It had been only three weeks after I'd had major surgery when Stephen Colbert made his roast of George W. Bush and of the press at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner on April 29, 2006. So it is quite belatedly that I finally watched that 21-minute performance on the internet, read the excellent entry about it in Wikipedia, and have now watched it several times.
Of course it won't happen with this president, but awarding Stephen with the Medal of Freedom is entirely in order.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Stand Down, Lt. Bush
Please read the op-ed column by Gary Wills in today's New York Times about the distinction of "commander in chief of the US armed forces" and "commander in chief of the US," including each and every civilian. The current CIC probably doesn't understand the distinction. Or if asked, he would say what he said about Saddam's having weapons of mass destruction as contrasted with being suspected of having the capacity to make WMDs: "What's the difference?"
Have you ever been in the army? Having that man--or anyone, for that matter--as your military commander as though you were conscripted into some kind of militia is a terrifying thought. In the military, dissent is mutiny. You can be hanged for that -- or shot, under battlefield conditions. In this simplistic, my-way-or-none mentality that has come to prevail, it's either you're as safe as if you're clearing brush in Crawford or you're breaking down doors in Baghdad. With us grunts, it's the latter. We're in combat. All of us. Therefore we can have G-2 (military intelligence) secrecy instead of full disclosure. We can have unwarranted searches and seizures. When we are commanded, we have the option to salute and move out or go to the brig. Or the firing squad. For the duration.
It's going to be a long war.
Have you ever been in the army? Having that man--or anyone, for that matter--as your military commander as though you were conscripted into some kind of militia is a terrifying thought. In the military, dissent is mutiny. You can be hanged for that -- or shot, under battlefield conditions. In this simplistic, my-way-or-none mentality that has come to prevail, it's either you're as safe as if you're clearing brush in Crawford or you're breaking down doors in Baghdad. With us grunts, it's the latter. We're in combat. All of us. Therefore we can have G-2 (military intelligence) secrecy instead of full disclosure. We can have unwarranted searches and seizures. When we are commanded, we have the option to salute and move out or go to the brig. Or the firing squad. For the duration.
It's going to be a long war.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
TV Commercials
"The standard half-hour of television contains 22 minutes of program and 8 minutes of commercials - 6 minutes for national advertising and 2 minutes for local. ... Highly-watched programs can command rates in the millions of dollars. For example, a 30-second spot during the 2005 Superbowl sold for $2.4 million. Commercials during less-watched programs are more affordable, but the cost of those commercials may still run in excess of $100,000 per 30-seconds." from Gaebler Ventures
I watch entirely too much commercial TV. I'm "watching" now as I write this and the fare at the moment is not very appetizing: Keith Olbermann and Maria Milito are ridiculing the contestants and judges on "American Idol." A show the viewing of which I've never had the pleasure. I do not arrogate superiority to myself for not having watched it. I confess that I watch a lot of commercial TV -- mea culpa.
TV from the consumers' viewpoint is a medium for entertainment and information. From the entrepreneurs' perspective, TV is money. Come to think of it, considering today's "free market," I find it remarkable that there aren't double or triple the commercials there are. I suppose diminishing returns would take their toll after a while: there are people who would watch TV if it were 75% commercials but I suspect they wouldn't have much buying power -- correlating to their lack of intelligence -- therefore the industry folks run as many commercials as they can. It's supply and demand -- wouldn't that be it? As I've confessed, I'm far afield when I dabble in economics.
When there's something on TV I really want to watch, that figure of 25% or so seems quite small. But I'll take the quotation above as accurate. I've often taped TV shows and FF'ing through the commercials it takes forty-some minutes to watch the show. Yet, I remember TV in the fifties, and one-minute commercials then occurred about every fifteen minutes. The good old days are gone, long live the good old days. On the other hand, there was no cable then (that is partly why Madison kept such a large part of its historic district intact, in my theory), no remotes, and no VCR/DVDs. Things have their tradeoffs.
So what's to be done about commercials? Enjoy them, I guess. At least some of them. At first I didn't like the one with the insomniac, Abe Lincoln, the beaver, and the astronaut. Now I look forward to seeing it. I also like the offended Seinfeldian caveman and the cockney Geico gecko. My favorite of last year was the elephant dancing to "Singin' in the Rain."
My favorite one right now is the one for The Nation, the print magazine for these times. It wasn't expensive to make, I'd guess (other than, perhaps, having Sam Waterston as the unseen narrator). It's just front covers maneuvered by computer graphics, I guess, with the assurance that there's "no White House spin, just the straight dope (W's face always appears at the utterance of that word) and it contains "that famous media liberal bias." Covers have included W. as Alfred E. Neuman (the resemblance is striking) and W. with a long Pinocchio nose. That's my favorite.
I watch entirely too much commercial TV. I'm "watching" now as I write this and the fare at the moment is not very appetizing: Keith Olbermann and Maria Milito are ridiculing the contestants and judges on "American Idol." A show the viewing of which I've never had the pleasure. I do not arrogate superiority to myself for not having watched it. I confess that I watch a lot of commercial TV -- mea culpa.
TV from the consumers' viewpoint is a medium for entertainment and information. From the entrepreneurs' perspective, TV is money. Come to think of it, considering today's "free market," I find it remarkable that there aren't double or triple the commercials there are. I suppose diminishing returns would take their toll after a while: there are people who would watch TV if it were 75% commercials but I suspect they wouldn't have much buying power -- correlating to their lack of intelligence -- therefore the industry folks run as many commercials as they can. It's supply and demand -- wouldn't that be it? As I've confessed, I'm far afield when I dabble in economics.
When there's something on TV I really want to watch, that figure of 25% or so seems quite small. But I'll take the quotation above as accurate. I've often taped TV shows and FF'ing through the commercials it takes forty-some minutes to watch the show. Yet, I remember TV in the fifties, and one-minute commercials then occurred about every fifteen minutes. The good old days are gone, long live the good old days. On the other hand, there was no cable then (that is partly why Madison kept such a large part of its historic district intact, in my theory), no remotes, and no VCR/DVDs. Things have their tradeoffs.
So what's to be done about commercials? Enjoy them, I guess. At least some of them. At first I didn't like the one with the insomniac, Abe Lincoln, the beaver, and the astronaut. Now I look forward to seeing it. I also like the offended Seinfeldian caveman and the cockney Geico gecko. My favorite of last year was the elephant dancing to "Singin' in the Rain."
My favorite one right now is the one for The Nation, the print magazine for these times. It wasn't expensive to make, I'd guess (other than, perhaps, having Sam Waterston as the unseen narrator). It's just front covers maneuvered by computer graphics, I guess, with the assurance that there's "no White House spin, just the straight dope (W's face always appears at the utterance of that word) and it contains "that famous media liberal bias." Covers have included W. as Alfred E. Neuman (the resemblance is striking) and W. with a long Pinocchio nose. That's my favorite.
Friday, January 19, 2007
Mundane Musings
The wife can be droll. Neighbors and family give her amusement. Mother Jones (doesn't print much news but does raise hell) is a hoarder and a clutterbug. Karletta, M.J.'s grandson's girlfriend, who's really a can-do person, has been hired to help Mrs. Jones (a nonagenarian) with housekeeping. The other day Karletta removed three 42-gallon garbage bags of groceries that needed removal (bulging cans? oozing? -- you get the idea).
After all that, an inventory revealed there were still sixteen cans of green beans. Prompting Rosie to sing:
Sixteen cans and whaddaya get?
Another day older and deeper in debt.
St Peter don't-cha call me cause I can't come,
I owe my soul to the old folks' home.
Later, she reminded me of two neighbors. One is a man who was found to be keeping a horse in his house. The city finally persuaded him to find Dobbin a nice pasture. No charges filed, commitments to the insane asylum, or anything like that. The other is a gentleman who for a while was riding his bicycle around the drive, a back pack on his back, waving to one and all. What is strange about that, you ask? The man was naked. Yep, not a stitch.
This evening we watched Written on the Wind (1956), which neither of us had seen. I was reminded of The Carpetbaggers (I'd actually read the novel by Harold Robbins in my drinking days, when I was a lot more masochistic than I am now). It also reminded me of the nighttime soaps, Dynasty and Dallas, which I didn't watch but heard enough about.
Written on the Wind is a melodrama, and it is hilarious. Rock Hudson, Dorothy Malone, and Robert Stack were perfectly casted and a hoot. Everything -- acting, dialogue, scenery, the fantastic score by Frank Skinner, and of course the quite nice song in the opening titles sung by the Four Aces, were perfect. And perfectly ridiculous. It makes me want to watch Some Came Running again, for laughs.
After all that, an inventory revealed there were still sixteen cans of green beans. Prompting Rosie to sing:
Sixteen cans and whaddaya get?
Another day older and deeper in debt.
St Peter don't-cha call me cause I can't come,
I owe my soul to the old folks' home.
Later, she reminded me of two neighbors. One is a man who was found to be keeping a horse in his house. The city finally persuaded him to find Dobbin a nice pasture. No charges filed, commitments to the insane asylum, or anything like that. The other is a gentleman who for a while was riding his bicycle around the drive, a back pack on his back, waving to one and all. What is strange about that, you ask? The man was naked. Yep, not a stitch.
This evening we watched Written on the Wind (1956), which neither of us had seen. I was reminded of The Carpetbaggers (I'd actually read the novel by Harold Robbins in my drinking days, when I was a lot more masochistic than I am now). It also reminded me of the nighttime soaps, Dynasty and Dallas, which I didn't watch but heard enough about.
Written on the Wind is a melodrama, and it is hilarious. Rock Hudson, Dorothy Malone, and Robert Stack were perfectly casted and a hoot. Everything -- acting, dialogue, scenery, the fantastic score by Frank Skinner, and of course the quite nice song in the opening titles sung by the Four Aces, were perfect. And perfectly ridiculous. It makes me want to watch Some Came Running again, for laughs.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Hoo Wee, Hoo Ray and Yay Raw for the Methodists!
One of my favorite monologues of the movies is when Hedley Lamarr dictates to Taggart the list of dangerous outlaws and criminals for his SURGE into Rock Ridge:
"I want rustlers, cut throats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass-kickers, shit-kickers and Methodists."
Methodists. Methodists?
Well, I don't know about the laity of the (mainline) Methodists, but what some of the Methodist preachers are doing is priceless!
Check this.
"I want rustlers, cut throats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass-kickers, shit-kickers and Methodists."
Methodists. Methodists?
Well, I don't know about the laity of the (mainline) Methodists, but what some of the Methodist preachers are doing is priceless!
Check this.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Courage to Change the Things I Can: Impeachment
Friends and loved ones, it is time for all good people to act.
In spite of all our material blessings and this wonderful land and freedom to come and go and privacy and civil rights as long as we conform and don't rock the boat, we are now a nation with a man -- two men -- who are determined to defy the will of the majority and usurp more and more power and privilege and secrecy, imperiling this nation. We are fast approaching a dictatorship.
Gary Hart sums up the status quo well:
"The endless Iraq war is decreasingly about Iraq and increasingly about the U.S. Constitution.
"President Bush's decision to escalate the war, and to further Americanize it, is based on his flawed and dangerous theory of the 'unitary presidency,' a theory under which, once war is declared, the president as commander in chief can ignore constitutional checks and balances, disregard the bill of rights, suspend accountability, and concentrate dictatorial power in his own hands."
[Huffington Post, 1.9.2007]
We can act as individual citizens to initiate the impeachment of George W. Bush. I have decided to do just that. The means is laid out in this link. Please explore this option. I am as serious as I can be. I implore you: please consider this action. Read all of the procedure and the arguments for and against impeachment. Then act.
You can make an individual petition yourself. All that is involved is downloading, printing, and filling out the form and mailing it to Nancy Pelosi. Even if there were a great deal more involved than this simple procedure, I am convinced that it is the just, honorable, sane, and moral thing to do.
And urgent. We need to do it now. We can hang out and pretend that initiating impeachment is something reserved for the lunatic fringe, for Cindy Sheehan (I don't believe Cindy, who lost a son in Iraq, is crazy, but Fox and Friends have said she was) and Michael Moore (yep -- he's fat and needs a shave, but he's right on this one), for the lady with the frivolous sign at the rally, for celebrities who are not making asses of themselves otherwise.
But I say the situation has gone much further than that. Senator Ted Kennedy gave a speech yesterday at the National Press Club about a bill he is introducing "to reclaim the rightful role of Congress and the people’s right to a full voice in the President’s plan to send more troops to Iraq."
In the speech, Ted read quotations which he had to identify as those of Lyndon Johnson because they were indistinguishable from the remarks of Bush. "We shall stay the course" is not original. Ted said that "Iraq is Bush's Vietnam."
Now, that Vietnam. I didn't go there, thank God, but I was here and aware of what was going on. I had completed my Army Reserve obligation by the time of the first big escalation, and was already crazy enough from my Peace Corps experience! But I was here, and I soon began to oppose it. I was a lefty and a peacenik and a hippie (without the appearance of one), so I was in the vanguard. It was a long, long time before the rank and file opposed it, before we finally concluded that over 58,000 American lives weren't worth it.
And of course there are those who have never come to the decades-later conclusion of Robert McNamara, the Donald Rumsfeld of that day, that "We were wrong."
Does anybody recall the sojourn in hell that we spent here and there in Vietnam? And how long it took us to get out of there?
JFK started sending "military advisers" there soon after he took office. (We young men wore flat-tops then and there was a universal draft.) Then there was the "Gulf of Tonkin resolution" that LBJ used in 1964 as his casus belli (think of Colin Powell's "aluminum tubes" speech at the UN). Then LBJ chose to quit after his term because of the unpopularity of the war in 1968.
Tricky Dick said, "I have a [secret] plan for ending the war" and people bought it enough without reading the fine print to squeak him into the White House. Then, whatever the plan was, it didn't materialize for the next six years and, while the brilliant Henry K. was "shuttling" here and there pursuing "peace with honor," we started [secretly] bombing Cambodia and Laos as well as Vietnam.
And after Nixon resigned in 1974, we still didn't rescue the last American in Vietnam via helicopter until 1975, during the Ford administration. So we were there for a good twelve years, with strong opposition from I'd say 1967 on.
And the kids then were opposed to the damned war. There was none of this YouTube and iPods and laptops for everybody and what is Britney Spears doing and that kind of crap. These kids were taking it personally. In 1971, four of them were actually shot to death by soldiers at Kent State -- that's a state college, where freedom of speech is supposed to be championed, not punished by death -- for demonstrating against the war. The kids then were beginning to think it was just as dangerous to oppose the war here as it was to fight it there. And the parents finally climbed on board with the kids, after the Kent State stunt.
In spite of all that, we were there twelve years and lost over 58,00 lives. How long is it going to be for Iraq? Four years and 3,000 and counting. Don't forget the billion a week we spend there. Act, friends. For the love of God and America and your loved ones, act.
In spite of all our material blessings and this wonderful land and freedom to come and go and privacy and civil rights as long as we conform and don't rock the boat, we are now a nation with a man -- two men -- who are determined to defy the will of the majority and usurp more and more power and privilege and secrecy, imperiling this nation. We are fast approaching a dictatorship.
Gary Hart sums up the status quo well:
"The endless Iraq war is decreasingly about Iraq and increasingly about the U.S. Constitution.
"President Bush's decision to escalate the war, and to further Americanize it, is based on his flawed and dangerous theory of the 'unitary presidency,' a theory under which, once war is declared, the president as commander in chief can ignore constitutional checks and balances, disregard the bill of rights, suspend accountability, and concentrate dictatorial power in his own hands."
[Huffington Post, 1.9.2007]
We can act as individual citizens to initiate the impeachment of George W. Bush. I have decided to do just that. The means is laid out in this link. Please explore this option. I am as serious as I can be. I implore you: please consider this action. Read all of the procedure and the arguments for and against impeachment. Then act.
You can make an individual petition yourself. All that is involved is downloading, printing, and filling out the form and mailing it to Nancy Pelosi. Even if there were a great deal more involved than this simple procedure, I am convinced that it is the just, honorable, sane, and moral thing to do.
And urgent. We need to do it now. We can hang out and pretend that initiating impeachment is something reserved for the lunatic fringe, for Cindy Sheehan (I don't believe Cindy, who lost a son in Iraq, is crazy, but Fox and Friends have said she was) and Michael Moore (yep -- he's fat and needs a shave, but he's right on this one), for the lady with the frivolous sign at the rally, for celebrities who are not making asses of themselves otherwise.
But I say the situation has gone much further than that. Senator Ted Kennedy gave a speech yesterday at the National Press Club about a bill he is introducing "to reclaim the rightful role of Congress and the people’s right to a full voice in the President’s plan to send more troops to Iraq."
In the speech, Ted read quotations which he had to identify as those of Lyndon Johnson because they were indistinguishable from the remarks of Bush. "We shall stay the course" is not original. Ted said that "Iraq is Bush's Vietnam."
Now, that Vietnam. I didn't go there, thank God, but I was here and aware of what was going on. I had completed my Army Reserve obligation by the time of the first big escalation, and was already crazy enough from my Peace Corps experience! But I was here, and I soon began to oppose it. I was a lefty and a peacenik and a hippie (without the appearance of one), so I was in the vanguard. It was a long, long time before the rank and file opposed it, before we finally concluded that over 58,000 American lives weren't worth it.
And of course there are those who have never come to the decades-later conclusion of Robert McNamara, the Donald Rumsfeld of that day, that "We were wrong."
Does anybody recall the sojourn in hell that we spent here and there in Vietnam? And how long it took us to get out of there?
JFK started sending "military advisers" there soon after he took office. (We young men wore flat-tops then and there was a universal draft.) Then there was the "Gulf of Tonkin resolution" that LBJ used in 1964 as his casus belli (think of Colin Powell's "aluminum tubes" speech at the UN). Then LBJ chose to quit after his term because of the unpopularity of the war in 1968.
Tricky Dick said, "I have a [secret] plan for ending the war" and people bought it enough without reading the fine print to squeak him into the White House. Then, whatever the plan was, it didn't materialize for the next six years and, while the brilliant Henry K. was "shuttling" here and there pursuing "peace with honor," we started [secretly] bombing Cambodia and Laos as well as Vietnam.
And after Nixon resigned in 1974, we still didn't rescue the last American in Vietnam via helicopter until 1975, during the Ford administration. So we were there for a good twelve years, with strong opposition from I'd say 1967 on.
And the kids then were opposed to the damned war. There was none of this YouTube and iPods and laptops for everybody and what is Britney Spears doing and that kind of crap. These kids were taking it personally. In 1971, four of them were actually shot to death by soldiers at Kent State -- that's a state college, where freedom of speech is supposed to be championed, not punished by death -- for demonstrating against the war. The kids then were beginning to think it was just as dangerous to oppose the war here as it was to fight it there. And the parents finally climbed on board with the kids, after the Kent State stunt.
In spite of all that, we were there twelve years and lost over 58,00 lives. How long is it going to be for Iraq? Four years and 3,000 and counting. Don't forget the billion a week we spend there. Act, friends. For the love of God and America and your loved ones, act.
Monday, January 08, 2007
Do Something!
Dear Baron:
Congratulations on your rightful return to Congress! I campaigned and voted for you and I thank God you’re back -- as a competent, good, and honorable man, and as a reasoning opponent to this wrongheaded regime now in control of the executive branch.
I am enclosing the latest column by Molly Ivins, who warned us before November 2000 of what we would have on our hands as a nation if we elected George W. Bush. Her assessment of what kind of president he would be, based on what kind of governor, businessman, and student he had been, has proven to be dead on. I ask you to take a few minutes to read her column.
I can’t say it better than Molly has, but I will say how I feel: Mr. Bush and his little gang are holding all of us hostage by “staying the course” (although Tony Snow doesn’t dare call it that anymore!), hell-bent on “victory” in this immoral, insane war. “Victory” for him means self-destruction for us.
Because we are surely being destroyed
* soldier by soldier in this Iraq madness;
* dollar by dollar in out-of control spending and favors for the ultra-rich;
* our honor among nations and among ourselves with the closed-minded arrogance and militancy of the Bush gang;
* our civil liberties and privacy, supposedly because we are “in a war on terror.”
The list, I wish I could say, ends there, but of course it doesn’t. I’ve already said too much in this one letter without mentioning our need for
* universal health care;
* campaign finance reform; and
* reversal of destruction of the environment.
For starters.
I love this country and tried to serve it with honor as a reserve soldier and as a member of the Peace Corps. A true patriot wants what is best for his country. Patriotism and fighting a war—any war, including the wrong one—are not one and the same.
* As a patriot, I say: End the madness.
* As a patriot, I say: Get our brave, loyal, honorable, patriotic soldiers out of that shooting gallery, that killing field. For the love of God, please don’t send more in!
* As a patriot, I say: Let George W. Bush and his flock of chicken-hawks go fight their own war for the sake of their own egos.
I no longer want to be a hostage in my own country. This is supposedly a representative democracy, and my one recourse was to vote for you and support you. I want you to tell the president for me that this war is an outrage against humanity, reason, sanity, morality.
Let us oppose this president at every turn. Let us get him out of power. Let us impeach him. One president was impeached for a lot less. The articles of impeachment for George W. Bush would fill a book.
Please help us, sir. You are our honorable man in Washington.
Your constituent,
Congratulations on your rightful return to Congress! I campaigned and voted for you and I thank God you’re back -- as a competent, good, and honorable man, and as a reasoning opponent to this wrongheaded regime now in control of the executive branch.
I am enclosing the latest column by Molly Ivins, who warned us before November 2000 of what we would have on our hands as a nation if we elected George W. Bush. Her assessment of what kind of president he would be, based on what kind of governor, businessman, and student he had been, has proven to be dead on. I ask you to take a few minutes to read her column.
I can’t say it better than Molly has, but I will say how I feel: Mr. Bush and his little gang are holding all of us hostage by “staying the course” (although Tony Snow doesn’t dare call it that anymore!), hell-bent on “victory” in this immoral, insane war. “Victory” for him means self-destruction for us.
Because we are surely being destroyed
* soldier by soldier in this Iraq madness;
* dollar by dollar in out-of control spending and favors for the ultra-rich;
* our honor among nations and among ourselves with the closed-minded arrogance and militancy of the Bush gang;
* our civil liberties and privacy, supposedly because we are “in a war on terror.”
The list, I wish I could say, ends there, but of course it doesn’t. I’ve already said too much in this one letter without mentioning our need for
* universal health care;
* campaign finance reform; and
* reversal of destruction of the environment.
For starters.
I love this country and tried to serve it with honor as a reserve soldier and as a member of the Peace Corps. A true patriot wants what is best for his country. Patriotism and fighting a war—any war, including the wrong one—are not one and the same.
* As a patriot, I say: End the madness.
* As a patriot, I say: Get our brave, loyal, honorable, patriotic soldiers out of that shooting gallery, that killing field. For the love of God, please don’t send more in!
* As a patriot, I say: Let George W. Bush and his flock of chicken-hawks go fight their own war for the sake of their own egos.
I no longer want to be a hostage in my own country. This is supposedly a representative democracy, and my one recourse was to vote for you and support you. I want you to tell the president for me that this war is an outrage against humanity, reason, sanity, morality.
Let us oppose this president at every turn. Let us get him out of power. Let us impeach him. One president was impeached for a lot less. The articles of impeachment for George W. Bush would fill a book.
Please help us, sir. You are our honorable man in Washington.
Your constituent,
Sunday, January 07, 2007
Epiphany + 1: 13th Day of Xmas
A few weeks ago we bought a ten-dollar fiber-optic "tree," between two and three feet high, for the holidays. It has a cheery little twinkle of spectral colors, especially when the living room is dark. According to tradition, we should be taking it down now. January 6 is the holy day known as Epiphany, and December 25-January 6 comprise the 12 days of Xmas. (Partridge in a pear tree or not. And I'd rather hear "Jingle Bell Rock" sung by Brenda Lee than that asinine song.) But I do love the multicolored lights of the season, and I'm always let down a little when people put their lights away for the year. Seems I recall the perennial holiday lights in the living room of our Ogden friends, Afton and Beverly McKell. Seeing those lights went along with the taste of the little chocolate-covered orange sticks they always had on hand. Which causes me to associate to the chocolate-covered cherries that my Grandma Annie always had during the Yule season.
Anyhow, guess we'll put the tree away until next year, along with Christmas Vacation and It's a Wonderful Life.
Anyhow, guess we'll put the tree away until next year, along with Christmas Vacation and It's a Wonderful Life.
Oater Day and Last Laugh
We have coughy colds and the weather has been soggy and dreary. The Frankenstein Drive Moles have built a city in the backyard, and just under the surface they must be riding around in gondolas rather than burrowing.
Today watched too many oaters on TCM: Duel at Diablo with Jim Garner and Sid Poitier (really like the Neal Hefti score!); Bend of the River with Jimmy Stewart, directed by Anthony Mann; Sons of Katie Elder with the Duke and Dino Crocetti (? hint: he sings "That's Amore"), score by Elmer Bernstein;* and Will Penny with Charlton Heston in one of the best performances I've ever seen him in, the lovely Joan Hackett, and Donald Pleasence as a convincing villain. This evening saw Another Woman, by Woody Allen and starring Gena Rowlands. Finally, we saw My Big Fat Greek Wedding, a wonderful escape and a really sweet movie. Not one ugly moment in the whole thing. Everybody in this is a hero and likable. Highly recommend. I liked it better than Moonstruck, which it resembles.
*Oh yes, Martha Hyer, of Some Came Running, was in the Katie Elder flick, and she was the most ravishing I've ever seen her.
Finally, the best news story of the day for me, an op-ed in the NY Times by Chevy Chase about Jerry Ford:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/06/opinion/06chase.html
Today watched too many oaters on TCM: Duel at Diablo with Jim Garner and Sid Poitier (really like the Neal Hefti score!); Bend of the River with Jimmy Stewart, directed by Anthony Mann; Sons of Katie Elder with the Duke and Dino Crocetti (? hint: he sings "That's Amore"), score by Elmer Bernstein;* and Will Penny with Charlton Heston in one of the best performances I've ever seen him in, the lovely Joan Hackett, and Donald Pleasence as a convincing villain. This evening saw Another Woman, by Woody Allen and starring Gena Rowlands. Finally, we saw My Big Fat Greek Wedding, a wonderful escape and a really sweet movie. Not one ugly moment in the whole thing. Everybody in this is a hero and likable. Highly recommend. I liked it better than Moonstruck, which it resembles.
*Oh yes, Martha Hyer, of Some Came Running, was in the Katie Elder flick, and she was the most ravishing I've ever seen her.
Finally, the best news story of the day for me, an op-ed in the NY Times by Chevy Chase about Jerry Ford:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/06/opinion/06chase.html
Saturday, January 06, 2007
Mars Attacks!
Cool! On Turner Classic Movies. A cross between Dr. Strangelove and It's a Mad Mad ... World. Has cathartic value, affording fantasies of the demise of a rotten-assed president. I'd take Jack Nicholson anytime over the Current Occupant, of course. Or Donald Trump, or Kevin Federline, or Michael Richards, or Danny DeVito, drunk or sober. Alack, must go to bed. It gets even better after this: two Pam Grier movies, Coffy and Foxy Brown. Keep cool, my babies.
Monday, January 01, 2007
2007, and 3,000 GIs Dead
Past midnight. Happy New Year, you guys.
Switched boob tube to CNN and watched Anderson Cooper and a foxy roving reporter (Robin somebody) making happy chatter with the drunkards indulging in their last bat for the year.
Happened to see the running headline at the bottom of the screen:
3,000 SOLDIERS KILLED IN IRAQ.
So it goes.
Switched boob tube to CNN and watched Anderson Cooper and a foxy roving reporter (Robin somebody) making happy chatter with the drunkards indulging in their last bat for the year.
Happened to see the running headline at the bottom of the screen:
3,000 SOLDIERS KILLED IN IRAQ.
So it goes.
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