Mad Women

One of my minor nits with Mad Men is how often its female characters are depicted as the downtrodden, helpless victims of a male dominated 1960s world. Plot elements tend to over exaggerate the plight of these women for the sake of drama and Mad Men’s more “progressive” contemporary audience. Despite living in a world of ubiquitous sexism that makes us cringe today, the majority of real women I know from that era managed to live happy, fulfilling lives. This happiness, I submit, wasn’t a manifestation of some sort of sociological Stockholm Syndrome. Truth be told, these women were as much A PART of the mores of that time as they were its victims.

That’s why I got charge out of “A Night to Remember,” Mad Men’s eight outing for Season 2. It finally allowed two of the more oppressed characters, Betty and Peggy, to push back. Don’t get me wrong; it's still very much a man’s world. But this time, these women don’t submissively acquiesce to the testosterone induced flogging that society has been dishing out for them on a weekly basis. In fact, a theme running through this episode concerns the power that females, knowingly or not, can wield in that world BECAUSE of their gender.

The title itself conjures up catastrophic images of, literally (if you pardon the pun), titanic proportions. It ostensibly refers to Peggy’s “pro bono” work with Father Gill designing marketing pieces for an upcoming church dance. But, like most things on Mad Men, its dual meaning equally, and perhaps more pointedly, applies to Betty and Don’s story.

As the episode begins, Betty is still processing the revelation from “The Gold Violin” that Don has been screwing around with Bobbie Barrett. By the end of “A Night to Remember,” Don’s indiscretion will have more negative ramifications for the Drapers than Betty puking on their beloved new Cadillac’s red interior. As she did after first hearing of the affair from Bobbie’s jilted husband Jimmy.

While simmering in her own thoughts, Betty is at home preparing for an important dinner party that the Draper’s are hosting so that Duck Phillips and Roger Sterling can meet Crab (yes, "Crab") Colson of the PR firm Rogers and Cowan. The discovery of a wobbly dining room chair seems to be Betty's tipping point as she calmly proceeds to smash it on the oriental rug. This occurs in full view of the children who are watching television from another room. While the actual television is out of camera range, you can hear that it’s tuned to a Three Stooges short with Shemp (I’m a bit of a connoisseur). My first reaction was to wonder what more these poor kids would have to endure? It’s bad enough to have a basket case for a mom. But the Stooges without Curly? Come on!

To my surprise, however, upon a closer listening, I heard a few of Curly’s distinctive “nyuk, nyuk, nyuks” thrown into the mix. Since, Curly and Shemp never appeared together onscreen (okay, they did once in "Hold that Lion," but Curly only made a cameo and didn’t have any lines), it’s clear that the director didn’t just drop in a sound clip from one Stooge outing for atmosphere. They actually constructed a track from a number of different shorts that would be recognizable as The Three Stooges BUT would also add meaning to Betty’s actions.

In this case, the key lines came from a 1947 Stooge short, “Brideless Groom.” The scene they choose was of Shemp getting the tar kicked out of him by a blond hottie, who, the entire time she’s putting the boots to him, professes to be a helpless female. That scene ends with Shemp getting violently tossed through the front door and out of the “helpless” woman’s home (see clip below). Given Mad Men’s attention to details of this sort, I can’t imagine it to be a mere coincidence.

Later, Duck, another “brideless groom,” arrives at the Draper party sans date. It’s a good thing his lady friend (probably fictional) canceled, as the Drapers are a chair short. However, one could conceivably argue that all of the men at the party are “brideless” in some way. Of course, the aforementioned Duck, whose wife has left him. Then there’s Roger Sterling whose marriage seems less than satisfying. Crab Colson’s wife is a portrayed as a drunk who bounces off walls. And finally, Don, who has yet to realize his soon to be “brideless” status.

In the process of positioning SC to land the Heineken beer account, Don feels that Betty, an affluent, suburban housewife, is a good sample of a viable target market. To that end, Don uses the occasion of the party to enlist her as the sole and unknowing subject in a consumer behavior experiment. To the laughing delight of the marketing professionals at the party, she passes Don’s test with flying colors by selecting the fancy imported Heineken for the event.

After the party, Betty confronts Don about his making her the butt of a joke in front of his colleagues.

Of course, the Heineken “experiment” isn’t really what she’s mad about. Betty finally lets Don know that she’s aware of his fling with Bobbie. Ever the salesman, Don asks her to tell him what she thinks she knows. Betty immediately pushes back by astutely pointing out that he’d find a way poke holes in whatever she said. I hate to admit it, but I almost felt as frustrated as Don when his pitch to sell his innocence falls short.

As portrayed, Betty’s breakdown and eventual rebellion over Don’s affair is both plausible and powerful. That night, after her fight with Don, she retreats to bed, wearing the same dinner dress. The next day, still wearing the dress, she rifles through Don’s things looking for clues of his infidelity and only finds “stupid marketing stuff.” At one point, Betty steps on a wineglass and breaks it into pieces. I took this as a deliberate reference to a Jewish wedding ceremony where a similar act is performed. The symbolism of Betty pulling a shard of glass out of her bare foot doesn't bode well for the Draper marriage.

Meanwhile, back at the office, Harry Crane’s television department gets the blame when, Maytag, an SC client, complains about the placement of one of their TV ads. Apparently, their washing machine spot touting the benefits of a new agitator was juxtaposed with a television show whose plot that involved a Communist “agitator.”

As a result, Harry is given the impossible tasks of reading ALL the scripts for upcoming television shows with an eye toward keeping their client’s commercials optimally positioned.

Historically, this was a very real dynamic for that day. In fact, ad agencies arguably had more influence than the Mad Man episode portrays.

Rod Serling once recalled, "Before the script goes before the cameras, the networks, the sponsors, the ad agency men censor it so that by the time it's seen on the home screen, all the message has been squeezed out of it. One time we couldn't mention Hitler's gas ovens because a gas company sponsored the show." This was the inspiration for his classic anthology series, The Twilight Zone, where the sci-fi plots effectively camouflaged his more controversial themes from the prying eyes of network and ad execs.

Failing to get any official help from Roger, Joan Holloway is temporarily brought on board to read scripts. She’s a natural and takes to it the same way Peggy took to writing ad copy. Her efforts turn out to be a big hit with SC clients, some of whom are the characterized as garden-variety lechers who enjoy meeting with Joan as much as the advice she gives them.

This success convinces Roger to formally create a position in Harry’s department that allows Joan to go back to her regular duties. When finding out that the script reading job is going to a younger, less qualified male, Joan handles it well. But it’s clear that she is crushed.

I think many would interpret Roger’s actions as the vindictive move of a spurned lover. But, I see it differently. It appears that SC treats its television department as a bit of a necessary nuisance. This is comparable to how many ad agencies treated their web teams in the middle to late 90s. To Roger’s way of thinking, the script reading task was beneath Joan and an unwelcome distraction from her more prestigious role as Office Manager. Thus, it could be said that Roger was doing what he thought was in the best interests of his one time virtual “bride.”

This brings me to Peggy and Father Gill. As the Sacrament of “Holy Orders” effectively marries Gill to the church, he may be the episode’s fifth brideless groom. It’s refreshing to see a Catholic priest portrayed as something other than a grizzled old Charles Durning type or a failed Lothario a la The Sopranos. I really hope they don’t devolve his relationship with Peggy into a clichéd romantic one.

Peggy and Gill have to contend with a gaggle of church lady organizers who prove to be just as difficult as any high-powered SC customer. They think that the concept, “A Night to Remember,” is too suggestive for a young person’s dance. Peggy reminds them that their advertising efforts should be directed at the young girl market. Consistent with the theme of female power, she predicts that if the girls show up at the dance, so will the boys.

"You're supposed to tell them to trust me," Peggy later testily complains to Father Gill while reading him the riot act after he to backs down to the matrons over the wording on the promotional flyers. He agrees and then changes the subject to discuss Peggy’s apparent lapse in faith. She hasn’t been receiving Communion. Again, it was nice to hear a character of faith sincerely explaining the spirtual benefits of their religious dogma. Nonetheless, Peggy politely, but firmly, brushes him off.

As Betty and Peggy exert their power, it’s Joan who seems have lost some in this episode. Her doctor fiancé clearly doesn’t understand the feeling of satisfaction she received out of the script reading assignment and actually looks forward to the day when Joan can stay at home “eating bon bons.” At dinner, she waits dutifully on her man and even jumps to fulfill his rather rudely delivered request for a glass of water.

Later on, we see Joan changing for the night. Promoting her sexuality to get ahead now seems to be a two edged sword. Dejected, Joan personifies the expression, “you’ve made your bed, now lie in it.” The straps of her tight and sultry outfit, an asset at work, now seem equally constricting as they leave deep, visible marks on her shoulders.

The shot of Joan undressing is juxtaposed with a scene of Father Gill removing his vestments as he readies for bed. The conclusion one could reach is that his vocation is equally constrictive for him. Snuffing out a cigarette, an act that bonds him to the other worldly male characters on the show, Father Gill unwinds by getting out his guitar to sing the Peter, Paul and Mary spiritual “Early in the Morning.” By the way, it may really be Colin Hanks singing, but the dubbing left something to be desired.

Betty, seeming to have come to terms with Don, has finally changed clothes and is back at work in the kitchen. Make Room for Daddy plays on the television. Danny Thomas, who along with Desi Arnaz, were the original alpha-male sit-com husbands, is consoling his son Rusty who has just gotten dumped by a girl. Ironically, when it cuts to commerical, a Jimmy Barrett spot for Utz Nuts appears just in time for Betty to see it. Afterward, in the same calm demeanor she displayed breaking the chair, Betty calls Don at work and tells him not to bother coming home.

“A Night to Remember” ends with the now almost tiresome device of a montage showing the dust settling on the various story lines set to music.

Peggy sits in a tub staring ahead despondently. Has Father Gill’s questioning caused her to pull further back into her shell? Or does the bath represent a sort of second baptism which will signal her attempt to return to the flock?

The last shot shows a dejected Don still at the office and alone. Grabbing a Heineken from the kitchen refrigerator, this time, nyuk, nyuk, nyuk, the joke is on him.

---

Shemp getting beat up by a poor, defenseless woman in "Brideless Groom" (end of part 1 and start of part 2):



From IMDB "trivia": In one scene, Christine McIntyre discovers that Shemp is not the "Cousin Basil" she thought he was, and slaps him around, then punches him and knocks him through the door. McIntyre, who was not a professional stuntwoman, leaned too far in when she "punched" Shemp, and actually did hit him, breaking his nose. The sequence was left in the picture.


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Life Imitating Art?

Sometimes a picture's worth a thousand words...

From Fox News:

Clinton Cancels Rally Appearance After Learning Palin Invited

Hillary Clinton has pulled out of an appearance at a New York rally next week to protest Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad because she doesn’t want to be seen alongside Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin in a “partisan” event, her aides say.

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Out of the Mix

Dammit. I didn't get around to submitting my idea for the New Yorker "Cartoon Caption Contest #159." Given the NYer's propensity for picking the wrong entrees, I don't think it REALLY matters.



I was going to send:

"The cafeteria was out of two-by-fours, stir it with your ruler"

Which I think holds up to the actual finalists:

• "Can you please pass the cow?" - not bad, not great
  
  
• "Let me start by welcoming you all to Narcoleptics Anonymous." - zzzzz
  
  
• "By a 9-0 vote, the rest-room expansion project is approved." - sometimes, I think they're just pulling them out of a hat

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The Politics of Surfing

A Barack Obama ad takes John McCain to task for not having computer skills:



Obama spokesperson, Dan Pfeiffer, further opines: "It's extraordinary that someone who wants to be our president and our commander in chief doesn't know how to send an e-mail."

The problem, as pointed out in NPR's "The Corner," is that a couple of articles from 2000 cite McCain's war injuries as making it difficult (if not impossible) for him to use a keyboard.

Slate, Feb 11, 2000:

Six months ago, no one would have pegged McCain as the most cybersavvy of this year's crop of candidates. At 63, he is the oldest of the bunch and because of his war injuries, he is limited in his ability to wield a keyboard.

Boston Globe, March 4, 2000:

McCain gets emotional at the mention of military families needing food stamps or veterans lacking health care. The outrage comes from inside: McCain's severe war injuries prevent him from combing his hair, typing on a keyboard, or tying his shoes. Friends marvel at McCain's encyclopedic knowledge of sports. He's an avid fan - Ted Williams is his hero - but he can't raise his arm above his shoulder to throw a baseball.

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Atheists for Palin?

Christopher Hitchens, author of the unambiguously titled "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything," on Sarah Palin in Slate:

...as often as I have forwarded some alarming e-mail about her from a beavering comrade, I have afterward found myself having the sensation of putting my foot where the last stair ought to have been and wasn't. Was she in the Alaska independence Party? Not really. Did she campaign for Pat Buchanan in 2000? The AP report from 1999 appears to be contradicted by her endorsement of Steve Forbes. (Not great, I agree, but not Buchanan, either.)

...Sen. Barack Obama announced that Jesus had died on the cross to redeem him personally. How he knew this he did not say. But it will make it exceedingly difficult for him, or his outriders and apologists, to ridicule Palin for her own ludicrous biblical literalist beliefs. She has inarticulately said that her gubernatorial work would be hampered "if the people of Alaska's heart isn't right with god." Her local shout-and-holler tabernacle apparently believes that Jews can be converted to Jesus and homosexuals can be "cured." I cannot wait to see Obama and Biden explain how this isn't the case or how it's much worse than, and quite different from, Obama's own raving and ranting pastor in Chicago or Biden's lifelong allegiance to the most anti-"choice" church on the planet.

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The Trouble With Charlie

I finally watched GOP Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin's interview with Charlie Gibson from Thursday night. Contrary to convential wisdom, I think he actually did her a favor.

Gibson was VERY tough on Palin. And, to my surprise, she held up fairly well.

Sure, she stumbled a couple of times. Her answer to the "Bush Doctrine" question was ackward and she could have handled it better. But then again, Gibson's question was a tad ambiguous. The "Bush Doctrine" isn't really a clear cut thing like the Monroe or Truman Doctrines.

Charles Krauthammer, a McCain supporter, who's cited in Wikpedia as the first one to use the term, writes in the Washington Post:

There is no single meaning of the Bush doctrine. In fact, there have been four distinct meanings, each one succeeding another over the eight years of this administration -- and the one Charlie Gibson cited is not the one in common usage today. It is utterly different.

I still oppose the Palin pick and agree with David Frum who says it better than I could:

I have been disturbed about the choice from the start, as you know. And I have not seen any reason to feel less disturbed ... She really could be president! And here's where my fellow conservatives really worry me. They are so attracted by the symbolism of the selection that they show no concern — never mind for her executive competence — even for her views.

However, I didn't see anything from last night that scared me off.

And from a "performance" standpoint, I think Martin Sieff best summed it up for me:

Whatever her inexperience and other shortcomings, Palin did not fall into that trap in her ABC interview. At no point did she appear fearful or threatening. Gibson's aggressive questioning on her religion and her son's coming military service in Iraq, by contrast, runs the risks for the Democrats of strengthening support for Palin among working-class, married women, especially those with husbands or sons serving in the military.

The pattern of previous presidential election interviews and debates has always been that individuals who come across as intellectually superior, arrogant and condescending forfeit support that goes to their perceived victims. This dynamic played a crucial role in propelling George W. Bush into the White House eight years ago. It remains to be seen if Gibson's perceived arrogance and condescension will give Palin another boost.

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You Get What You Pay For

From the Associated Press:

Michael Moore to release new film online for free

NEW YORK (AP) — Inspired by Neil Young and Radiohead, Michael Moore will release his new film online and for free.

The film, "Slacker Uprising," follows Moore's 62-city tour during the 2004 election to rally young voters. It will be available for three weeks as a free download to North American residents, beginning Sept. 23. An official announcement of the film is planned for Friday.

Moore said he considered releasing "Slacker Uprising" theatrically as "Michael Moore's big election year movie" as he did with 2004's "Fahrenheit 9/11," which was highly critical of President Bush.

Instead, Moore opted for a symbol of gratitude to his fans as he approaches the 20th anniversary of his first film, 1989's "Roger & Me."

Wow. What a hero!

...Moore readily acknowleges this a film for Democrats.

No shit! Jeez, his grandstanding is f'n annoying (and I mean that in a good way).
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If It Walks Like a Pig?

Andrew Sullivan, one of my favorite writers and a huge Barack Obama supporter, reacts to the Senator's "lipstick on a pig" remark on his blog:

For me, this surreal moment - like the entire surrealism of the past ten days - is not really about Sarah Palin or Barack Obama or pigs or fish or lipstick. It's about John McCain. The one thing I always thought I knew about him is that he is a decent and honest person. When he knows, as every sane person must, that Obama did not in any conceivable sense mean that Sarah Palin is a pig, what did he do? Did he come out and say so and end this charade? Or did he acquiesce in and thereby enable the mindless Rovianism that is now the core feature of his campaign?

I have a lot of respect for Sullivan and I'm happy to give Obama the benefit of the doubt. BUT his post bends over backwards to dismiss the remark completely.

Can he seriously contend that the crowd at the rally would have reacted to the mere mention of the word "lipstick" as enthusiastically IF they hadn't connected it to what's become the most memorable catchphrase of Palin's RNC speech? (I'd say no.)

I agree the sexism charge is probably a bit much. But didn't Obama rake McCain over the coals for his equally stupid, and out of context, "100 years" quip? (I'd say yes.)

Is the GOP posturing? (OF COURSE they are!)

However, I'd argue that this was clearly a blunder on Obama's part, and as such, more than just a little newsworthy.
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Swine Foolish

E-freaking-gads, what was Barack Obama's writers thinking when they came up with this line that, intentionally or not, plays off Sarah Palins "pit bull with lipstick" joke?

From AFP (emphasis added):

"The other side, suddenly, they're saying 'we're for change too.' Now think about it, these are the same folks that have been in charge for the last eight years," the Illinois senator said to a crowd of 2,400 people.

"You can put lipstick on a pig. It's still a pig. You can wrap up an old fish in a piece of paper and call it change. It's still going to stink after eight years. We've had enough," he exclaimed to a standing ovation.

How could they NOT realize that this would come across as Obama referring to Palin as a pig?


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Low Tide

The New Yorker's winners for the "158th Cartoon Caption Contest" should have been beached.

I honestly thought my entry took the cartoon in an unexpected and funnier direction.

It's not a pyramid scheme. We prefer the term "multi-level marketing."

Can't really say much good about the finalists: :

• "Run! The kid with the little red shovel is coming back!" - doesn't do anything for me
  
  
• "We save a bundle on suntan lotion." - and that's funny becaussssssse...?
  
  
• "You got that? Three bottled waters, two sodas, one coffee, and six straws." - oh, I get it, he's ordering drinks for all of them, ho ho ho

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Out of the Box

Here's the last of a series posts on the RNC I did for "The House Next Door." It was fun.



Now that the RNC is over, my feelings about the Republican’s chances in November remain unchanged. While I’m still a John McCain man, it’s hard to see him overcoming the Obama juggernaut.

Sure, the Sarah Palin selection has jolted many Republicans back to life. Instead of slamming McCain, as they have been for months (hell, years), Conservative talk radio types like Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham are now singing his praises. One could argue that this was bound to happen anyway. But, trust me, there was a good chance that without the "Palin effect," many of those in the GOP intelligentsia were poised to throw McCain under the bus after November and then say "I told you so."The current vibe among the elated hardcore is that Palin will excite the general public and present the Obama campaign with a challenge they were unprepared for.

But, I’d just advise my fellow McCain supporters to heed the advice of Winston Wolfe and "not start sucking each other's dicks quite yet." ...(more)
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Space, The Banal Frontier

Since I didn't submit anything for the New Yorker "Cartoon Caption Contest # 157," I won't complain about the winners. BUT, I can't say I like any of them either.

• "Five hundred billion galaxies and nothing's on." - best of the bunch
  
  
• "Can I offer anyone a little more oxygen?" - left me breathless
  
  
• "See? Foreclosure's not all bad." - I should have submitted something

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More House Stuff!

Here are my third and fourth entries on the 2008 RNC in The House Next Door.

• It's Wonk-a Vision
• A Pit Bull with Lipstick

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In the HOUSE!

The people that run one of my favorite blogs, The House Next Door, have gratuitously allowed me to post a running commentary on the 2008 Republican National Convention during this week's run.

Go check it out. Feel free to leave a comment, I need all the help I can get :)

• Let The Games Begin
• When You Walk Through A Storm
  

But, don't forget to come back!
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The Perfect Storm?

Michael Moore on Keith Olbermann's Countdown joking about Gustav being proof of god.

Is it me or do they both seem a little TOO happy about it.



Olbermann wasn't quite as glib about it tonight after an entire day of non-stop MSNBC hurricane coverage.
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Luke 4:12

Here's an interesting irony.

Stuart Shepard, who does videos for James Dobson’s Focus on Family put out a “pray-for-rain” video asking for rain in Denver to sour the Democratic convention. He now claims this was meant to be tongue-in-cheek.



I'm hardly an expert, so I don't generally quote scripture, but with Gustav now threatening to overshadow the REPUBLICAN convention, maybe Shepard should reread Luke 4:12.

And Jesus answering said unto him, It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.

Of course, not to be outdone in the asshole department, Former DNC Chairman Don Fowler laughingly invokes God and Gustav while talking to Congressman John Spratt of SC.


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Separated at Birth?

I noticed an uncanny similarity between Gov. Sarah Palin, the presumptive GOP Vice Presidential candidate, and Laura Roslin, President of the fleet, on Battlestar Galactica.





Could one of them be the "twelfth" Cylon? (sometimes, I'm such a geek)
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There She Is...

This morning, McCain announced that Alaska Governor, and former beauty queen, Sarah Palin, will be his running mate.

My gut reaction was what the hell is he thinking? Is she ready for prime time? Is this a "Harriett Quayle" pick who'll be one heartbeat away from the presidency?

I wanted Romney. He's got strong economic bona fides and could help McCain steal important states like Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

On the other hand, the Palin pick has seemed to truly energize what was a generally listless Conservative base who seemed to have consigned themselves to a November massacre.

A hard core Republican friend of mine (he was a GOP Electoral College voter in 1980 made the conservative case for Palin:

• The OBAMA team cannot really, with a straight face, accuse anyone of being too young and inexperienced.
  


• Palin locks up the "family value" Republicans who were nervous about McCain all along.



• If she only picks up ten to fifteen percent of Hillary Clinton's 18 million, Obama is in big trouble.

• Her gun toting (lifetime NRA member) will play well with those that "cling to their guns" in Montana, Colorado, West Virginia, Kentucky, Penn, Florida. The NRA will be sure that all those voters know it, too.

I'm not sure I buy all of it, but let the games begin.

BTW, did Obama make a speech last night?

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McCain's VP Choice!!

I really don't know who John McCain has picked for his VP. I've just always wanted to do a Drudge flashing light thingy.

Trying to get ahead of the curve in anticipation for the announcement of McCain's running mate, I did some searches on domains containing "McCain" and the last name of the leading contenders (Kay Baily Hutchinson, Tim Pawlenty, Tom Ridge, Joe Lieberman, Mitt Romney, and Sarah Palin) .

Here are my unofficial findings:

Kay Bailey Hutchinson seems out of it as mccainhutchinson.com has expired (unless that's a clever misdirection).



Likewise, I'd say Joe Lieberman is not it. Mccainlieberman.com looks like it's being held by an ad squatter.



Interestingly, the same guy owns the domains of two VERY strong contenders, mccainridge.com and mccainpawlenty.com. He lives in New Jersey and uses an MIT alumni email address. I'm not sure what, if anything, that means.





The McCain/Romney site seems to have been created using a canned template. Since a huge organization wouldn't be so cheap, it doesn't look like a Mitt's the one.



On the other hand, whoever runs mccainpalin.com, for Alaska Governor Sarah Heath Palin seems to think (or hope) it's Romney:



Final answer: what a waste of time this was! I feel like Andy Rooney.
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Good Night and You Suck

Keith Olbermann, a mediocrity who constantly slams Fox for being biased, demonstrates why he's no better by making snide remarks on a hot mic directed at Joe Scarborough.

I think Joe bitch-smacks him nicely.

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Glen or Glenda?

Back from vacation...(ANYONE miss me?)

I didn't submit an entry for The New Yorker "Cartoon Caption Contest #156."



I just couldn't connect with the cartoon because it's not clear IF the person wearing high heels was supposed to be a feminine man or a woman pretending to be a man.

Here are the winners:

• "Actually, I'm not crazy about long walks on the beach." - I get it, but it doesn't quite work
  
  
• "I'm looking forward to casual Friday, when I can put on some flats." - about as good as you can get given the image
  
  
• "I'm working my way up to a sex-change operation." - turgid

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The Hershey High Way

$4.00 a gallon gas, fine. I'll deal with it. But THIS is an OUTRAGE.

From Bloggingstocks.com:

Hershey raises prices after posting terrible earnings

The relationship between Hershey Co. (NYSE: HSY) and Wall Street has been sour for a while. Shares of the chocolate maker have plunged more than 30% over the past year amid concerns about rising commodity prices and the growth of healthier eating habits. Now, the confectioner is raising wholesale prices by an average of 13% on one-third of its domestic product line effective immediately .

Chocoholics are paying the price for higher costs for raw materials, fuel, utilities, and transportation.

...Yet another reason for people to eat healthy.

And we don't need the smart-ass remark about eating healthy at the end either.
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Wind Power Blows

Of course, you had to know this sort of story would come out eventually.

From The Houston Chronicle:

Wind turbines across Oregon stir up health scare

Study suggests living close to an energy farm can cause a variety of physical ailments

...new research suggesting that living close to wind turbines, as Eaton and her 60-year-old husband, Mike, soon will be doing, can cause sleep disorders, difficulty with equilibrium, headaches, childhood "night terrors" and other health problems.

...Dr. Nina Pierpont of Malone, N.Y., coined the phrase "wind turbine syndrome" for what she says happens to some people living near wind energy farms.

...In contrast to those who consider wind turbines clean, green and an ideal source of renewable energy, Pierpont says living or working too close to them has a downside. Her research says wind turbines should never be built closer than two miles from homes.

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A Boy and His DAD

The Road, Cormac McCarthy's 2006 novel about survivors in a world devastated by an unexplained nuclear disaster, sets the same tone as another of his "glass is half-empty" efforts, No Country For Old Men, except without all the laughs.

The bleak story follows the travels of an unnamed father and son as they constantly scavenge for food and shelter while making their way South to warm climate armed only with a shopping cart and a gun that has two bullets.

This is not a Mad Max adventure that takes a fun, action oriented view of the apocalypse. The minimalistic writing style McCarthy employs (he doesn't use any punctuation such as quotation marks or capital letters) sets the appropriate mood.

Early on, we learn that the father, who appears to have a medical background, realizes that he is suffering from a fatal respiratory ailment (presumably brought on by the harsh environment).

The mother has committed suicide rather than face the gangs of thieves, rapists, and cannibals that now roam about in search of prey. Their prospects grim, the father presses forward only because of his concern for the well-being of his son.

The HBO Western, Deadwood, explored the idea that it's the nature of human societies to engage in a sort of reverse entropy and create a social order where none exist.

The Road paints a different view of mankind.

Like a clock that's been broken into a million pieces, civilization, once destroyed, can never quite be put back together. However, as demonstrated by the father and son, we cling to the remnants of those broken parts in the vain hope that someday the clock may work again.

The Road is powerful stuff. It's gripping and suspenseful one minute, then touching and tender the next.

McCarthy claims to have been inspired by the relationship with his own son. Indeed, the parallel to the dying father and McCarthy, who became a parent rather late in life, seems pretty clear.

A movie version starring Viggo Mortensen as the father and Kodi Smit-McPhee as the son is due out this Fall.

While it's my understanding that they're remaining true to the novel, the fact that Charlize Theron is cast as the mother gives me pause. It's hard to imagine a big name star like her playing a part that only takes up about five pages in the book. So, I'm guessing the role is getting beefed up for the film.

The thought of this sort of tinkering fills me with a bit of angst and dread that I think Cormac McCarthy himself would appreciate. The work of writers like McCarthy and Elmore Leonard can be f'd up pretty easy when other people tweak it.

But, we shall see.
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Fountain of Youth

Hollywood legend Ernest Borgnine divulges his secret to being a robust 91 year old while promoting his new book, "Ernie", on Fox and Friends.

For my money, he's one of the most versatile character actors ever, but doesn't quite understand the concept of "amplified sound."

(listen carefully as he whispers into Steve Doocy's ear)


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The Bomber with a Heart

Oh, Ted's such a humanitarian. Of course, if he was really worried about his victims, he could have chosen to NOT blow them up.

From the Associated Press:

Unabomber objects to cabin display at Newseum

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski wrote a letter to a federal appeals court complaining about a museum exhibit of the tiny cabin where he plotted an 18-year bombing spree.

Kaczynski, who is serving a life sentence with no possibility of parole, says the display at the Newseum in Washington runs counter to his victims' wish to limit further publicity about the case.

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Super Size Me!

From today's Detroit Free Press:

Many overweight adults are surprisingly healthy

A new study suggests that a surprising number of overweight people — about half — have normal blood pressure and cholesterol levels, while an equally startling number of trim people suffer from some of the ills associated with obesity.

The first national estimate of its kind bolsters the argument that you can be hefty but still healthy, or at least healthier than has been believed.

The results also show that stereotypes about body size can be misleading, and that even “less voluptuous” people can have risk factors commonly associated with obesity, said study author MaryFran Sowers, a University of Michigan obesity researcher...

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Camp Fire of the Vanities

Since I generally gripe so much about it, I have to congratulate the winners The New Yorker Magazine "Cartoon Caption Contest # 154."

My entry linking the idea of camp fires to corporate board rooms was just "okay."

"What's the status of our chocolate and graham cracker merger"

Of the winners, I thought the first two deserving. The third one, not so much.

• "The first rule of s'mores club is you do not talk about s'mores club." - very good take on what was probably a common theme of those who submitted entrees.
  


• "Next, Jenkins, I expect a ghost story. On my desk at 3 P.M. sharp." - not bad, not bad at all.
  


• "I think we got some really good ideas from bring-your-child-to-work day." - just fair.

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Mad City

It just get's worser and worser for Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. Now he may be in yet another violation of his bond arrangement by visiting his sister, who's also a witness to his deputy shoving incident (and, as such, on a list of people he CAN'T talk to).

See today's Detroit News article.


Another funny one from Tabloid T-Shirts

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Happy Birthday Hiroshima

On the anniversary of his city getting hit by an atom bomb, the mayor of Hiroshima, Tadatoshi Akiba, has announced a two year study to determine the psychological impact of the experience on those who survivored.

I'll save them all a lot of time and money and say that they could conclude that it's pretty bad.

Of course, they could also investigate the psychological impact of supporting someone like Hideki Tojo, the man who ordered the attack on Pearl Harbor.

I'm just...
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Sometimes a Column Is JUST a Column

I caught Bob Herbert on "Morning Joe" this morning doing a live follow up to his New York Times Op-Ed piece on the John McCain ad that compares Barack Obama to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.

Herbert claims it's a racist ad.

He took his claims one step further by alledging that the images of the Victory Column in Berlin and the Washington Monument were phallic symbols deliberately juxtaposed against images of famous Caucasian women to play on the latent (and not so latent) fears of miscegenation held by whites.

BTW, during the interview, Herbert at first identified the Victory Column as the Leaning Tower of Piza until someone corrected him.



While I think the McCain ad presented a valid argument, the use of Spears and Hilton images diminished the substance of the point it was trying to make. However, to call it racist is just ridiculous.

I'm surprised that Herbert didn't make more out of the fact that, at one point, the ad displays the words "Obama: NO OFFSHORE DRILLING" in big letters.

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Global Mooing

Jacob Leibenluft (AKA "The Green Lantern"), tries to answer the question: "Which is better for the environment, soy milk or cow's milk" in Slate.

I think he's saying soy milk wins, but it's a lot closer than conventional wisdom and more complicated than farting cows:

... it's not easy to compare the two products: Soy milk may be packaged and marketed as a substitute for dairy, but environmentally speaking, it's a very different product. Start with the basics: The calcium in soy milk has to be artificially added, and you won't get anything remotely looking like milk from soy until you've ground up the beans; removed a fiber the Japanese call okara; and added water, vitamins, minerals, and sugar. Most cow's milk needs to be pasteurized and packaged, of course, but what you buy in the store is much closer to what comes off the farm.

...According to research by Cornell University scientist David Pimentel, it takes about 14 calories of fossil-fuel energy to produce one calorie of milk protein on a conventional farm. Organically produced milk might require a little less than 10 calories of fossil-fuel energy, under the most optimistic assumptions, and better farming techniques could cut down greenhouse-gas emissions by at least 25 percent.

By comparison, Pimentel's data suggest that it takes about 0.26 calories of fossil fuel to make a calorie of organic soybeans—which are used by most soy milk manufacturers. Soy protein accounts for about 35 percent of those calories, so let's say you'll need to put 0.75 calories of energy into farming soy to produce a calorie of protein. That makes soy protein approximately 13 times more energy-efficient than even organic dairy protein under a best-case scenario.

...Of course, as we've already discussed, you don't drink raw soy beans. Not only do the other ingredients in soy milk need to be shipped from elsewhere; the process of adding them requires energy and produces a significant amount of waste. As one British government report put it, manufacturing soy milk is closer to making fruit juice than cow's milk. (And as the Lantern has noted before, producing fruit juice takes quite a bit of electricity)

...niche products have their environmental downsides, too. A specialty product like soy milk—despite its growing popularity, its market is about one-twentieth the size of regular milk's—is probably going to have to travel farther to the average consumer simply because fewer people produce it. With more centralized production, that means the soy travels farther to the plant, too. Production probably has a much bigger environmental impact than transportation, but it's worth keeping in mind: Environmentally, it hurts to be in the minority.

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There's An Elephant In My Ojamas

Forget about public opinion polls like Gallop, Barack Obama is beating John McCain in the critical T-Shirt sales factor.

From Breitbarts.com:

Obama trounces McCain ... in sales of T-shirts, badges, caps

Barack Obama is trouncing John McCain in the race for the White House -- at least in sales of T-shirts, badges, baseball caps and other campaign merchandise.

"Everyone is going for Obama," a sidewalk vendor whose stand was smothered in Obama and McCain T-shirts, along with garb for visitors to Washington, told AFP.

"We sell about 70 percent Obama stuff -- way more than McCain," said the vendor, who asked not to be named.

...Meanwhile, Obama supporters can wear the latest in political fashion chic: pajamas that feature the Obama 'O' logo.

They're called ... Ojamas. There is no McCain equivalent.

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What...Fisticuffs?

Dennis Lim's "Let's Step Outside" tries to give an overview of the evolution of cinematic fight scenes. He does a decent job of explaining one of my major pet peeves -- mainly attempts to take a more "realistic" approach to staging cinematic donnybrooks that end up being SO over-choreographed that they lose all credibility and so over-editted that they're hard to follow.

The Bourne series is the worst offender in my opinion. The tone of most, if not all, of the major Bourne battles is self-congratulatory (as in, look how cool we are). In the interests of full disclosure, I don't buy Matt Damon as a tough guy anymore than I think he's the "sexiest man alive."

My main issue with Lim's piece is that he leaves out some of the most notable cinematic fight scenes. Including, John Wayne's battle at the end of The Quiet Man, and ALL of the James Bond movies.

Whatever Happened to Great Fight Scenes?, by Glenn Erickson (hat tip: Drake), does a better job and includes more details. Yet, his list isn't exactly what I would have chosen either.

Well, if you want something done right... So, here's a rundown of my favorite fight scenes.

The Lady from Shanghai: I wanted to include the courthouse battle from The Lady From Shanghai, but couldn't find a clip. It's a great, early example of the use of editing and staging by Orson Welles to enhance the action.

The Quiet Man: Certainly an "old-school" Hollywood approach to setting up a fight scene and, perhaps, a bit dated by today's standards. But, it's still a lot of fun.



From Russia With Love: The train scene between Bond and Grant still holds up and is the gold standard by which all other fights scenes are judged (by me, anyway). Unlike Bourne, the meticulous choreography doesn't show. While these combatants clearly have "skills," they are deployed in a seemingly extemporaneous manner as the action unfolds.

There's a similar fight in 1947's The Narrow Margin, which, I suspect, influenced FRWL (I couldn't find that on YouTube either, dammit).



Thunderball: This is Bond just on the cusp of becoming campy and cartoonish. Yet, it's worth watching as a great exercise in staging AND editing. The fact that 007's fighting a guy in drag just adds another interesting nuance to the sequence.



Hard Times: The finale to Bronson's depression era flick. Just as we only watched Fred Astaire films for the dancing, the storyline in Hard Times is forgettable. But, the bare-fisted brawls make up for what the narrative lacks.



Grosse Pointe Blank: Who'd have thought John Cusak could be tough? This is another great instance where the combatants skills are deployed in a seemingly spontaneous and credible manner. Also, the background music ("Mirror in the Bathroom") adds the perfect touch.


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Tap Once for CHANGE, Twice for Something Else

Politics DOES make strange bedfellows.

Tigereye, a button maker in Ohio, apparently didn't live up to their name when they created this Obama item.

From yesterday's Washington Post:

Obama Backs Larry Craig? Change We Can't Believe In!

...folks all across Idaho are howling over a snafu that put presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama on a political button with Larry Craig, who isn't even running for reelection in Idaho on account of his arrest in an airport men's room sex sting.

A production snafu put the images of Democratic Sen. Barack Obama and disgraced Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) on a political button. The unlikely pair appear together on a button under Obama's signature campaign banner: "Change We Can Believe In."

...Suffice it to say, the button was a mistake. The button maker, Tigereye Design in Ohio, got the wrong Larry. The face they meant to put on the button was that of Idaho Senate Democratic candidate Larry LaRocco.

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May It Please the Court...

I thought my entry to the New Yorker "Cartoon Caption Contest" #153 was just fair until I read the actual winners.



While my submission was barely passable:

"Counselor, you may begin closing arguments after a short intermission, er, I mean recess"

It had an entire leg up on at least two of the entrees the NYer judges selected:

• "I know you have the law and the facts on your side, but I'm going with the dancing girls on this." -- sucks
  
  
• "The jury foreman will now sing the verdict." -- best of the bunch
  
  
• "Overruled, counsellor. This is sweeps week." -- absolute crap

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No Country for Bat Men

I'll cut to the chase right away. At two and a half hours, The Dark Knight , director Christoper Nolan's follow up to his well-received Batman Begins, is too long.

Having said that, I'm not sure what scenes I would cut. Like the epidural tapestry on the tattooed main character in another Nolan film, Memento, each piece is an intrical part of the whole. Take one out, and I'm not sure that the story holds up.

Perhaps the problem is that each separate scene runs a bit too long. Shortening up a few of the action sequences and making the soliloquies less repetitive would have taken out a lot of the narrative slack and made TDK a tighter film.

Some have argued that the movie should have ended sooner. Presumably while DA Harvey Dent, half his face burnt off, was still in the hospital. Thus, paving the way for the third installment.

I disagree. For all the talk about Heath Ledger's Joker, and he is VERY good, the story is REALLY about Dent's transformation into "Two-Face."

Some have criticized the Joker for basically carrying the same personna throughout the film.

But the Joker is not supposed to "grow" as the movie progresses. He just is. He's the sum of everyone's fears and meant to explain how a good person like Harvey Dent, can become the very thing he's trying to fight.

Nolan is clearly making a statement about the difficult choices our culture's current post 9/11 paranoia has forced us to make. And to fight Gotham City's terrorists, Batman is unapologetic in his willingness to take the low road. This includes beating suspects and engaging in telephone surveillance that would make your average card-carrying ACLU member's head explode.

In a scene very reminiscent of the first Superman, Batman is faced with a Hobson's choice as his love interest, Rachel Dawes, and Dent are held in separate locations both rigged with explosives timed to go off simultaneously. To further connect TDK to the real "war" on global terrorism, Nolan has them not so subtly strapped to oil barrels. The payoff to this situation in TDK is much more effective than Superman's. Batman can't turn back time after all.

While it would be easy to, TDK doesn't really take a hard position on whether the ends justify the means. On the one hand, Nolan does try to establish boundaries that a "moral" society shouldn't cross (I'm thinking about the dilemma involving the two ferries at the end). However, he also presents a worldview which seems to be say that just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean that they're NOT out to get you.

As I said, Ledger is VERY good as the Joker. Better than Jack Nicholson's incarnation. Both actors harvested laughs in the role. But with Ledger, the laughter is tinged with a lot of dread.

The problem, like most things in TDK, is that the Joker's expositions on the nature of good and evil, much like the explanations of how he got his facial scars, go on too long and cover the same ground over and over again.

Likewise, Dent's exploits get repetitive. He's always flipping a coin before deciding to kill someone. I get it, we live in a cruel universe where life can be random.

I had forgotten this, but it appears that Two-Face's constant coin-flipping as a device to determine the fate of his victims prefigured novelist Cormac McCarthy's Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men. In a bit of esoteric movie irony, Tommy Lee Jones, who played the first cinematic Two-Face in 1995's Batman Forever, also played Sheriff Bell to Javier Bardem's coin-flipping Chigurh in the movie version of No Country for Old Men.

Speaking of which, in the end, it was a coin toss for me if TDK worked.

On the one hand, were the faults I listed above. However, it does have quite a bit going for it.

All of the actors were on their game. The action scenes, which some have characterized as hard to follow, were well done and much more effective than the clean, overly choreographed Bourne series fights. And Nolan has taken the fantasy out of Burton's Batman and transported him into a much more realistic and relevant setting.

Make no mistake about it. If the Joker were to screen TDK from his padded cell, he himself might have proclaimed "why so serious?"

But, I like serious.
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Ich Bein Ein Brie

Obama wowed 'em in Germany. Of course, the Germans love David Hasslehoff too!

In response, McCain held a press conference in front of the cheese aisle.

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Banned by the New York Times

The New York Times rejected an editorial by John McCain. They wanted it rewritten, in spite of the fact that they previously ran a Barack Obama editorial as submitted.

According to the ABCNEWS.com political blog:

...the rejection came Friday night from New York Times oped editorial page editor David Shipley via email:

"I'd be very eager to publish the Senator on the oped page. However I'm not going to be able to accept this piece as currently written," Shipley writes, according to a copy of the message provided to ABC News.

"It would be terrific to have an article from Sen. McCain that mirrors Sen. Obama's piece. To that end, the article would have to articulate, in concrete terms how Sen. McCain defines victory in Iraq. It would also have to lay out a clear plan for achieving victory -- with troop levels, timetables and measures for compelling the Iraqis to cooperate."

Here's the McCain editorial as written (and rejected):

In January 2007, when General David Petraeus took command in Iraq, he called the situation “hard” but not “hopeless.” Today, 18 months later, violence has fallen by up to 80% to the lowest levels in four years, and Sunni and Shiite terrorists are reeling from a string of defeats. The situation now is full of hope, but considerable hard work remains to consolidate our fragile gains.

Progress has been due primarily to an increase in the number of troops and a change in their strategy. I was an early advocate of the surge at a time when it had few supporters in Washington. Senator Barack Obama was an equally vocal opponent. "I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there,” he said on January 10, 2007. “In fact, I think it will do the reverse."

Now Senator Obama has been forced to acknowledge that “our troops have performed brilliantly in lowering the level of violence.” But he still denies that any political progress has resulted.

Perhaps he is unaware that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has recently certified that, as one news article put it, “Iraq has met all but three of 18 original benchmarks set by Congress last year to measure security, political and economic progress.” Even more heartening has been progress that’s not measured by the benchmarks. More than 90,000 Iraqis, many of them Sunnis who once fought against the government, have signed up as Sons of Iraq to fight against the terrorists. Nor do they measure Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s new-found willingness to crack down on Shiite extremists in Basra and Sadr City—actions that have done much to dispel suspicions of sectarianism.

The success of the surge has not changed Senator Obama’s determination to pull out all of our combat troops. All that has changed is his rationale. In a New York Times op-ed and a speech this week, he offered his “plan for Iraq” in advance of his first “fact finding” trip to that country in more than three years. It consisted of the same old proposal to pull all of our troops out within 16 months. In 2007 he wanted to withdraw because he thought the war was lost. If we had taken his advice, it would have been. Now he wants to withdraw because he thinks Iraqis no longer need our assistance.

To make this point, he mangles the evidence. He makes it sound as if Prime Minister Maliki has endorsed the Obama timetable, when all he has said is that he would like a plan for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops at some unspecified point in the future.

Senator Obama is also misleading on the Iraqi military's readiness. The Iraqi Army will be equipped and trained by the middle of next year, but this does not, as Senator Obama suggests, mean that they will then be ready to secure their country without a good deal of help. The Iraqi Air Force, for one, still lags behind, and no modern army can operate without air cover. The Iraqis are also still learning how to conduct planning, logistics, command and control, communications, and other complicated functions needed to support frontline troops.

No one favors a permanent U.S. presence, as Senator Obama charges. A partial withdrawal has already occurred with the departure of five “surge” brigades, and more withdrawals can take place as the security situation improves. As we draw down in Iraq, we can beef up our presence on other battlefields, such as Afghanistan, without fear of leaving a failed state behind. I have said that I expect to welcome home most of our troops from Iraq by the end of my first term in office, in 2013.

But I have also said that any draw-downs must be based on a realistic assessment of conditions on the ground, not on an artificial timetable crafted for domestic political reasons. This is the crux of my disagreement with Senator Obama.

Senator Obama has said that he would consult our commanders on the ground and Iraqi leaders, but he did no such thing before releasing his “plan for Iraq.” Perhaps that’s because he doesn’t want to hear what they have to say. During the course of eight visits to Iraq, I have heard many times from our troops what Major General Jeffrey Hammond, commander of coalition forces in Baghdad, recently said: that leaving based on a timetable would be “very dangerous.”

The danger is that extremists supported by Al Qaeda and Iran could stage a comeback, as they have in the past when we’ve had too few troops in Iraq. Senator Obama seems to have learned nothing from recent history. I find it ironic that he is emulating the worst mistake of the Bush administration by waving the “Mission Accomplished” banner prematurely.

I am also dismayed that he never talks about winning the war—only of ending it. But if we don’t win the war, our enemies will. A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us. That is something I will not allow to happen as president. Instead I will continue implementing a proven counterinsurgency strategy not only in Iraq but also in Afghanistan with the goal of creating stable, secure, self-sustaining democratic allies.
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Global Lukewarming

The New Yorker's "Cartoon Caption Contest" #152 was an exercise in mediocrity (myself included).

My entry was fair. As good as the first winner, but certainly better than the other two.

"I think I just figured out whats wrong with my GPS unit. "

And, the winners:

"Why do I always get stuck behind the slow planets?" - the best of the bunch, BUT it doesn't address why there's an antenna on the car (as mine does)

"Oh, great, we're stuck behind a four-and-a-half-billion-year-old." - basically a rehash of the first one (the judges must be in love with it)

"Honey, I told you the whole world is headed to the Cape this weekend." - Sucks

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Let's All Refrain from Carbon Emissions

While the last thing the war on global warming needs is MORE hot air, Robert Redford is apparently adding poetry to the arsenal.

From NPR.com:

Robert Redford Fights Global Warming With Poetry

Robert Redford has been fighting on behalf of the environment for more than 30 years...

...These days, he has a new venue for environmental activism: slam poetry. Sponsored by Redford's Sundance Preserve, in collaboration with Youth Speaks, a nonprofit that presents spoken-word performances, the Academy Award-winning actor is getting his message out in rhyme.

“Words are just words without action. But I think what we're seeing here today with these poets is the beginning of action.” - Robert Redford

What's next "Haikus for Hunger?"
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Catch This

Ron Rosenbaum's June 27th Slate article, "Notes on Catch: Which catchphrases should be "thrown under the bus," caught my eye.

He discusses a phenomenon he calls "catch," or "the way our language has become increasingly dominated by rapidly cycling catchphrases."

Look how long it took "jump the shark" to jump the shark. But "under the bus"—as in, "throwing someone under the bus"—got old from overuse in a matter of weeks.

He lists the stages of a catchphrase:

There's Stage 1, when you first hear a phrase and take pleasure in its imaginative use of language on the literal and metaphorical level...

...Then there's Stage 2, when you use it to establish "street cred" (time to throw "street cred" under the catchphrase bus?) or convey a sense of being au courant.

Then there's Stage 3, when the user acknowledges a phrase's over-ness and tries to extract some final mileage out of it by gently mocking it, usually by using ironic quotes, or adding "as they say" to the end.

Finally, there's Stage 4: terminal obsolence, dead phrase walking. Take "at the end of the day." It kind of stuns me whenever I find someone still saying "at the end of the day" with a straight face. What are they, stuck on stupid, as they say?

And finishes with a list of phrases he's "on the bubble about" (another catchprase?).

• stay classy


• up in your grill


• overshare


• tell us something we don't know


• man up


• go-to


• drinking the Kool-Aid


• mad props

For what it's worth, the piece reminded me a little bit of my January post on the term "jump the shark."
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Protesting Too Much?

While, I've been pretty vocal about how much I think that the cartoons in The New Yorker suck, the Obama crew is getting a little overwrought over the July 21 cover.

Even not having read the article, it was was immediately obvious to me that the cartoon was meant as satire and NOT how the magazine really feels about the Obamas.

Or as shell shocked New Yorker editor, David Remnick, said "Our cover combines a number of fantastical images about the Obamas and shows them for the obvious distortions they are...the burning flag, the nationalist-radical and Islamic outfits, the fist-bump, the portrait on the wall - all of them echo one attack or another. Satire is part of what we do, and it is meant to bring things out into the open, to hold up a mirror to the absurd."

Actually, Lee Marvin's movie jab at a crybaby Colonel in "The Dirty Dozen" best characterizes the people who are outraged over this:

"you're really... quite emotional. Aren't you?"

From July 14th's New York Daily News:

Barack Obama's campaign lashed out Sunday at the editors of The New Yorker magazine for a cartoon cover that depicts the Democratic candidate and his wife as fist-bumping terrorists.

The magazine's editor described the cartoon, called "The Politics of Fear," as satire. The Obama campaign called it "tasteless and offensive."

The Illinois senator is depicted in traditional Muslim garb in the Barry Blitt illustration set in the Oval Office.

His wife, Michelle, is in fatigues, sporting an Angela Davis-style sky-high Afro, an AK-47 slung over her shoulder.

A portrait of terror kingpin Osama Bin Laden hangs above the fireplace, in which an American flag is set ablaze.

"The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Sen. Obama's right-wing critics have tried to create. But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree," Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton said.

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Eraserhead

The judges weren't very sharp in selecting winners for The New Yorker "Caption Context #151."

In fact, I've never seen a LAMER bunch!



My entry is better than ANY of The New Yorker's picks:

"Flanders, I distinctly remember asking you to order 2000 cases of Number 2 pencils, NOT the other way around."

The finalists:

• "Let's continue this discussion over a hot barrel of coffee." - LAME



• "But I have to warn you, carpal tunnel here is a bitch." - might be funny IF it were about a giant keyboard
  
  
• "'How many accountants does it take to sharpen a pencil?' you ask? In this case five." - Makes me think that they just pick 'em out of a hat

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Some of My Best Friends Are Black Holes

Then of course, there's the dreaded "A-Hole."

From Dallas City Hall Blog

Dallas County officials spar over 'black hole' comment

A special meeting about Dallas County traffic tickets turned tense and bizarre this afternoon.

County commissioners were discussing problems with the central collections office that is used to process traffic ticket payments and handle other paperwork normally done by the JP Courts.

Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield, who is white, said it seemed that central collections "has become a black hole" because paperwork reportedly has become lost in the office.

Commissioner John Wiley Price, who is black, interrupted him with a loud "Excuse me!" He then corrected his colleague, saying the office has become a "white hole."

That prompted Judge Thomas Jones, who is black, to demand an apology from Mayfield for his racially insensitive analogy.

Mayfield shot back that it was a figure of speech and a science term. A black hole, according to Webster's, is perhaps "the invisible remains of a collapsed star, with an intense gravitational field from which neither light nor matter can escape."

Other county officials quickly interceded to break it up and get the meeting back on track. TV news cameras were rolling, after all

BTW, according to SciGuy, Eric Berger, a "white hole" is a a theoretical object that ejects matter from beyond its event horizon, rather than sucking it in.

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Hello Newman

So, I open my PO Box the other day and inside I find a letter from my area's Postmaster.

The Post Office must be doing some anti-terror initiative to keep ner-do-wells from using PO Boxes for their nefarious activities because the first part of the letter said:

Please complete the attached PS Form 1093, Application for Post Office Box Service, and return it to our office. Postal regulations require that the form contain undated current information. We are in the process of updating these forms and appreciate your cooperation.

Being a good citizen, I filled out this form and, as requested, schlepped it back to the post office with two pieces of photo ID.

The guy behind the counter looks up and asks me WHY I'm filling out an application form for a box I already have. Has my information changed? No, I say. This was something YOU GUYS asked me to do.

He wanders to the back so he can ask someone else about it (the people waiting in line must have loved me). After a few minutes, he comes back and begrudgingly files my newly completed form. All the while, he's still shaking his head in confusion.

Doesn't the Post Office have departmental meetings to discuss these things?

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Fair is Fair

On July Fourth, the morning news shows were slobbering over these two clods because they got married while in character as Betsy Ross and Ben Franklin.

If it had been two Trekkies dressed up as Mr. Spock and Nurse Chapel, then all the networks would have been snickering.

And no, I'm NOT bitter.

From CNN:

PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (AP) -- Benjamin Franklin and Betsy Ross celebrated the eve of the Fourth of July not with fireworks but with wedding vows.

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter officiates the real-life ceremony. 3 of 3 Ralph Archbold and Linda Wilde, who portray the historical figures, tied the knot Thursday evening in a public ceremony in front of Independence Hall, where the real Franklin helped draft the nation's founding documents.

The bride and groom, as well as the entire wedding party, were in costume for the event.

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He Has Risen (Again?)

The teaser trailer for The Day the Earth Stood Still, a remake of 1951 classic sci-fi flick, is out. It's scheduled release date is December twelve.

Most of the Internet buzz I've seen has been negative. People get so upset when great movies are redone. But I'm actually looking forward to seeing it. I know it's blasphemy to say this, but the original is starting to show it's age.

The new version stars Keanu Reeves as Klaatu (Michacl Rennie in original) and Jennifer Connaly as Helen (Patricia Neal in original). John Cleese plays the Sam Jaffe role of Dr. Barnhardt. Mad Men's John Hamm can be seen in the trailer and is credited as "Dr. Granier". But I can't tell if he's playing the Hugh Marlowe role of Helen's boyfriend (and Judas to Klaatu), Tom Stevens.

You only get a quick glimpse of what looks like Gort in the trailer, so it's not clear how much screen time he'll get.

It'll be interesting to see if in this version Klaatu once again dies and is resurrected for the sake of mankind.

I'm only guessing, but since Keanu Reeves has already done that as cyber-Jesus in The Matrix, I suspect that the remake may be more faithful to the original short story, "Farewell to the Master," which has a different ending.

But what do I know?


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Dittos (With A LOT of Zeros)

The best thing about the Limbaugh deal is how much it'll piss off that light-weight Keith Olbermann.

BTW, the NY Times Mag cover makes him look like Tony Soprano.

LIMBAUGH SIGNS THROUGH 2016; $400 MILLION DEAL SHATTERS BROADCAST RECORDS

Wed Jul 02 2008 09:02:18 ET **Exclusive**

The American broadcast industry is rocked, realigned and blasted into a new orbit, yet again, by Rush Limbaugh, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.

In what is being described as an unprecedented radio contract, Limbaugh will keep his syndicated show on-the-air and e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e through 2016 with CLEAR CHANNEL and PREMIERE RADIO.

Already host of the most lucrative hours since radio's inception, Limbaugh's total package is valued north of $400 million, according to media insiders.

The NEW YORK TIMES will claim this weekend that Limbaugh, marking 20 years this summer as a national host, has secured a 9-figure signing bonus for the new deal, newsroom sources tell DRUDGE...

...Earnings now pace him ahead of the annual salaries for network news anchors: Katie Couric, Brian Williams, Charlie Gibson and Diane Sawyer - combined!

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Suicide is Painless

The New Yorker's Cartoon Caption Contest #150 almost had me jumping out of a window.



My entry:

"And you wonder WHY I nag you about being such a failure."

The winners all seem to miss the target:

• "Bullets don't grow on trees, Harry." - cute, but not funny
  
  
• "I told you to hire a professional!" - fair
  
  
• "Just come to bed and kill yourself in the morning." - zzzzz

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