SHAME ON YOU

No, not to St. Cindy, for showing up at the SOTU address and getting thrown out before it started, but to California Representative Lynn Woosley for giving Our Lady Of Perpetual Protest a ticket to the event in the first place.

Two Abortion Rulings

Separate panels of US Courts of Appeal in New York and California struck down the federal law banning partial birth abortions because it didn't provide an exception for the mother's health. I personally had to agree with the sharp dissent of Judge Chester Straub in New York:

"Allowing a physician to destroy a child as long as one toe remains within the mother would place society on the path towards condoning infanticide. . . "I find the current expansion of the right to terminate a pregnancy to cover a child in the process of being born morally, ethically and legally unacceptable."

One of the prevailing judges on that court felt duty bound to strike the law down even though he found the "procedure" to be "gruesome, brutal, barbaric and uncivilized."

You can find National Abortion Federation v. Gonzales here.

HT: Drudge.

Done Deal

Filibuster Fails. Judge Alito will win the senate vote tomorrow and be sworn in just before the State of the Onion address.
Kerry, Kennedy, and the Krazy Klan have played to their base, but in doing so have pushed themselves further out on the fringe.
72-25. Hugh checks in on it.

There Is A Timeout On The Field. . .

. . . with the score 34.0 to 5.5. That would be the difference in the respective war chest of the RNC v. the DNC and Drudge reports that the Dems are mad as hell at Howard Dean. YYYYYYYEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

Rumpus Riddle Answer #12

Okay, I know. I know. I've failed you all miserably in my job as the Rumpus Riddler but I have for you a new riddle! And the good news is you get immediate gratification in knowing that you got the right answer. Try it out and see. But the bad news is (CIV, I'm talking to you here) there's no point in double guessing as I've heard some people (CIV) have a good time doing. :) Let me know what you think about the new answer format by emailing the blog at rumpusblog@aol.com.

Two bodies have I,

Though both joined in one.

The stiller I stand,

The faster I run.

An hourglass.

Creepiness continues

It's just past midnight and I'm messing around on the computer out here all by myself and two minutes ago I hear this creepiness emerge from the children's playroom: "The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round, the wheels on the bus go round and round, all throoough the townnnn."

Yes, there is a toy in there that plays that wretched song in electronic children's voices. Yes, we have a cat. Yes, he could have tripped it. But the goosebumps on my neck are still hanging around and having a confab.

There's a brood of possessed schoolchildren in there. I just know it. I'm bracing myself for a haunting rendition of "London Bridge".

Oh the horror. The horror.

"Crazy world. They outta sell tickets. Shoot, I'd buy one."

I don't mean any disrespect toward this poor woman but, I'm sorry, this face transplant story made me laugh -- especially this tidbit:

Five months earlier, Miss Dinoire's features were destroyed when her Labrador savaged her while she was unconscious after a drug overdose. Her face was left a patchwork of torn flesh and exposed bone so shocking that one of her two teenage daughters refused to look at her.

Her own Labrador? That's one creepy-ass dog, dude. Suddenly, I'm having visions of that Rottweiler in The Omen.

I grew up with dogs (mostly German Shepherds) and have slept beside them many a time and I'll tell you this with complete honesty; never for a nanosecond would I have ever dreamed that one of them would rip my face off whilst I lay unconscious beside them.

In the parlance of our times, what is up with that?

One more thing. Setting aside the obvious shot I could take at the "drug overdose", did I read correctly that her daughter refused to look at her? Nice. I mean, maybe it would be one thing if she simply "couldn't bear" to look at her but to just flat out "refuse"?

Maybe that daughter is the demon spawn that that hound from hell was protecting.

Lyric of the Day

Too long to post, but I will link it here. Don McClean ran to the top of the pop chart with American Pie, but I think his song Starry, Starry Night, about Vincent Van Gogh, is one of the most beautiful songs to grace the pop charts ever. I have no reason to explain how it ran into my head today, but it did, and so here it is.

Dear ABC (and CBS and NBC too)

I am very sorry that your anchor/newman was seriously injured in Iraq. My heart goes out to his family and friends and I wish him a speedy recovery. But, please, the coverage is embarassing. I decided to torture myself by flipping between the 3 major networks for their "news" at 530 tonight. The first 15 minutes on each was devoted to this story, and related stories of bombings and all things bad about Iraq. Enough. I know he is one of yours, but you are supposed to be there to report the NEWS. You people aren't as important as you think you are. Please try to show a little perspective.

Something worthwhile from The Los Angeles Times

"'Can I do this?' his mother agonized, knowing one of her newborns would not live. But for 43 hours, he was hers to cherish."

The littlest Bag End

I usually bow to no one* in my love of Tolkien, but this is a whole new level of Tolkienphilia.

(Via Unlocked Wordhoard)

*Yes, that's a reference to one of my least favorite scenes in The Return of the King -- least favorite for all sorts of reasons, but partly because it seemed like it was ripped off from Mulan, and partly because it didn't recognize a distinction between what Frodo and Sam did and what Merry and Pippin did.

The Brothers Krauthammer

Charles Krauthammer eulogizes a beloved brother.

Mindset List

Every year, Beloit College publishes a mindset list. This helps remind the aging perfessers that the incoming freshmen aren't their peers. Here is this year's list . I particularly appreciate this since the runt of the litter was born in 87 and is now a college Frosh.

What Rumpus and Molly Ivins Have In Common

The fact that we won't be voting for Hillary for President. Or so says Jonah Goldberg in this morning's Times.

Lyric Of The Day

I really love this old CS&N song written by Steven Stills. The harmonies really make it, but I appreciate the effective use of alliteration.

HELPLESSLY HOPING

Helplessly hoping
Her harlequin hovers nearby
Awaiting a word
Gasping at glimpses
Of gentle true spirit
He runs, wishing he could fly
Only to trip at the sound of good-bye

Wordlessly watching
He waits by the window
And wonders
At the empty place inside
Heartlessly helping himself to her bad dreams
He worries
Did he hear a good-bye?
Or even hello?

They are one person
They are two alone
They are three together
They are for each other

Stand by the stairway
You'll see something
Certain to tell you confusion has its cost
Love isn't lying
It's loose in a lady who lingers
Saying she is lost
And choking on hello

They are one person
They are two alone
They are three together
They are for each other

I can't get to sleep ...

... and I've been thinking -- what the hell do these lyrics mean?

"Give to me your leather ...
Take from me ... my lace."

Sometimes I think I might have done some good in this world if I hadn't listened to pop songs in the 80's. By the time that memorable decade began, my mind was already cluttered with the pop culture ephemera of my formative years. Mom always said, "Don't play ball in the house." Dick York or Dick Sargent? Babaloooo! Babalooo-aiiii-ayyyy! Richie the "C." Hello, Angels! De Plane! De Plane! Good night, Johnboy. Little Buddy. That Afterschool special about the bed-wetter with Lance Kerwin. [Click on that last link at your own risk. It's technically work safe, but your coworkers will look at you real funny.]

But why didn't I just stop there, and leave a little room in my brain for something worthwhile? I have never read Don Quixote, but when we went out for Chinese last night, and that inane Stevie Nicks song started playing, I found I could sing along with the whole accursed thing. And when the girls, my sister, and I browsed at Pottery Barn last week, I absentmindedly sang along with all the songs in the Pottery Barn '80's mix. My four-year-old danced her way through Come On, Eileen, Overkill, and Ain't Nothing Gonna Break My Stride. When I laughed at her and called her a little nut, she said, "I can't stop dancing." [I was *not* letting her disturb other customers. Don't want you to think I'm one of those parents.]

I know how she feels. As it turns out, I can't stop dancing either. I never learned the names of trees and plants and flowers. I never road in the ice truck with Mr. Nealy, or found a litter of kittens up in the hayloft at Unlce Henry's farm. I've never been to a soda shop. The first time I ever saw a firefly, I was a grown woman, and of the few times I've been on a fishing trip, about half were at man-made lakes. If pressed, though, I could probably remember the names of all the actresses who played Charlie's Angels. The sad thing is that it's precisely the flotsam and jetsam of the popular culture that forms my strongest link with my generational past. Or maybe I just think it's sad when it's simply inevitable. If I want to create a bond, or establish my cultural bona fides, with a member of my generation, I usually do it by trading catch phrases and song lyrics and movie quotes. Even people whom I find in other respects insufferable will throw a casual reference to the Sleestaks into the conversation and cause me, if only momentarily, to reconsider first impressions. Sure, Marshall, Will, and Holly are kitschy and fun, but shouldn't the shibboleths of our common culture be more significant, more sublime? Probably not; after all, shibboleths are about pronunciation, not meaning.

But still.

When I was in graduate school, I went with Sadeeq, Madman of Chu, and another friend to see The Real Live Brady Bunch. The show was a verbatim reenactment of an episode of The Brady Bunch (it was the "Oh, my nose!" episode, I think). The actors and actresses camped it up only slightly, and, while the audience certainly appreciated the cheese value of the whole thing, its affection for the show outdistanced its typically cynical and reflexively postmodern pose. In the end, we sang along with the music and shouted out the lines, not with a sneer on our faces, but with love in our hearts -- love that encompassed an affection for our individual pasts, an acknowledgment of vanished innocence, and a kind of gratitude that we had something, anything, to bring us all together. It's the closest we were ever going to get, as a generation, to the Book of Common Prayer.

And that's what's kind of sad about it.

Grandmother's Engagement Ring

Stewdog's Aunt is a wonderful writer. She contributes to a Maui publication in her Silver Streak Columns. Her latest posting is a delightful story of my grandmother's engagement ring. Enjoy!

The Early Polls Are Encouraging

Drudge Reports on the CNN/Gallup Poll regarding Clinton Lite's bid for the White House and it isn't looking good for the Madam. Committed anti Hillary voters outnumber committed pro Hillary supporters roughly 3 to 1.

Out and About in the Blogosphere

* The Anchoress has a lovely post on confession.

* How should we address professors? Show a little respect, says the good Dr. Nokes. I agree.

* Meanwhile, Professor Drout is dissing binaries: "The New Criticism's tedious 'ambiguity this, ambiguity that' is just as boring as the 'polyvalent this, polyvalent that' or the 'ooh, look. A binary! Let's deconstruct it! for the one millionth time!' approaches of the post-structuralists." How dare he?!!

* Via Dr. Nokes's blog roll, I've recently discovered the joy of The Joy of Curmudgeonry. Check it out and indulge the curmudgeon in you.

More useless idiots

This Joel Stein column from the Los Angeles Times was all over the blogsophere yesterday.

Here's a sample of Hugh Hewitt's on-air interview with Stein:

HH: All right. Now who is your...this is a column about the troops that begins, "I don't support our troops." We'll get to the specifics in a second. But who is your closest family member or friend who is on active duty?

JS: That's an excellent question. I wouldn't say I have a very close friend. I would say only acquaintances. No family at all.

HH: Who are your acquaintances?

JS: There was a guy who works at Time, that's where I worked last, who quit to serve in the military.

HH: What's his name?

JS: (pause) You know, I'm blanking on his name. But your point is well taken that I don't have many people that I even know who are in the military.

HH: Do you have any, though, other than this guy at Time whose name you can't remember?

JS: Who are serving currently?

HH: Yeah.

JS: Or ever served?

HH: No, serving currently.

JS: Or only in Iraq?

HH: Active duty. Anywhere in the world.

JS: (pause) I'd say I've been pretty isolated from that. I mean, that's a point I made in the column.

The entire transcript and audio is up at Radio Blogger.

Quote of the Day

"I don't think literature would be possible in a determined world. We might go through the motions but the heart would be out of it. Nobody could then 'smile darkly and ignore the howls.' Even if there were no Church to teach me this, writing two novels would do it. I think the more you write, the less inclined you will be to rely on theories like determinism. Mystery isn't something that is gradually evaporating. It grows along with knowledge."

-- Letters of Flannery O'Connor: The Habit of Being

Poem of the Day

This Living Hand

This living hand, now warm and capable
Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold
And in the icy silence of the tomb,
So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights
That thou wouldst wish thine own heart dry of blood
So in my veins red life might stream again,
And thou be conscience-calmed—see here it is—
I hold it towards you.

John Keats

Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto!

George Galloway -- in his appearance on the Beeb's Big Brother -- may not not be getting his political message across as clearly as he'd hoped, but he's certainly doing his best to express "'the emotions of bewilderment when a small puppy won't come to you' through the medium of robotic dance."

Update: Video here.

Canada to make right turn; Moore to binge

Don't look now but our friends to the north are actually about to elect a conservative PM. Guess who's distressed by this?

Hide the Hostess donuts. Mr. Moore will binging again to help get through yet another conservative election victory.

Today's Propaganda Quiz

Stewdog had a propaganda class in High School and 2 courses at the college level, so he can usually smell a rat at 50 paces. This love fest piece on Nancy Pelosi, masquerading as news, is a classic. If you get bored today, take a gander and see what techniques are in play here.

Daylight Come. . .

. . . And Me Go Nutz-o. Prickly City takes a stab at Harry Belafonte.
Meanwhile, Harry is busy playing "The N Card", the modern day last refuge of scoundrels.

Pink shenanigans

Yeah, this misappropriation by Code Pink is despicable but you almost can't blame them. Whose face would you rather market for your organization, this attractive young woman's or Cindy Sheehan's?

What's the matter with Democrats?

Ross Douthat comments on an American Prospect article by Garance Franke-Ruta which suggests why and how "heartland" voters, who are presumably sympathetic to at least some of the Democrat's economic policies, pull the lever for Republicans. As Douthat says, "it's the culture, stupid." In a way, Franke-Ruta's position, and Douthat's analysis of it, reach the same conclusion that Theodore Dalrymple and others have reached with regard to the rampant libertarianism -- sexual, social, moral -- that was unleashed in my favorite decade: it was a disaster for the underclass and those on its margins. Those who are better educated and financially better off talk a good game about "liberation" of most kinds -- some of them aren't so keen on free markets -- but when it comes down to it, they tend to settle into more traditional arrangements, especially when it occurs to them to have children. Heartland voters have gone Republican, according to Douthat, because of "cultural aspirations," which is an aspect of self-interest that some on the left have failed to come to terms with. They want what the other guy's got, but they aren't primarily thinking about money; they want to live in communites which promote values and ideals that they see as beneficial to themselves and their families, and they respond to Republicans because they are at least willing to pay lip service to those ideals (and some of them, of course, actually believe in those ideals).

There's a slight rift on the right about this issue, because Republican libertarianism is also implicated in Douthat's and Franke-Ruta's analysis. I'm siding more and more with the Cruncy Cons in my old age.

That Lucky CIV

That would be our Conservative In Virginia, who is a regular commenter on this blog. Why is this person so lucky? Because Virginia is nearer to DC than we are out here on the left coast and The Conservative will be able to go witness the March on the 4th of February. I first heard about it today from Laura. This wonderful rally is sponsered by a level headed organization which states in its website that they will take their demand that Bush step down to the White House. "This regime is immoral, dangerous, and criminally indictable. Bush Lied. Bush Spied. Bush Step Down. 2006. 2008. Too late. Turn your outrage into mass political action." I don't know about you, but that kind of talk has me checking air fares to hear the reasoned commentary of Cindy Sheehan, Harry Belafonte, Ed Asner, Jane Fonda and the usual suspects. Yawn!

A Great Political Thinker

Who Knew? And a Star Jones shall lead them.

Another Reason To Dislike George Clooney

As if we needed one. . . I missed his crack about Abramoff at the Golden Globes, but Jack's father didn't.

Shocking, Just Shocking!

Senators Leahy and Kennedy have voiced their opposition to Samuel Alito for SCOTUS. What is this world coming to?
Meanwhile, Clinton Lite comes out swinging and criticizes the Administration for downplaying the threat of Iran. It must be exhausting being Hilary. Stading for nothing, checking which way the wind blows everyday, and letting the polls and politics dictate every statement.

Life's little ironies

Back in the days when I had to take naps, I never wanted to take naps.

Neither Barry nor Johnson

But there is another Lyndon. . .Lyndon Larouche. I hadn't heard of this crackpot in years and had given the name no thought, but today, his minions were out at 3 subway entrances that I saw, giving out a publication that reeks of the worst in propaganda and name calling. One of the troops said as he handed it out "Let's send the fascists Cheny and Alito back to hell". Wow! Talk about raising the level of discourse. I refused the publication and shouted back "Support the President". I did see one on the ground, and braving all sorts of bacteria, picked it up and perused it. Just horrible stuff. Equating Alito with Hitler. Give me a break!

Nihil sub sole novum

I remembered this post from Unlocked Wordhoard last night, when I picked up The Kite Runner -- a novel my husband had been urging me to read -- and glanced at the first three pages. I put the book down, looked over at my husband, and, after a preliminary "Ummmmmm," I proceeded to explain how the plot twists, or rather untwists, and how the story ends. I could tell by the look on his face that I had nailed it.

I'll read the book anyway, of course. As Richard Scott Nokes points out, a story that follows a well-trodden narrative path is as likely to be a very good story as it is to be a bad one. There aren't many really new stories in the world, but so what? The old ones -- many-hued, sinuous, shape-shifting -- have stood me in good stead all these years.

Who, for instance, among those who survived the first twenty minutes or so of Moulin Rouge!, didn't know how the story was going to end? I was undaunted by knowing the ending, because I was still curious about how the story was going to make me care about the ending. That's something that always happens -- if it happens at all -- along the way, and it is along the way that the really good stories, however old, become new again.

Poem of the Day

Mirror In February

The day dawns with scent of must and rain,
Of opened soil, dark trees, dry bedroom air.
Under the fading lamp, half dressed, -- my brain
Idling on some compulsive fantasy --
I towel my shaven lip and stop, and stare,
Riveted by a dark exhausted eye,
A dry downturning mouth.

It seems again that it is time to learn,
In this untiring, crumbling place of growth
To which, for the time being, I return.
Now plainly in the mirror of my soul
I read that I have looked my last on youth
And little more; for they are not made whole
That reach the age of Christ.

Below my window the awakening trees,
Hacked clean for better bearing, stand defaced
Suffering their brute necessities,
And how should the flesh not quail that span for span
Is mutilated more? In slow distaste
I fold my towel with what grace I can,
Not young and not renewable, but man.

-- Thomas Kinsella

Liberals and Iran

Daniel Drezner comments.

(Via Andrew Sullivan)

The Marriage Gap

Kay Hymowitz writes about the marriage gap and about the ways in which "liberating" cultural trends trap poorer and less educated women and their children in a cycle of poverty:

For one thing, women who grow up in a marriage-before-children culture organize their lives around a meaningful and beneficial life script. Traditional marriage gives young people a map of life that takes them step by step from childhood to adolescence to college or other work training—which might well include postgraduate education—to the workplace, to marriage, and only then to childbearing. A marriage orientation also requires a young woman to consider the question of what man will become her husband and the father of her children as a major, if not the major, decision of her life. In other words, a marriage orientation demands that a woman keep her eye on the future, that she go through life with deliberation, and that she use self-discipline—especially when it comes to sex: bourgeois women still consider premature pregnancy a disaster. In short, a marriage orientation—not just marriage itself—is part and parcel of her bourgeois ambition.

When Americans announced that marriage before childbearing was optional, low-income women didn’t merely lose a steadfast partner, a second income, or a trusted babysitter, as the strength-in-numbers theory would have it. They lost a traditional arrangement that reinforced precisely the qualities that they-and their men; let’s not forget the men!—needed for upward mobility, qualities all the more important in a tough new knowledge economy. The timing could hardly have been worse. At a time when education was becoming crucial to middle-class status, the disadvantaged lost a reliable life script, a way of organizing their early lives that would prize education and culminate in childbearing only after job training and marriage. They lost one of their few institutional supports for planning ahead and taking control of their lives.

Worst of all, when Americans made marriage optional, low-income women lost a culture that told them the truth about what was best for their children. A number of researchers argue that, in fact, low-income women really do want to marry. They have “white picket dreams,” say Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas in Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage, and though the men in their lives cannot turn those dreams into reality, they continue to gaze longingly into the distance at marriage as a symbol of middle-class stability and comfort. What they don’t have, however, is a clue about the very fact that orders the lives of their more fortunate peers: marriage and childbearing belong together. The result is separate and unequal families, now and as far as the eye can see.

Read the whole thing.

There's that darned double standard again

"This city will remain a vanilla city."

"This city will remain mostly white because that's the way God wants it to be."

How long after making such imbecilic remarks would the white politician who made them have before he was forced to make his resignation speech? An hour? Maybe two? And rightly so.

So why is it different when it's a black politician saying the opposite? The answer is as racial as the remarks themselves -- because he's black.

I loved this attempt to cover his assinine comments:

"I want everyone to be welcome in New Orleans -- black, white, Asian, everybody,"

You know, blacks, whites...them asian types with the squinty eyes. Everyone.

Hispanics best stay out of town just to be safe.

Lindsay Davenport: "I am turning into Sally Field...

...and I'm not sure what to do about it."

From the "too cool to make an argument" files

Shorter Ariel Dorfman: Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get me.

Significant SCOTUS Ruling

In a 6-3 ruling, the US Supreme Court has upheld Oregon's assisted suicide law in face of a challenge that had been started by John Ashcroft.

Those Wacky Dems!

The Sage Of Chappiquiddick is outed as having membership in a "No Girls Allowed" Club and has to quit. Then Hillary is about to break into a rousing chorus of Old Man River when discussing the House yesterday.

Useless Idiots

Meow.

Overheard while watching Star Wars with a 4-year-old

* "Is there a Life Star?"

* "That water is. So. Gross."

* "That's not a walking carpet. That's Chewbacca!" [accompanied by uncontrollable giggling]

* "Why does Obi Wan disappear?"

* "Does Han care?"

* "He shouldn't be saying 'Yeaaahhhh!' He should be saying, like, 'Noooooooooo!'"

By the way, I hereby disclaim any responsibility for the "like, [quote]" construction. I may be a native Southern Californian, but I'm from the other valley. And while the girls are movie watchers -- they're usually allowed one a night -- they do not watch commercial television at our house. I suspect that the Disney Channel, which they get to watch when they are with their adoring and indulgent grandparents, is the culprit. I think Disney is also behind the "Yeah, girl!" which sometimes punctuates the triumph of winning a race or getting their way. At least neither of them has begun that peculiar uptalk which is the mark of the true Valley Girl and the annoying affectation of all Valley Girl wannabes. I'm being unfair to the wannabes, though, since the original mode of conversation was already an affectation.

Can you imagine Princess Leia as a Valley Girl? "Help me, Obi Wan Kenobi? You're, like, my only hope?"

Monday Musings

Once again, the death penalty is on the front page with the impending execution of Clarence Ray Allen. Funny, but the same "activists" who were vocal about Tookie's execution are remarkably silent. But I digress. Allen is 76 and infirm, and some are arguing that it is cruel to execute a person in his state. Although I have my concerns about the death penalty, both on moral and economic grounds, this argument is just silly. He's old and infirm because our system allowed him to drag out endless appeals. It is akin to a parent murderer throwing himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan.

On a lighter note, the Times posed the question to many in LA about how they would improve our fair city. I really like Sandra Tsing Loh and got a kick out of her comment:
"L.A.'s most sought-after private schools (ones that teach such estimable values as peaceful conflict resolution, global citizenship and honoring diversity) now cost $15,000 to $20,000 a year. If just 35 L.A. private school kindergarteners braved the wilds of public kindergarten for one year, the saved tuition money could be used to support Access Books, a nonprofit that provides books to underfunded L.A.-area schools. Because this outside-the-box approach provides such a fresh twist onthe community service line in the Harvard application, I think this one-year "Outward Bound From Private School Kindergarten" program could be a win/win."

San Fran Nan

Love this story on Nancy Pelosi. Seems the darling of the left has to walk a tightrope between appeasing her whacky left base while not appearing too liberal and turning off the moderate voters.

Powerful Catholics or the power of Catholicism?

Here's a very interesting article by Joseph Bottum in the Weekly Standard about the rise of Catholic intellectuals, and the flowering of an intellectually and philosophically rigorous Catholicism, in the post-Roe political landscape. The Catholic intellectual tradition is waaay older than 1973, of course, but Bottum suggests that the post-Roe moment in American history has required pro-lifers to articulate the philosophical underpinnings of their position and that Catholic intellectuals have gone prominently unto the breach.

(Via Amy Welborn)

Morning Musings

Although the critics savaged them, I actually enjoyed Deuce Bigelow Male Gigolo and The Animal. These were two movies with Rob Schneider that had some funny scenes that brought me to tears. So I took a gander last night on the Deuce remake. Let me state unequivocally that this is the worst piece of trash I have ever seen. Hollywood has a way with remakes. They take a movie that had something going for it and then just beat that to death. I disagreed with the critics who liked Grizzly Man, but am in lock step with them on this.

Took a gander on an Aussie wine last night and am going back for a case tody. Rosemount Orange Vineyard Shiraz 2001. It's a 20 dollar wine you can get at Bevmo for 10 if you have one of their cards. A real treat, this, mate.

Read a blurb in the sports page that mentioned Laura Nyro. She died young of cancer, but was a prolific songwriter who has to go in the 'underrated' column. She was a good performer, but her strength was in songwriting. Some of the songs she wrote that you may know include Eli's Coming, Wedding Bell Blues, Flim Flam Man, Blowin' Away, Stoney End, And When I Die, Stoned Soul Picnic, and Save The Country.

That's it folks. Out for my workout and then time to chip away at Mr. 1040 while watching some football today.

Cagey

I recently learned from Darryl Ann that there is currently in progress the performance of a musical piece by the composer John Cage that will last 639 years. The performance is taking place in Halberstadt, Germany.

The piece moves slowly. The first year and a half of the piece was silence. A new note is scheduled to be played in the next month or so. Apparently, Cage first wrote the piece to be played in a time span of about twenty minutes on the piano. The piece was then adapted for organ with the tempo slowed down -- WAY down. A new, special, organ is being built to play some notes of the piece scheduled to sound some years from now.

I'm really not making this up.

I am familiar with a few works by John Cage, and have actually performed one of them for an audience on the piano: 4'33". In case you haven't "heard" it or of it, I will tell you that this piece is 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence. (The piece has also been successfully performed by orchestras, singers, and chamber groups. As you might imagine, very little rehearsal is needed). The piece is actually pretty affecting -- especially if you don't know what's coming.

As for the piece scheduled to last 639 years, part of me just loves it although I haven't yet had the opportunity to hear a single note. The months of anticipation before each new note is sounded, the intergenerational effort required to complete the performance, the generous pauses between notes permitting contemplation of what has come before and what is to come -- who could demand more from any piece of art?

Of course another part of me thinks: what a load of you know what. But hey.

Desiderata

In the 60's and 70's, popular culture embraced not only JRRT and his Rings, but also The Desiderata, a poem we all know way too well. I hadn't thought about it for years until I saw it on the wall of my coffee store this morning. It made me remember the National Lampoon parody of it. See both the parody and the original here.
The copy I saw also contained the legend that it was found in a church in the 17th century. That myth is debunked here.

"Re-viewing the Russian Movies"

"I had seen most of these movies at one time or another, but none of them for at least fifteen years, and I went this time looking very consciously for the pathos and irony of that enormous historical failure which now weighs so dangerously on us all. Irony, God knows, was easy enough to find; every glimpse of the enthusiasms of that revolution brings forth all at once the whole wearisome joke of human aspiration and wickedness -- we shall be having it dinned into our ears, in just this form, until we die. There was more irony than the most avid of paradox-mongers could possibly want. Only to see the word 'comrades' or the word 'workers' in a subtitle was enough. Before I was through I could no longer even understand why our age insists on finding the idea of irony so attractive. I would have given up all ironies, and the sense of tragedy and the sense of history along with them, just to have stupid, handsome Nicholas grinding his heel once more into the face of unhappy Russia.

Pathos was another matter. For pathos there must be victims, and in five of these six movies the glare of triumphant righteousness is so blinding that one can't see any victims at all, only a few martyrs of the working class, their lives well expended, and a few bourgeois or monarchist anachronisms, swept properly into the dustbin of history. No death is without meaning; even that baby hurtling in its carriage down the Odessa steps in Potemkin is part of the great plan, and the spectacle is exciting but not saddening. Of course it could be said that Eisenstein and Pudovkin and Dovzhenko were the real victims, ultimately betrayed by the revolution they celebrated; but that idea, if it is important at all, becomes important only on reflection. It is hard to feel the pathos of their lives when you see them playing with corpses; if they had got the chance, they would have made a handsome montage of my corpse too, and given it a meaning -- their meaning and not mine."

-- Robert Warshow, "Re-viewing the Russian Movies," in The Immediate Experience

The Mouse That Roared

Quite a story this. A guy in New Mexico catches a mouse in his home. Decides to dispose of it by throwing it alive in a burning pile of leaves. His cruelty was rewarded when the mouse ran out of the pile and back into the house, setting the house on fire and destroying it.
There is justice in this world after all.

I Walked That Line

Stewwife is an actor/actress/actorperson who gets to attend free screenings of nominated films. Last night I let her drag me off the couch to the theater at the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in North Hollywood. The Leonard Goldenson Theatre is beautiful and has great acoustics. In addition to the event being free of charge, thus fitting into Stewdog's budget, there was no popcorn noises, no kids talking, no cell phone calls, no previews, and no commercials. Great way to see a film.
Oh, to the movie. I thought that I would like this film and I did. So did most critics. The two leads were superb and the music is infectious. My only criticisms are that it ran a little long and that, like Ray, to a lesser degree, it focused too much on the negative of a great celebrity's life.
Two big paws up from Stewdog.

Where Have You Gone Aunt Jemima?

Well, she recently showed up at a Jacksonville City Council meeting, but has been banned for being disruptive. I'm frankly comforted to see her sporting the "do-rag" once again. Why is it that NFL and NBA players can sport it, but our dear Aunty can't? She received a makeover in the recent past, and she doesn't look the same. For some history of this cultural icon, go here.

The Leonard Tose Route

Kate Marie has suggested that I explain the Leonard Tose references, and I herein comply. Leonard Tose was, at one time, the owner of the Philadelphia Eagles. He had it all and lost it because of gambling and drinking. There used to be a great radio show in LA where the host, Jim Healy, played clips in a humorous manner. One that was often used was describing someone who had gone "The Leonard Tose Route". The expression has gotten into the vernacular of sports talk and a So Cal sports fan over 30 will know immediately what you mean if you use the expression (Just like a hockey fan will know that "Have another donut you fat pig" refers to an incident with Don Koharsky, but that is another blog).

Hello? Helloo-oooooooooooo!

Why yes, we'd love to have Santa Claus come and stay with us!

Shaking My Head

I just got up and left the room after trying to watch Grizzly Man, a film that critics fell over one another in praise. You gotta be kidding me! I thought I was watching another Christopher Guest send up. The bear couldn't have eaten this A Hole soon enough. The tragedy of the movie is that his ex girlfriend lived. This is a major moment in my life. Consensual validation has left me out in the cold.

Mr. Blackwell

Stewdog is in need of a diversion these days, and what better to fill it than Mr. Blackwell's annual list of the worst dressed celebs?

1. Britney Spears
2. Mary-Kate Olsen
3. Jessica Simpson
4. Eva Longoria
5. Mariah Carey
6. Paris Hilton
7. Anna Nicole Smith
8. Shakira
9. Lindsay Lohan
10. Renée Zellweger

Sour Grapes Turned To Whine

This pathetic piece laments the author's disappointment that he couldn't get his slam in on the SCOTUS nominee.
Meanwhile, Hugh Hewitt continues to be a good source for commentary and links on the hearing.

Update: Check out this letter about my first comment here:

Re "The Alito testimony you won't hear," Opinion, Jan. 11 Hell hath no fury like a whiney fringe partisan scorned. While Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) often represents voices on the leftmost fringe of partisan clap-trappery, he was wise to scratch Stephen R. Dujack from the list [of witnesses to testify at the Alito hearings]. The ridiculous nature of Dujack's absurd testimony that wasn't to be would have made the more reasonable partisan opposition to Alito look foolish by association.Thus, by willingly stepping in and attempting to resuscitate Dujack's ego, The Times has compromised its own credibility and judgment.To stop the slide, I offer you the following suggestion: Next time the editors are tempted to offer The Times' distinguished forum to such pedestrian smear attempts, perhaps you should just offer the benevolent writer a bullhorn, and everyone on the editorial board who sympathizes can follow him to the street corner. KIRK TABER Roseville, Calif.

I couldn't have said it better, Kirk!

Baseball Trivia

A. Who is the only player to be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame who has never been in a starting lineup?

A. Bruce Sutter, elected today to the Hall of Fame.

This Cardinal fan says congratulations, and thanks for the memories.

Day 2

Find a report on today's Judiciary Committee Hearings here.
Food for thought:
1. If the precedent of Roe v. Wade is so strong, and should never be overturned, why don't we still have slavery today?
2. The left hammers home that Alito is replacing Sandra Day O'Connor, so he should be a clone of her. How come that same rule didn't apply to Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Didn't she replace Byron White? And she certainly isn't a clone of anyone else (actually the thought of cloning her just made me ill).

Iran

I see the crackpots running Iran are once again thumbing their noses at the rest of the world on nuclear matters. Didn't Israel react years ago to a similar situation and take out an Iraqi facility? Keep an eye out for those blue and white bombers. Although I do see that Jacques Chirac has issued a "stern warning", so that should resolve the matter.

A little something to brighten your day

Stefan Beck at The New Criterion scoffs at the "artificial gravity" of the new literary magazine, n+1:

What kind of person—other than a Teaching Assistant, who has no choice—would subject himself to hundreds of pages of what Keith Gessen jokingly called a “critical mass of stuff that nobody would want to publish”? Who could endure all that flashy, empty-headed prose? Only someone very keen to reassure himself that he’s wise, that he’s a step ahead of the game, that he perceives and appreciates what others cannot. The kind of person who’d happily walk the Trail of Tears from Manhattan to Red Hook just to drink Schlitz in an old factory building. A real “intellectual.”

Speaking of intellectuals: a digression, for comic relief. In college, we joked that every issue of the student literary magazine had to include at least one story that opens with a long, baroque description of the author, er, “protagonist,” lighting and smoking a cigarette. I’m pleased to note that the kids are all grown up and they’ve still got it. From Marco Roth’s fifteen-page “Last Cigarettes”:

"Boredom is a moment of danger. Cigarettes can be a way of harnessing this danger, the crisis of confidence that ensues when a writer is stuck or lonely and wonders whether his regimen is really a regimen, an honorable structure independently chosen, or, as he has doubtless heard throughout his American life, an extravagant form of shirking. He must prove everyone wrong and show what a good worker he is. Type, pause, light up, type, type, type, ash, type, inhale, type."

If boredom is a moment of danger, I just fell out a fifth-story window into an abandoned mineshaft full of quicksand.

I shouldn't laugh, though. If I ever attempted to write fiction, I'd love for it, above all, to be funny. But I'm sure any true comedy would end up being of the unintentional "Last Cigarettes" variety. So I'm not laughing at the n+1 gang; I'm laughing with them.

Slammin' Sammy

That's Alito, not Sosa. And what a pleasure it was seeing a Sammy before the legislative branch, sans steroids, hitting one out of the park in his opening remarks.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, or Hyanisport compound, Teddy, the Sage Of Chappiquiddick, hands shaking, dreaming of the tinkle of ice in a glass just before the booze is poured, flat out lies about Alito's record.

What a great opportunity for the Democratic Judiciary Committee members to make absolute fools of themselves once again. Still bearing the heel marks of John Roberts in their foreheads, they press ahead. Memo to Republican members of the Committee. . pass your time. This guy doesn't need your help and it is so much fun to see Shumer, Biden, Durbin, and Kennedy just implode on themselves.

For A Fighter

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

-- Dylan Thomas

The Usual Suspects

This article disguists me. Harry Belafonte, Danny Glover, Cornell West, and the rest of the left wingers can say all they want here on US soil about how bad they think our leaders are, but going to Venezuala and snuggling up to Hugo "Castro with Oil" Chavez is revolting.

Do You Believe In Miracles?

I love this story out of Santa Cruz. A bus driver collecting workers comp benefits for temporary total disability was running marathons. Talking about hiding in plain sight.

Saint George

The Beatifiction of George Clooney continues. Tonight he will receive The Freedom Award on the Critics Choice awards for the liberal propaganda piece, Good Night and Turn Out The Lights, or whatever it is called. No telling if ne will need to slay any dragons to reach complete Sainthood.

Lyric For The Day

Where To Now St. Peter?

I took myself a blue canoe
And I floated like a leaf
Dazzling, dancing
Half enchanted
In my Merlin sleep

Crazy was the feeling
Restless were my eyes
Insane they took the paddles
My arms they paralysed

So where to now St. Peter
If it's true I'm in your hands
I may not be a Christian
But I've done all one man can
I understand I'm on the road
Where all that was is gone
So where to now St. Peter
Show me which road I'm on
Which road I'm on

It took a sweet young foreign gun
This lazy life is short
Something for nothing always ending
With a bad report

Dirty was the daybreak
Sudden was the change
In such a silent place as this
Beyond the rifle range

I took myself a blue canoe

Music by Elton John Lyrics by Bernie Taupin Available on the album Tumbleweed Connection
© 1970 Dick James Music Limited

I'm In The Mood For Borking. . .

. . . Simple because I fear you."
The fun starts tomorrow. Bring it on. Looks like the Dems have an airtight strategy to defeat this nomination. He belonged to an organization at Princeton in which a member wrote an article that can be described as racist. Doesn't matter that HE didn't write it. Guilt by assassination.

Quote of the day

[English textbook authors and educators ] see the world around them swayed by emotional propaganda -- they have learned from tradition that youth is sentimental -- and they conclude that the best thing they can do is to fortify the minds of young people against emotion. My own experience as a teacher tells an opposite tale. For every one pupil who needs to be guarded from a weak excess of sensibility there are three who need to be awakened from the slumber of cold vulgarity. The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts. The right defence against false sentiments is to inculcate just sentiments. By starving the sensibility of our pupils we only make them easier prey to the propagandist when he comes. For famished nature will be avenged and a hard heart is no infallible protection against a soft head.

-- C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man

Iraq and Terror

Stephen Hayes in The Weekly Standard writes again about Iraq's connection with terrorists and terrorist training camps.

Will Katrina become a fable we've all agreed upon?

Cathy Young blogs about Katrina myths and suggests that everything we thought we knew about Katrina was wrong.

(Via Instapundit)

Death Of A Salesman

That is what Ron Dedeaux was. He sold his baseball players on his program and on themselves, and as a result, his USC baseball teams won 11 National Titles during his tenure. His imprint on baseball rivals that of John Wooden on basketball. Tom Seaver, Mark McGwire, Randy Johnson, Bill "Spaceman" Lee, Dave Kingman, Ron Fairly, Fred Lynn, Roy Smalley, Don Buford, Rich Dauer, Steve Busby, Jim Barr, and Steve Kemp are some of the players he had a hand in developing, not to mention Sparky Anderson andTommy Lasorda as managers. Truly one of the great baseball managers of all time. Godspeed to you, "Tiger".

Days like today ...

. . . help explain why Winter is my favorite season in Southern California.

I drove with the girls up over our local hills today, and as we started down the southwest side of the hills, we could see out across Whittier and Orange County to the shining strip of the Pacific on the horizon, and beyond that, twenty six miles across the sea, the clear shape of Catalina rising.

Pat Robertson Please Shut Up

This guy just needs to give it a rest. God would seem to have enough on his mind without giving Sharon a stroke to punish him.

Update: Richard Scott Nokes at Unlocked Wordhoard warns -- in "reluctant defense of Pat Robertson" -- that what Pat Robertson actually said may have been misinterpreted. I haven't seen a transcript or heard audio of Robertson's remarks, but I wanted to pass along that caveat from a smart and reliable source. Whether Robertson's words in this instance have been unfairly misconstrued, I think we can all appreciate the wisdom of Horace Jeffery Hodges' observation in the comments: "Pat Robertson is God's way of reminding us that Jerry Falwell is sane."

Update II: Scrappleface has more.

"You underworld types hurt my feelings. I'm your buddy. Aren't you supposed to be picking on the tough-on-crime conservative down the block?

This Washington Post report on robbery victim and former D.C. mayor Marion Barry has been making the rounds.

Do people really think this way?

"There is a sort of an unwritten code in Washington, among the underworld and the hustlers and these other guys, that I am their friend," Barry said at an afternoon news conference in which he described the robbery in detail. "I don't advocate what they do. I advocate conditions to change what they do. I was a little hurt that this betrayal did happen."

Hollywood's Message to Fly Over America

The message of Brokeback Mountain will be delivered by Jon Stewart. Stewart is a left leaning host of the Daily Show, known best for taking on Carson Daly, who is going to host the Oscars. I can say one thing in favor of this choice. . at least he isn't Whoopie Goldberg.

"What Is History. . . .

. . . but a fable agreed upon." This Napoleon quote is found in Jonah Goldberg's take on Sacco and Vinzetti, George Clooney, and the general subject of Leftist myth making in this fine op-ed piece.

Cheery reading for the New Year, or I read depressing books so you don't have to ...

I've read two books about grief and death since Christmas -- one, a gift from Scotty and Wonderdog (thanks, guys), was Booker prize winning novel The Sea, by John Banville, and the other was Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking.

The Sea really bugged me. I've never read another John Banville novel, so I don't know whether this one is typical of his writing in general, but nothing irritates me more these days than a writer who has considerable gifts at his command who writes novels that function as elegant window displays for the considerable gifts at his command. The plot of the book, such as it is, finds middle-aged Max Morden retiring to a rented house by the sea, near the "chalets" where he spent his boyhood summers, to mourn his wife's death and think about the past. The first person account intercuts Max's memories of his wife's final months with his memories of a "significant" summer he spent by the sea, during which he became fascinated with the Graces, a family a rung or two higher on the social ladder than Max himself. I put "significant" in quotation marks, because I can't for the life of me figure out what's significant about Max's relationship with the Graces, other than the opportunity it affords Banville to display his considerable gifts, and -- what's worse -- I can't even fathom what's significant about his wife's death other than the opportunity it affords Banville . . . well, you get the idea. The premise of the novel seems to be "Hey, look at me, everybody, I'm the 'heir to Nabokov.' The back of the book says so. And besides, my book is filled with Beautiful Prose." The linking of Banville's name with Nabokov on the back of the book does Banville a considerable disservice. I kept expecting withering satire and a devastating prose style (Banville is good, but he's not that good), and all I got was the narrator's tendency to pepper his recollections with big, bloated words.

"Character-driven" novels are not of themselves a bad thing. Perhaps my favorite novel of the last thirty years relies more on character than on plot. If you're going to rely on character, however, you'd better make sure your characters are at least one, and preferably all, of the following: a) sympathetic; b) compelling; c) more than merely a place marker for inflated, if not particularly profound, ruminations on the Big Questions.

One of Banville's passages may illustrate what bothers me most about this book. In the passage, Morden describes the photographs his terminally ill amateur-photographer wife has taken of fellow hospital patients -- all of whom have, apparently cheerfully, consented to expose their scars, wounds, and afflictions for the sake of . . . photographic immortality? . . . the gratification of their exhibitionist desires? . . . the betterment of mankind? I got stuck, as I read this passage, trying to figure out why the people in the photographs had agreed to present their private suffering in so public a fashion. Then I realized they were props, placed on stage to be rearranged and remarked upon, to give the leading man something to do while he wows us with his method acting. Oh, come on, one might object, isn't Yorrick's skull a prop? Of course, but it's not merely a prop. We admire Hamlet's ability to make him live again, but that's just it. He makes him live again. Nobody really lives in Banville's novel, including his narrator, and perhaps that's not surprising in a novel that is mostly about death. What's more surprising, though, is that, for all his lovely style, Banville leaves us with very little impression that anyone in this book ever really has lived.

In the book's final passages, Max Morden likens the moment of his wife's death to a moment in his childhood when he had been lifted up by a suddenly surging sea, carried toward shore a bit, and then set down again. It was, he says, "as if nothing had happened. And indeed nothing had happened, a momentous nothing, just another of the great world's shrugs of indifference." That's what it feels like to read The Sea.

The Year of Magical Thinking ends with an image of the swelling sea as well:

I think about swimming with [John] into the cave at Portugese Bend, about the swell of the clear water, the way it changed, the swiftness and power it gained as it narrowed through the rocks at the base of the point. The tide had to be just right. We had to be in the water at the very moment the tide was right. We could only have done this a half a dozen times at most during the two years we lived there but it is what I remember. Each time we did it I was afraid of missing the swell, hanging back, timing it wrong. John never was. You had to feel the swell change. You had to go with the change. He told me that. No eye is on the sparrow but he did tell me that.

That's nice, I think. It's at least an image of Didion's life with her husband (writer John Gregory Dunne), and while it is certainly suggestive of larger themes and interpretations, it doesn't defer to them.

To be honest, I was prepared to dislike this book. I hate to admit that, since it's an account of the year Didion spent grieving for her husband and tending to her gravely ill daughter. It's a sad subject, made even sadder by the knowledge that Didion's only child died shortly after the book was finished. I suppose there are two reasons I wanted to dislike it. While I doubted that the book itself would be exploitive or sensationalistic, I thought Didion must surely be aware that there would be a ready-made market for a book like hers -- even people outside literary circles would be curious to find out how the well-known writer dealt with the sudden death of her well-known writer husband. I thought Didion, who famously remarked upon the writer's tendency to always be "selling someone out," should have refused to offer it for public consumption. Wasn't there something unseemly, I thought, about her willingness to dissect her grief? Wasn't there something self-absorbed about it? But that's insufferably, and even hypocritically, high-minded of me. Writers are inevitably self-absorbed -- even writers of shabby little blogs. Didion is a writer, a very good one. Why not write about one of her life's most important events?

Now let me try to explain the other reason I was reluctant to like this book. I had for some years been a great admirer of Didion's style, and I still am, I suppose. She is a master of detachment, a virtuoso of the flat affect. She has an unerring eye for the details of place and time, a fine ear for dialogue which juxtaposes the bizarre and the prosaic to achieve a kind of conversational surrealism. Recently, however, without actually rereading any of Didion's books, I have wondered whether her style wasn't a triumph of attitude over meaning. I was prepared to dislike The Year of Magical Thinking because of a kind of anticipatory disillusionment, an expectation that my suspicions about Didion's prose would be confirmed.

And I still haven't said anything about the book itself. It's a good book, a clear-eyed, almost clinical depiction of grief and its disorientations and disjunctions. If it resists the assignment of meaning, it doesn't embrace meaninglessness. Instead, it recognizes how heartbreakingly human it is to seek meaning, to view our lives with a writer's eye, and to treat the events of our lives as "authored," whether we actually believe them to be or not.

Ouch

Just watched in horror as USC folded in the last six minutes to allow Texas to beat them for the national championship. Ouch. It was pretty painful. The funny thing is, I have no real affiliation with USC. I didn't go to school there and, quite frankly, I don't have anyone close to me who did (well one or two went there but moved on to another institution). However, growing up in southern California, I rooted for them as a kid and have lived and died with them my whole life. The (not so) recent departure of my beloved Los Angeles Rams has made my bond with SC all the more passionate these days given that they're the only football team remaining in L.A. that my childhood took in its whimsical stride.

Like a child, I've cheered them when they've won in recent years. Like a child, I know nothing but sadness with this loss.

I haven't felt a sports sting like this in a long time. Oy the pain. However, I intend to pretend it didn't happen. I'll read no sports pages, listen to no sports talk radio, watch no ESPN for at least a week. This did not happen. I intend to make it so.

Cheer up

Mark Steyn predicts the end of the Western world as we know it.

Concert Fallout

A planned New Year's music festival in downtown LA, the Giant Village, was cancelled, ostensibly because of rain. Many of the disappointed revelers are threatening suit, suggesting that it was cancelled because of poor ticket sales. My favorite story to come out of it is a fellow who travelled all the way from England. He is devastated because he didn't get to propose to his girlfriend during a performance -- wearing a squirrel costume.
OK. . please. . get a grip. .and get a life.

A Good Read

I am halfway through Mother Angelica and am greatly enjoying it. A tremendous life's story, well told.

Not That There Is Anything Wrong With It

Larry David checks in on Brokeback.

"Cast Me Not Off in Old Age"

Via Stanely Kurtz at The Corner, here's an outstanding article in Commentary about the social and ethical challenges we face as an aging population.

Of gay cowboys and real men ...

Ross Douthat reviews Brokeback Mountain favorably. His take on the movie coincides partly with Dale Carpenter's, who argues that the film buys into an image of homosexuality as an escape from the entanglements and burdens of domestic life.

Happy now, Wonderdog?

The Buckeyes did, in fact, "beat those lousy Irish."

Random Thoughts

Remember Lovable Lyle? I used to love the Lyle books when I was young, and whenever I've recalled Lovable Lyle as an adult, I've had a vague sense that the books taught a nice lesson about prejudice and "not judging a book by its cover." But, in another of the alarmingly numerous signs that I'm turning into a grumpy old coot, the last time I thought about the Lyle books, I began to wonder if the books weren't unthinkingly against prejudice. After all, not all prejudices are hateful and irrational. Come on, would you let your child have a huge talking Crocodile as a playmate? In fact, there are several categories of people that it would be quite reasonable for me to be prejudiced against as playmates for my children.

I suppose it's silly to expect a bit more nuance in a children's book, but by the time children reach high school, I think they're ready for some counter-narratives as an anitdote to the litany of poisonous platitudes they've imbibed since kindergarten. I've delved into the follow your heart phenomenon elsewhere, but I think the ever-popular you can't judge a book by its cover deserves some scrutiny and scorn as well. When I taught at a Catholic all-girls middle school and high school, the administration always had to issue warnings about Halloween costumes that wouldn't be permitted on the day the girls dressed up for Halloween (they had to be warned not to come as pregant nuns, for instance). One of the styles of costume that was verboten was "gangsta" fashion. Several girls complained to me during a homeroom that the anti-"gangsta" directive was needlessly restrictive, that they didn't mean to endorse a particular lifestyle by dressing in such a fashion, that they merely liked the way it looked, and, besides, you can't judge someone by their style of dress. I walked over to the chalkboard and drew a big swastika on the board. "What if," I asked, "I walked into class tomorrow morning wearing this symbol on my shirt because I thought it looked pretty?" That pretty much shut them up, as a well-placed reductio ad absurdum is wont to do with high school kids. They didn't even bother to ask me whether I was suggesting some equivalence between "gangsta" style and Nazi "style," which I wasn't. My point was to get them to stop believing, or pretending to believe, that the manner in which they presented themselves in public mattered only to themselves.

Ooops, it seems I've started the New Year out on a sour, rambling, incoherent note. Forget everything I just said.

Here's my amended New Year's message to one and all: follow your heart.

The Last Day

Today marks the last day of an 11 day year end respite. Started out crazy with Christmas cooking for the family. . . then a short trip to the desert. . and then a couple of days of hiding from the world in my coccoon. But tomorrow, I must dip my toes in the muddy waters of the real world once again. Alas and alack. . . at least my batteries are recharged and I have a Thursday Hockey Outing to ease the transition. No malls and no movie theaters this break, but I did rent a few movies and Stew's Reviews follow:

March of the Penguins: I am probably the last mammal on the planet to witness this exquisite jewel. Perhaps the best nature documentary ever filmed. Beauty in the cinematography and the story. I used to think that "Penguins" was a lame name for a hockey team, but after seeing the perseverence, patience, and grit of these Emperors of Antarctica, the name yields only honor and stature.

The 40 Year Old Virgin: Sorry critics, but I am not in line with the heaping of praise on this uneven turkey. I love Steve Carrell, and there were some good elements here, but the movie doesn't hold up as a whole, and the first half is embarassing at times.

Bewitched: The Critics savaged this film, but I am one of the few who actually enjoyed it. Part of my pleasure is how much I loved the old show, but mainly, I loved it because Nicole Kidman is just sooooo damned cute in it. She really shows that she is a throwback to the old time actresses of Hollywood. Will Ferrell is weak and miscast, Shirly MacLane is HORRIBLE, the script is uneven , but there is one great part in addition to Nicole's, that of Steve Carell playing Paul Lynde playing Uncle Arthur. I don't expect anyone else to like this movie, but I did!

Back to checking the Casa for water. Man, I feel sorry for the Rose Parade People.