. They have a young daughter who'll have gotten used to a new school by the time they could move back.

What's the Matter With Collins?

QB Kerry Collins is a tough guy to figure out. He certainly has a first class arm, and with Randy Moss he can be frighteningly effective. In preseason, he looked almost Gannon-like, finding open receivers with ease and completing a high percentage of his passes. Even now, in two losses, he looks good statistically. Yes, he has a fumble problem, but so does Daunte Culpepper, and so did Warren Moon, yet I'd be more comfortable with either of them running the Raiders' offense than I am with Kerry Collins. Why? What do I see that's lacking?

There's a reason they call it intangibles. Football intelligence, game management skills, improvisational ability, call it what you will. Great quarterbacks have it. They're calm and creative even under spectacular pressure. You know that as long as their throwing arms remain attached to their bodies, your team has a chance. They keep plays alive that should be dead. They find the open receivers you don't see. They make everyone around them better.

Peyton Manning is one of these guys. So is Donovan McNabb. So is, and I will choke as I write this, Tom Brady. The Raider parade in this area includes Gannon, Plunkett, Stabler, and Lamonica. Michael Vick may one day be one of these guys, once he puts all his tools together.

Kerry Collins is, well, not. Pressure disrupts him too easily. He can't scramble or move out of a collapsing pocket. And while people play reasonably well around him, it's hard to say that they become better for his presence. He's fine, as long as there's nothing at stake or he's got a wave of emotion carrying him, but once things go badly, or the team really needs a score, his accuracy and poise vanish. When the heat's on, rather than making those around him great, he needs everyone around him to play perfectly for him to be good.

If the Raiders continue to struggle, they'll sooner or later have to turn to Marques Tuiasosopo and begin his tenure as a Raider starter. They've invested a lot of time and money in Gannon Jr. His time may come faster than anyone expects. Tui may be great or he may be nothing, but Collins is what he is. And we know from what's around the league that we can do better.

Fuck!

KC 23; Raiders 17. The Raiders might have won this game had the offense not taken most of the second half off. I won't blame it all on Collins, but he seemed awfully slow on the trigger. The sportscasters said that the receivers weren't running crisp enough routes, and that may be part of it. The defense played pretty well, given their talent level, making key stops, forcing a fumble and blocking a field goal attempt, but the Raider offense just wasn't able to convert any of that into points. They once again left a lot of yards on the field. While they were good in spurts, they weren't consistent.

I'm afraid I'm going to be writing "The Raiders might have won this game if..." a lot this season. They seem so frustratingly close. All the ingredients, or at least most of the ingredients, are there. Maybe it's the youth on the offensive line. Maybe it's Collins's decision-making. I will say this. The defense held up their end of the bargain tonight, and the offense should apologize to them for failing in their responsibilities.

We pissed this one away.

Cookery Corner

Smita Chandra has kept me well fed for several years now. (Shout out to bitterspice for buying me the cookbook.) I just tried a recipe of hers and it knocked me out, so I thought I'd share.

Chicken With Herbs and Yogurt (Sindhi Murgh)

What you need:

2 pounds of chicken drumsticks or thighs, skinned
2 medium onions
1/2-inch piece of fresh ginger
2 large cloves of garlic
1 green chili (optional) (I like it like this)
1 cup fresh coriander leaves and tender upper stems
1/2 cup fresh mint leaves
4 tablespoons plain yogurt
1 teaspoon tamarind paste or 2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin seeds
Salt, to taste
1/2 teaspoon tumeric
1/2 teaspoon garam masala
3 tablespoons of vegetable oil

Instructions: Skin the chicken, wash and pat dry. Make deep gashes in the chicken surface, then set the pieces aside. Chop the onions, ginger, garlic, and chili coarsely. Place them in a food processor or blender along with the coriander and mint leaves. Blend smooth, adding 1 to 2 tablespoons of water if needed. Transfer to a bowl and mix in the yogurt, tamarind, cumin, salt, tumeric and garam masala. (If you're using lemon juice instead of tamarind, mix the lemon juice in when you're ready to serve.) Rub the paste over the chicken pieces and marinate in a refrigerator for 2 to 3 hours.

Scrape the marinade off when you're ready to cook. Reserve the marinade. Warm the oil in a large skillet over medium heat then brown the chicken for five minutes on each side. Reduce the heat to low and toss the chicken with the reserved marinade. Cover and cook for 25 minutes or until the chicken is tender. Serve hot.

If you want more recipes, buy the book.

A Little Business

We've got two more additions to the blogroll today. (Oh, my, I've got the vapors! I swoon!) There's Life on the Wicked Stage, a blog about the Wayside Theater in Virginia, Tablet PCs, and miscellany. And there's Fred the Blog. Check 'em out, or I'll clamp your eyes open and make you watch Five the Hard Way.

Jon Mikl Thor is Back and...there's nothing you can do about it!

Word from the Onion AV Club is that, after eighteen years, we'll finally get the sequel to Rock n' Roll Nightmare starring the brilliant Jon Mikl Thor (here's hoping he hasn't porked out). You can check out a hilarious clip of the original here. See how Thor expertly convinces us that the satanic starfishes actually adhere to his taut, tan, muffiny chest. This is his true medium. He's a master.

UPDATE (SLIGHTLY LATER): Actually, it appears that Thor has been hitting the twinkies pretty hard these last eighteen years, so we'll amend the hope. Here's hoping he doesn't appear in a leather loincloth. The black is very slimming.

When Fetish Picnics Go Bad

They're Remaking The Omen

Trolling through IMDB today I found that the geniuses at 20th Century Fox are doing another version of The Omen. Some of y'all might remember the 1976 version with Gregory Peck, Lee Remick, the incomparable Billie Whitelaw, and the usually-dead-by-the-end-of-the-film David Warner. It's a pretty good high concept premise. Logline: a wealthy ambassador discovers, after several people around him die in bizarre accidents, that his adopted son may be the antichrist. I'd commission a treatment if I were a producer. The story turns out to have more holes in it than Bush's National Guard record, but with Peck adding his credibility and director Richard Donner keeping the thing moving briskly, those holes are hard to spot with just one viewing.

Therein lies the problem with remaking this thing.

Not only have most horror fans already seen this movie, but they've seen the two sequels, which were not only bad movies by themselves, but they helped expose the plot problems that Richard Donner had so brilliantly glossed over. Problems like these:

1) It's apparent in Damien: Omen II that Damien's canine origins can be detected with a simple blood test. How was it that such blood tests were never done during the first five years of this kid's life? One of my earliest memories is of some enormous nurse driving a huge spike into my finger and blood gushing forth. Pediatricians are all over you during the first few years of your life. Unless the Thorns were Chrisitan Scientists, Damien would have had many blood tests as a toddler, making concealment of his ancestry impossible.

2) The rules of prophecy seem to be pretty loose in the picture. According to The Bible, the mark of the beast is supposed to appear on the hand or forehead of those who follow the devil. Why does Damien get to keep his beneath his hair, and why, for that matter, does the dead priest have it on his inner thigh? And my impression of the Book of Revelations (which has its own story problems) was that the antichrist only placed the mark on people after his rise to power. How then can people have the mark of the devil as a birthmark before Damien is even born? Are people predestined to be followers of the antichrist? If so, wouldn't the all-knowing God who set this whole thing up get the body parts right?

3) Why would the devil wait until people have spilled the beans about Damien before he kills them? The movie suggests the devil made some attempts at preemptive cover-up--burning the hospital and the maternity wards to destroy all the birth records. (Ancillary plot hole. Wouldn't Robert Thorn, the ambassador to Rome at the time, have heard about the terrible fire that burned down the hospital where his son was born? Why would he need a cab driver to explain it to him five years later?) Why does the devil not simply kill those involved in the birth of the antichrist as soon as is convenient? Surely the devil would have met enough mob guys to learn the old saying "Three can keep a secret if two are dead." Why, indeed, would the devil wait to kill Robert Thorn until Thorn's got his little boy on a church altar with a holy dagger ready? Thorn flew back to England from Rome. Can't the devil, who has engineered all kinds of accidental deaths by now, arrange a simple and easily explained plane crash? Of course, this may be the predestined way that this has to work out, (the photographs foreshadowing the deaths imply it), but the movie never really thinks that possibility through. If the devil has to play by certain rules, wouldn't it be handy if someone in the movie could let us in on what they are?

4) Why does the priest who first hips Robert Thorn to the whole antichrist thing choose an approach that will make him impossible to believe? I know it's hard to approach someone with a message like that without sounding crazy, but most people would at least try.

There are other story problems, but you get my point. Any remake of the movie would probably retain these flaws (unless they're planning to radically restructure the story), while lacking the element of surprise that made the original a hit. The Omen didn't allow us the time to recognize its flaws when we first saw it, but horror fans have had almost thirty years to mull them over. The only way the movie works now is as a means to admire the professionalism of Peck, Remick, Whitelaw, Donner, and composer Jerry Goldsmith, who manage to make the absurd seem frighteningly credible. And because that movie is now on DVD with loads of commentary and extras, what earthly (or unearthly) reason anyone would have for shelling out ten bucks to watch a remake is beyond me.

He's Going To GitMo For this Bit, As We Will For Laughing

From Bill Maher:

Mr. President, this job can't be fun for you any more. There's no more money to spend--you used up all of that. You can't start another war because you used up the army. And now, darn the luck, the rest of your term has become the Bush family nightmare: helping poor people. Listen to your Mom. The cupboard's bare, the credit cards maxed out. No one's speaking to you. Mission accomplished.

Now it's time to do what you've always done best: lose interest and walk away. Like you did with your military service and the oil company and the baseball team. It's time. Time to move on and try the next fantasy job. How about cowboy or space man? Now I know what you're saying: there's so many other things that you as President could involve yourself in. Please don't. I know, I know. There's a lot left to do. There's a war with Venezuela. Eliminating the sales tax on yachts. Turning the space program over to the church. And Social Security to Fannie Mae. Giving embryos the vote.

But, Sir, none of that is going to happen now. Why? Because you govern like Billy Joel drives. You've performed so poorly I'm surprised that you haven't given yourself a medal. You're a catastrophe that walks like a man. Herbert Hoover was a shitty president, but even he never conceded an entire city to rising water and snakes.

On your watch, we've lost almost all of our allies, the surplus, four airliners, two trade centers, a piece of the Pentagon and the City of New Orleans. Maybe you're just not lucky. I'm not saying you don't love this country. I'm just wondering how much worse it could be if you were on the other side.

So, yes, God does speak to you. What he is saying is: 'Take a hint.'

Supreme #2

Bush will be making his next Supreme Court pick, and based on the John Roberts hearings precident I was thinking of all the things we can expect to learn from our newest imperial overlord. (Remember when I said I wouldn't talk about it? I lied.)

1. His favorite movies. (Provided they aren't in current release or among coming attractions. The nominee wouldn't want the actors in upcoming films of similar genre to think he didn't have an open mind.)
2. The sport from which he prefers to draw his metaphors. (I'm thinking we should go for a bumper pool or four-man bobsled guy this time, for diversity's sake.)
3. Whether death is the opposite of life. (Provided that no one is even contemplating suing over that issue.)
4. His opinion on the closely split decision in the first trial of Balboa v. Creed.
5. L.A. or New York. For the last time, which is better? (I hope someone presses the nominee on this one, so that it can be settled as a comic/preppie lifestyle magazine premise once and for all.)
6. That he has, or at least has rented, a highly telegenic brood.
7. That even though everyone George W. Bush has appointed to any position of lasting responsibility has been a ruthless, yet incompetent, zealot; somehow the nominee, a fair-minded fella who's never really given any issue much thought, managed to slip under Karl Rove's radar.
8. That he once took a Democrat out to lunch.

I'm sure we won't want to miss that one. Fire up the TiVo.

Submitted for Your Approval

My friend, actor and bon-vivant Larry Dahlke, now has his own blog, and I'm linking to it. So read it, live it, love it. And if you act now, you can read a special quote from me not available anywhere else on this or any other planet.

To the Moon, Alice!

AP reports that NASA wants to go back to the moon. Why they wish to do this they don't actually say. The story doesn't mention any research that they might want to do, or any permanent infrastructure they might want to try to build. They just want to go again by 2020. Now I know that with George W. Bush selling all of our assets to Halliburton we don't have much left to do anything, NASA has to limit its dreams. Still, the moon again? Why not start thinking about how to construct a better means of moving materials cheaply into space? Now that carbon nanotubes are a reality, we might be able to take a run at building a space elevator. Why not start designing orbital facilities for spacecraft repairs and construction? Why not put the money into more sophisticated robots for exploration of Mars, Europa, Titan, and the asteroid belt?

The trouble with NASA is that it doesn't think about what its real mission is in space exploration, and doesn't think more than one step ahead. There's no plan. (I don't count the Bush-to-Mars thing as a plan. That was a head fake to draw attention away from corpses in Iraq.) Will a President come along to correct this and restore a sense of purpose to the agency? Maybe, but by the time that happens, the Chinese will be waving to us from their massive orbiting spacedock and the E.U. will be sending manned missions to Saturn.

By the way. I won't say anything about the President's speech yesterday or John Roberts's confirmation. They were both empty bits of theater. If you want to see good absurdist comedy, find someone who's putting on Rhinocerous or Waiting For Godot. You'll have a much better time, and you'll probably come away better informed about the state of the world.

Nothing to be done.

The AFC West in Week #1

The Chefs were the only winners this week, wiping out the Jets 27-7. Both the Broncos and Chargers died, with the Broncos suffering the more ignominious fate by losing 34-10 to last year's doormats, the Miami Dolphins. We already know, of course, what happened to the Oakland Raiders against the Patriots.

It's ill advised to read too much into the first games of the season, but I do have some observations to make.

1) The Broncos look like they're in huge trouble on both sides of the ball. The Dolphins dominated them from beginning to end. Champ Bailey, who cost the Broncos so much last year, couldn't handle WR Chris Chambers, who torched him repeatedly for big plays. I guess this is one man who'll really hate seeing Randy Moss twice a year. They didn't just look bad, they looked incompetent. It was a nasty, humiliating, epoch-shattering loss for Denver. Whatever problems the Broncos have they need to fix quickly, or the rest of the division will make them suffer (starting with the Chargers next week).

2) The Chargers looked like they were in trouble defensively the entire game. They allowed the Cowboys to convert 7 of 11 third downs en route to suffering a 28-24 loss. The Cowboys' defense, by contrast, held Ladanian Tomlinson to only 72 yards on the ground and ended the game in dramatic fashion with an interception in the end zone with twenty-some seconds to go. Next week, the Chargers have their star TE Antonio Gates back. We'll see if they look any better against Denver.

3) Kansas City was impressive both offensively and defensively against the New York Jets. Larry Johnson and Priest Holmes combined for over 200-yards of rushing offense, while the K.C. defense forced six fumbles from QB Chad Pennington and held Curtis Martin under fifty yards. The amount of pressure that K.C. was able to apply to Pennington should give the Raiders' offensive line a few sleepless nights as they think about protecting the less-mobile-and-now-fumble-prone Kerry Collins. In the plus column, the Raiders held the Patriots to seventy yards rushing, so it looks like Holmes and Johnson will draw a tougher assignment next Sunday night. Anyway, because they got the only win, K.C. is so far the class of the division.

People of Faith are Pissing Me Off

Just seconds ago I decided I was fed up with the term "people of faith". This, and its cousin, "faith-based organization" conceal religion under a baby-soft, p.c., bullshit cover term. I'm not sure if the coinage originates with Bush, whose Orwellian uses of language are far more frightening and frustrating than the malaprops for which he's famous, but he was quick to grab it for his policy of funneling money to religious organizations. If you go to the FEMA website right now, you can find prominently listed Operation: Blessing, a religious charity belonging to would-be Presidential assassin Pat Robertson. Secular charities, conversely, remain off the FEMA lists.

Religious organizations love the "faith-based" term because it allows them to slip into schools and government offices without scrutiny. Creationism is religious dogma. Intelligent Design is a faith based alternative to Darwin. Sounds nicer, doesn't it? And so the blessings of ignorance are secured.

To all news organizations. Catholic Charities is a religious charity organization. It's correct to call it that. The Pope is a religous leader. It's correct to call him that. Pat Robertson is a dangerous lunatic. It's correct to call him that. Intelligent Design is right-wing religious dogma in a mask. It's correct to call it that.

That's today's message from your Uncle Jim, a fact-based writer.

People of Faith are Pissing Me Off

Just seconds ago I decided I was fed up with the term "people of faith". This, and its cousin, "faith-based organization" conceal religion under a baby-soft, p.c., bullshit cover term. I'm not sure if the coinage originates with Bush, whose Orwellian uses of language are far more frightening and frustrating than the malaprops for which he's famous, but he was quick to grab it for his policy of funneling money to religious organizations. If you go to the FEMA website right now, you can find prominently listed Operation: Blessing, a religious charity belonging to would-be Presidential assassin Pat Robertson. Secular charities, conversely, remain off the FEMA lists.

Religious organizations love the "faith-based" term because it allows them to slip into schools and government offices without scrutiny. Creationism is religious dogma. Intelligent Design is a faith based alternative to Darwin. Sounds nicer, doesn't it? And so the blessings of ignorance are secured.

To all news organizations. Catholic Charities is a religious charity organization. It's correct to call it that. Pat Robertson is a dangerous lunatic. It's correct to call him that. Intelligent Design is right-wing religious dogma in a mask. It's correct to call it that.

That's today's message from your Uncle Jim, a fact-based writer.

Conrad's Killers

The New York Times Book Review has an article on Joseph Conrad's tales of terrorism. I've read only one of his pieces--The Secret Agent--but based on the descriptions in the article I think a trip to the library may be in order to catch the others.

Tuck Rule Spin

I hate to wade into this again, but for a Raider fan, the "tuck rule" game is a bit like the Kennedy assassination--the story that won't go away. This time its ressurectionist is the Page 2 columnist, and Patriots fan, Bill Simmons, who said this:

"Every time the Tuck Rule Game gets mentioned, three other things should also be mentioned: First, Gruden had second-and-3 to close out the game, ran the ball twice up the middle, didn't get the three yards, then punted on fourth-and-inches. If they had gotten those three yards, Brady never gets the ball back. Everyone seems to forget this. And second, on the famous play, WOODSON CHOPPED BRADY IN THE HEAD TO CAUSE THE FUMBLE!!! Not only is that illegal, it's one of the few guaranteed "we're calling that every time" whistles in football. Everyone forgets this, too. And third, not only was the rule interpreted correctly, but they voted on keeping it at the next Rules Committee Meeting.

"To recap: Raiders fans have spent the last four years complaining about a play in which (A) their player should have been penalized, (B) the rule was interpreted correctly, and (C) it never should have happened in the first place because their coach choked away a second-and-3 situation and lacked the testicular fortitude to go for it on fourth down. Those are the facts. If you want to keep complaining, so be it."

A few problems with Simmons' facts:

1. "And second, on the famous play, WOODSON CHOPPED BRADY IN THE HEAD TO CAUSE THE FUMBLE!!! Not only is that illegal, it's one of the few guaranteed "we're calling that every time" whistles in football."

The reason the ball left Tom Brady's hand was that Charles Woodson's hand stripped it. It had nothing to do with any chopping to the head. Woodson's hand may have slightly grazed Brady's helmet on its way down (the replay doesn't seem all that clear to me on this point, though Patriots fans admit no doubt, calling the hit vicious. So vicious perhaps that it induced amnesia in everyone watching as well?), but the target was clearly not the head, it was the arm, which Woodson's hand struck. If C-Wood did chop Brady to the head, and it's one of those penalties that they call "every time", the referee, standing right there, didn't seem to notice. (And since when have the referees ever failed to notice an Oakland Raider committing a penalty?) The referee called the play a fumble, something apparent not only to the Raiders, but to the sportscasters, the crowd, both coaches, and, let's not forget, Brady himself, who walked off the field looking like someone told him his dog just died. He didn't jump up and complain, or gesture that he had been in the act of throwing. Brady's demeanor at that moment indicated consciousness of guilt, which is appropriate because he was, in the eyes of anyone with simple common sense, guilty.

2. "And third, not only was the rule interpreted correctly, but they voted on keeping it at the next Rules Committee Meeting."

Partly true. The Rules Committee did vote to keep the "tuck rule" at the next meeting, but not because they were happy with it. Indeed, most thought the rule was ridiculous, and for a while it looked as if they might throw it out. The trouble was that the committee couldn't come to any kind of consensus on what the new rule should be. It was quite clear that, at the moment Brady fumbled, he had no intention of attempting a pass. (Quick, tell me who the intended receiver was supposed to be. Was David Patten running a curl pattern in Brady's shoe?) Brady was holding the ball, trying to reset, when he was hit. Unless we interpret the rule in such a way as to say that a quarterback need only pump and hold the ball away from his body to immunize himself from fumble calls, it's hard to say that the ruling from the booth was remotely sensible. (I wonder. Could Brady have scrambled around like that, holding the ball out, and then, if hit, claim that he was still in his motion?) I'm in favor of ditching all the legalistic mumbo jumbo about what does and doesn't constitute a fumble and let the referee make the call based on his own best judgement of the events of the play. Rule #1, if a ball comes out of a player's hands when he is neither down by contact nor clearly attempting to throw a forward pass, that player has fumbled.

The play may have been, within the narrowest technical definition, legal, but so is marrying a 14-year-old in Nebraska (or is it Kansas?) or stopping a manual recount in order to make George W. Bush president. Right now, in my state, it is legal to fuck a cow, because nobody ever bothered to pass a law against it. To be legal is not to be right, or even reasonable. Ask any coach not connected with the Patriots whether that play resulted in a fumble, and I'll bet most would say yes. (I haven't actually taken a poll, but Mike Holmgren and Jeff Fisher have both gone on record saying it was a fumble, while none, to my knowledge, agreed with the replay official. Gruden will never change his mind, understandably.) The Patriots ultimately got the game, just as Bush got the Presidency and Washington's cow-fucker got off (pun intended), but we call these things bullshit because, legality notwithstanding, that's just what they are.

3. "First, Gruden had second-and-3 to close out the game, ran the ball twice up the middle, didn't get the three yards, then punted on fourth-and-inches."

This one I don't have much of a problem with, except to say this in Gruden's defense. Given that Gruden had one of the biggest offensive lines in football and that he had in Zach Crockett perhaps the best short-yardage running back around, I can see why he went that way. He was trying to run the clock out using plays that had been money for the Raiders much of the year. 20-20 hindsight allows us to see that a quick slant to Rice or Brown might have been the better option. (I'm sure Al Davis thought so, and the way the game ended helped lead to Gruden and Davis parting ways after the 2001 season.) None of this is relevant to the main issue, though. The result of that Raider drive doesn't remove the stench from the ruling the Patriots received minutes later.

It doesn't matter much to football as we play it now, but it is the thing that grudges are made of. I didn't hate the Patriots after they beat the Raiders in the 1985 AFC Title Game. Marc Wilson lost that one for us, and besides, the Patriots got theirs against the Bears in the Super Bowl. I don't hate the Steelers for the Immaculate Reception play. It's hard to tell whether the ball hit the ground or not on that one. But the snow job sticks in my craw. When "The Sports List" called it the 2nd worst call of all time, I wondered why it wasn't higher. (Actually, I can see it. The worst call in any game I ever saw was in a college game where Colorado got an extra down that allowed them to win the game.) What I hope for though, is revenge. Right now, Mr. Brady, have your fun. We've been in a coma for a while, but when we awaken, we, like The Bride, will arrive at your door to remind you that we have unfinished buisness.

Well, That Could Have Gone Better

Raiders 20; Patriots 30.

You have no idea how much I hate typing that. The disgusting vomitous masses from Boston win. The game turned on a Collins interception (it looks more like a fumble in the replay, but it was an interception). The Raiders had just forced the Patriots to turn the ball over on downs and looked like they had some momentum going, but then Collins loses it. It's a damn shame because up to that point Collins was doing all right. He had touchdown passes to Moss and Courtney Anderson, and the Raiders were only behind by three.

A few observations:

1) Turner should never let the Raiders use a three-down lineman set again. Brady was able to stand back and shred Oakland for the entire first half because of this lineup. When the Raiders switched to the 4-3 for the second half, they were able to apply good pressure to Brady and force him to miss throws.

2) Chris Carr is a damn good kick returner.

3) Randy Moss may be Neo, capable of entering bullet time at any moment, but that doesn't mean that Collins needs to go after him all the time. I saw several plays where Porter or Whitted was available elsewhere when Collins passed them up to challenge the Patriots' double and triple coverages. He also had a habit of locking his eyes on receivers. He needs to learn that you can look off to Moss and then throw to other receivers. This, in turn, will produce more opportunities for Moss. (At least, that's the way I'd explain it to him.) Moss had an impressive opening game, but the Raiders need to see to it that Collins looks for other options as well.

4) LaMont Jordan is a beast. Just get the ball to him and let him produce.

5) Warren Sapp looked a lot more comfortable this year than last. He seemed to be around the ball a lot. Also, the Raiders' run defense is much improved over last year's model.

The wheels really did come off with the Collins interception though. God, I miss Gannon. Turnovers are killers, especially on the road, and especially when they occur at your own 20-yard line. I can't think of too many occasions when Gannon lost the Raiders a game. (The Tampa Super Bowl doesn't count. Tampa's defense did the same thing to everyone that year. That's why they were the champs. Gannon didn't lose that game; Sapp, Barber, Simeon Rice, and Derrick Brooks won it.) The Collins interception put the Raiders in a pressure situation from which few teams can emerge victorious, especially against the defending world champions. Sea Bass's missed FG didn't help either. (Please don't tell me he has gout again.) But...dammit Collins!

The Raiders play at home against the Chiefs next. They'll need this game, because a week later they face Philadelphia (on the road again--that whole NFL conspiracy thing is starting to make a whole lot of sense), and I don't know how well this team could handle an 0-3 start.

Some other observations:

1) For a moment there I was looking forward to seeing the return of Monday night NFL highlights during halftime. I remember the old days with Howard Cosell narration "And on the next play, number 34, Earl Campbell, breaks through the line and runs sixty-six yards for the touchdown." If my team had won that week, I'd stay, glued to the set, waiting for him to describe the best plays. If my team had lost, well, I went to the kitchen for a sandwich. Anyway, as I say, I was looking forward to it, until Al Michaels (how I hate him) informed me that we wouldn't get narration. Instead, they'd show the highlights as a montage for Tim McGraw to sing variations of his hit "I Like It, I Love It" to. Why is this good? I realize this may appeal to hicks, but, speaking as someone who is not a rube, a kadodie, a shitkicker, or a cracker, I think it sucks. And no, I wouldn't be any happier if they used R.E.M., Lou Reed, Henry Rollins, or William Shatner with Ben Folds. Just show the damn highlights, jerks.

2) I also hate the dumb personal segment section where we get some player describing his biography to us. And no, I didn't just hate it because this week's bio was Tom Brady's. I just don't give a damn about the lives of sports figures. A few are interesting, but most of their stories are just dull recitations that all sound the same: "I grew up [insert city here]. I used to [do this exercise/do this non-sports job/have this disease/farm this crop]. From it I learned [to throw/to catch/discipline and character/to love rutebegas]. My idol was [Joe Montana/Muhmmad Ali/My father/Ray Rutebega and His All-Root-Vegetable Jug Band]." Who gives a fuck? If an player isn't huddling up, getting set, running, throwing, catching or hitting, why do you ask me to pay attention to him?

3) I don't think I'd hate the Patriots half as much if everyone in the organization wasn't described as such pluperfectly, wonderful, character-possessing, help-old-ladies-across-the-street, sweetheart-type people. Al Michaels spent half tonight's game sucking Bob Kraft's cock. It was nauseating. Are you a sportscaster, Al, or do you work in the Patriots's PR office? You know what I'd like to see? Tom Brady accused of shooting a small child. I'd like to see Corey Dillon picked up for exposing himself at the mall. Bob Kraft caught raiding a pension fund and moving the money to Switzerland would make my year. The encomia are enough to give me diabetes.

4) I miss Dan Dierdorf. He could keep Al Michaels in line. That is, of course, the likely reason for his absence.

The reason I can devote so much energy to venting about the game is that my relatives turned up alive in New Orleans on Sunday. They're in Houston now, staying with some of my other relatives; they'll have to figure out what happens next. I don't know.

That's your ball game.

Yeah, I've been Absent

Sorry about that, but some of me and mine are in New Orleans, and many more of my relatives have lost their homes and livelihoods. There's nothing I can about either but both absorb my attention. Any readers out there who can send money to the Red Cross or other relief agencies need to do so.