Bobby Muckle and the Sexual Revolt

One day, I will write a children's book with this title...

Even though I hold a lot of strong political opinions, I'm frequently capable of seeing an issue from both sides. For example, I favor the decriminalization of pretty much every drug. Marijuana, ecstacy, crystal meth, black tar heroin. You name it, I think you should be able to put it in yourself without going to jail afterwards. I hold this opinion because no one has ever been able to devise an opposing argument that I find utterly convincing.

However, I can sympathize with those who feel differently. Drug addiction is a horrible, destructive thing, and the desire to keep some of the more hardcore drugs, like crack or PCP, away from people comes from a good place. I just don't think it has proven to be effective public policy.

The gay marriage issue, though? I'm sorry, I just don't see the sense of the other side on that one. If two people want to marry one another, they should be able to get married. Done. Consensual? Hey, it's fine by me.

This really only gets murky in a few rare cases. If a brother and sister want to get married, that might have unpleasant biological consequences (though I still think they should probably be able to do it). If a man wants to marry five wives, well, usually those situations indicate some level of coercion...but I still don't favor outright prohibition. And, obviously, a child under, I'd say, 16, probably is not mature enough to consent to something long-term and legally-binding like marriage.

Other than that...go to town. It's freedom, baby.

Aside from lame-ass slippery slope arguments, what has the Reich wing got on this one?

"Historically, marriage has always been between a man and a woman." Um, no it hasn't, it has always been between a man and a whole shitload of other women, plus occasionally other men and attractive animals.

"Marriage is about procreation." Um, no it isn't, we let the infertile and the elderly get married. NEXT!

"We're eradicating the meaning of the word 'marriage'." Amazingly, I've actually heard people take this position. It's terribly bad form to reduce a civil rights issue to a semantic argument about the dictionary definition of "marriage." Also, there's no evidence of any form to suggest that legalizing homosexual marriage has any impact whatsoever on the quality, quantity or duration of heterosexual marriages.

Bobby Muckle, VP of the "Connecticut Right to Life Corporation," which sounds like a charming organization with a riveting monthy newsletter, offers a bold argument against gay marriage in this video over at AlterNet. Gay marriage, according to Mr. Muckle, causes global warming. Seriously. Just go watch...

RIP Kurt Vonnegut

My first favorite novelist, Kurt Vonnegut, died today at the age of 84.

It would be impossible for me to sum up the guy's genius in a little blog post, nor his impact on my life. Vonnegut books, particularly Slaughterhouse-Five and Galapagos (which he sometimes referred to as his favorite), essentially introduced me to literature. I had read books previously, for school or pleasure, but never attentively. They had remained little more than narrative delivery systems - authors wrote stories and I read them, finding the results either entertaining or disappointing. But Vonnegut books were funny and outrageous and packed full of ideas, some of them unconventional and new (to me, at least). Unlike most of the drab authors high school students read, Vonnegut was a fun guy to be around. His books were compelling, not like homework.


In particular, my younger self loved Vonnegut's dry, sarcastic prologues. Most of his novels open with self-deprecating prologues describing what the author was doing in the months (or, in some cases, years) before the novel's publication. His description of romantic love from the opening of Slapstick has always stuck with me. I'm not sure if it's because it reminds me of myself or the person I'm most afraid of becoming:

"Love was never at issue...It does not seem important to me. What does seem important? Bargaining in good faith with destiny.

"I have had some experiences with love, or think I have, anyway, although the ones I have liked best could easily be described as 'common decency.' I treated somebody well for a little while, or maybe even for a tremendously long time, and that person treated me well in turn. Love need not have had anything to do with it. Also: I cannot distinguish between the love I have for people and the love I have for dogs."

In addition to brilliantly satirical science-fiction novels like the three mentioned above, Vonnegut wrote short stories, plays and really insightful, darkly funny and, of course, horribly pessimistic essays. I'd recommend Fates Worse Than Death, an extremely frank series of autobiographical pieces in which Vonnegut discusses his work, his family and his failed attempt at suicide a few years prior.

One of his best and most overlooked works, the novel Deadeye Dick, ends with this statement:

"You want to know something? We are still in the Dark Ages. The Dark Ages - they haven't ended yet."

This sentiment sums up so much of his writing. Things are horribly difficult and the only way we can muddle through is to hope that someday things might improve (though probably not) and to laugh at the ridiculousness of our circumstance. As a frequently lonely, somewhat alienated young person who worshipped comedy and comedians, I found this outlook entirely relatable. It summed up what my life at that time was pretty much all about - laughing in the face of pain, rejection and frustration.

The bleak pessimism, by Vonnegut's own admission, became kind of overbearing later in his life. He had sworn off writing altogether for a while, feeling incapable of rending his sour observations about the world into humor that could potentially be enjoyed. Here's a piece from Fates Worse Than Death in which he explains the nature of his humor:

"Jokes work this way: The Jokester frightens the listener just a little bit, by mentioning something challenging, such as sex or physical danger, or suggesting that the listener is having his intelligence tested. Step two: The jokester makes clear that no intelligent response is required of the listener. This leaves the listener stuck with useless fight-or-flee chemicals in his or her bloodstream, which must be gotten rid of somehow, unless the listener wants to slug the jokester or do jumping jacks.

"What the listener most likely will do is expel those chemicals through the lungs with quick expansions and contractions of the chest cavity, accompanied by grotesque facial expressions and barking sounds.

...

"But jokesters are all through when they find themselves talking about challenges so real and immediate and appalling to their listeners that no amount of laughter can make the listeners feel safe and perfectly well again. I found myself doing that on a speaking tour of campuses in the spring of 1989, and canceled all future engagements. This wasn't at all what I enjoyed doing to audiences, and yet there I was doing it. I wondered out loud onstage, for instance, what I and my brother and sister and our parents might have done if we had been German citizens when Hitler came to power. And reply would be moot, but almost certainly depressing. And then I said that the whole world faced a problem far worse than the rise of another Hitler, which was our destruction of the planet as a life-supporting apparatus of delicate and beautiful complexity.

"I said that one day fairly soon we would all go belly-up like guppies in a neglected fishbowl. I suggested an epitaph for the whole planet, which was: 'We could have saved it, but we were too darn cheap and lazy.'

"It really was time to quit."

He felt badly not because humanity was on the verge of wiping itself out (things have not improved since '89, I'm afraid), but because, in some way, he felt like the Earth deserved better than us, like there had been some promise or hope for the world out there on the horizon but never delivered upon, possibly because people had come and mucked it all up with our selfish, lazy thoughtlessness. And this guy was a humorist. As he says in his last published work (I think), the autobiographical A Man Without a Country:

"Do you realize that all great literature - "Moby Dick," "Huckleberry Finn," "A Farewell to Arms," "The Scarlet Letter," "The Red Badge of Courage," "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey," "Crime and Punishment" and "The Charge of the Light Brigade" - are all about what a bummer it is to be a human being? (Isn't it such a relief to have somebody say that?)

"Evolution can go to hell as far as I'm concerned. What a mistake we are. We have mortally wounded this sweet life-supporting planet - the only one in the whole Milky Way - with a century of transportation whoopee."

So what to make of all this now that he has passed on? I'm not sure.

I suppose it would be wrong to be terribly overwrought and sad on this occasion, and Vonnegut was never one to romanticize death. (Perhaps the most famous, iconic phrase from his writing is the resigned "So it goes," repeated throughout Slaughterhouse-Five whenever something tragic happens). This "calypso" from the fictional Bokononist religion of Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle, sent to me this evening by a particularly alert and web-savvy friend, feels somehow appropriate:

God made mud.
God got lonesome.
So God said to some of the mud, "Sit up!"
"See all I've made," said God, "the hills, the sea, the sky, the stars."

And I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look around.
Lucky me, lucky mud.

I, mud, sat up and saw what a nice job God had done.
Nice going, God.
Nobody but you could have done it, God! I certainly couldn't have.
I feel very unimportant compared to You.
The only way I can feel the least bit important is to think of all the mud
that didn't even get to sit up and look around.
I got so much, and most mud got so little.
Thank you for the honor!

Now mud lies down again and goes to sleep.
What memories for mud to have!
What interesting other kinds of sitting-up mud I met!
I loved everything I saw!
Good night.

(True, Vonnegut wasn't much of a God guy, nor a "Last Rites" guy, but it's the sentiment that counts.)

Evangelical Atheism

I use this phrase sometimes as a joke, to refer to the more militant anti-religionites in my family. Really, I get that it doesn't make a ton of sense. To "evangelize" is not merely to preach or to persuade, but to spread the message of the Christian gospels. Still, even if I swapped the verb into "proselytizing" atheist, it's still only a half-sensible statement, because it then implies that a person could potentially preach a lack of belief.

There is no inherent belief behind atheism. It doesn't definte what I think, but what I don't think. So how could I proselyize?

But you get what I'm saying when I say "my cousin Michael is an evangelical atheist." It means, he dislikes statements of religious faith and desires for all the other people around him to stop believing in God.

I have never believed in God, pretty much since Day One, but I frankly don't give two shits about you. Believe whatever in the hell you want, just leave me alone, that is my Spiritual Philosophy in a nutshell. I deeply, deeply resent uptight assholes attempting to push their ludicrous, baseless beliefs on me. I want to do drugs, have pre-marital sex with girls who can potentially go and get abortions if they're not 100% satisfied with my seed, watch unseemly movies, buy beer on Sunday mornings, attend gay weddings, sponsor stem cell research and forget that there was ever such a thing as "The Da Vinci Code." And I hate the fact that pushy moralists want to stop me from doing these things.

But that's all I hate about religion. Nothing about the specific rituals and beliefs themselves, really. I mean, yeah, they're wrong, but a lot of people believe a lot of things that are completely wrong, and it usually doesn't bother me. (I've talked to individuals who actually enjoyed Garden State!)

I think my general, overall misanthropy probably has something to do with this. I think religious people are wrong about everything, but I think non-religious people are wrong about everything too, so there's no need to single anyone out specifically. I'm not one of these people who believes that we'd all be way, way better off without religion, either. Human beings are just massive pieces of shit, and we would be whether we all believed in Jesus, Satan or nothing at all. Our problems are all about tribalism, ignorance and avarice, not faith. Come on...this is obvious...

But I'll even take it one step further! I genuinely find the subject of religion fascinating. And so does every hardcore atheist I've ever met! If they didn't find it terribly interesting, they'd just be another lackadaisical, semi-religious American who never thinks about religion except when they are participating in it. It's counter-intuitive but true. The people who spend all their time wrestling with the Big Questions of religion and the universe are the non-believers. Those who have faith don't really bother with the small stuff, like the fact that the shit they believe makes no sense. "Who cares? I'm already saved already! Let's go get ice cream and hate sins but try our best not to hate sinners too bad!"

Sure, there are thoughtful, philosophical types who are also religious, but not many. It's not a worldview that lends itself to introspection. Your more inquisitive types kind of get turned off by any book that tells what to think and when to think it. This is how you can have a nation full of self-identified devout Christians who don't know shit about their own book.

That USA Today link is about Professor Stephen Prothero, who did a survey which made Americans look very silly. Many of Prothero's subjects were unable to name the authors of the Four Gospels and believed that Sodom and Gomorrah were married. (I guess the test was multiple choice?) The Professor takes this data and concludes...that we need to educate children more about religion in public school.

Wait, what? To me, that data suggests that America's churches are doing a shit job, spending all their time ministering against abortion and for the Republican Party and not getting around to the part about this guy Jesus and all the swell things he said and did.

I've argued on the blog a whole bunch that Christians don't seem to pay attention to what Jesus was all about any more, and this news just advances that theory.

Prothero, who is after all a Professor of Religion at Boston University, clearly disagrees with yours truly. It's not that Americans don't really care about religion and just go to church to be social or to fit in, he seems to believe. It's not false piety that they're constantly exhuding, along with nacho breath, flatulence and megalomania. The problem with Americans is that they're not taught from a young age what grows in the Garden of Gethsemane. (Olives, but I had to look it up).

The idea of World Religion or Comparative Religion education itself is a solid idea. I had a great class like this when I was a sophomore, and it really was my initial exposure to all non-Jewish religion. And it was great! We visited a Hindu monastery (where we took a tour led by the inimitable Swami Viprananda), discusses the wisdom of the Tao, and Mr. Antenore became the first in a long string of people over the years to get mildly frustrated with me after having to explain the concept of a "three-personed God." Catholics, PLEASE, do something about this...It's really confusing...

(For some reason, my parents had raised me and my brother Jewish, despite none of us really believing any of it. We later joined an entire congregation full of Jews who met weekly despite not believing in anything about Judaism, and openly admitting as much. I guess they were all just bored?)

So, I'm all in favor of teaching the older kids a bit about religion, provided you give equal time (say, two weeks each, as I seem to recall we did in Mr. Antenore's class) to all the religions and not frontload one or two preferred subjects. This, of course, will never happen, because most religious Americans don't want to teach children about the beautiful diversity of faith around the world. Rather, they want public schools to indoctrinate. Teach kids about how Christianity is the One True Faith and that all the Eastern religious are adorable but, you know, essentially incorrect and therefore subservient. (This message, I should note, is already taught in public schools to some degree, with the aid of movies like 300 on the side to reinforce the same concepts about Western, white dominance).

My point is, I don't think we need to pretend religion isn't there, like it's not one of the predominant forces behind human history. Because it totally is.

Which brings me, at long last, to an intriguing discussion at PZ Myers' place (another Professor!), Pharyngula.

PZ received a letter, which I will reprint in part:

Today I went to get my car inspected as my state requires it annually, and you will get a ticket for having an expired inspection sticker. The inspection place I went to had a Christian radio station in the waiting room. I politely asked the guy at the desk (who I later confirmed was the owner) to change the channel to one that was not religious. He said he would not.

Eventually, the letter writer left the shop after the guy behind the counter flat-out refused to change the channel.

Now, I'd agree that this is not the best business practice for this guy, turning off anyone who differs with him on religious grounds and kindly makes a simple request. But still...could the letter-writer be any more of a whiny, petulant little child? I mean, I wouldn't listen to Christian radio on my own, but it's hardly going to actively hurt me to hear it for 10 minutes while I wait to have a smog inspection or whatever in some guy's place of business. The letter doesn't say what the Christian DJ was actually discussing, but it's highly unlikely that anything being said was actually Offensive with a capital O. Probably just a lot of God-this and Jesus-that. Maybe a little Satan-the other thing.

Who gives a shit? I mean, to me, it's almost more silly and superstitious to believe that 10 minutes of Christian radio is going to somehow hurt you than it is to listen to the stuff in the first place! I mean, yes, a lot of people are very devout and it's very difficult to take seriously, but God talk isn't Atheist Kryptonite or anything. Unless you're ridiculously weak-willed, you can still be a freethinker with James Dobson on in the background.

Here's PZ's advice:

I think a smart strategy in this kind of situation is not to go after the shop owner, but go after the source. Write a letter to the paper, highlighting some offensive stupidity from that radio station, and make it clear that you won't frequent businesses that play that kind of inanity.

Geez, really? Make trouble for a Christian radio station just because they're talking about being Christian? I don't really believe all this right-wing distracting rhetoric about a "war on Christians" or anything, but that's cutting it pretty close. How about you just don't listen to that station? And bring a magazine when you go to get your car smog-checked? Or go somewhere else? Or, you know, you could start a boycott...Either way.

Truly, You Have a Dizzying Intellect

Words fail me...Some idiot named Chuck Missler makes what has got to be the stupidest anti-evolution argument I, personally, have ever heard. The weird thing about these Creationism/Intelligent Design advocates is their hideous confusion about the VERY BASIC scientific underpinnings of the Theory of Evolution.



See, I am no scientist. In fact, I was never very good at science. I find biology fascinating, and enjoy reading about it, but I'm bad at math and am generally out of my element in studying hard science. Words and conceptual ideas were always more my forte than the complex formulas, cycles and chemical equations of the Life Sciences.

But anyone capable of taking a high-school biology exam could explain to this douchebag why his little peanut butter "experiment" is deeply, deeply flawed. For those of you not bothering to watch that 2 minute clip (it's worth it...trust me...), the guy attempts to disprove evolution by opening a vacuum-sealed jar of peanut butter.

See, evolutionists believe that, occasionally, the combination of energy and matter will create new life. But experience tells us that dead matter will never spawn new life. Therefore, evolution is wrong.

Missler is just confused. He has actually disproved Spontaneous Generation, which has been disproved already, over and over again, throughout the history of Biology. (If I recall 9th grade science correctly, Louis Pasteur famously debunked the theory.) In fact, near as I can tell, the exact origin point of life from non-life isn't really a major focal point of evolutionary science. Rather, it's the study of how life progressed from single-celled organisms to the complex forms we have come to know and love.

My point is not that Missler's wrong. He's obviously, OBVIOUSLY wrong. (And what's with his constant insistance that evolution is wrong because the FOOD INDUSTRY says so. Why should we trust what the food industry thinks more than scientists, professors and other experts? The food industry thought Lunchables and New Coke were awesome ideas.)

My point is that ANYONE could tell that Missler's wrong, including young children and particularly attentive housecats. Either he knows what he's saying is ridiculous, and just hopes to win over one or two lunkheads, or he's just an extremely silly person. It's amazing he's capable of operating a video camera or, failing that, convincing someone who knows how to operate a video camera to assist him.

An Open Letter to My Mexican Neighbors

Dear Mexican Neighbors -

Don't worry...This isn't some anti-immigrant screed where I'm gonna single you all out as responsible for this problem or that. To be honest, by and large, you seem alright. Like a solid bunch of people. I got no major problems with you. I don't think you should have to vote in English or pay the government money to stay here or put up with the racist LAPD or any of that crap. Seriously.

So, Mexicans living in my general vicinity, now that you know I'm alright - not one of those - I just have one question...What's with the accordian music? Several of you have been bumping it all weekend. And I know for a fact you're not extremely old people or anything. In fact, as far as I can tell, you're holding a gathering of individuals around my age.

Surely you've heard some of our contemporary musical genres? I mean, there have been HUGE progressive developments in the music industry since polka's heydey. Maybe, every once in a while, as a lark, I could understand throwing on some accordian music, just to keep the cultural heritage alive or whatever. Like the obnoxious American hipsters who swear with a straight face that Leadbelly is, seriously, their all time favorite songwriter. But non-stop mariachi songs and sea chanties for a few days on end? It's like living in Tortuga.

So, to sum up, not trying to offend anyone. I think 48 hours of the Chicken Dance is causing me to go a bit sideways. Thanks for your continued understanding. Best of luck with that whole "President trying to steal away your civil rights while no one's looking" thing.

Sincerely,
Lons

Your President, Ladies and Gentlemen

Now, I'm not saying that I'd actually like something violent to happen to the man. Don't get me wrong. But it would be spectacularly hilarious, you must admit, if President Mobil McChevron bought the farm from plugging in an electric car.


Credit Ford Motor Co. CEO Alan Mulally with saving the leader of the free world from self-immolation.

Mulally told journalists at the New York auto show that he intervened to prevent President Bush from plugging an electrical cord into the hydrogen tank of Ford's hydrogen-electric plug-in hybrid at the White House last week.

This is, what, the fourth or fifth photo op from which the President barely escaped with his life? We should start making him wear a helmet and pads everywhere he goes, just in case, like a spazzy 6 year old.

Merry Easter

Hopefully, this will become a new beloved American holiday tradition...



Yes, I know it's old, but Ten Things I Hate About Commandments remains hilarious.

Grindhouse

Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez mash-ups have improved with age. In the '90s, their collaborations tended towards the goofy but slight (From Dusk Till Down) or the downright excruciating (anyone else remember Four Rooms?) Like I said, things have improved.

Sin City found Rodriguez in rare form, still not making a film with any kind of emotional payoff or resonance, but at least making something fun and vital and entertaining from beginning to end. And he did so with a vital assist from Tarantino.

The two have now reunited for a grindhouse double-feature, a modern imitation of those old Z-grade '70s Times Square features that still get run in revival houses like Austin's Alamo Drafthouse or our New Beverly Cinema here in LA. This is a gamble. Most Americans aren't actually familiar with these old films: crudely-shot, badly-worn and gleefully perverse bits of nastiness. But beyond the subject matter's relative obscurity, the very concept itself seems destined to fail.

In short, how can two famous directors who work with decent-sized budgets and big stars under the auspices of a major Hollywood studio recreate a grindhouse film?

By definition, these '70s films were made on the cheap, with a bunch of nobodies, in a week or two. Manos, the Hands of Fate, isn't the worst movie ever because it was trying to be campy and bad. IT REALLY IS THAT CAMPY AND BAD, and that's why audiences continue to watch all these years later (even if it is only the "Mystery Science Theater 3000" version).

Rodriguez and Tarantino physically cannot recreate this. Thus, they CANNOT make a true grindhouse film. All they can do is imitate. That's what Rob Zombie did in The Devil's Rejects last year - he used his own resources to make a film that imitated the gruesome horror/road movies of his youth. Which is fine, I suppose, but not terribly exciting.

Rodriguez and Tarantino have, thankfully, devised a third path that I had not anticipated. (Really, a third and fourth path, as their films are not entirely similar). Not only does it work, but it works phenomenally, using '70s style to comment on filmmaking today AND potentially introducing a new generation to an obscure but hugely entertaining moment in American cult filmmaking.

Planet Terror

I'm not sure if every theater will get the same print, and see the Rodriguez film first in the line-up, but that's how it worked for me. Interestingly, Rodriguez has pretty much declined to make a grindhouse film. None of these '70s movies on which he's riffing had these kinds of elaborate make-up and special effects sequences. They rarely had huge explosions or action scenes, or a lot of gunplay. These people were working with four-digit budgets (if that!) They had enthusiasm, ambition and, frequently, some degree of technical knowhow. But they did not have the Weinstein Company behind them.

Instead, Rodriguez has made a big, funny, outrageous, cartoon zombie spoof that borrows the adolescent nihilism of grindhouse films. I haven't seen Sin City in a little while at this point, but I'm tempted to say it's topped by Planet Terror in terms of sheer fun. If nothing else, it's a whole lot more funny than any previous Rodriguez film, as if he'd managed to borrow the brains of old-school Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson for weekend brainstorming sessions or something.

At this point, I think it's fair to say that Robert Rodriguez thrives on uncomplicated, straight-forward action and horror. Whenever one of his films must rely on actual CHARACTERS or interpersonal drama to succeed, it will not work. He knows not what to do with, you know, people. Utilizing new technology to create the latest in live-action video games is more the guy's metier. Everyone's bored by overly-labored, complex non-starters like Once Upon a Time in Mexico, but boredom wouldn't be possible during Planet Terror. The thing doesn't stop moving for a second.


The opening credits are more "grindhousy" than anything that will follow in the rest of the film. Cherry (Rose McGowan) cries as she go-go dances in front of an unenthusiastic crowd. (Her boss reminds her that it's called "go go dancing," not "cry cry dancing," in a speech that reminded me of Larry Bishop's skeezy car wash tirade in Kill Bill 2).

Later that night, she winds up bumping into an old flame, the mysterious and massively-badass Wray (a fantastic Freddy Rodriguez, Rico from "Six Feet Under"). It's just in time, too, because at a nearby military facility, a shadowy government operative (Bruce Willis) and his team have accidentally flooded the atmosphere with a potent poison gas that is soon transforming the local population into mutant cannibal freaks.

What develops, as Cherry and Wray encounter other survivors and hole up in a barbecue restaurant, is pretty much a frenetic and grisly Romero send-up. (The presence of Tom Savini as one of sheriff Michael Biehn's deputies practically invites the connection). It's in some ways kind of similar to Rodriguez's work in From Dusk Till Dawn but more immediate, over-the-top, violent and funny. Rose McGowan's gun-leg has already become the film's most iconic image, but clever little devices and silly visuals like that abound throughout the film.

'80s legend Biehn, who was once James Cameron's go-to tough guy, gets his best role in YEARS as Sheriff Hague, an entirely likable play on the classic gruff B-movie cop archetype. He even gets to reprise the role in one of the fake trailers that come between the two films! Biehn's final scene with his brother JT (a similarly-terrific Jeff Fahey) is the one moment in Terror that has anything even resembling pathos.

Despite all the silliness, Rodriguez does slip in some insights along the way. I loved Willis' monologue explaining the origin of the poison gas - which decisively sets the film in the present-day, provides for one of its biggest laugh lines AND even lends the grim conclusion some poignancy.

But it's his use (overuse, really) of digital trickery and animation effects that really let us know where Rodriguez stands. He genuinely seems to feel that computers improve every aspect of filmmaking. He's not trying to recreate grindhouse films, really, so much as he's IMPROVING upon them. He can make movies as goofy, unhinged and personal as those old cheapo '70s features, but he can fill them with amazing stunts and impossible action sequences. He can even make the wear-and-tear of old prints, the grain and dirt that's usually the bane of classic cinema fans, into a FEATURE of his new movie. The fucked-up splices, the missing reels and so forth are part of the fun of his movie, rather than minor irritations or distractions that have become a constant "part of the experience" of going to the grindhouse over the years.

In some ways, he succeeds. I have rarely seen an actual grindhouse film that's this consistantly entertaining. And I've never seen one with an action climax on this kind of scale. But I feel like I come down more on Tarantino's side of this debate, which I will get to shortly.

The Trailers

There are four fake trailers included in the film. One plays before the first feature, and the others play in between.


Rodriguez did one himself, Machete with Danny Trejo, which is pretty cool. Edgar Wright of Shaun of the Dead fame contributes a really hilarious one called Don't. Rob Zombie crafts the surprisingly authentic Werewolf Women of the SS, the only one of these trailers that genuinely feels like a real grindhouse trailer and has the added benefit of starring Udo Kier and Sybil Danning. (There's an additional cameo that is so good, I would not dream of spoiling it here).

By far the best trailer, one of the year's best short films, really, is Eli Roth's Thanksgiving. Holy shit, this guy is some kind of demented genius. I mean, I liked Hostel a lot and am eagerly awaiting the sequel, but this trailer is extremely sick and perfect. It's as if Roth took every idea for a death scene he'd ever had that was too disturbed or brutal to make it into his actual movies, and then just shot them all in quick succession from odd angles. Brilliant.

Death Proof

Tarantino takes a diametrically opposed strategy with this film from his directing buddy. Rather than use contemporary technology to alter or IMPROVE upon '70s filmmaking, Tarantino has made a bittersweet ode to the forgotten movies of the past, as well as a lament for the soulless bland filmmaking that has come to dominate the marketplace. His film, in some ways, feels like a response to Rodriguez's. "That's a lot of fun," he seems to say, "but not even the world's most powerful computer can replace the thrill of amateur filmmaking, of seeing something that was handmade by enthusiastic nobodies." I think he's right.

Death Proof is SO committed to recapturing the old spirit of the grindhouse, it even gets boring and static in the midsection. I don't know if Tarantino purposefully limited his budget or what, but it feels like he RAN OUT OF MONEY about halfway through and needed to invent some dialogue scenes as "filler" to get to 85 minutes. Any fan of these movies will immediately recognize the sensation - grindhouse films have one or two cool moments in the first half hour, to capture your attention, and then get pretty slow and boring until the end.

BUT WHAT AN ENDING! The final 30 minutes of Death Proof is, without a doubt, some of the best work QT has ever done. Seriously. Kurt Russell is fantastic as Stuntman Mike, a really sadistic piece of work who tools around Austin in his modified Chevy Nova, looking for nubile packs of young girls to crash into. (His car was designed for film and TV stunt work, you see, so it's 100% death proof provided you're in the passenger seat).


Unfortunately for Mike, he has now taken on a group of female stunt drivers, including Rosario Dawson, who now test the upper limits of his driving (and fighting) ability. It sounds dumb, and it is, but in an exceptionally smart way. These final racing scenes feature two classic '70s movie cars (Mike's Nova comes up against a Dodge Challenger, the same car from Vanishing Point) skidding around a contemporary freeway otherwise filled with Toyota Camrys and SUVs. At one point, Russell's car careens through a marquee advertising Scary Movie 4.

These old cars, and the old movies that featured them, had PERSONALITY. They were the products of individuals, not corporations, and because they were made with no money or celebrities, the personality became the star attraction. When I think back on The Candy Snatchers, I don't remember the chase sequences or double crosses. I remember that weird old actor with the beard who chortles "An 8 year old that can't talk! Who ever heard of a child that doesn't talk!" Or the old stage actor who plays the mad scientist in Night of the Bloody Apes. His strange overacting is memorable because it's just so weird.

Computers, you see, they don't do "weird." Or "cheap." Or "homemade." They do exactly what you tell them to do, which is pretty much the 180 opposite of a camera, which does what you tell it only if you're amazingly fucking good with a camera.

But beyond all that "meaning" crap, this is really just great filmmaking. After the House of Blue Leaves sequence in Kill Bill the First and now these crazy racing scenes, Tarantino has proved himself more adept at shooting action than the vast majority of contemporary action directors. The race scenes from the Fast and the Furious movies look like shit in comparison. It's laughable. How humiliating for guys like John Moore, Paul Greengrass and the God-King of Shitty Action Scenes, Michael Bay, that QT can take such a simple premise and turn it into something so intense and exciting.

And, of course, as with every QT film, the music in Death Proof is absolutely stellar. Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich, where have you guys been all my life?

Know Fear

And Now, the Saddest Search of the Week

Someone came to the blog today having performed this Google Search. And I quote:

"looking for sex in ducktown tn"

Is it as bad as all that? (Don't worry...It only links to me because I reviewed the reprehensible Johnny Knoxville film Daltry Calhoun, which coincidentally was set in Ducktown.)

Pfffffffffffffffffffffttttttttttttttttttt

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha...

For all the talk about potential candidates who haven't entered the 2008 presidential race — from Mayor Bloomberg to Vice President Gore to Senator Thompson and Speaker Gingrich — the one that who would bring the most to the race is Vice President Cheney.

...ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha...

Were Mr. Cheney in the race, it's hard to imagine that the president's approval ratings would not be five or 10 points higher. The reason is that the administration would have a defender on the campaign trail as part of the public debate.

[Loud snorting]

Mr. Cheney has virtues as a candidate in his own right. He has foreign policy experience by virtue of having served as defense secretary, and he has economic policy experience, having served as a leading tax-cutter while a member of the House of Representatives.



Lawrence Kudlow wrote a column a while back saying he hoped President Bush asked Vice President Cheney to run for president in 2008. It was a fine idea then and it still is — not because the current field is particularly weak, but because Mr. Cheney is so much more experienced and shrewd a figure, one who could help settle some of the arguments about the Bush years in favor of Mr. Bush. A White House aiming to get Mr. Cheney elected could also avoid some of the hazards that befall lame-ducks — drift, brain drain, irrelevance. Such a campaign might lift Mr. Cheney 's own standing in the polls.



This is not an endorsement, and there are things we find attractive about many of the other candidates. But for those of us who are concerned with extending Mr. Bush's campaign for freedom around the world and cutting taxes at home, a Cheney campaign is attractive.

Okay, okay...I'm okay...Whew...Just let me collect myself here...

In the same Alabama speech in which Mr. Cheney quipped about wanting to run for office again, he said, " America is a good and an honorable country. We serve a cause that is right, and a cause that gives hope to the oppressed in every corner of this earth. We're the kind of country that fights for freedom, and the men and women in that fight are some of the bravest citizens this nation has ever produced. The only way for us to lose is to quit. But that's not an option. We will complete the mission, and we will prevail." What a contrast to the carping over tactics that has infected some of the Republican field and to the fever among the Democrats for cutting off funds for our GIs and sounding a retreat.

Nope, I've lost it again...

The Ventriloquists at the Roxy!

I'll remind everyone later on in the week about this, but this coming Thursday, my friends The Ventriloquists will be opening at The Roxy for Philadelphia's Man Man. You have heard me rave about both of these bands frequently here on The Inertia - this will be a rare, awesome chance to see TWO great acts (three, hopefully, if Simon Dawes lives up to the hype...) for the Scrotastically low price of only $10!

The Ventriloquists on MySpace!
The Ventriloquists on iTunes!
We Are Man Man!

Definitely check out that MySpace link for the Ventriloquists. (What would be the good casual term of familiarity of this band? The 'Quists? The Vents?) They've put up some cool new tracks from the Albino Pomegranite EP, including one catchy song called "Sidecar" that I'm not sure I've ever heard before.

Blades of Glory

Let's consider two popular comic actors - Will Ferrell and Vince Vaughn. Both have made a career of being the best characters in mediocre movies (including Old School, that rare Frat Pack film with two "best characters").

Vaughn and producer Ben Stiller teamed up for Dodgeball a few years back, a nearly-unwatchable, painfully unfunny comedy about a bunch of idiots who play dodgeball against a bunch of other idiots to save a small gymnasium. The film has a good cast and a few jokes work (though many of these, such as Rip Torn chucking a wrench in a guy's face, appeared in the trailers), but it's a slack, uneventful affair that's pretty thin, reliant almost exclusively on poorly-executed physical comedy and cheap sub-"Mad TV" schtick.

Ferrell and producer Ben Stiller have teamed up now for Blades of Glory, about two cocky male figure skaters forced to compete in the Olymics as a couple. Formula-wise, it could be Dodgeball 2. Instead of Rip Torn, you now have Craig T. Nelson as the cantankerous, whacked-out coach who's got to whip these guys into shape. Instead of the high-stakes professional dodgeball circuit, this film takes place in the professional ice skating circuit. Cameos still abound, along with gross-out humor, slapstick and oversized, sketch-comedy-style characters. Stiller's flamboyant Dodgeball adversary has been replaced by Will Arnett and Amy Poehler as a creepy brother-sister skating team.

And yet...and yet...Blades of Glory couldn't really be less like Dodgeball. That film felt tired, bored with itself in a strange way. (Vaughn's visible boredom in his role was a big part of the problem). Ferrell and the rest of the new film's cast go through these sophomoric shenanigans with such fresh-faced enthusiasm, you'd think the antic sports-themed farce were invented last Tuesday instead of roughly 100 years ago. The scenes are sort of funny, the situation is kind of funny but the performances are frequently hilarious.

So, one more time, for the record...There is nothing original, sophisticated or culturally redeeming about Blades of Glory. It did, however, make me laugh my ass off at times, and kept me generally amused throughout. On the Frat Pack-o-meter, I'd rank it below Anchorman, Talladega Nights and Old School but above Dodgeball, Wedding Crashers, Zoolander and any other non-Wes Anderson films with Owen Wilson. I'm really starting to dislike that guy, in fact...















Chazz Michael Michaels (Ferrell) and Jimmy MacElroy (Napoleon Dynamite) earn exactly the same score in the Olym Wintergame finals. So, naturally, they get into a fistfight on the winner's podium and get simultaneously banned from competitive figure skating for life. Four years later, Chazz is the alcoholic star of "Grumbles on Ice" and Jimmy laces up little girl skates at the SportMart. Then, Jimmy's twisted stalker (Nick Swardson) discovers a wacky loophole in the Wintergame rules - Chazz and Jimmy can't compete in singles figure skating, but they could compete as a team!

Safe, obvious mainstream comedy fodder. A solid high-concept pitch. This style of comedy has become a formula because it works. Or, at least, it works sometimes. Fortunately, this is one of those times.

As Ferrell and writer Adam McKay do in their films (Anchorman and Talladega), screenwriters Jeff Cox, Craig Cox, John Altschuler and Dave Krinsky refuse to let realism intrude on a good joke, giving Blades of Glory a loose, flight of fancy vibe that keeps the proceedings light and watchable. Ferrell doesn't just play a macho asshole, he plays the most deluded sex-addicted testosterone-fueled doofus in history. Napoleon Dynamite isn't just a fey blonde-locked priss, he's a ludicrous exaggeration of every stereotype about male figure skaters. There isn't just a footchase, but a footchase through a crowded mall on ice skates while the chaser's wearing a business suit adorned with glitter.

It can be a bit much at times, and obviously any film with this much physical comedy and silliness is going to have some jokes miss their mark. But there are a lot more funny scenes than not, and a few moments that, if not exactly "smart," at least demonstrated some level of wit in the midst of all the stupidity. The skating routines in particular are well shot and designed by first-time directors Josh Gordon and Will Speck, who previously worked on those surreal Emerald Nut commercials. To use a metaphor from a different sport, I wouldn't say they've knocked it out of the park on their first try, but Blades of Glory is a solid double.

Live From Baghdad

This is a great idea. Why hasn't anyone else thought of this?

The Gun Toting Liberal’s Alexander Paul Melonas is now pursuing the Iraq embed opportunity and has written the DOD to begin the vetting process.

Long story short. Lame right-wing blog Red State announced that they were sending a blogger to Iraq, making it sound as if they had been personally invited by the Department of Defense to do so. Of course, they had not. Instead, they had spent several months lobbying the government to permit them to go report from Iraq.

So, okay...typical scumbag rightard maneuever. But...having said that...I think we can all agree this was an excellent idea. Most Americans, and I definitely include myself here, lack even a basic understanding of all the various, complex factors at play in this Iraq mess we've created. This is one of the major reasons I was against Bush's venture in the first place. Americans, and especially their president, don't know shit about the rest of the world. At all. So we probably shouldn't invade it, because we'll just get lost and refuse to ask any of the locals for directions.

I'm not sure if there's a remedy for this. How do you reverse so many generations of willful ignorance and anti-intellectualism? Like it or not, asshattery is part of our national character, like deep-friend Oreos or Sanjaya Malakar. Without it, we are nothing.

But it's still a good idea for more bloggers to actually go see what's going on for themselves and then report back. Even if it has to be one of the guys from...ugh...Red State, which is currently running this post on its front page:

Back in September 2004, when John Kerry and his Magic Hat were on the campaign trail he floated the idea that George Bush would reinstitute a draft if reelected.

Answering a question about the draft that had been posed at a forum with voters, Kerry said: "If George Bush were to be re-elected, given the way he has gone about this war and given his avoidance of responsibility in North Korea and Iran and other places, is it possible? I can't tell you."

This, obviously, was meant to terrify the key collegiate pencil-necked pseudo-male demographic into submissive urination and voting for him.

Irony is a cruel mistress. Jack Murtha has come out in favor of a draft. Let the debate begin.

Yeah...John Kerry said that George Bush was a crazy warmonger whose excesses would eventually require a draft to carry out. And now Jack Murtha is arguing that the only fair way to conduct all of King George's wars would be to...have a draft. How...um...ironic? Do you think?

According to Red State, I guess, the point is that John Kerry threatened voters with a draft and another guy from his own party has now suggested a draft. This situation only appears ironic if you (1) ignore all context, (2) take Murtha's suggestion at face value and (3) hit yourself over the head with a ballpeen hammer until you forget the meaning of the word "irony."

But, heck, let's send 'em to Iraq anyway. Maybe it'll build some character. And I fully support the Gun Toting Liberal's sojourn as well. Obviously, we wish these brave citizen journalists all the best on their travels and a safe return, regardless of their political persuasion. In fact, I'd love to go myself, if I wasn't manacled to a Mystery Job in Santa Monica and a condemn-worthy apartment in beautiful downtown Palms.

Great Moments in Conservative Humor

I'm thinking about making this a regular feature.

Conservatives attempt to actually make humor from time to time and the results are always intriguing. I might even go so far as to call them "confounding." Just not "funny."

Our first item comes compliments of Think Progress. It's a video from last night's White House Correspondent's Dinner, the annual event where our press corps and our elected representatives get together to drink and act like co-workers, even though working together is nowhere in their job description. Seriously, I know I'm not the first person to point this out, but the very notion of a chummy annual dinner between the journalists and the politicians they're supposed to be covering is inappropriate. That would be like the dudes from Price Waterhouse having lunch with all the Oscar nominees the day before the show. It's not a guarantee of impropriety, but it sends the wrong impression.

George Bush, being a deeply unfunny man, has always had kind of a tact problem at these dinners. See, Presidents are expected to kind of lightly make fun of themselves for the pleasure and giggling schoolyard delight of the White House press corps. Bill Clinton memorably made a video about goofing off aimlessly at home when Hillary is out of town. Bush, on the other hand, did a slideshow in which he pretended to look around the White House for Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Get it? Because he started a war based on them and then didn't find any! Oh, his geopolitical recklessness sure is amusing!

And then, when Stephen Colbert showed up and attemptd to do the exact same thing - turn a frank observation about the state of Bush's presidency into a joke - rightards called him incivil and refused to laugh and rode him in the press for weeks.

Anyway, Bush only appears briefly in this clip. (He still does manage to be unfunny, however. A comedian asks him if he has any funny nicknames for Karl Rove. We all know he has one really famous one - turd blossom, which either refers to a flower that grows on lumps of cow dung or the lingering aroma of a fart, depending on who you ask - but he responds with a ripping "He's fired."

Is that a joke?

"Hey, what's your favorite nickname for your long-time co-worker?"

"He's fired!"

"Um...ha ha?"

[NOTE: This is actually a good joke if you happen to be Donald Trump, provided you don't use it too often.]

Misplaced aggression is like a language with this guy. It's his most basic emotional state, Bush at equilibrium.

Instead, this bit focuses on a really really really lame freestyle rap this comedian doofus whose name I have already forgotten does with Karl Rove. Seriously. Freestyle rapping with Karl Rove. Go watch the clip.

First, he asks Turd Blossom some questions about his hobbies, a delightful bit of business that seems to stretch on for approximately eleventy bajillion years.

"So, Karl, do ya have any fun hobbies?"

"Not really."

"Nothing? Nothing you like to do?"

"I don't drink alcohol."

This conversation makes Charlie Rose's show look rousing and lively. Huell Howser watched this clip and said, "Wow, this is fucking boring!"

Then, Karl Rove starts talking about how he likes to hunt quail and rip the heads off of small animals. It all pretty much goes downhill from there. Definitely a Great Moment in Conservative Humor.

Having said that, MC Rove has nothing on this Michelle Malkin column. Tbogg linked to this, but I had to click through to Jewish World Review and read the whole thing for myself to believe it. It reads like one of those weird, militant chain e-mails you get from time to time, vaguely hostile "open letters" addressed to large groups of people that just get handed back and forth ad infinitum across the Intert00bz. (Or maybe that's just my grandmother...)

This is the most hilarious thing I have read in a while.

Dear Muslim Terrorist Plotter/Planner/Funder/Enabler/Apologist,

You do not know me. But I am on the lookout for you. You are my enemy. And I am yours.

I am John Doe.

The killer from Se7en?

Oh, no, it's just Michelle Malkin...Then why isn't it Jane Doe? Did your hypothetical alter-ego representing individuals who feel similarly to yourself about terrorism undergo gender reassignment?

(I mean, yeah, I know, it's about all these "John Doe" legal cases, wherein public-spirited citizens like Michelle reported all these Muslim Imams to authorities, causing them to be detained and harrassed even though, you know, they hadn't actually done anything.

I actually don't think you should be able to be sued for reporting suspicious behavior, mind you. But I still think Michelle's attempt to express solidarity with these unnamed informers is amusing.)

I am traveling on your plane. I am riding on your train. I am at your bus stop. I am on your street. I am in your subway car. I am on your lift.

I am your neighbor. I am your customer. I am your classmate. I am your boss.

I am John Doe.

I gotta tell ya, John, you're kind of creeping me out more than the terrorist. They just want to blow me up to make a point. But you seem really into the whole thing, you know? I mean, you're on my train, okay, that's one thing. But then you're at my same bus stop? That's kind of weird. Then, later, I see you on my street? And in my subway car? And finally my lift, supposing that we went to England for some reason? Give a fucking terrorist apologist some space, J.D. Damn!

I will never forget the example of the passengers of United Airlines Flight 93 who refused to sit back on 9/11 and let themselves be murdered in the name of Islam without a fight.

You know, like in that Paul Greengrass movie...

I will never forget the passengers and crew members who tackled al Qaeda shoe-bomber Richard Reid on American Airlines Flight 63 before he had a chance to blow up the plane over the Atlantic Ocean.

Yeah, the idiot who failed to light his shoe on fire. Wikipedia powers, activate!

Passengers on flight 63 complained of a smoke smell in the cabin shortly after a meal service. One flight attendant, Hermis Moutardier, walked the aisles of the plane, trying to assess the source. She found Reid, who was sitting alone near a window and attempting to light a match. Moutardier warned him that smoking was not allowed on the airplane; Reid promised to stop. A few minutes later, Moutardier found Reid leaned over in his seat; her attempts to get his attention failed. After asking "What are you doing?" Reid grabbed at her, revealing one shoe in his lap, a fuse which led into the shoe, and a lit match. She tried grabbing Reid twice, but he pushed her to the floor each time, and she screamed for help. When another flight attendant, Cristina Jones, arrived to try to subdue him, he fought her and bit her thumb. The 6 foot 4 inch (193 cm) Reid was eventually subdued by other passengers on the airliner, using plastic handcuffs, seatbelt extensions, and headphone cords.

Yes, let's never forget the sad tale of Richard Reid, the al-Qaida wannabe who somehow got his hands on an ACME catalogue. Back to Meesh-Meesh:

I will never forget the alertness of actor James Woods, who notified a stewardess that several Arab men sitting in his first-class cabin on an August 2001 flight were behaving strangely. The men turned out to be 9/11 hijackers on a test run.

And I will never forget the alertness of actor James Woods in all those movies where he's playing a cokehead, which is at least 80% of them.

I will act when homeland security officials ask me to "report suspicious activity."

I will embrace my local police department's admonition: "If you see something, say something."

I am John Doe.

She'll act...even when she doesn't see any suspicious activity. She'll do something suspicious and then report herself. That's Mich John's level of commitment to the vague concept of "homeland security."

I will protest your Jew-hating, America-bashing "scholars."

If there's one thing Michelle Malkin hates, it's fake scholars! Unfortunately, we don't get any names of actual Jew-haters. I think it was Professor Plum who expressed anti-Zionist sentiments in the conservatory...but I can't prove it yet. It could have been the lounge.

I will raise my voice against your subjugation of women and religious minorities.

But only in other countries. All you home-grown women-subjugators and atheist-haters are still cool.

I will challenge your attempts to indoctrinate my children in our schools.

"Sayin' we comes descended from monkeys...That's not my cultured heritage!"

I will oppose all attempts to undermine our borders and immigration laws.

I will resist the imposition of sharia principles and sharia law in my taxi cab, my restaurant, my community pool, the halls of Congress, our national monuments, the radio and television airwaves, and all public spaces.

This shit is really offensive. That first part implies that the major aim of immigration laws proposed by Michelle and other hard-line Republicans is terrorism prevention. The vast majority of people who are impacted by increasingly strict border and immigration policies are not terrorists, they are poor people. Trying to gloss over that fact with platitudes about being "John Doe" and standing guard against jihadis is cowardly in the extreme, an indication that Michelle knows deep-down her beliefs are motivated by racism and xenophobia, requiring her to disguise her true intentions beneath rhetoric.

And that second part...I mean, where to begin.

(1) Why start with taxi cabs? You couldn't at least pretend not to operate entirely based on stereotypes?

(2) Has anyone in America ever once reported an attempted imposition of sharia law at a national monument? I've gotta tell you, pretty much every American monument I've ever been to, there's a guy selling pork hot dogs somewhere right around there. So that's a violation of sharia law right there. Ever been to the Philadelphia Art Museum? There's probably eight, ten violations of sharia law going on on those front steps at any given moment of the day, and that's not even counting the bums loitering around the premises and whatever the hell they get up to. The only time I've ever been to Washington D.C., a guy came up to me right in front of the National Archives and tried to sell me a shirt featuring a huge pot leaf covering the White House and reading, "Washington: Keep Off the Grass." (Obviously I bought one.) If this doesn't represent a healthy respect for non-sharia American law, I don't know what does.

(3) As far as restaurants and radio stations go, if they want to run on sharia law...more power to them. It's not any of my business how you want to run your restaurant. I think it's probably a bad idea, at least for the restaurant, because a burqa will catch fire really quickly if you get hot peanut oil on it. (And in the case of the radio station, KLOS could start operating under sharia control tomorrow and you wouldn't notice a difference).

(4) Why go on? This is really really stupid.

I will not be censored in the name of tolerance.

No, apparently you won't be censored. You wrote it, I'm reading it. End of transaction.

I will not be cowed by your Beltway lobbying groups in moderates' clothing. I will not cringe when you shriek about "profiling" or "Islamophobia."

Well, no one's shrieking anything, and no one's expecting Michelle to cringe, I wouldn't think. But it is strange she can't fathom how this very piece she has just written could be viewed as "Islamophobic." A fear of Muslims is, in fact, the entire theme of the article. She writes of an imposition of Islamic law on our sacred national and social institutions, and cautions us all to be eternally vigilant against the Muslim menace. Then she turns around a few stanzas (verses? lines?) later and scoffs at the notion of Islamophobia. What else is there to call it? Islamo-concernia? "A Slight Case of the Arab Willies?"

I will put my family's safety above sensitivity. I will put my country above multiculturalism.

I will not submit to your will. I will not be intimidated.

I am John Doe.

Stunning. A stunning ability to miss the point. Michelle, you have already been intimidated. That's what this is all about! The John Does were intimidated! That is their defining characteristic! They saw suspicious looking Muslims, felt afraid and intimidated and reported them!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to have a stroke.

No Cure for Cancer

What the fuck is going on with Katie Couric? When did she become a total nutbar?

[John] Edwards, 53, admitted that he'd "been focused on Elizabeth and the family,'' since he and his wife found last week that the cancer that had been in remission since 2004 had now spread to her bones.

In an interview Sunday on CBS' "60 Minutes,'' correspondent Katie Couric suggested to Edwards that people could view his decision to continue running for president in the face of his wife's illness as either callousness or "insatiable ambition.''

Those are tough questions, Edwards said, looking tired this morning in his conversation with Bay Area reporters, but Couric "asked the questions American people are asking themselves. The American people deserve answers from me and Elizabeth.''

That's John, gracious as usual. But this is some pretty ugly business. Going after a candidate for President because his wife has cancer?

And, yes, this is definitely Katie going after Edwards. She tries to pull a Hannity, to float the topic as a secondary source. "You know, Alan, some have said that Hillary Clinton met her husband Bill while working at a Tijuana donkey show. What are your thoughts on this development?"

The ol' "some have said" maneuver. Same move here. "Some may think about perceiving you as callous." I mean, Katie, either you're suggesting that he's callous or you're not. This "some people may interpret..." bullshit is just a diversionary tactic meant to throw off the incredibly stupid. They will, of course, eventually come to believe that this is their own idea formed rationally within their own heads.

"Hey, I just realized that I view John Edwards' decision to continue running for president in the face of his wife's illness as either callousness or 'insatiable ambition!' I am really insightful, isn't I?"

If anything, I think Katie should have to explain this concept that she pre-supposes some voters will eventually settle upon. How exactly does Elizabeth Edwards helping her husband campaign reflect any callousness on his part? Is there any reason to believe he is coercing her into helping him out?

I mean, okay, if she had a terrible case of the flu, and he was dragging her all around town kissing hands and shaking babies, fine, then I could understand the argument. "Hey, that asshole's making his wife run around town kissing hands and shaking babies, when she should be home in bed sipping delicious fresh-squeezed orange juice and watching The Price is Right."

Fair enough. But Elizabeth Edwards isn't ever going to get better. (I'm sorry to be blunt, and I feel terribly for them both, and find their actions of the past few weeks more than a little heroic, but that's the long and the short of her condition. It's terminal.) I think there's ever reason to believe she and her husband sat down and had a serious discussion about how they would spend the rest of her life. And they settled upon "campaign for the American presidency." Most terminal patients have to settle for much less excitement in their final months/years. It could be worse.

So, okay...What does that have to do with callousness? A "serious" couple would spend their final years together (and Elizabeth could potentially live for 5-7 years by most estimates) sitting in a darkened room waiting for the end to come? Curling up in the fetal position and quietly sobbing? Life goes on, even if your cells have gone rogue and turned on you. I mean, shit, this critique just doesn't make any sense at all.

And "insatiable ambition"? Is that anything like "unbridled enthusiasm"? Because, you know, that's what led to Billy Mumphry's downfall.

Seriously, though, anyone who is running for President is ambitious. Unambitious people don't run for President. Some of our best Presidents have been our most ambitious, starting with our first, who led a ragtag, half-equipped army against one of the greatest Colonial armies ever amassed! But he would have given it all up if Martha developed a nasty case of gout! Believe you me! To think otherwise would be exceptionally callous and even gauche by Katie Couric's genteel standards.

Oh, excuse me...By the standards of the hypothetical people Katie Couric has conjured for the purpose of humiliating John Edwards and kickstarting a nasty right-wing meme. Way to go, America's Sweetheart!

Also, I should add that the phrase "insatiable ambition" is pretty meaningless. If you achieve your goal, you would then cease to be ambitious. Therefore, all ambition is insatiable, by definition. If John Edwards wants to be President in any way, shape or form, this is an ambition that will be insatiable until such time as he becomes President, at which point he will no longer have ambition to be President. He will be President.

Now, if Katie means that campaigning along with his Cancer Wife reflects John's deep-down authoritarian Will to Power, an "insatiable" drive to conquer all that he surveys, then once again, I'm afraid I don't follow.

Mo' Taffy, Mo' Problems

When did P. Diddy become pregnant with quintuplets?




















Don't get me wrong. I think it's sweet that he's decided to gain 100 pounds as a living tribute to his dead, obese friend. But this may be pushing it a bit far.

I suppose he did tell us that he won't stop. I thought he meant "making records," not "inhaling fudge," but he never did specify.

Shocking Headline of the Day

About to head out to a delicious lunch at one of my favorite West LA eateries, Bread and Porridge, but before I go...had to share this ridiculousness from the front page at AlterNet.

And I quote...

Support Continues to Erode

Yeah, no shit...

The article is about support for Attorney General Abu Gonzales, but it could be about pretty much anything these days.

Our Power Doesn't Run On Nothing

I only got into the Thermals' The Body, The Blood, The Machine a short time ago, having totally missed it when it came out last year, but it otherwise would have made my Best of the Year list. It reminds me a lot of old-school Bad Religion. The brash intensity, the biting outspoken political commentary. It's very smart, very loud music that only sounds tossed off and silly. (For an album that's so clearly punk-inspired, it's also very slow and deliberate, inviting the listeners to consider the lyrics and concepts rather than just careening into one another semi-rhythmically.

Anyway, there's a track on the album called "Power Doesn't Run on Nothing" that doesn't an excellent job of summing up the American take on world diplomacy. To wit...

Our power doesn't run on nothing/
It runs on blood/
And blood is easy to obtain/
When you have no shame

The Republican Party under Bush, really our entire government with a few minor exceptions, is utterly and completely without shame. Perhaps more so than any other administration in American history, which is really saying something. Here's Dick Cheney speaking just today to the Republican Jewish Coalition. (Don't they sound like a fun and not at all humorless group?)

Vice President Dick Cheney on Saturday accused the Democrat-led House of not supporting troops in Iraq and of sending a message to terrorists that America will retreat in the face danger.

"They're not supporting the troops. They're undermining them," Cheney told a gathering of the Republican Jewish Coalition at the oceanside Ritz-Carlton hotel in Manalapan, Fla., about 60 miles north of Miami.
...
Cheney called it a myth that "one can support the troops without giving them the tools and reinforcements they need to carry out their mission."

Do I really even need to follow up on this point? I'm sure astute, and even somewhat less than astute, readers are already making the connection in their head. The man whose administration left injured troops to rot in moldy, deteriorating hospitals...The same man whose pre-war "planning" consisted of rubbing a rabbit's foot and an overnight Civilization III session...The man who hired 24-year-old nitwits to run the Baghdad stock exchange...The man who was content to send troops into battle without proper armor or supplies...The man who backed Rumsfeld's "light, small, ineffectual and barely visible army" strategy in the early days of the occupation...He's now saying that you can't support the troops without giving them the proper tools and reinforcements.

That's beyond shameless, beyond hypocracy. There's no word for what that is. Shamelapocracy. Bullshitonomy. Assholicism. Anyway, it's completely infuriating.



There's no music video for "Power Doesn't Run on Nothing," but here's the YouTube for another song from the album, "Pillar of Salt." If you go to the actual page on YouTube, you can peep a hilarious argument in the comments about whether or not the song is "against God" and "anti-Christian," which are of course the same exact thing...

Fanjayas Unite!

Oh, man, Sanjaya is totally going to win "American Idol" and it's going to be ridiculously awesome. It's not that the guy has absolutely no talent. It's that the guy has absolutely no talent and is incredibly creepy.

I think it was that hula dance. There was something genuinely unsettling about this entire sequence. His total lack of self-awareness, his willingness to be exploited and made to look ridiculous in front of literally millions of people. It was almost inhuman, that performance, and therefore compelling. You keep thinking, what's going on in his head? Doesn't he realize how poorly this is coming across? How lame he will be made to appear?



Sweet...

What's even more incredible than Sanjaya's combination of talentlessness and determination to go on television weekly to prove said talentlessness is the fact that some people out there genuinely like him! For reals! There's an actual community of people online who believe that Sanjaya haters like Simon Cowell dislike the guy because they are racist homophobes! (Trust me, none of it's worth linking to.)

I'm not sure who's more sad...The Sanjaya-lovers, either be deaf or abnormally attracted to shit-eating grins, or the Sanjaya-haters who are actually emotionally invested in the outcome of "American Idol."

Take the woman who has promised to fast until Sanjaya is kicked off the show. Wow, really? Doesn't she realize that she could do herself serious harm before next week's results come in? Maybe she's Jew-fasting, which is really more like having a late lunch when you get right down to it.