Professionally Foul

I haven't had a lot of time to actually view Ann Coulter during her book tour, but it seems like a lot of people wonder why TV programs like The Today Show or Whatever the Hell Tucker Carlson's Show Is Called put her on. Actually, there's not much to get there. Ann Coulter is a woman who makes her living by calculating just how horrible her colleagues have been, then taking it one step further. She's a right wing carnival geek act who hopes to appall her audience with the sight of her own degraded filthiness. Right wingers watch her because they sometimes love to view the nether regions of their own souls. Those leftists who do pay attention to her do so, I guess, because she's a distillation of everything the left finds repugnant in the right. And if you're willing to be an object of disgust, revulsion, and a certain kind of morbid curiosity, cable TV news has a camera waiting for you.

Actually, there have been times that I've watched more than a few seconds of Ann Coulter. (Yes, some of those times involved losing the remote, but stick with me here.) What I wait for on those occasions is the moment when she takes off the blonde wig and reveals that she is in fact Andy Kaufman, and that Coulter's entire act has been Kaufman's twenty year metajoke on news organizations, Regnery publishing, Andy Kaufman fans, and the world at large. I'll bet that's why Bill Maher brings Coulter on his show. If Andy Kaufman is going to step out of his Ann Coulter disguise, it's going to happen on Maher's set. You can come out now, Andy. We're wise to you.

Once More, Tugging A Tired Thread

The DLC has a column up accusing Democrats who support Ned Lamont over Joe Lieberman of "liberal fundamentalism" or, in their words "an intolerance toward dissent and diversity that can repel voters and make an enduring Democratic majority more difficult to achieve." The article goes on to argue that what "the left" is doing in opposing Joe Lieberman amounts to a purge of dissenting voices from the party:

The Democratic Party today is far more unified in its basic values and policy positions than it was two decades ago, and also urgently needs to expand its electoral and geographical base. There's less of an excuse than ever to indulge in liberal fundamentalism, litmus tests, intimidation of dissenters, and purges, and much more to lose from shrinking the party's big tent.

But that's exactly what the national movement to purge Joe Lieberman represents. Comparing him to apostates like Zell Miller is crazy. As Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid points out in a recent letter endorsing him, the most recent independent analysis of Lieberman's voting record shows him in solidarity with Democrats 90 percent of the time, about the same as Reid's own record. He's a recognized leader among progressives on issues ranging from the environment and labor to taxation and fiscal policy. He was a loyal partner of Al Gore's in the bitter 2000 presidential election, less than six years ago.

Some Lieberman foes, dubbing him "Holy Joe," are angry at him for championing the expression of religious faith in the public square, and for standing up against corporate-sponsored trash culture on behalf of families struggling to control their kids' values and upbringing. But his main sin appears to be his staunch and very consistent belief that the war in Iraq was and is right, even if that means occasional agreement with a Bush administration that he criticizes on almost every other issue.

Okay. I wasn't aware that primary voters in Connecticut, opposing one Senate candidate, constituted a purge. If the left were really trying to purge moderate-to-conservative Democrats who don't support their agenda, you'd think the knives would be out for Kent Conrad of North Dakota or Ben Nelson of Nebraska. (An attempt to run to the left of those guys in their states would be suicidal, but since the column already calls Lamont supporters crazy...) Hillary Clinton looks like she'll cruise to re-election in New York, a fairly liberal state from what I hear, despite her support for the Iraq venture. And though John Edwards now expresses regret for his vote for the Iraq war, he wasn't doing that when he ran for President in 2004, and primary voters supported him fairly deep into the season. The only other candidate who might arguably be in trouble because of her Iraq war vote is Maria Cantwell, but her problem in her own party is much less severe than Lieberman's. You'd also think that lots of Democratic House candidates who voted for the war would be getting it in the neck, but I haven't heard anything serious there either.

Besides, is the comparison of Joe Lieberman to Zell Miller all that crazy? Voting records notwithstanding, both guys are best known for going to the political chat shows and trashing Democrats for being too mean to the Bush administration. (I covered this in an earlier post.) Joe Lieberman may vote with the Democrats a lot, but he goes out of his way to be seen as cozy with Republicans. The DLC's shock that this behavior irritates Democrats around the country demonstrates that the DLC is dangerously out of touch.

Joe Lieberman's problem with the party stems from a failure to recognize that his adopted persona of a moderate maverick who likes to reach across the aisle is not one with which many Democrats, tired of watching their party bend to the Republicans on issue after issue, can feel comfortable. After six years of Bush, Lieberman's act has long since passed its sell-by date. Now I know Lieberman's response is that he votes with the Democrats 90% of the time, that he's not really with the Republicans as often as he appears, and that he has much more sympathy with liberal causes than he demonstrates. But, as Kurt Vonnegut so aptly put it in Mother Night "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be."

Witness Howard Dean, whom the DLC column lumps in with these renegade leftists. For Howard Dean's entire tenure as Vermont governor he was fiscally conservative and socially moderate. But the vehemence of his opposition to the Iraq war and his freewheeling public persona transmogrified him into Eugene Debs among both his supporters and his critics. Is he really a leftist, as the DLC claims? Is Joe Lieberman really Zell Miller? Is Howard W. Campbell Jr. really a Nazi? Does it matter? Consider this quote from Mother Night, where Campbell visits his father-in-law one last time and receives the most devastating compliment from him:

"Did you know," he [Werner Noth] said, "that until almost this very moment nothing would have delighted me more than to prove you were a spy, to see you shot?"

"No," I said.

"And do you know why I don't care now if you were a spy or not?" he said. "You could tell me now that you were a spy, and we would go on talking calmly, just as we're talking now. I would let you wander off to wherever spies go when a war is over. You know why?" he said.

"No," I said.

"Because you could never have served the enemy as well as you served us," he said. " I realized that almost all the ideas that I hold now, that make me unashamed of anything I may have felt or done as a Nazi, came not from Hitler, not from Goebbles, not from Himmler--but from you." He took my hand. "You alone kept me from concluding that Germany had gone insane."

Right now, Joe Lieberman serves the Republican party better than he serves us, which makes the question of whether he's really a liberal or a moderate or a conservative shill irrelevant. Lieberman gives the Republicans bipartisan cover, and he makes it harder for everyone in the Democratic party to make the case the the Republicans under Bush have gone off the deep end. Over the last few years he's gone on FOX News repeatedly to lend his name and his moral legitimacy (such as it is) to some despicable ideas. Given that, I'd say that the response of the so-called "angry left" has been altogether measured and proportionate. If only the DLC could make the same boast in its columns.

Caution: Planet At Work

A really cool picture of Mount Saint Helens from a passing plane. (from the Seattle P-I).

Cheers to Canadian Reporters

Apparently Canadian political reporters are already sick of Stephen Harper's bullying, Bush-like tactics. From the L.A. Times:

Since Harper's minority government took office after the Jan. 23 elections, his relations with the national media have become more and more strained. Determined to impose order on the traditionally chaotic press scrum in which reporters shout out questions, Harper said he would choose questioners from a pre-screened list.

The parliamentary media corps, which includes broadcast and print reporters from all over the country, worried that the new protocol would freeze out journalists perceived to be tough on the prime minister. After journalists refused to sign on to the list, Harper refused to take any questions.

On Tuesday, when Harper's press secretary announced there would be no questions after his announcement of aid to the Darfur region of Sudan, nearly two dozen reporters walked out, leaving the prime minister to make his statement in front of a single camera in a nearly empty room.

"We are responsible for asking questions, and he is responsible for answering them," said Yves Malo, the president of the Parliament's press gallery.

Nice.

Don't Make McCain Come Back There

Courtesy of Brendan Nyhan, here's John McCain's "fresh, daring, original!" (Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times) answer to our problems in Iraq:

"One of the things I would do if I were President would be to sit the Shiites and the Sunnis down and say, 'Stop the bullshit,'" said Mr. McCain, according to Shirley Cloyes DioGuardi, an invitee, and two other guests.

The first obvious question is, "Was he sober when he said this?" I'll take it that the answer to that question is yes until someone proves otherwise. The second question, sadder than the first is, "Has McCain reached the conclusion that the press train following him is so in the tank that he can get away with saying anything?" The third question is whether McCain is so glib and shallow that he takes the nonsense he sprays from his face seriously.

These three questions have been asked about a politician before (Hint: he's the twit with the smirk and the 30% job approval rating), and they lead me to a fourth question. Have we as a nation become locked in some horrible sisyphean matrix of eternal recurrance? Will we push Bush out of our lives only to turn around and find McCain? Will we still be sitting here ten years from now, listening to pundits tell us about how we've reached a turning point on [Iraq/the economy/energy/"American Idol"] and how we'll know in six months whether [the insurgents/interest rates/oil prices/Ryan Seacrest] will rise or fall.

To quote either Tom Servo or Crow, "What is it about the gates of hell that compels people to walk through them?"

Suharto Suffers Internal Bleeding

Considering how much internal bleeding he caused in Indonesia, I'll save my pity.

McGavick: His Elbow Is Firmly On the Pulse of the World

Mike McGavick, the Republican senate candidate from these parts, wants to bar Iran from the World Cup unless they give up their nuclear ambitions.

Yeah, that'll quell the Islamic Republic's ambitions of building a bomb to deter U.S. and Isreali military action against them. And if they don't get the message that way, we'll take away Iran's UN ambassador's pool privileges. With foreign policy thinking like this, why do we have a nuclear proliferation problem at all?

If McGavick existed, I'd laugh at him.

Bush On Iraq Today

If we don't flail around uselessly, wasting money and lives in a futile struggle against centuries of deep seated religious animosity, terrorists who had nothing to do with Iraq in the first place will win.

I wonder if anyone bothered to catalog all of Bush's turning point assertions, as was done for Tom Friedman.

In News From the Lord

Pat Roberston apparently got a fax from the Deity indicating that I'm dead. My question: could God not provide a date, or is Robertson not telling us because he wants us to suffer the wrath with the drowning and the burbling and the little shrimps going up my nose?

I'll make a note to be scared.

Eternal Return

Matt Yglesias finds an example of it in the rhetoric of Flat-Earther and NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman.

While I'm On the Subject

While I'm on the subject of portentous bunk, I checked out the trailer for the remake of The Omen. I wonder if people working on all these horror remakes (going all the way back to the remake of Psycho) understand what it means to try too hard. Horror and humor are pretty closely related in structure (in one the payoff is a scream; in the other, a laugh). These remakes, as well as a lot of contemporary horror pictures, are like someone who repeats a well-loved joke and then spends the next ten minutes elbowing you in the ribs going "Get it? Get it?"

It's especially dangerous for a film like The Omen to go over the top. The story is at bottom an Idiot Plot. There would be no story if the antagonist (Spoiler alert for people who live in caves or haven't seen the movie poster: the antagonist is the Devil) weren't a total idiot. The Devil doesn't make sensible moves given his goal of keeping Damien Thorn's identity a secret. He lets key figures in his conspiracy continue breathing long enough to spill their guts, and then kills them in ways guaranteed to maximize exposure instead of minimizing it. Even at the end, instead of killing Robert Thorn with an easily arranged plane crash, the Devil has to wait until R.T. has dragged the devil's sprog to a church so that the cops can shoot him, thus fulfilling the poorly known prophecy found in the appendix to the gnostic apocrypha, "And so it shall come to pass, that Thorn the Elder shall take his son unto an unlocked church to pierce him with many piercings. And yea, verily at that time, the constabularies shall follow after him, aiming their guns and gnashing their teeth. And it shall come to pass that they shall warn him with many warnings to lay down his gun so they can quietly hush this up anon, yet Thorn the Elder, well versed in the rules of diplomatic immunity, does prepare to slay the Child Beast but is himself slain anon by many bullets. And there shall be much paperwork and covering up."

That's a direct quote.

Getting back to my original point, and I did have one, The Omen is an idiot plot, and much depends on the audience failing to notice this. Consequently, the filmmaker must get the viewer to identify strongly with the Thorns and their problem--"What would you do if you discovered that your little boy might be the Beast of the Apocalypse?" But it's hard for viewers to identify with characters when the movie keeps pulling the audience to one side and telling them "See how scary this is? See how weird all this is? Isn't that little boy freaky looking? Check out all that CGI slow-motion breaking glass! That just screams scary, doesn't it?" How can the audience reach fear, or forget the flaws in the plot, when the movie keeps reminding them that what they're watching is only a movie? Richard Donner, who directed the original film, understood this, and he worked hard to maintain a feeling of verisimilitude. The makers of the new film, based on the trailer, don't seem to get it. Not that I'll shed a tear. I root for remakes to fail. If enough of them eat it, maybe producers will spend some bucks on something new (preferably by me).

I Can't Wait Until the Da Vinci Code Opens!

Because that will bring me one day closer to its closing. Now that this weak compilation of text-based computer game plots has elbowed its way into the national dialog, I'm now certain I can feel us all getting lamer.

Could the fans of The Da Vinci Code and the fans of the Left Behind books please sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up? Neither of your books is credible! Their plots are silly. Their popularity, and the respect their popularity accords them is further evidence that humanity needs to evolve a better organ for distinguishing shit from shinola. The arguments between you are pointless and they're giving me a fucking headache. You people are worse than trekkies! Yes, trekkies engage in brainless fights over Kirk vs. Picard, but they don't take the fight to "Nightline". The things you're squabbling over don't matter to life as we know it on this planet. You people aren't news. Stop pretending that you are!

Sorry I went off there, gang. It's just that seeing the umpteenth "Da Vinci Code" book-and-soundtrack TV ad (the most impressive story of this era my ass) put me off my feed. There are good books out there, people. Pass the display stands for these bound and wrapped bundles of offal, find these good books, and read them. There are genuine mysteries in the universe--is there life under the ice sheet of Europa, will we be able to employ negative energy to travel faster than light or backward in time one day? Once you start fiddling with these, tales of what Jesus did with whom after he died and what hokey secret code leads to which imaginary relic start to look small and sad and silly.

Things You Can Do With Phone Records

From Josh Marshall:

Isn't this the other shoe dropping?

The piece is written in a roundabout sort of way. But if I understand it, Brian Ross is reporting at ABC news that the US government is tracking the calling patterns of political reporters to further their leak investigations.

If that's true, then I think we can set aside any pretense that administration policy on all manner of electronic surveillance isn't being brought to bear on political opponents, media critics, the press, everybody.

I need a drink.

Holy Joe and the Bloggers of Doom

Majikthise, Atrios, Bullmoose, Kos, and Drum are in a war over Jon Chait's column. The column recommends that the Democrats in Connecticut vote for Lieberman even though he's a terrible senator with whom most of them disagree. Apparently Chait feels this is a way to beat back the angry lefties in the world of blogs who want Holy Joe to sleep with the fishes and to drag the party back to 1972. Not that anyone's asking me, but I don't see how one has anything to do with the other.

What's sinking Joe Lieberman among Democrats isn't his voting record (which looks pretty good, though it seems so out of sync with his public image that I wonder whether the people keeping the tally included votes that don't really mean anything--like voting for a law raising the minimum wage but refusing to vote to end the filibuster on it), or even his bucking the party on the Iraq War (as such). It's that every time the Dems summon up some momentum against a President that pretty much every Democrat, leftist or centrist, dislikes, Lieberman throws himself between the Dems and the President and scolds the Dems for being so mean. It's very deflating to see Lieberman defend Bush on Abu Ghraib, or imply that dissent against the war in Iraq helps the terrorists because it brings down "the only President we've got." It's almost as deflating as Lieberman's chumming it up with Dick Cheney during the Vice-Presidential debate, or (even worse) kissing Bush on the floor of the House before the State of the Union. He makes nice with the other side so often that a lot of us wonder: shit, Joe, why don't you marry them?

Other centrists don't have Lieberman's problems (at least, not to his degree). Maria Cantwell, one of my senators, is up for re-election this year. She's taking some flak over Iraq, and is almost as unbending on the subject as Lieberman is; but Cantwell will get my vote anyway because she picked fights with Bush and Alaska Senator Ted Stevens over oil tankers and ANWAR, fought dirty, and won. There are some on the left who remain pissed and won't volunteer for Cantwell, but they'll come home by the election. (Fear of Ted Stevens's clone, Mike McGavick, will see to that.) I'm to the left of, well, just about everyone really; but Cantwell's my senator for as long as there isn't a more attractive alternative who can win the general election. I can figure that in a fight she'll mostly belt the Republicans, not her own voters.

What's not at stake in the Lieberman election is the question of taking the party back to 1972. I expect that Kos and Atrios, their ostensible liberalism aside, would back just about any Democrat over Holy Joe. Left, right, or mainstream, any Dem who could restrict himself to a firm, cold handshake when meeting the President would be enough. Any Dem who could keep his face off Fox News for a few consecutive days would be enough. Any Dem whose first instinct isn't to attack other Dems would be enough. Ideology isn't the issue here. Joe Lieberman's continued self-aggrandizement at the expense of his supposed friends is.

Senator Lieberman, maybe this experience will teach you something. The next time you feel an impulse to kiss President Bush, make sure it looks like the kiss that Michael gave Fredo.

Oh, and Speaking Of Bombing

Donald Rumsfeld, who bombs for a living, demonstrates how not to handle a heckler.

"Did not!" Rummy? Snappy.

Giggles

John Rogers cuts through all the noise surrounding Stephen Colbert's performance at the correspondent's dinner (the first comedian's performance I've seen at the dinner that was actually worth the bother of watching), to explain what made it a good comedy performance:

In various circumstances as a road comic, I have seen every comic you can imagine, at some point or another, suck it. Hard. Seinfeld, Leno, Belzer, Ellen*, Ray Romano, pick 'em. Sometimes you just don't gel with an audience, but at that point you've been doing it long enough not to suddenly think the five years of good shows were somehow flukes.

But I have seen plenty of people "bomb" who left me breathless with the genius of their writing. Larry David, who a fair number of even the conservative culture mavens love, was notorious for his spellbinding nightclub routines that comics standing in the back of the room marvelled at but audiences hated. Garry Shandling famously worked open-mike nights for something like SEVEN YEARS before he was able to meld his brilliant writing with something audiences could relate to.

If Colbert "bombed", it was because the audience didn't like him. And you know what -- they WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO. We have been treated to toothless feel-good comedy for so long, we have forgotten what the court jester's job was: he was the only guy who could mock the King. And, seeing as we now have a President who acts like a King, it's only fitting that Colbert revive the tradition in its truest form. If I remember correctly, the toady court followers were also fair game for the Jester, and we could hardly call the modern media anything less these days, can we?

He also got into the comic mind in a way that sounds true to me:

I hate to play into the stereotype of all comics being angry, but at the very least we are all in some small way sociopathic. We do not process emotions and emotional context like other people. At the same time some civilized part of me was horrified by the first 9/11 joke I heard, some other part of my brain was impressed by its structure and transgressive nature. I'm not particularly pround of that, but it was as reflexive as a musician hearing a song he hates, but instinctively picking out what key it's in.

Me too. Read the whole post.

Crazy As A Soup Sandwich

Just a quick shout-out to Larry Dahlke (on the blogroll, to your right), who happened upon the comic book version of Harlan Ellison's "Crazy As A Soup Sandwich" and sent it to your friend and humble blogger. Well spotted, ol' buddy, and much appreciated.

Miss Witherspoon

Thanks to some free tickets Seattle Dramatists scored for me, Bitterspice and I saw Christopher Durang's Miss Witherspoon at ACT last night. It was the second preview, so it had a few kinks still. I don't think they're finished tweaking the light cues yet (in the early scenes the lead actress vanished unexpectedly a few times); the wig lines were really obvious; and something about the pace of the final scene seemed rushed. Still, we had a good time (any play that even attempts to juggle the spiritual insights of Christianity, Camus, Hinduism, and Gandalf the Grey(!) has my vote), and it looks like the show will have a successful run. I hope so for ACT's sake. They need the money.

International Workers Day

In honor of both the workers who assembled in Haymarket Square in 1886 and the students who mobilized against their oppressors in Tiananmen Square 103 years later (singing a version of this song as their anthem), I link to Billy Bragg's version of The Internationale

Curbing My Enthusiasm

And with the first selection of the 2006 NFL Draft, the Oakland Raiders select Michael Huff, DS, Texas.

With Leinart still on the board, this was the way we went. It's hard not to feel underwhelmed. A DB has been our first pick in four of the last five years. We also selected a DB in the second round last year and in the third round the year before. It's becoming, I must say, a bit of a fetish with Oakland, and sadly, it's not one that's paid off handsomely on the field. I was hoping for Leinart not only because he's Leinart and should have a great career--especially if he manages to escape the abyss that is the Arizona Cardinals, but also because it would have meant that the Raiders had kicked what looks more and more like a bad habit.

Let's lay things out. It's helpful to have a talented, athletic secondary. There's no question there. But considering the rule changes and the emphasis on enforcing the illegal contact rules, shutdown corners aren't what they once were. The days of Lester Hayes and Michael Haynes (or Deion Sanders, for that matter) are over. Defensively, it's more important now to get a good rush with your front four and force the opposing QB to make bad decisions. (We ought to know. Teams did it to Kerry Collins for two nightmarish years.) This to some degree explains the popularity of two gap defenses, where speedy linebackers shoot the gap a half second faster than a 4-3 DE would.

Consider the 2002 Oakland Raiders, as I like to do when times are hard. Charles Woodson didn't last long that season, breaking his leg against Pittsburgh in Week 2. Philip Buchanon, the Raiders 1st round pick that year, busted out against the Chargers in Week 5. A lot of people saw disaster looming. Beneath Buchanon and Woodson were, well, some guys. We still had Rod Woodson to keep heads together and Tory James was a solid-but-not-spectacular RCB (both, it should be noted came to us as free agents), but perpetual backup Anthony Dorsett lined up on the strong side for most of the year, and our other corners were practice squad guys like Clarence Love. Did disaster happen?

Well, almost. We lost four consecutive games. But we rebounded in Denver and won nine of our next eleven with a beat up secondary. How? Trace Armstrong, Rod Coleman, John Parella, Sam Adams, Bill Romanowski, and Eric Barton. They shut down the run (3rd overall vs. the run), combined for 43 sacks, kept the passer in danger, and had among them four interceptions (the 2005 Raiders, with all those first-day picks in the secondary, had five). True, the offense scored loads of points (which to some degree kept running backs from getting started), but the Raiders defense was able, in 2002, to keep teams like the Steelers from employing their hand-it-to-Bettis-hold-the-ball-for-ten-minutes tactic. Our ability to stop the run with the front seven allowed the safeties and corners to keep the receivers in front of them and watch the QBs eyes. Rod Woodson in particular feasted because of this, intercepting eight passes that year, including a 98-yarder that started us off against Denver during the Monday night game. We seldom had anything to fear from play action. We could run the ball, we could stop the run, and once we discovered that Rich Gannon really could throw the ball sixty times in a game that was it.

Would we have done even better with a healthy C-wood on the field all year? We might have, but as it turned out he wasn't needed. (Indeed, by trying to come back too soon, he was actually a liability in the playoffs.)

Calling the defensive backs on a team by the collective name of secondary is appropriate, not just because they're behind the front seven, but because in relative importance they are, well, secondary. With this year's 7th overall pick, there were no front-seven players worthy of that high a selection, but there was one offensive player who was: Leinart. And QB trumps DB. Don't believe me? Think of it. We lost two first round corners in 2002 and went to the Super Bowl. How close would we have gotten to the big day if Rich Gannon had broken his leg during that game in Pittsburgh? Perhaps two good follow up questions would be, how high a draft pick would we have gotten in 2003, and would Al Davis have spent it on a DB?

Update 4/30: Thanks for the link Raider Take. Here's hoping you're right and Huff makes an impact, but when you brought up the way Roethlisberger slipped past us two years ago, it hurt me. It really hurt me. That guy is playing excellent football and still has lots room to grow. Oh, the pain! The pain of it all!

Someone Broke Into My Car

Actually, broke is a little strong. During last week's car repairs, the repairmen opened the back door to vacuum the interior. They didn't lock it afterwards, and I didn't check. Someone else did. They moved a lot of things around looking for, I guess, my iPod or my in-trunk CD player. Little did they know that the iPod stays with me and I don't have an in-trunk CD player. Well, I guess they know now.

Whoever it was didn't do any damage, so far as I can tell. I wish he would have shut the doors. He could have run my car battery down. Come on, thieves, be kind. Some of us have jobs to drive to.

Remember, you can't rip it off if I can't buy it.

New To the Blogroll

Joe Bob's Week In Review

Tax Day

Today I said goodbye to flipping great wodges of cash--the price I pay for not having a boss. But, as Martin Sheen's character in Wall Street said, money's only something you need if you don't die tomorrow. With Bush in office, the odds of that happening are fairly good.

Muriel Spark Died

Sigh.

Yeesh

Sometimes it bears repeating that the Reverend Moon, who has billions of bucks and more influence on our national discourse than we would like to imagine, is one weird fucking dude.

"The Simpsons" Cures What Ails Me

One of the lessons of Mitch Albom's schmalzy book (and now, schmalzy play is, (drum roll please) "Live every day as if it were your last".

Irritation at the appearance of that old chestnut seized me until I remembered this bit from "The Simpsons" where Homer is going through the steps that will lead him to Successmanship:

Homer: Step One: live every day as if it were your last.

(next scene: Homer sits on the curb, sobbing inconsolably)

Homer: No! I don't want to die! It's not fair! I'm so young! (stops crying, opens book) Step Two...

Ah, Homer Simpson, you've got the cure for the mid-day kitsch-induced blues.

The Phrase Rhymes With Clucking Bell

Had a rougher night than I needed. My windshield wipers conked out on me on the freeway tonight. I was able to limp to an exit, where I spent the next hour waiting for a tow truck. It's a small drag, but a drag nonetheless.

From the Land of Wish and Dream

Someday, the Bull Moose really must visit the planet Earth. In a blog post running down the left for their continued partisan hatred of the President (here is the link to Jon Chait's excellent Case For Bush Hatred), the Moose calls upon the President to do the following when it comes to Iran:

For the sake of the country and the ongoing war on terror, the President should form a genuine government of national unity. A thorough house-cleaning should be followed by appointments of Democrats and Independents for important cabinet and sub-cabinet positions. Far more is at stake here than the fates of political parties - the security of the country is in the balance and it demands credible, bi-partisan leadership.

This is a dangerous world and our enemies will not wait until we put our political house in order. A confrontation with Iraq is not inevitable, but petty and irresponsible partisanship will tell the Iranians that they have nothing to fear from the threats from the U.S. The President should engage and involve and inform the Democratic leadership about any plans about the Iranian threat.

Okay, let's see how many impossible things the Bull Moose believed before breakfast this time.

"The President should form a genuine government of national unity."

At no point has George W. Bush ever shown the slightest interest in national unity. Firing up his political base while alienating the center and left has been his method of governance from the beginning, and, as we've discovered, the only ways Bush ever changes his mind are if a billionaire needs a new stone lion for his villa or if Jack and Rexella Van Impe tell him it'll bring him one step closer to fighting the Dark One in the desert. His idea of comprimise is to say, "Okay, I get what I want, and you get to stand next to me and look happy about it." No Democrat with two good eyes and a pulse would trust George W. Bush enough to form a unity government with him. This doesn't exclude Joe Lieberman, of course.

"A thorough house-cleaning should be followed by appointments of Democrats and Independents for important cabinet and sub-cabinet positions."

Not only would no Democrat consent to form a government with Bush, but Bush would never consent to a political house cleaning. The people who would need to be cleaned out to change the direction of our foreign policy--Rumsfeld, Cheney, et. al.--know where all the bodies are buried. Bush can't afford to alienate them. They're too closely hardwired to the GOP power structure. Besides, Democrats and Independents might ask all kinds of inconvenient questions, and we all know what Bush does to people who do that.

"Far more is at stake here than the fates of political parties - the security of the country is in the balance and it demands credible, bi-partisan leadership."

The security of the country is in the balance? Because Iran managed to employ 180 centrifuges to slightly enrich a quantity of uranium far too small to put together even a tiny nuclear weapon? Wake me when they have 10,000 centrifuges and I might make a note to be scared.

In reality, we could help along our national security a lot more if we spent our energies securing Russia's loosely guarded nuclear arsenal, spending money on port inspections, and making sure no one puts a bullet in our friend, Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf. Not that Bush is doing all that much about any of these things.

As for credible bi-partisan leadership, please spare me. Some people continue to succumb to the myth that there are magical leaders out there who will transform America from a screaming match to a singalong. George Bush tried that, but, like every other "uniter not divider" in history, his idea of unity is that everyone agrees to do whatever George W. Bush wants. Those who don't hate America, don't take its security seriously, are objectively pro-terrorist, or whatever. That held the public imagination for a while, but the smears seem less potent now that we've lost a few thousand troops and the city of New Orleans.

The history of democracy has been the history of one long angry fight about who can do what to whom and under what circumstances. And I like it that way. When I see a group of MPs in some parliament insulting each other and hurling fists, I know that country is okay. What's scary is when the argument stops. Singalongs are bad, bad things. I'm sure that Russian citizens felt a need to brace themselves when, in 1929, all the votes of the Politburo starting coming out unanimous. (Ah, Stalin, the ultimate in unity government.)

A little something about me. I don't even like to feel united with people I agree with. I may go to the protest march to support a cause, but I won't chant the slogans and I won't hold anyone's hand. I'll even go so far as to make sure I'm walking at my own pace, because I don't do lockstep. I reserve the right to conclude, at any time, that anyone is completely full of shit.

Boxers touch gloves before and after the game as a sign of sportsmanship; but during the game, I want haymakers and blood. Members of congress should be the same.

"This is a dangerous world and our enemies will not wait until we put our political house in order."

Actually, Iran will have to wait until they can actually do something with their uranium. In the meantime, we can expect them to release a lot of scary sounding reports in an attempt to expand their influence. Our best response would be to stay cool. Even in our enfeebled state--thanks, George--we're still tougher and more widely admired than the Iranians. They're the molehill; we're the mountain. The only way we can blow this is if we lose our heads and start doing stupid stuff. Will Bush do something stupid in the next three years? Gee, what are the odds?

"A confrontation with Iraq is not inevitable, but petty and irresponsible partisanship will tell the Iranians that they have nothing to fear from the threats from the U.S."

Actually, the lion's share of our military forces being stuck in Iraq tells the Iranians they have nothing to fear from our threats. The Iranian regime surely knows that our military has recruiting problems. They know that their terrain makes it much harder for U.S. troops to invade Iran than it was to invade Iraq. The Iranians know that they can conceal their facilities from air strikes. And they know that any U.S. attack on Iran would drive the rest of the Muslim world insane and jeaprodize U.S. troops still in Iraq. And don't forget how helpful this little dick fight is to the Iranian regime. It busies giddy Iranian minds with a massive foreign quarrel, and it allows the regime to blame all of Iran's problems on the west generally and on the U.S. in particular. How do they know this? TV.

"The President should engage and involve and inform the Democratic leadership about any plans about the Iranian threat."

And when he does, magic pixies will crawl out of my butt.

The Italian Election is frighteningly close but...

...at least it gives me a chance to learn the names of the people involved in Italian politics and what all their abbreviations mean. For the first time my reading of Italian news isn't confined to the entertainment section--which used to be the only place where I knew most of the names and could figure out the meanings of words from context.

Prodi has declared victory. I can only hope he's right and my prediction was wrong.

Update: Interetingly, the legislation Berlusconi passed to help the right wing parties in future elections appears to have backfired. Next time, he might want to consult Tom Delay on rigging elections and gerrymandering districts. I hear the bugman's looking for work.

Bush Has Said There are No Plans To Attack Iran

So I guess we're attacking Iran.

The Leaker

We now know that the leaker who disclosed that Valarie Plame was a CIA agent was the President of the United States. What's next? George W. Bush will, in a prime time news conference, promise to find out who the President of the United States is and punish him to the fullest extent of the law.

Kaboom

I'm sorry to be an agent--albiet a minor one--in spreading this story around, but I thought things like this only happened to Wile E. Coyote and Scratchy.

Another Eager Slave

Let's see. Ted Stevens let Mike McGavick take credit for his withdrawl of a bill allowing huge oil tankers into Puget Sound, even though McGavick had little to do with it. He's now raising bags of money for him. What, I wonder, will the old bridge-to-nowhere sod get for his pains? Washington voters might want to ask.

The Worst Sequels 3: The Dregs of the Dregs

At last this exegesis on bad movies reaches its climax, and, as is usually the case when you've reached the third installment of a series, the worst is yet to come. You can read the previous entries here and here.

So here are the final four:

4. Outlaw of Gor: Jack Palance has frequently crapped bigger than this movie, which tells the story of Tarl Cabot. Cabot has a special power. By his very presence he can induce others to compulsively repeat his name. (Imdb reports that the name Cabot is invoked fifty-five times in the movie's first ten minutes.) Palance plays the high priest Xenos, who poisons geriatrics on behalf of the evil Queen Lara and whose hats are taller and more fashion-forward than those of the Pope. Anyway, Cabot gets caught up in Lara and Xenos's machinations to gain power over this papier-mache empire, and Cabot's forced to wander the desert in a leather thong with his trusty midget friend by his side. Many hinders, buffalo shots, and oiled-up catfights ensue. This film features Watney Smith, the second most grating character in film history.

3. Damien: Omen II: Actually, I should move this one back before both Amityville II and The Exorcist II, but that would involve editing. There is one ground on which I can defend its placement here. This is a sequel that's not only bad on its merits, but it also raises questions that end up spoiling its predecessor. By contrast The Exorcist escaped unscathed and the reputation of The Amityville Horror stands where it always stood. But the plot of Damien: Omen II can be summed up in the form of shampoo instructions: 1) Victim learns Damien is the antichrist 2) Victim tells someone (and enhances credibility by acting like a raving nutjob) 3) Victim gets killed in a bizarre fashion 4) Repeat. I have a huge question for this movie. If Damien's identity as the antichrist is supposed to be this big-ass secret, why are there so many clues lying around for people to find? In this movie, there's this wall supposedly painted in the 13th century that depicts the antichrist at four ages. (People didn't paint in photo-realistic styles in the 13th century, but never mind.) If Satan can sucessfully arrange the deaths of all these people, isn't it within his diabolical power to deface an inconvenient mural? And why is it always necessary for Satan to wait until after people have spread the word about his evil sprog before he kills the poor fools? If Satan knows what they know, why not simply bump them off from the start? Eventually, you start wondering why certain people got an opportunity to spill their guts before they-um-spilled their guts in the first movie as well. It's sad.

2. Batman and Robin: Throw any three random "Batman" comics in a blender and you'll come up with a better story than this one--a mess in which Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy, Bane, and Dr. Joyce Brothers plan to freeze people, poison them, and, oh, who cares? The good news is that George Clooney's career recovered from this. I guess that mask really can be an asset.

1. Superman IV: The Quest for Peace: I said Watley Smith was the second most grating character in movies. The holder of the title is here, in the body of Jon Cryer. His Lenny combines the annoying chattiness of Watley Smith with the superfluity of Jar Jar Binks to create a storm of itchiness unmatched in human experience. And he's not the only bad thing in the movie. Part of the film is occupied with a hostile corporate takeover of The Daily Planet. There's no reason to care about this, because most of action takes place off-stage and Superman can do nothing about it (and if he could, would we really want to watch Superman filing injunctions and arranging poison pills), but it keeps popping up in the movie, insisting on its share of the attention. The nuclear disarmament story, which starts with a letter from a cute child (not the slightest bit maniuplative), seems like a remarkably unilateral decision for an alien to make. Wouldn't the nations of the world start placing their supplies of kryptonite around key nuclear facilities? While I can see Superman speaking out on the subject or exercising moral leadership, I can't figure him putting all the world's nuclear weapons in a big bag and throwing them at the sun. What seems even less likely is that Lex Luthor would take the opportunity to create a dimwitted Superman clone (who, curiously, did not turn out to be Bizarro) as part of a scheme to re-arm the world. (Unless Superman got rid of all the world's uranium and tritium, the world could re-arm on its own, but, well, never mind.) As clones often do, this one rebels against his master and fights Superman in front of unconvincing rear-projection images. Eventually, Superman defeats Nuclear Man by locking him in an elevator (perhaps the least interesting means of victory ever conceived in a comic book franchise.) The movie hurts, hurts, hurts. I hate every frame of it. I hate, hate, hate, hate it.

I'm glad I got all that off my chest. I feel better. I feel...like...saying...Cabot, hey Cabot, what's going on Cabot? Cabot, speak to me. Cabot. Cabot. Why aren't you saying anything Cabot? Cabot. Cabot

V and Totalitarianism

In reading the discussion of the movie V for Vendetta I found a thread in the argument over its merits, or lack thereof, that I wanted to linger over for a moment. Those who disliked the film maintain that it paints an inaccurate portrait of totalitarian societies. They claim that such societies are animated less by the personalities at the top than by the behavior of the bureaucracies underneath. A sample from The American Prospect

Naturally, his [V's] society’s sickness emerges from a single source -- the film unravels to reveal a sleek and tidy conspiracy. This is gratifying but also deeply off as a portrait of totalitarian societies, which are more often characterized by their interlocking weird bureaucracies, half-truths, and quixotic and opaque decision-making processes than a coherent plan created by one cabal of evildoers.

While it is true that totalitarian states tend to build large bureaucracies to carry out policy, and that these bureaucracies try to develop policies that please their political masters, it seems to me that the character of these regimes, and their worst crimes reflect more the interests of those at the top than those of the mid-level apparatus. The bureaucracy in Stalinist Russia, for example, did not simply run on its own, crushing Kulaks and conducting midnight arrests and political murders; it did those things because Stalin wished those things done. The population lived in fear of the bureaucracy, but the bureaucracy lived in fear of Stalin, Beria, and the secret police. According to Robert Service's biography of Stalin, survival in the bureaucracy, or in the Communist Party, required a close network of friends who could keep you safe, and the skill of knowing when and how to disassociate yourself from that network if it seemed likely that Stalin's ax would fall on it (which it sometimes did for no other reason than to demonstrate Stalin's power). The whole point of Stalinism was to destroy all competing centers of power in the country (the Communist Party included) and to assure that the only one left, the bureaucracy, was firmly in the control of Stalin.

Indeed, sometimes the regime slips right past the bureaucracy in its attempt to reconstruct society. The Cultural Revolution was not, primarily, conducted by bureaucrats. The bureaucrats were among those pushing Mao to the sidelines of power (after the catastrophic failures of the Great Leap Forward). Mao by-passed them with an appeal to the Red Guards to attack intellectuals, teachers, artists, and educated types generally (including any bureaucrats, military, or civllian law enforcement officials who stood against him). This was the Cultural Revolution, orchestrated by a cabal of vicious people who had a more or less coherent plan. Mao may not have orchestrated every action of every Red Guard organization, but without Mao's direction, the Red Guards would never have done what they did.

Now I should say that totalitarian societies that survive these sorts of upheavals with their institutions intact do tend to become a kind of dictatorship of the bureaucracy, if for no other reason than large numbers of politically active people outside bureaucratic institutions have been either killed or reduced to a state where it's unfair to expect much political bravery from them. The leadership of such nations, who were often either victims or potential victims of the previous dictator, usually try to dismantle the personality cults that enabled their predecessor to rule by fiat and restore their nation to a healthier state (without, of course, legalizing opposition political parties which might someday prove threatening to their own power and the stability of the regime). This, however, is a development that takes a long time (autocrats are amazingly long lived figures, for the most part), and the transition can be very hard to make. Deng Xiopeng navigated his way through China's transition. Khrushchev, after Stalin's death, wasn't as lucky with Russia's.

If V for Vendetta has a failing, it is not in its depiction of what looked like a very young, personality-cult-centered totalitarian regime. It was that the movie fails to acknowledge that such regimes, violent and cruel as they are, do represent the feelings of a sizeable percentage of their populations. They depend on the willingness, even eagerness, of people to turn in their neighbors and surrender their freedoms for a sense of security. Such people usually share their leaders' hatred of whatever groups are meant to be oppressed, and they generally see their victims' ruin as a means of bringing them closer to happiness. When I saw all those demonstrators in V masks who'd come to watch Parliament explode, I wondered where the counter-demonstrators were. We like to think that when a regime's lies are exposed that everyone will simply turn against it out of reflex. It's a lovely fantasy, and I thank the Wachowski brothers for making me believe it; but ultimately they underestimate the ability of people to rationalize the behavior of those they prefer to support.

Yes, But Is It Art?

The artist who made the Britney Spears statue is getting a lot of hate mail from the pro-choice and anti-choice activists over the depiction. But let's look at it as a piece of art. I'm only judging it from the photograph and I'm not a credentialed art critic, but the statue is both tacky and unintentionally comical.

But let's hear from the artist:

"This is a new take on pro-life. Pro-lifers normally promote bloody images of abortion. This is the image of birth," Daniel Edwards said of his work, to be unveiled at a Brooklyn gallery in April, months after Edwards' sculpture of Ted Williams severed head stirred up an artistic storm.
[...]

"I admire her. This is an idealized figure," he said. "Everyone is coming at me with anger and venom, but I depicted her as she has depicted herself - seductively. Suddenly, she's a mom."

His aim, said the son of a mother who gave birth to him when she was 17, was to stir up debate about a difficult topic that "is greater than the issues presented by either pro-life and pro-choice advocates."

Actually, there was no suddenly about it. Spears was pregnant for the usual amount of time.It doesn't strike me as an image of birth, because from what I know of the procedure, women don't give birth in the doggie-style position (36 hours in that pose would put a hell of a strain on the back). As for the "idealized...seductive" aspects, the choice of white clay allows the statue to echo images of Greek classic sculpture (a faint echo, but it is there, and since the Greeks sculpted idealized figures...well...okay); but the bearskin rug was a cliche when Burt Reynolds posed nude on one in the 1970s. No one has thought of the bearskin rug as a genuinely sexy piece of decor for several decades (with the possible exception of Ted Nugent, but let's leave his proclivities out of this). The statue seems like something a pregnancy fetishist would have in his home, if he lacked imagination.

Since the image doesn't read like genuine sexuality and doesn't read like a woman in birth (crowning head notwithstanding), what is it? I'm tempted to go with "some kind of joke"--a humorous riff perhaps on Britney Spears's hackneyed takes on sexuality and pregnancy, a satirical broadside at the various ways we objectify and fetishize the female form. I'd like to think that was what was going through the artist's head, but I don't feel that generous today. It's kitsch: motherhood kitsch, sexual kitsch. It simultaneously celebrates the two things that dull, unthinking men think that women are good for. It's crude, tasteless, chauvinistic, and has nothing of value to contribute to the debate the artist supposedly wishes to incite.

What is left is art, there's no question of that.

Weird

Apparently, this East Indian Muslim said the word "talaq" three times while asleep. According to the local clerics, that means he's officially divorced his wife. I don't really need to say much, except that this is the most bizarre bit:

The religious leaders said that before remarrying, the couple would have to be apart for at least 100 days and that the wife, Sohela, would also have to spend a night with another man and then be divorced by him.
PTI reported that the couple has been ostracized because of their refusal to abide by the decision of the village leaders.

Who made this rule? Some ancient cleric who saw in accidental divorce a shot at some sport nookie? I can picture the conversation. Cleric knocks on the door: "A man who wants me to score with his wife says talaq." "Talaq?" "What?" "Talaq?" "What?" "Talaq!?!" "Done and done, sir. Come with me, darlin'. You can have her back in the summer."

I guess this shows that it's not always a good thing when religious authorities get to decide who's married and who isn't.

V for Vendetta

I've been dumping on a lot of movies lately, and as many of you know, I hate a lot of things. But V for Vendetta compels me to positivity. I loved this picture. It's the best big budget film I've seen since Batman Begins, and my favorite of all Wachowski brothers movies (yes, I'm including The Matrix).

I won't reveal much story because I really want you to check it out if you haven't already. Those who know me can call me afterwards. Those who don't can geek out with me in the comments section. And those who know me and live in the same area I do should know that I am definitely up for seeing this picture again.

The Raiders Sign Aaron Brooks

The Raiders signed QB Aaron Brooks today. I like the move. He has mobility, a live arm, and some leadership qualities. Is Brooks the answer the Raiders are looking for? I don't know. But he should be fun to watch, and, because they're both scramblers, he'll be a big help if the Raiders choose to bring in and develop Vince Young.

The Next Ten Worst Sequels in Movie History

Okay, recapping 25-15

25. Godfather III
24. Jaws 2
23. Nighmare on Elm Street 2
22. Amityville II
21. Hello Mary Lou, Prom Night II
20. Star Trek V
19. Terminator 3
18. Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
17. The Karate Kid III
16. The Exorcist II: The Heretic
15. The Cave Dwellers

Now to continue:

14. Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. Okay, the Ewan McGregor scenes were okay, and everyone loves to see Christopher Lee; but long term exposure to the Anakin/Amidala "I love you yet I cannot love you plot" has been known to kill housecats and small dogs. Check out the scene where Amidala's top gets ripped in half so that she can sport a Britney Spears-like look. That is the second worst skin-exposure-during-battle moment in film history. The worst? When the bad guy punches the hero of Future War in the face, and KNOCKS OFF HIS SHIRT!

13. Batman Forever. The sequel to this one is coming. Trust me. But this film hurt me. Susan Sontag defined camp as failed seriousness. What do you call failed camp? A film directed by Joel Schumacher. Taking the terminally, tragically divided Harvey Dent/Two-Face and transforming him into a generic psychotic thug is a deep and terrible crime against Batman. Further, the movie does nothing worthwhile with Chris O'Donnell. It's loud and garish, but dull. I ended up turning it off before I could get through it, finally catching the end several months later on cable. A big letdown.

12. Jurassic Park 2. I've never made it all the way to the end of this one. I recall a lot of pseudoscientific rigamarole between Jeff Goldblum and Julianne Moore, and a googleplex of stock disaster movie characters parading by; but after a while I turned away from the movie and looked outside because at least outside things, however mundane, were happening. I saw a man dragging his garbage to the trash and I ENVIED HIM. Piece of Crap.

11. The Mangler 2 This one I haven't seen, but when the director of the movie sinks to writing poorly edited third person defenses of the film in the imdb comments section, you have to know you're in for far more shit than shinola. A little tip, Mr. Wright: when Michael Bay defends his crap on imdb comments, he employs an alias. It doesn't stop people from making fun of him, but it gives people slightly less to make fun of.

10. Bad Boys 2. Some of my memories of this film get mixed in with the original Bad Boys, which contained similar footage of Will Smith running around with his shirt open or off while bathed in saturated yellow hues. (I suppose Michael Bay used the same lighting in a milk commercial or something and just kind of stuck with the style.) Most hateful scenes: the one where the two Bad Boys intimiate the prom date of one of their daughters (they pull guns on him); the gratuitious speedboat chase; and the Hummer crushing the shanty-town scene (people do live in those places, Mr. Bay). I'll say this for Michael Bay, the man can aim a camera. But his films seem to actively hate human beings so much that I really don't give a shit.

9. Under Seige 2. Yes, I know, the originial Under Seige was nothing special either. But Tommy Lee Jones gave a wonderful over-the-top performance as the villain in that one, and Erika Eleniak was easy on the eyes. Its success, sadly, made the sequel inevitable, so we got this piece of crap. Eric Bogosian is the baddie in this movie, and while I really like Eric Bogosian, I ended up feeling sorry for him. Was he thinking, as he read his crummy dialog, that given ten minutes with a laptop he could spin something much richer and more interesting. (Or maybe he was just thinking about the nice house this movie would buy, but we'll get to Michael Caine in Jaws the Revenge shortly.) Steven Seagal beats up a bunch of people on a train, then stops Eric Bogosian from using some satellites to do something mean to somebody. There's your fucking plot summary. Next film.

8. Halloween 5. Or was it 4? They run together after a while. The original Halloween was a touchstone in horror film history, like The Exorcist, Psycho, The Shining, or the first Hammer Horror Dracula. Done fast, cheap, and scary as hell, the Carpenter redefined the genre for the next twenty years. Unfortunately, it also provided commerical justification for this piece of crap. Michael Meyers escapes again and goes off on yet another rampage while Donald Pleasance (between this movie and L'uomo Puma, I'm gussing Pleasance had many, many college educations to pay for) fights to protect a girl with psychic powers who can see into Mike Meyers's mind, or something like that. In the end, Michael Meyers is trapped and once again defeated. Or is he?

7. The Final Conflict. Hey, I'm a big Sam Neill fan. From Reilly: Ace of Spies to The Piano, the guy really is superb, and he should be much more famous than he actually is. James Mason must have spotted the talent in him, because he recommended that Neill play Damien Thorn in the final (uh-huh) chapter of the Omen Trilogy. Neill is okay in the flick, but, oh, Roger Ebert says it best: "In addition to its opening sequence, THE FINAL CONFLICT has one other great scene involving a fox hunt and a plot by the priests of the Italian monastery to lure Damien away from the hunt and kill him. This scene is wonderfully staged and edited. But the movie is otherwise a growing disappointment, as we realize that the apocalyptic confrontation between the forces of good and evil is being reduced to a bunch of guys with Italian accents running around trying to stab Damien in the back." As with most other religious expressions, this film is probably best admired for its music. Everything else about it is pure bullflop.

6. Return to the Blue Lagoon. Okay, remember the original couple from The Blue Lagoon? Apparently, they died on their way back to civilization, but their child lived to be picked up by a passing ship. Sadly, this ship later starts to suffer from the plague, so to save the child, this woman gets on a lifeboat with her adopted child and her natural son and floats back to, BOING, the same island. This is a stroke of luck, because the previous tenants left their infrastructure behind. (I'd have broken it down to build a better raft, but that's why I'm alive and they're dead, I guess.) The mother then drops dead so that the way is clear for the two children to develop into adolesence, discover "bumps" (sorry, I flashed to that Dr. Who parody where the Master, played by the marvelous Jonathan Pryce, explains that his new breasts are, in fact, Dallek bumps, which can detect energy transmissions and...everything.), and otherwise follow the plot of the original film. A line from the MSTified version of Cave Dwellers comes to mind when I think of how they cast this film: "If you can look bored and speak haltingly, you're in."

5. Jaws the Revenge. Yes, this time it was personal, but not in the way the blurb writer meant. I hated this movie, and if I ever get my hands on the sonofabitch who greenlighted it, I'll... Okay, trip this. Remember the shark that Sheriff Brodie blew up in the first Jaws picture? Well, aparently that shark, or a relative of that shark, or a clone of that shark, or a shark who went to middle school with that shark, took offense and decided to hunt down the entire Brodie family. (Not that this involves a lot of hunting. There are only two sons and they both live on coasts. Now, if this fucking shark wanted to impress me, he'd have munched on Sheriff Brodie's shitball fundamentalist cousin in Nebraska.) Killing the first son is easy. He's local, and works on a boat. After that, though, the shark has to get the other son and Mrs. Brodie. How does the shark know where the other Brodie son lives? Bet you'll never guess. Go ahead. Try. Give up? Mrs. Brodie gets on a plane after her son's funeral and flies down to the Carribean, and the shark follows her! Evidently this shark, though bloodthirsty and bent on revenge, remains capable of exploiting his many connections with the upper echelons of the airline industry. Anyway, the shark starts harassing Mrs. Brodie's son, which makes it slightly harder for a local pilot (Michael Caine) to put the moves on her. Eventually, to prevent further death, Mrs. Brodie goes out to sea to sacrifice herself while having flashbacks to events in Jaws that she wasn't around to see. Caine and Brodie's kid fly out to rescue her, crash, but end up getting into the boat, shark notwithstanding. Then some random things happen that end with the shark impaling himself on the prow of the boat, roaring his death agony(!) At the end, the Michael Caine character threatens to tell another story, and everyone moves, leaving no forwarding address.

Why I'm Jaded About 2006

I'm sure I've brought up many of my reasons for looking at the 2006 elections pessimistically, but Kos wraps them up in a neat little package.

It's Contagious

Three reasons I'd like to visit Italy:

1) I can kinda get by in the language.

2) The culture, the history, the food. (Sort of a 2a, 2b, and 2c there)

3) They can't give me too much shit when they have a leader like this:

In a campaign that has largely avoided pressing issues, Berlusconi managed to win what amounted to an endorsement from President Bush and a rare opportunity to speak before the U.S. Congress early this month. Although Bush is unpopular in Italy, Berlusconi has used his friendship with the president to prove his importance on the world stage.

And many Italians buy it. They laugh at him, or roll their eyes, but they also, begrudgingly or not, admire his successes. He has managed to portray his many legal troubles, including calls Friday for yet another indictment, as a plot by communist judges and prosecutors out to get him. Even his embarrassing comments he later blames on leftist journalists out to get him.

"He's a megalomaniac," said supporter Giuliano Ferrara, editor of the Il Foglio newspaper, which is partly owned by the Berlusconi empire. "But he's also a great victimist. He knows how to act like a victim."

Berlusconi, whose hair seems to grow thicker and darker by the day, has acknowledged having face-lifts. A short man pushing 70, he often wears makeup and heels and sports a George Hamilton tan. He is known for making poor-taste jokes that often insult or embarrass world leaders and for grabbing headlines with comments such as saying he would abstain from sex until the election and promising to sail to Tahiti if he lost. A former cruise ship singer married to an ex-actress, he plans to release a new CD of his songs ahead of the election.

"I am the Jesus Christ of politics," he told supporters over a dinner late last month.

"I am a patient victim, I put up with everyone, I sacrifice myself for everyone."

And a few days before that, on a TV talk show: "We have worked a lot. Only Napoleon did more than me — but I am certainly taller than him."

Actually, the sailing to Tahiti thing sounds like win-win to me. But Italian politics sounds awfully American right now. (Right down to that Tahiti thing. Bush made a similar remark back in 2000.) A rich guy with no real thoughts runs on the I'm-With-Stupid ticket, achieves power, then spends all his time figuring out how best to remain in power, building a personality cult that, while not unversally effective, works for people dumb enough to fall for his okeydoke. My guess: Berlusconi will slither back into office again, allowing Italy to continue as a kleptocracy, just like us.

Bushism. Think of it as the political bird flu.

Silliest. Shooting. Ever.

Cyborg 2. Can't stop laughing. Just click the link.

Preach on, Brother Digby

I can't improve on this post from Digby demolishing the "knee-jerk left's" supposed hostility to religious Democrats. I volunteered for John Kerry and Al Gore, and I voted twice for Clinton. For Christmas, I bought my dad Jimmy Carter's most recent book, which we both like a lot. In the '88 primary, I pushed my mom to caucus for the Rev. Jesse Jackson. Hell, I was even there for Mondale--the son of a preacher man. Where were the rest of you?

I've always thought the crap that we freethinkers get from people like Amy Sullivan, implying that we somehow intimidate Democratic presidential candidates into hiding their religious faith, was pure bunk. The freethinking left just doesn't have the numbers to intimidate any but the most enfeebled candidate, and over the years we've happily tossed votes to, gee, thousands of overtly religious candidates at all levels of government. (It's that or don't vote.) Much of the squeamishness some Democratic candidates have shown about discussing their religion stems less, I think, from fear of nonbelievers than it does from simple good manners. When I was a lad, not so very long ago, I was taught that well brought-up people didn't air their religious opinions among strangers. Such discussions, my parents said, made for itchy, brittle evenings. It's a pity this standard of etiquette has fallen on such hard times. But I don't think for a minute that John Kerry seemed uncomfortable with public piety because he feared anyone or wanted to hide his Catholicism; it was because his mom and dad raised him right. I appreciated his reticence because it recalled better times, when the winners of Presidential elections actually became President. (Ms. Vowell, that joke of yours is gold, pure gold!)

Manners aside, all religions in this country may be equal, but some are more equal than others in the public square. White evangelicals and fundamentalists have been bullying their way onto the airwaves and into political parties for the last hundred years. There has been little to stop them, of course. America has been white Protestant-friendly since, well, always really. But it wasn't that long ago that Catholics couldn't join country clubs in this country. The KKK had, and may still have for all I know, Catholics on their enemies list. Mitt Romney, a Mormon, does nothing to hide his Mormonism; but he seems every bit as reticent to talk about his faith as John Kerry was to talk about his. (The Christian Right doesn't like the Mormons, as a rule, and Romney needs their support in '08.) When Joe Lieberman was running for the VP spot on Gore's ticket, pundits asked whether people would vote for a ticket with a devout Orthodox Jew on it. My response: not if that's the way he's going to debate Dick Cheney. And somehow I don't think America would feel quite so comfortable with out-and-proud Buddhists, Hindus, or Muslims. (Does X take orders from Osama Bin Laden? What if Y reaches enlightenment just as the North Koreans launch their missiles? We put these questions to James Dobson, Pat Robertson, and Jerry Falwell tonight Hardball.) Many people who believe in minority religious faiths would have good reason to very twitchy talking about their faith in during an election campaign for fear of electoral failure, scorn, ridicule, and physical danger.

And as for atheists, well, George H.W. Bush's quote says it all:

I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.

A very specific God. If Amy Sullivan wants to find out who has been making it hard for people of all religions--or no religion--to rub shoulders comfortably, she might want to recall the words of her Lord in Matthew 7:3: "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?"

The Answers To Questions Nobody Asked

I don't know how big a movement it is, but it appears that a growing number of pharmacists want the right to refuse to serve patients whose prescriptions conflict with their religious beliefs.

"We are not dispensing machines," Rod Shafer, executive director of the Washington State Pharmacy Association, said, "We are professionals who have as many rights as anybody else."

No, they're not machines, but by refusing to provide medicines to people who legitimately need them, it seems to me that they're behaving unprofessionally. Maybe it's part of our pundit-infused culture, but we have a lot of people walking the Earth assuming that the demand for their opinions is brisker than it really is. (At this point, your friend and humble blogger eyes himself uncomfortably.) A pharmacist is free to publish his opinions about birth control or biotechnology or physician-assisted suicide in any newspaper, magazine, or bathroom wall that will accept them. If he feels so conflicted about what he's doing that he's uncomfortable in the job, this signals a moment for a career change. The clergy, I hear, takes people who enjoy dispensing religious advice.

Imagine if other professions started pulling this crap. Suppose you go to the drug store to pick up some cold medicine and a pack of condoms, but the only cashier on duty, a Christian Scientist, refuses to ring up either? Or how about a waiter at a restaurant who refuses to serve you a glass of wine or Coca-Cola because he's a Mormon? We could run things that way, I guess, but it would make life a much bigger pain in the neck than it really needs to be, and could prompt a good deal more religious resentment than a healthy society wants.

I don't deny that many people feel they have religious responsibilities, but they also have the duties associated with their jobs. If the devout find that their religious duties conflict with their work, they should seek what they regard as a more righteous way of turning a buck.

Declensions of Suck

Larry asks a simple but wonderfully complicated question. Why must people suck? I don't have an answer, but it might help things along if we break this question down, teasing out the variations of suckitude that permeate our species. After 2.3 million years of wandering around and asking each other for lettuce, we've come up with many varieties.

Epic Historical Sucking: Leading lights include Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Milosevic, Torquemada, Nero, Caligula, Ivan the Terrible, Gilles De Rais, Countess Bathory, Vlad Tepesh, and many many more. Those who suck on this level share a number of nasty traits. They are utterly ruthless, see no value in the lives of others, and enjoy playing out their sadistic fantasies. Most of them also express absolutist sentiments about right and wrong, and most feel a need to surround themselves with an aggressive personality cult that raises them to the level of godhood. Will George W. Bush, who displays most of these traits, rise to this level of suckitude? We must wait and see.

The Mediocre: Examples include Michael Bolton, Christopher Cross, Kenny G, Kerry Collins (we've released him at last!), David Brenner, Aaron Spelling, Glen Larson, Bill Frist, and many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many more. This is a large, but not the largest, category of suck, involving those who have reached a position of success in their field that their talents don't warrant. I'd hoped that George W. Bush would stay in this category, but he's much more ambitious than he ever lets on. If these people were less successful at eating up resources that could otherwise nourish the more talented, people might resent them less.

The Lazy: These people do the absolute minimum necessary to get by in life, which wouldn't be so bad if they didn't often inhabit positions that can do us damage. Anyone, in any profession, can suck this way, which is really bad if you need new spark plugs in your car, new plumbing in your house, a good defense in a lawsuit, or a competent heart valve replacement. The masters of the half-assed job, the Lazy are ubiquitous.

The Spineless: Relatives of the lazy, these people always flinch at the first sign of danger. While this is sometimes a useful quality (A spineless Hitler would have been a lot easier to manage--"I want to kill the Jews and enslave the Russians, but, um, that's just me. What does everyone else think?"), it more often leads to disaster (the Democratic Party). The worst of the spineless encourage others to be brave on their behalf. I'm looking at you, Jonah Goldberg.

The Lickspittles: Often, those who are mediocre become notable for it by this route. These people are the Rosencranzes and Gildensterns of the world--slick, servile little friends to anyone who can do them the slightest favor. They are untrustworthy largely because, even if you're in the position to grant them favors, someone else is always in a position to grant more. Elizabth Bumiller is a lickspittle, as is Chris Matthews.

The Pious: Those who imagine themselves as on the side of that which is pure and good, while imagining that all others are degraded and evil. This kind of suckiness crossses all ideological lines, though it tends to be strongest wherever a clergyman is present. The pious can rationalize any awful deed they commit by invoking their piety. They're exhausting to deal with.

The Mingy: Those who delight in putting others through petty torments. Tall people who will seek out a short person in a movie theater and sit in front of them, hackers who write viruses for computers, urinators who piss on toilet seats, these people seek the attention of their fellow humans by giving them a small slice of hell. In countries ruled by people who suck on an Epic Historical level, the Mingy are the bureaucrats who take special delight in stamping DENIED on forms. In the corporate world, they're the people who haul you into their offices whenever you're a minute overdue from a bathroom break.

The Violent: Self explanitory. This applies both to physical violence and the crippling emotional violence common among certain cliques of teenaged girls.

The Duplicitous: Again self-explanitory. In the movie Excalibur, Merlin says that truth is the most important value for a knight, because every time a lie goes unchallenged, part of the world dies. That's more or less right. In our current politics, that part of the world is Iraq.

Now, for extra credit, class, match each declension of suck to its corresponding circle in Dante's Inferno.

Re: Impeachment

I've been listening to the debate about impeachment between Lewis Lapham and Harold Meyerson. While I see that there are enormous practical problems with it (President Cheney? President Hastert? How to get past a Republican congress? How to get 2/3 in the Senate), I still see it as something the Democrats ought to pursue. It may not confer any advantages on the Democrats for '06 or '08, but that's beside the point. The point to me is that, since High Crimes and Misdemeanors aren't spelled out in the Constitution, what we and future generations have to go on is precedent--how the statement has historically been interpreted to decide what is impeachable and what is not. It would be sad indeed, if future Americans were to look back and decide that lying a nation into war, torture, kidnapping, domestic spying, defiying the legislative and judicial branches, and degrading the checks and balances meant to secure the republic were unworthy of impeachment, while lying in a deposition about a blowjob or leaping into a congressionally set impeachment trap merited trial in the Senate.

UPDATE: Actually, Congress, not just congressional Democrats, should pursue the matter. There must be one or two Republicans in Washington who have enough dignity and self respect left to resent all the lying, all the stonewalling, all the criminal assaults on our liberty. Must be? Well, probably not. But it would be nice to think there are.

Goodbye, Collins

The Raiders cut Kerry Collins this evening to free cap space. I'd expect Collins to turn up in Baltimore, where his former mentor, Jim Fassel, is the offensive coordinator. It's too bad Collins never found a way to ressurrect his career in Oakland the way Rich Gannon did. He seemed like a decent guy, but we can't be too sentimental about a quarterback with a 7-21 record.

So the Raiders move on. To where? It's anyone's guess. If the CBA isn't extended tonight, free agency is going to be tough for everyone. Chad Pennington is out of the picture, and my guess is that Miami will make a stronger play for Drew Brees than we will. Daunte Culpepper is still a possibility, but Tui or Walter would have to start the first few games of the season for him at the very least. Or it could be that the Raiders make a play for one of the top three quarterbacks on the board in the draft. Who knows?

Still, the Raiders need a fresh start, and so does Collins. It's for the best.

UPDATE: Collins gets a reprieve. Boy I'm sick of being jerked around on this.

Are You Threatening Me? You Do Not Want to Face The Wrath of My Bunghole!

Neuropolitics.org has a survey up that seeks to discover the psychological profiles of liberals and conservatives. I took the quiz, and here's my profile:

Your responses are consistent with the following attributes: You have a lower propensity for large-group social bonding than most people. Higher involvement of your olfactory system in your relationships. You have a probable elevation in your dopaminergic activation system. Possible reduction in serotonergic activity and a corresponding reduction in dominance-seeking behaviors. Your right prefrontal cortex is more involved in your political decision-making than your left. Indicators of enhanced right prefrontal and bilateral temporal activity in humor detection. Prefrontal cortical regions are facilitating greater than average behavioral inhibition. Color preferences may indicate an enhanced dopamine level in your visual cortex. Responses point to a probable increase in activity in the right anterior cingulate and amygdala. You have a higher tolerance for ambiguity in your thinking styles, and a greater inhibition of your left inferior parietal cortex. Your responses indicated a tendency to classify facial expressions as more threatening, and an elevation in activity in your right amygdala. Overall, your cognitive style is shifted more towards your right hemisphere.

Okay, a lot of the neurophysical lingo lost me, but I do find it interesting that I see most facial expressions as threatening. Maybe that's why I always loved the Cornholio character on "Beavis and Butthead". IN MY COUNTRY WE HAVE BUT ONE BUNGHOLE! ARE YOU THEATENING ME? THE STREETS WILL FLOW WITH THE BLOOD OF THE NONBELIEVERS!

Sorry.

Neuropolitics.org also discuss their survey data in this article. I think their discussion is based on a larger and more extensive survey than the online version. (Either that or I accidentally skipped questions.) Anyway, it more or less matches my experience. I do prefer cats to dogs. I'm very territorial but despise heirarchies (which is why I put up with all the crap involved in being self-employed). I oppose great concentrations of wealth. I never participated in high school team sports, and I've always been deeply introverted. I have a general preference for more saturated colors, though my favorite color is the color of Johnny Cash and the Oakland Raiders--black.

The Twenty-Five Worst Sequels In Movie History (Well, Ten of them anyway)

Entertainment Weekly put up their list, which to the best of my knowledge is not available on-line (sigh). Here's mine:

25. The Godfather Part III. Who'd have thought the Corleone family could be so dull? I tried three times to make it through this movie before I gave up.

24. Jaws 2. The other Jawses will be along shortly, and this one is as low on the list as it is only because it's hard to remember any of the characters in it. (Spoiler: The shark eats a lot of them.)

23. A Nightmare on Elm Street 2. This movie I remember mainly because they showed it at Tracy Empey's birthday party in 1986--the first birthday party I was ever invited to. (I also had a bit of a crush on Ms. Empey. She looked great in that Tzeitel costume in Fiddler.) This movie was an okay bit of amusement at the party, largely because we were encouraged to mock the proceedings as they unfolded on-screen. We formed sort of an impromptu MST3K, saying things like "When she said 'slip me your pickle, she didn't mean that.'" (Those who've seen the movie know which shot I'm talking about.) Fundamentally, the movie is just more cheesy than it is scary.

22. Amityville II: The Possession. No one has ever hated anything as much as I hated this movie. The only reason it's not higher on the list is that a higher position might encourage people to watch this miserable, steaming pile of offal. I usually step off when I see the opening credits, but sometimes I make it all the way to the casual incest scene. (The older brother asks his younger sister to take her clothes off so that he can snap photos of her and SHE JUST DOES IT?!? This family was diseased before it was possessed.) The movie manages the amazing trick of being both offensive and dull.

21. Hello, Mary Lou. Prom Night II. Less offensive than Amityville, but just as boring. I only saw it because they were running it before The Shining on a Halloween night some years back. It's basically a warmed over Exorcist plot (a trait it shares with Amityville II, come to think of it) where lots of thirty-year old teenagers get naked and die in the most boring ways.

20. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. While it is true that Generations, Insurrection, and Nemesis were all pretty mediocre films (note to Paramount: forget the whole even/odd thing. One word titles just aren't lucky for this franchise), this one is the bad one everyone remembers and the reason why Dennis Miller's "Star Trek VI: The Apology" joke spread so far and wide. Nimoy says he warned Shatner during pre-production that the story was bad, but Shatner, in perhaps the world's first George W. Bush imitation, ploughed ahead, assuring everyone that it was going to work. Well it didn't. And the lousy special effects, forced by the rushed production schedule, failed to make the story look better than it was. Ugly.

19. Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. A great moment in The Princess Bride is when the kid, hearing that the hero is dead and that the evil Prince is going to live, cries, "Jesus, Grandpa, what did you read me this thing for?" I felt the same way at the end of Terminator 3. This movie did not seem to appreciate that in Terminator 2 the stakes changed. We were no longer interested so much in whether John Connor died. We were interested in whether we were going to die. Once this movie tells me that John Connor and his girlfriend get to live while my future involves being launched into the stratosphere and spread over a wide area, I'm sorry but I really can't express glee. And the future's not even so great for John Connor. He and the rest of humanity get to fight an endless war against an implacable computerized enemy. If that's what survival is all about, who needs it? I don't mind depressing cinema. We're all headed for a pretty ugly end some way or other and it's worth some thinking about. But movie romances don't lend themselves to those kinds of thoughts. It's like ending a fairy tale by saying, "And then the black knight killed Galahad, raped the virtuous Maid Enyde, and drove her into a life of degradation, alcoholism and prostitution. She died, naked and filthy, in hovel, rotten with syphillis and choking on her own vomit. Sweet dreams." Yeah, thanks Arnold.

18. Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Nothing of any importance really happens in this movie. None of the characters arouse more than a flicker of interest, and every time one theatens to do so, Jar Jar Binks jumps into upstage them. Now I'd have tolerated Jar Jar's presence if he'd been either narratively important or remotely competent. He was neither, so I wanted him to die in a messy accident.

17. The Karate Kid III. During the first Karate Kid movie, I'm sure all Mr. Miyagi figured was that he'd teach this dumb Jersey kid a few moves and get some household chores done in exchange. Okay, maybe a friendship would develop. Then the kid would go out into the world, maybe dropping Miyagi a postcard or e-mail now and then. A wedding invitation or godfathership was not out of the question. A life sentence of rescuing Daniel Laruso from a never-ending series of contrived problems with bullies probably never occurred to Miyagi. Or us. And they don't get more contrived than they do here. See, the guy who ran the evil dojo whose students lost in the tournament to Daniel in the first movie goes to a friend who promises to help him get revenge and his business back. This involves bringing in a karate ringer and then convincing Daniel to re-enter the tournament and defend his title. Then, the reasoning goes, the ringer can beat up Daniel in the middle of the ring for all to see, and in this way, Mr. Evil Dojo gets more students. (Why this would work, I don't know; but I'm not really in a position to speculate on the psychopathology of karate tournament spectators.) Since Daniel won't sign, however, the ringer has to threaten him, Mr. Miyagi, and Daniel's friend until Daniel signs. It's called extortion, and you can go to prison for it; but does anyone call the police, or have security cameras installed, or anything? Of course not. Instead it all comes down to Daniel learning an even more unanswerable karate move from Miyagi so that he can win the tournament again.

16. The Exorcist II: The Heretic. John Boorman has made some wonderful films, as had Richard Burton. This is not one of them. The movie wants to contemplate the nature of evil and the power of good, but ultimately it's more about seeing Linda Blair's nipples and Richard Burton's sweat. And the less said about James Earl Jones dressed as a grasshopper the better.

15. The Cave Dwellers. Like Satan, this film is known by many names--The Blade Master and Ator L'invincibile 2 among them. It's the story of a really boring old man who shows his hot valley girl daughter his invention, which is everything and nothing. Everything and Nothing must be defended lest a man with a bird shaped hat use it to do something evil. So the valley girl must go to Ator, who gained his fame in the first movie by fighting the worlds largest velour spider puppet. Mr. Bird Hat attacks the boring old guy's castle, but even though the old man makes no attempt to hide Everything and Nothing, Bird Hat can't seem to locate it. Valley Girl runs to the Ends of the Earth to find Ator, and well, the rest of the movie is about them coming back. Along the way, they fight mimes and guys in wicker armor, encounter invisible villains, duel heart eating cannibals, and battle the best looking man in the middle ages. Eventually, Ator hang glides over the castle, carpet bombing it to clear it of guards, then fights the climactic battle with Mr. Bird Hat. A fun movie if you have a bunch of friends or the MST3K boys to watch it with.

I'd go on, but these memories are all painful to one degree or other. The next ten at a later date. Cheerio!

Yeah, Imagine What He Can Do

Senator Ted Stevens claimed that he backed off a bill that would have increased the number and the size of oil tankers that pass through Puget Sound at the request of Mike McGavick, Republican candidate for Senate here in Washington. Said McGavick: "I'm pretty proud of the role I played in this. If I can do this as a candidate, imagine what I can do as a senator."

Actually, he didn't do much of anything. According to the Seattle P.I.: "Since November, the legislation has been all but dead, anyway, mostly because of a filibuster threat by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash." Stevens's withdrawl was basically a stunt, meant to make McGavick seem more effective than he is. Indeed, it raises a couple of questions about his candidacy. If McGavick could stop Stevens all by himself as a private citizen, what do we need him in the Senate for? And, if this was just a stunt meant to boost McGavick's candidacy, what would McGavick owe Stevens after the election? How many bridges to nowhere and repeals of environmental legislation would McGavick be obliged to support?

This could turn out great for Stevens. In exchange for giving up on a bill that wasn't going to pass anyway, he has a chance to install his own pet in a nearby state. Stevens could then stick his tanker deal in some omnibus legislation next year, and McGavick could vote for the whole thing without having to endorse the policy.

Where The President Learned Governance

From King Richard IV, of course:

Messenger 3: My Lord, news...

King: What?

Messenger 3: Lord Wessex is dead.

King: (raises his arms in triumph; Messenger 3 raises his arms too) Ah-- (lowers his arms) This news is not so good.

Messenger 3: Pardon, My Lord?

King: I like it not. Bring me some other news.

Messenger 3: Pardon, My Lord?

King: I LIKE NOT THIS NEWS! BRING ME SOME OTHER NEWS!!!

Messenger 3: Yes, My Lord!

(Messenger 3 leaves; King tosses things aroung angrily; Messenger 4 enters -- actually just Messenger 3 pretending to be a new messenger delivering new news.)

Messenger 4: My Lord, news...

King: What?

Messenger 4: Lord Wessex is not dead.

King: Ah, good news! (lifts his arms halfway; Messenger 4 does also) Let there be joy and celebration; let jubilation reign!

Messenger 4: Yes, My Lord.

In our version the part of Messenger 3/4 shall be played by Michael Brown/Donald Rumsfeld, and Lord Wessex will be played by either Baghdad or New Orleans, depending on the day. For U.S audiences we've retitled the story Mission Accomplished.