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December 31, 2004
TELL 'EM A HOOKAH-SMOKING CURMUDGEON HAS GIVEN YOU THE CALL
It's New Year's, which means that it's time for my yearly pilgrimage to Washington DC to ring in the new year. This year's plans are less in stone than they have been in the past -- no one seems to want to make a definitive call as to where we're going to go -- but we'll end up somewhere in Adams Morgan. I hope you all have a wonderful, fun, and safe New Year's Eve.
Last night, I got into town around dusk, and went to dinner with my brother, his wife, and a couple they are friends with. We did Vietnamese -- Pho noodle soup, to be exact -- and then headed off to a Middle Eastern cafe in Arlington, Virginia. The place is owned and operated by Egyptians, and everyone at our table (they've all been to the Middle East except for me) said that the place really feels like something you'd find on the streets of Cairo. It's an interesting place -- beyond food, you can only order fruit juices and non-alcoholic beer, and the other thing on the menu are shishas.
As in, hookahs. You know, the water bongs that made the Cheshire Cat and Jefferson Airplane smile so much?
Shishas are one of the things I have not smoked before. They're interesting -- I half expected a genie to come out and give me three wishes. (For the record, those three would be a novel of mine at #1 on the NY Times bestseller list, a house with a pool and boat access somewhere in the Caribbean or the Gulf of Mexico, and a bikini-clad Diane Lane & Jennifer Love Hewitt visiting me in said beach home while feeling frisky.) It's a smoother -- though somewhat weaker -- draw than cigars, which are my all-time favorite vice.
What really struck me last night was the clientele. Toward the back, you had a bunch of old guys who looked like, for lack of a better phrase, off-duty cab drivers... legitimate Arab guys just whiling away an evening playing backgammon and smoking their flavored tobacco. Then there were a few yuppies like our table, lured either by a fascination with things Middle Eastern or just the amusement of being able to smoke a bong in public without being arrested.
But what amazed me most of all was that at least 2/3 of the crowd were in the sub-20 demographic. Perhaps it's because the place doesn't serve alcohol, so the youngsters can gather without getting carded. Perhaps it's the amusement of being able to smoke a bong in public without getting arrested. Maybe a few of them are actually interested in Middle Eastern culture. Whatever the reason, I can assure you that despite the insistence of my brother and his friend, this cafe decidedly did not look like anything you see in Cairo. I'm fairly confident that Cairo cafes do not include hot-bodied little blondes in tight belly shirts and belly button rings wandering around in nubile glee, no matter how many shishas they've smoked.
The girl-watching was, we boys agreed, the grandest part of the evening. (Even though the watchees were all, to use my brother's friend's phrase, "tag & release" -- i.e., too young to be hunted. They had to be 18 to be in the place, but I don't know that many of them had more than 2 years on a high school senior.) Even the wives had to acknowledge it. I just kept thinking that I don't remember 19 year olds looking like that when I was 19. Hell, I don't even remember 'em looking like that when I was 30. And there is perhaps only one thing sadder than the realization that you must be getting old because you think things like that: the realization that 98% of the young ladies in your range of vision would consider even the idea of dating you "creepy" because you're twice their age.
Being old sucks.
Between that and being the only single guy at our table, I was relegated to the Marlon Perkins role... you know, hiding in the jeep while watching "Jim" go after the big game. So my Thursday night was spent being tortured by watching half-dressed young nubiles put long tubes in their mouths and blow.
But I digress. The point of this post was supposed to be about smoking shishas. I find it hardly coincidental that "shisha" seems a derivative of "hashish." Somehow I'm not convinced that the Cheshire Cat wasn't rocking the ganje. It was an interesting experience -- though I think when I go back I will want to eat there as well as smoke. (Mmm... Shawarma... unnnnggghhhh.)
Anyway, that was my night -- drinking fresh guava juice, public puffing a water bong just minutes from the Pentagon, and ogling girls young enough to be my daughters. Not a bad way to spend a Thursday evening, I'd say.
Happy New Year, everyone.
Posted by Christopher at 11:43 AM | Comments (0)LETTER TO THE RED STATES
I'm in DC for New Year's, so proximity is bringing politics to the front of my mind. And while surfing the Net this morning, I cam across an open letter from a New Yorker to the Red States. I don't know who the author was -- I wish I did. She's brilliant, whoever she is. She reveals simple truths about which Americans are under attack, and which ones run their mouths from virtual safety. I don't know her, but she speaks for me. Here's some of the best from her letter:
I am writing this letter to the people in the red states in the middle of the country -- the people who voted for George W. Bush. I am writing this letter because I don't think we know each other. So I'll make an introduction. I am a New Yorker who voted for John Kerry...
Maybe you are content to think that, to write me off as a "liberal" -- the dreaded "L" word -- and rejoice that your candidate has triumphed over evil, immoral, anti-American, anti-family people like me. But maybe you are still curious. So here goes: this is who I am.
I am a New Yorker. I was here, in my apartment downtown, on September 11th. I watched the Towers burn from the roof of my building. I went inside so that I couldn't see them when they fell. I had friends who were inside. I have a friend who still has nightmares about watching people jump and fall from the Towers. He will never be the same. How many people like him do you know? People that can't sit in a restaurant without plotting an escape route, in case it blows up? ...
The subway stop near my office was crowded with bomb-sniffing dogs, policemen in heavy protective gear, soldiers. Now, every time I enter or exit my office, all of my possessions are X-rayed to make sure I don't have any weapons. How often are you stopped by a soldier with a bomb-sniffing dog outside your office?
My husband and I paid over $70,000 in federal income tax last year. At some point in the future, we will have to pay much more -- once this country faces its deficit and the impossible burden of Social Security. In fact, the areas of the country that supported Kerry -- New York, California, Illinois, Massachusetts -- they are the financial centers of the nation. They are the tax base of this country. How much did you pay, Kansas? How much did you contribute to this government you support, Alabama? How much of this war in Iraq did you pay for? ...
I see that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Therefore, I think that Iraq was not an imminent danger to me. It seems so pragmatic to me.
How do you see the world? Do you really think voting against gay marriage will keep people from being gay? Would you really prefer that people continue to die from Parkinson's disease? Do you really not care about the Constitutional rights of political detainees? Would you really have supported the war if you knew the truth, or would you have wanted to spend more of our money on health care, job training, terrorism preparedness? ...
How many times a month do you worry that your subway is going to blow up? When you hear sirens on the street, do you run to the window to make sure everything is okay? When you hear an airplane, do you flinch? ...
I am lonely. I feel that we, as a nation, have alienated all our friends and further provoked our enemies. I feel unprotected. Most of all I feel alienated from my fellow citizens, because I don't understand what you are thinking. You voted for a man who started a war in Iraq for no reason, against the wishes of the entire world. You voted for a man whose lack of foresight and inability to plan has led to massive insurgencies in Iraq, where weapons are disappearing into the hands of terrorists.
You voted for a man who let Osama Bin Laden escape into the hills of Afghanistan so that he could start that war in Iraq. You voted for a man who doesn't want to let people love who they want to love; doesn't want to let doctors cure their patients; doesn't want to let women rule their destinies. I don't understand why you voted for this man.
For me, it is not enough that he is personable; it is not enough that he seems like one of the guys. Why did you vote for him? Why did you elect a man that lied to us in order to convince us to go to war? (Ten years ago you were incensed when our president lied about his sex life; you thought it was an impeachable offense.) Why did you elect a leader who thinks that strength cannot include diplomacy or international cooperation? Why did you elect a man who did nothing except run away and hide on September 11?
Most of all, I am terrified. I mean daily, I am afraid that I will not survive this. I am afraid that I will lose my husband, that I will never have children, that I will never grow old and watch the sunset in a backyard of my own. I am afraid that my career -- which should end with a triumphant and good-natured roast at a retirement party in 2035 -- will be cut short by an attack on me and my colleagues, as we sit sending emails and making phone calls one ordinary afternoon. Is your life at stake? Are you terrified? I don't think you are. I don't think you realize what you have done. And if anything happens to me or the people I love, I blame you. I wanted you to know that.
Posted by Christopher at 10:15 AM | Comments (0)RED STATE AMERICA... THROUGH THE WORLD'S EYES
My fellow Americans... For more than 200 years, the United States of America has stood for the protection of individual freedoms and the sanctity of every human being's right to express themselves. From the very first days of our existence as a nation, we have been a symbol of that freedom to the rest of the world.
Until now. Until George W. Bush and the Red State brownshirts took over. Over the last four years, America's reputation and image have been first smudged, then dirtied, then sullied, and finally dragged into the gutter by the Bush regime and its supporters. And now, even one of the world's pre-eminent and most respected symbols of resistance to tyranny, Bishop Desmond Tutu, has expressed his sadness at what Red State America has become.
"I was teaching in Jacksonville, Fla., [during the election campaign] and I was shocked, because I had naively believed all these many years that Americans genuinely believed in freedom of speech. [But I] discovered there that when you made an utterance that was remotely contrary to what the White House was saying, then they attacked you. For a South African the deja vu was frightening. They behaved exactly the same way that used to happen here [during apartheid] -- vilifying those who are putting forward a slightly different view."
"It's unbelievable that a country that many of us have looked to as the bastion of true freedom could now have eroded so many of the liberties we believed were upheld almost religiously."
I'd say Desmond Tutu knows a thing or two about what an oppressive, undemocratic regime looks like. The sad thing is that he -- like so many freedom-loving people around the world -- realizes that this is what the United States of America is becoming. The freedoms that America has always stood for continue to live shine brightly in the hearts and eyes of people around the world. It's just a tragedy that thanks to George W. Bush and the Red States, America no longer stands for them.
Posted by Christopher at 09:59 AM | Comments (0)RED STATE VALUES IN ACTION
Lest there be any doubt about what the "moral values" of the red states and the Republican Party really are, here's a piece from the Washington Post about how the Republicans have basically lapsed on every ethical rule that might actually affect a member of the Republican Party. Among the "highlights" of the actions by the party of "values" are:
Last month, Republicans in the House scrapped an 11-year-old rule requiring party leaders to step aside if they are indicted, allowing Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) to keep his job if a state grand jury indicts him in its probe into alleged illegal corporate political donations...
On Dec. 15, former House Energy and Commerce Committee chairman W.J. "Billy" Tauzin (R-La.) took a job as top lobbyist for the pharmaceutical industry. Tauzin and another prominent House member had negotiated jobs for themselves while heading panels responsible for legislation that affected the lawmakers' prospective employers...
The Department of Health and Human Services granted a waiver to a top administration official so he could negotiate a job for himself even while working on legislation that could benefit prospective employers. Meanwhile, a Pentagon civilian official arranged a favorable contract for Boeing Co. before taking a job with the aerospace manufacturer...
The Office of Government Ethics has proposed, and Bush supports, legislation to ease financial disclosure requirements for government officials, reducing the amount of conflict-of-interest information that candidates and their families must report. The House recently passed a version of the legislation...
Similarly, Rep. James C. Greenwood (R-Pa.), being recruited by the Biotechnology Industry Organization this summer, canceled a committee hearing he was to chair on the safety of antidepressants. Greenwood will become president of the biotechnology trade group next month...
Several experts in the government workforce agree that the problem goes beyond ethical reporting standards and say the source is the growing influence of money in politics. "I don't think the amount of rules and regulations are helping," said Paul C. Light of the Brookings Institution. "A lot of people meet the rules but do not aspire to politically ethical conduct... There is this sense that if Tom DeLay can get away with it, so can I."
Make no mistake, kids. This is the Republican Party in all its glory. Graft, influence peddling, and protecting felons who happen to be in office and happen to be powerful Republicans. Red state values in action, my friends.
December 28, 2004
AWWW... THE POOR WIDDLE YANKEES DIDN'T GET WHAT THEY WANTED...
So I've been laughing incredulously at the ridiculous response of the Yankees after the LA Dodgers pulled out of the three team deal that would have sent Randy Johnson to the Yankees.
Don't get me wrong; I am well aware that the Yankees will end up with the Big Unit before spring training. The Yankees buy everything they want, and they want Randy Johnson. They'll get him. Even if their payroll for 2005 clears $250 million, they'll just shell out whatever it takes for Steinbrenner to put himself in position to buy another title.
But to observe the Yankees' indignance over the broken deal, you'd think they were a wronged party.
Yankees president Randy Levine had harsh words for the Dodgers after the deal's collapse. "The Dodgers reneged on the deal that was agreed to last Friday, unequivocally and with no contingencies except for a window for contract extensions and physicals," Levine said. "For some reason, the Dodgers over the weekend started to backpedal. Why they would break their word is only something they can answer. It sure is disappointing, and we'll have to think long and hard before ever doing business with the Dodgers again."
Cry me a river, you little bitch. For half a decade or more, the New York Yankees have been jettisoning their flotsam and jetsam to other teams in exchange for stars -- and expecting that every other franchise should just have to bend over, grab its ankles, and accept whatever detritus George Steinbrenner feels like handing out while he compiles his fantasy team roster.
Tell me how the deal would have helped the Los Angeles Dodgers? A moderately successful major league pitcher, and two peripheral minor league prospects who may or may not ever make the bigs... and all the Dodgers had to give up was their best power hitter and a pitcher of approximately equal value to Javier Vazquez? If anyone in baseball can explain how this was a good deal for the Dodgers, they're not working in baseball anymore.
And yet when Dodgers' GM Paul DePodesta wisely realized that there was nothing in the deal for his team and backed out, the Yankees are behaving like spoiled children who weren't allowed to play with every toy in the toybox.
It's about time someone in baseball stood up to Steinbrenner and the Yankees and refused to accept being raped just so that New York can put together its roster of multimillionaires every year. I'm not naive enough to think this will stop the RJ deal from eventually getting done. But it's sure been amusing to watch the Yankees throw a public temper tantrum over another team refusing to roll over for them. It's merely further revealed the New York Yankees as the petulent children they really are.
Posted by Christopher at 04:27 PM | Comments (0)EQUAL TIME
So after I raved about how much I liked Anna Quindlen's winter holiday diversity column last week, I have seen another column taking the opposite position... and while I don't agree with it, it's a respectful and well-written articulation of the other side of the argument.
So in the interest of equal time and fair debate, here is a piece by former Newsweek editor Kenneth Woodward that argues there's nothing wrong with formally and publicly acknowledging Christmas. Again, I'm not agreeing with him, but I thought he articulated his argument very well and presented a good counter to Quindlen's piece. Here is what I found to be his most persuasive argument:
A quarter century ago there was an uproar in New Jersey after a local school board forbade a Jewish student from wearing a yarmulke to class. His display of religious identity, it was argued, was socially divisive. Clearly there is something wrong when the cult of inclusiveness demands -- as it did in Afghanistan under the Taliban -- exclusion of religious expression. This isn't secularist France, either: we don't forbid female Muslim students to wear religious head coverings.
I'm as guilty of this as anyone; I make a concerted effort to respect diversity of beliefs and religions, but for some reason, for me and many of my secular left counterparts, this tolerance for religious beliefs never seems to extend to Christianity. I'm not sure why this is.
I could blame the right wing evangelical nut jobs who want to turn the United States into a Christian theocracy; the American Taliban are certainly enough to convince anyone to reject them. But every major religion has its zealots, those who believe that not only is their religion the only true religion, but that part of their responsibility as practicioners of said religion is to force the rest of the world to conform to their beliefs. We're all certainly familiar with the Taliban, the Wa'habi in Saudi Arabia, and the religious justifications that al Qaida uses for murder. And there is an element within Judiasm that is so devout and so fanatical that merely suggesting that the government of Israel has engaged in bad policy will earn you charges of "anti-Semitism." The eastern religions have their share of zealots too; ask anyone who's been a victim of Hindu-Sikh violence in India, for example.
But the existence of a power-mad cabal who uses a religion to rationalize bigotry or murder should not and does not result in the shucking of the entire faith. I try to be respectful of average, every-day Muslims, and have tried to know as much as I can about the basics of Islam. I considered it a great privilege when a former girlfriend's family allowed me -- a guy named Christopher -- to not just be part of their Seder, but to actively participate. So given my predisposal to respect expressions of other faiths' practices and holidays, why do I instantly get my hackles up and become guarded when someone wants to put a Santa or a nativity scene in a public place? Why am I so quick to hold the extreme elements of Christianity against it, while I am equally quick to dismiss similar elements within the Muslim or Jewish communities as unrepresentative of their faiths?
I've always said this site exists in part to expose hypocrisy wherever it exists. Guess it's time to expose myself here. (Quit pointing and laughing!) Anyone else out there -- especially among my secular left friends -- find themselves expressing a lack of tolerance for Christianity that they don't extend to other religions? Why do you think we do this?
Posted by Christopher at 03:57 PM | Comments (0)DOC'S CHRISTMAS VACATION: PART I
I think I know why no one's heard from Doc lately. Sure, he says he's going to Las Vegas for New Year's, but after I read this story, I think I know where he really went.
SYDNEY (Reuters) - A red-faced man wearing a mini-skirt was rescued by police on Sunday after he became wedged head-first in a clothing donation bin in an act of Christmas charity gone wrong.
Now, I know what you're thinking: 'Mudge, stop picking on the Doc -- after all, he's not here to defend himself from the stuff you make up. Well, before you accuse me of inventing too much, read further:
Two patrol officers were unable to dislodge the man and a rescue squad was called. The unidentified 35-year-old man was eventually freed early on Sunday and told police he was donating clothes when he became stuck.
See? See??? A 35 year old guy who's good at heart despite embarrassing circumstances and some unorthodox wardrobe choices? Tell me that's not Doc to a tee?!
Not sure exactly whether Doc'll wear that skirt in Vegas. But if the dancer you see on Stage #3 looks unsettlingly like Charlie Brown, you'll know who you're watching.
Posted by Christopher at 03:46 PM | Comments (0)TSUNAMI, TSUNAMYOU
For the record, there is no truth to the rumor that Sunday's earthquake and subsequent tsunami were caused when I did a cannonball into the Indian Ocean. I was nowhere near Australia or anywhere in South Asia.
(What, you expected sensitivity from me? Sure, it's a tragedy of biblical proportions... but when have I ever been sensitive to anything? Remember this general rule: the rawer the nerve, the more open it is for sarcastic comment.)
Actually, there was an amazing example of divine intervention during the tsunami: supermodel Petra Nemcova survived the tsunami by clinging to a tree for eight hours while the waters swirled around her.
Why am I citing this as an example of divine intervention? I don't know, really. I just like being able to include multiple links to Petra Nemcova on my blog. I figure between being a total hottie and this tsunami survival story, she's gotta be good for at least 100 new hits. Besides, it puts me in the holiday spirit to look at Petra Nemcova as much as possible in one post.
As for the tragic incident itself, I am in awe of what a 9.0 earthquake might have done had it occurred on land. I also can't believe the video and photographs that have come out of south Asia. In my mind, when I think of a "tidal wave," I picture some giant 30 foot high wave crashing ashore... but looking at everything I've seen since the disaster, it seems like it's less dramatic but more sudden -- one moment the ocean is 20 yards away, and the next it's 10 feet deep where you were standing.
I wonder -- and I know the Atlantic is less earthquake prone than any other ocean in the world -- how awful it would be if something like that were to happen in the Atlantic. It's something you think about when you're spending the holidays less than a half mile from the ocean. But I have to think, given how built up the US eastern seaboard is along the shoreline, that a tsunami in the Atlantic could easily kill 100,000. Sure, you'd think we might have more warning, given the science community in North America and Western Europe, but still...
Anyway, once again I would just like to remind you that Petra Nemcova lived through the tsunami. This is something to be very thankful for.
Posted by Christopher at 03:24 PM | Comments (0)December 23, 2004
HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO YOU ALL (or, putting the "Chris" in Christmas)
So within a couple of hours, I am off to once again observe Christmas in the peculiar traditions my family and I have developed over the years. Opening presents around midnight on Christmas Eve, for one. I'm not sure how it started, but it's been a tradition of ours pretty much since my brother and I a) got too old to believe in Santa; and b) stopped attending church (I figure God appreciates my consistency... if I don't go all year long, He'd probably see right through the show of my showing up to Jesus' birthday party. That's just more wine for everyone else.)
But however it started, it comes to pass every year that my father attends his church service Saturday night around 10 or 10:30 (we're a mixed family, Dad being Methodist and Mom being Catholic), and when he gets home, that's when we open gifts. Sort of makes Christmas morning a letdown, but at least I get to sleep in.
Another tradition we have picked up since the whole family ended up out east (I moved from Minnesota in '94, my brother in '97, and my parents finally gave up on us ever coming back and joined us in '99) is The Adoption of The Friends. Washington DC is a transient town, full of people who moved there from somewhere else and who can't always get back home for Christmas (or whose faith celebrates a different holiday and thus has no reason to go home on December 25). My parents, God bless them, have become adoptive parents -- on holidays and throughout the year -- to a cadre of friends of both mine and my brother's.
It's a given that on Christmas Day, we will have someone in the house whose last name doesn't match up with the rest. To my parents' eternal credit, they have embraced this new role as Mom And Dad To The Crew, and the doors are always open to anyone who's willing to come by. This year, my friend Irina will be spending Christmas with the Mudgeon family on the Delaware shore.
I know I am not alone in that as Christmas approaches, and shortly after it a new year, I tend to get reflective about life, liberty, and my pursuit of happiness. This Christmas has been a particularly maudlin relfection for me. Christmas 2004 is a much different situation than Christmas 2003 was. I'm not doing what I thought I would be this year, I'm not where I thought I would be, and things have changed in ways that I didn't see coming. There were a few folks who definitely were naughty and not nice. In a lot of ways, 2004 is my Accidental Christmas. It would be easy, perhaps, to fall prey to holiday blues, and to curse the day as if I were Ebenezer Scrooge.
But there was good in 2004, and I've no intention of letting the Ghosts of Christmas Past blind me from those things that I have appreciated in the last year. I got a new job in March, for example -- same company, just a move up to a new executive who runs a bigger part of the business. And it's gone well -- very well. So getting moved up the ladder and not falling down, that was a good thing this year.
My friend Dave, a charter member of my Boston U Rat Pack, got married in May to a delightful woman whom we all really like. That's a good thing. And for six insane days in mid-May, the Rat Pack was back together in the San Francisco area for the wedding; I got to see Dave, Damian and Hamish again, and we lit up the Valley with an epic vacation that I will never forget. Good times with friends without anyone calling the cops are a good thing in any year.
My father brushed off a cancer scare in January with a determined dismissiveness that I didn't expect out of him. It just wasn't going to stop him. And here we are in December, and he's probably healthier than he's been in 20 years. That's a really good thing. And my mom's health has been good for two years running now. That's also a really good thing.
While New York is not where I'd have chosen to be, I would choose the friends I have made here no matter where I lived. Doc, Jenn, Tim, and Donna are my family -- New York or otherwise -- and I would not be the same person without them. Others here -- Erika, Mike, and too many others to list by name -- have also kept me sane over the course of 2004. Good thing.
I got a ski vacation in Vermont in March, and a beach vacation in North Carolina in August. Time off... definitely a good thing. After six seasons of mostly sucking, I won the fantasy baseball championship in our league this year. Taking my friends' money is absolutely a good thing. Long live the Vice City Vultures!
I made new friends here in the Blogosphere. I've commented before about how this little thing I set up for writing exercise now has turned into something I feel weird about if I go more than a couple of days without doing. Mostly, that's the interaction with you all. Thanks for stopping by this year and giving me reason to keep writing. (And for feeding my ego by making me realize that people I don't know will actually make a point of reading stuff I wrote. Those of you with blogs know how cool that feels.)
And most of all, the absolute best thing that happened in 2004... the Boston Red Sox are the World Champions of baseball. I woke up this morning, and it was still true. It's still the most amazing thing I ever experienced; being in Boston that night was unlike anything I have ever seen, heard or felt before, or likely will again. How else do you describe an entire region of the country throwing a party they waited 86 years for?
Tim has privately accused me of "losing the buzz" already, since I have been quick to criticize most of the off-season moves the Sox have made, and because of my dire concerns about the Sox' rotation. But those concerns aside, the magic is still there for me. I've lost nothing. Hte Red Sox won the World Series this year. I believe.
So as 2004 draws to a close, I'm choosing to focus on the good in the past year, not the bad... and I'm hoping that 2005 is a better year for all of us. I'll be on sporadically between now and after New Year's, but this is probably my last "real" post of 2004. So thanks everyone for being here, and may you all have a safe, happy, peaceful 2005. If you have a loved one in Iraq, I hope they come home safe to you for good in the coming year. And to each and every one of you -- even my red state friends ;-) -- I wish you all a happy holiday season, whichever one you celebrate.
I'm out.
Posted by Christopher at 11:56 AM | Comments (0)THE TRUE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS?
I wish I had time to give proper attention to this brilliant column by Anna Quindlen. She's reacting to the inanity we hear every year at this time from hardcore Christians, whining that the "Christ" gets further removed from Christmas every year. She points out the utter lunacy of such an argument, explains why holiday celebrations in our pluralistic society don't have to be steeped in religion, and points out the glaring hypocrisy of those who make these arguments... the broad gulf between their words and their actions.
My favorite passages from this column (which may well get my vote for best column of the year):
Christmas is being observed exactly where it ought to be, at homes, in our hearts, among friends and families. The modern movement to exhibit it in town squares and mall food courts is precisely what has led to the secularization of one of our most solemn holy days. That's why some Jewish leaders have been uncomfortable with reducing the Chanukah menorah to a dueling religious symbol, paired with a Christmas tree for the sake of equal time. Faith is not a photo op...
Luckily, for most truly religious people, observing the feast is not about shouting "Merry Christmas" at passersby to show that you believe even if they do not, an exercise in smug superiority disguised as faith. It is an interior process of considering the lessons the child in the manger would teach once grown...
And if saying "Happy Holidays" rather than "Merry Christmas" offers someone who is not of your faith more comfort and joy -- well, 'tis the season for both.
REDNECK WOMEN #12 AND #35
Ah, the high school prom. You remember it, don't you? A formal dress or a tux for the first time? Renting a limo? Spiking the punch? Posing for a million photographs from clucking hen mothers cooing about how beautiful you/your date looked in The Dress? The private, arm-around-the-shoulder warning from your date's father that he he had a shotgun and knew where you lived? The dinner at the place that was fancier than anywhere you'd ever gone, and had a menu full of crap you couldn't pronounce? Dancing to those songs that you would eventually realize were cheesy as hell, but at the time were the most romantic songs ever recorded? Fumbling around in the limo -- or better yet, a hotel room -- and thinking that you and your date were the first two who ever discovered sex?
Wearing racist symbols of armed rebellion against the United States?
What's that, you say? You don't remember that last one? You must not have gone to high school in Lexington, Kentucky.
LEXINGTON, Kentucky (AP) -- A teenager is suing her school district for barring her from the prom last spring because she was wearing a dress styled as a large Confederate battle flag.
I guess she at least knew that no other girl would be wearing her dress. At least it wasn't seafoam.
The lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court claims the Greenup County district and administrators violated Jacqueline Duty's First Amendment right to free speech and her right to celebrate her heritage at predominantly white Russell High School's prom May 1. She also is suing for defamation, false imprisonment and assault.
Now, why am I just not surprised that this girl attends a predominantly white high school?
By the way, on this whole "celebrate her heritage" thing, there is something that utterly baffles me about that. Only in red state America could you have people who sanctify a flag that symbolizes a period of armed rebellion against the United States of America... and then have those same people then self-righteously and angrily insist that they are the true patriots and that anyone who doesn't share their values is un-American. Um, excuse me, folks... but my ancestors never seceded from the union or took up arms against the United States military. That's purely a southern thing.
So how a people who still celebrate that "heritage" -- by venerating a symbol of oppression and treason -- can cop the attitude the do about what is Americanism and what is not... well, it's beyond me. Name me another country where a province that took up an armed rebellion against the government -- and in fact, seceded from the country -- is allowed to openly celebrate the symbols of that rebellion as a matter of "pride" and "heritage."
But I digress. One last thing before I move on... the South lost. Yep... the North whipped your ass. Heh, heh. Okay, now I am moving on.
She said she worked on the design for the dress for four years, though she acknowledged that some might find the Confederate flag offensive. "Everyone has their own opinion. But that's not mine," she told reporters outside the courthouse. "I'm proud of where I came from and my background."
Back to that whole being proud of racism and treason thing again. Hmmm.
Duty, now a college student, said school officials told her before the prom not to wear the dress, but she didn't have another one and decided to see if administrators would change their minds.
So let me get this straight... you were told the rules. You knew you were not allowed to do it. You just decided to see if they'd change their minds. And when they didn't, you sued. And conservatives say liberals encourage frivilous lawsuits? Sheesh! "I knew the rules, I was told the rules before I broke them, the rules didn't change for me, and so I found me a lawyer and I sued their ass." Yeah, that's some clear thinking for you. I'm sure this kid is thriving there at the Rocco Clubbo Beauty Academy.
I think I'll try some of that southern logic the next time I get pulled over. "Well, officer... I know the speed limit is 65. The speed limit is posted. I knew that if I drove faster than that, I would get a ticket. But rather than obey the rules, I just decided to see if you policemen would change your minds. What? You're not changing your mind? I can't go 80? Okay, what's your badge number -- I'm calling my lawyer."
Somehow, I don't think it will work. Maybe that's just me.
Posted by Christopher at 09:52 AM | Comments (0)December 22, 2004
TONG KISS
God help me for thinking this story is funny.
Police are looking for two women they say sexually assaulted a man with a pair of cooking tongs in a drug-related attack. Savannah-Chatham Metropolitan police say the victim, a 25-year-old man, awoke Saturday morning with a metal object protruding from his body.
This isn't funny. A fellow human being was assaulted. This is not funny! Must... stop... laughing!
The victim, who police say was using cocaine at the time, told police he does not remember much of what happened.
Okay, I've been on a lot of benders in my day -- some of them legendary. (Never cocaine, though... let's just get that straight.) It's sad -- but fair -- to say that I have a few evenings that I will probably never completely piece together, thanks to the alcohol-laden fog that surrounds them. But I'll tell you, even during my most legendary and infamous sprees, I have to think I would remember having my prostate examined with cooking tongs. That one might just be something I recall.
He told doctors he was drinking and using cocaine at his mobile home Friday night when he saw two women outside his home and invited them in.
Why did I just know there was going to be a mobile home in this story somewhere?
The victim's cousin took him to Memorial Health University Medical Center Saturday after he complained of pain.
Now that had to be a phone call for the record books, don't you think? "Hey Cletus? Yeah, this is Cooter. Man, you think you can bring the truck on over here and cart me to the 'mergency room? 'Cause I'm feeling like I just took an enema from a fire hose."
Okay, I swear... this is not funny. This is serious stuff we're talking about here. Not funny. This is not the funniest story of 2004. Really.
Doctors surgically removed an object identified as "one half of a pair of food tongs," and turned it over to police.
Okay, this is officially funny now. Kind of gives a whole new meaning to "tossing salad," doesn't it? And God help me, I am morbidly curious as to how those two managed to do this to the guy without him knowing it. It's kind of like a car wreck; I don't really want to know, but on the other hand... okay, wait -- I just really don't want to know.
But it's still really funny.
COMING SOON TO A RED STATE NEAR YOU
Saw this story out of Mexico, and all I could think was that the sanctimonious "moral values" crowd here in the States is going to love this idea.
There's a city in Mexico that's making it illegal for citizens to be naked -- inside their own homes. Officials in the southeastern city of Villahermosa confirm that the city council has adopted a law banning indoor nudity.
I can see it now. Conservatives already like to intrude into your bedroom... that's the entire, arrogant basis of religious conservatism: the doctrine that because of their pious self-righteousness, they know better than you what's best for you. They then use this patronizing belief to determine that they should be able to dictate what you as a consenting adult do in the privacy of your own home -- and to whom you do it or have it done to you. It's really an incredibly insulting, highly arrogant, elitist position -- ironic for a group that makes sport of accusing liberals of just such arrogance and elitism.
Now, not only can they get rid of any non-procreative sex that occurs in anything but the missionary position, they can outlaw the human body as an affront to their moral values. After all, seeing naked bodies often leads to the aforementioned "wrong" kinds of sex. It's simple logic -- get rid of nudity, eliminate "bad morals." Think I'm being facetious? Get a load of the statement from the city councilwoman behind this new law.
She describes the law as "zero tolerance" for "a lack of morality."
Now doesn't that sound familiar?
Get nekkid while you can, friends. It's only a matter of time before some red state religious conservative gets wind of this idea and tries to ban nudity in the privacy of American homes as well. Start practicing taking showers with your skivvies on, kids.
Posted by Christopher at 10:42 PM | Comments (0)RUMMY'S PETALS
Courtesy of Mileah (and courtesy of Maureen Dowd before her), here is Dowd's most recent column in the New York Times, a George Baileyesque look at what the world might look like if Donald Rumsfeld had never been born.
(By the way, is there something wrong with me in that I find Maureen Dowd kind of hot, in that teacher-who-wants-to-see-you-after-school, older woman fantasy kind of way? Just checking.)
Here's my favorite part of the column:
CLARENCE: Sam Nunn. He's the defense secretary. Sam consults with Congress. Never acts arrogant or misleads them. He didn't banish the generals who challenged him -- he promoted 'em. And, of course, he caught Osama back in '01. He threw 100,000 troops into Afghanistan on 9/11 and sealed the borders. Our Special Forces trapped the evildoer and his top lieutenants at Tora Bora. You weren't at that cabinet meeting the day after 9/11, so nobody suggested going after Saddam. No American troops died or were maimed in Iraq. No American soldiers tortured Iraqis in Abu Ghraib. No Iraqi explosives fell into the hands of terrorists. There's no office of disinformation to twist perception abroad. We're not on the cusp of an Iraq run by Muslim clerics tied to Iran. Here's Sam. He's with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
GENERAL SHINSEKI: We got some good news today on the National Guard, sir. Recruiting is up 40 percent. With the money we saved killing that useless missile defense system, we up-armored all our Humvees.
RUMMY, fists and jaw clenched: Grrrrrrr... I want to see Wolfie!
CLARENCE: Sam never hired any of those wacko neocons. Wolfowitz is a woolly headed professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and a consultant to Ariel Sharon. Richard Perle was never in charge of the Defense Policy Board, so he was unable to enrich himself through government connections, or help Ahmad Chalabi con the administration. Perle stayed an honest man, running a chain of souffle shops. His souffles were so fluffy he became known as the Prince of Lightness. Doug Feith never worked here, either, so he never set up the Office of Special Plans to spin tall tales about W.M.D. and Qaeda ties to Saddam. And he never bungled the occupation because there was no occupation...
If only it were so. Sadly, we're back in the real world, where Rumsfeld exists. I can tell because someone's bleeding. I only wish it was just my lip.
AGING BULL
I was watching Saturday Night Live this past weekend, when Robert De Niro hosted. As I watched him obviously reading off cue cards and stumbling over obviously unrehearsed lines, I recalled De Niro's last gig hosting the show back in 2002 -- when he also stumbled over his lines and appeared to be reading off of cue cards.
I wondered to myself if this is what has become of one of the best actors of his generation: poor showings on Saturday Night Live, and movie roles that either parody his earlier work or spoof his image. I actually felt a little embarrassed for him. But I didn't want to post about it, because criticizing De Niro is a little like slamming Babe Ruth or saying Ted Williams couldn't really hit all that well.
But as I was skimming MSNBC.com today, I ran across an article that voiced many of the same things I'd been thinking -- namely, that De Niro seems to have peaked artistically almost 15 years ago, and has been coasting and cheapening his legacy ever since. The article's conclusion is the same one I'd reached while watching him struggle through live sketch comedy.
If he had stopped making movies 10 years ago, De Niro would be regarded as one of our greats. He still is, but you now have to place an asterisk by such claims. Brilliant as his early-to-middle-career remains, it's not a reliable indicator of what's to come.
It's really not. Quick: name a good performance the guy's given since 1991 -- at least one that didn't involve either repetition of the same hoodlum characters he's played for years, or "laugh at me laughing at myself" self-parody? Watching Robert De Niro now is sort of like seeing Willie Mays stumble and fall in the Mets' outfield in 1973. More than anything else, you're reminded of how great he used to be... and of just how steep the decline has been.
Posted by Christopher at 10:31 PM | Comments (0)December 20, 2004
TIME TO KICK SOME SERIOUS GOONIE ASS
Josh Brolin is a mostly forgettable actor, more famous for his father's choice of wife (Barbara Streisand) than for anything he's ever acted in. His most famous role was as "Brand" in the 1985 pre-teen classic "The Goonies".
(I have mixed feelings about that movie. A woman I dated for several years a long time ago was waaaay too into the Goonies for someone in her late teens and early twenties... which meant that we plopped that stupid movie into the VCR way too many times. On the other hand, being the Boyfriend Who Is Good Hearted Enough Willing To Watch Kid Movies With You And Who Just Happens To Be Sitting On The Couch Next To You has its privileges; I have far more fond memories of that movie than is healthy for an adult. For a while there, Cyndi Lauper's "Goonies R Good Enough" was right up there with "Let's Get It On" in my book of mood music. Wait... that's bad, isn't it? I should get back to the point at hand.)
Anyway, Brolin's been on my bad list for a few years now. Because he's married to the Uber-Babe, Permanent Top Ten List Resident (and go ahead and laminate the list) Diane Lane. The idea that one of my dream women has sex with a Goonie and not me is one more contributor to the pervasive sense of failure that hangs over me. I mean, really: the woman who did The Stairway Scene in Unfaithful ended up with a guy who chased after the secret of One Eyed Willie. How'm I supposed to feel good about that?
But Josh Brolin has now gone into Texas Death Match territory. Because not only is he married to Diane Lane, but apparently he smacks her around too.
Actor Josh Brolin was cited for misdemeanor domestic battery over the weekend after his wife, actress Diane Lane, called police during an argument at the couple’s home... Kelly Bush, the couple's spokeswoman, said the incident was a "misunderstanding" and the couple had reconciled.
A misunderstanding, huh? Like the one, I suppose, where my fist misunderstood that it wasn't supposed to clock this jackass across the face? Unbelieveable.
Diane, baby, if you do decide to leave him, you can always come home here to Mudgeonland.
Posted by Christopher at 10:36 PM | Comments (0)December 19, 2004
THE TRUE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS... MUDGE STYLE
Now here's a Christmas story that I can love!
An intoxicated Salvation Army bell ringer with a history of public drinking was arrested after getting into a fight with an employee at a grocery store where he was collecting donations.
Ah yes... the true spirit of Christmas, showing through in the hearts of men and women everywhere. "City sidewalks, hear the drunk talk, hear denial after d'nial... on his breath there's a few drinks of Jim Beam. Workers shouting, hear him spouting, 'get the hell out of here.' And on this little corner, you hear..."
David Duncan, 46, was arrested Thursday on 11 outstanding warrants after he got into a fight with the Safeway worker, police detective Teresa Garcia said. Nine of the 11 warrants were for public consumption of alcohol, Garcia said. Two were for trespass.
I don't know what I like more about this story: the idea of a drunken Salvation Army bell ringer, or the idea of a Christmastime slugfest between the joker with the bell and a carryout guy. One can only hope that one of the two was smart enough use the kettle as a weapon and turned it into a WWE match.
The only thing that would have made this story better would have been Duncan being a department store Santa and not just a Salvation Army bell ringer. Drunken charity collector gets in brawl with grocery store employee?
Priceless.
Posted by Christopher at 09:03 PM | Comments (0)FATHER, I WANT TO KILL YOU
I've posted in the past about my intense dislike of Jessica Simpson. I'm not a huge fan of her lip-synching little sister Ashlee, either -- although I quickly concede that Ashlee has more musical talent even when faking it than Jessica has.
But I think my least favorite member of this family has to be the creepy father, Joe Simpson. Here's Daddy, speaking about his little girl's breasts:
"If you put her in a T-shirt or you put her in a bustier, she's sexy in both. She's got double D's! You can't cover those suckers up!"
Anyone else picking up a slimy, John Huston and Faye Dunaway in Chinatown vibe coming off this guy? Dude, that's your daughter. Don't you think you might not wanna be talking about her as if she were about to perform on the pole on Stage #3? I've never been a girl, but I think that if I were, I'd be mortified if my father starting talking to people about how big my boobs were. After that, I'm not so sure I buy that whole virgin-till-she-married bit.
But Ol' Man Simpson wasn't done opening his mouth and removing all doubt about his being a fool. Speaking of Ashlee's fledgling acting career, he says:
As for Ashlee, Joe saved her from a fate worse than death: playing a lesbian in her debut film, Wannabe. "I changed it," Simpson says. "It doesn't work for her to be gay the first thing out. She said, 'But it's cool, it's edgy, it's different,' and, of course, the filmmakers were like, 'It's cool for a woman to be a lesbian,' and I'm like, 'That's true, but not her first role.'' She's going to be a huge movie star."
You know, I'm like, you gotta love grown men who like, have the speaking and grammar skills 13 year old girls at a mall. Then again, his statements are so ignorant and stupid that it like, doesn't matter how he like, says them. I'd say that daddy's living through his girls, except that he probably wouldn't be so uptight about the whole lesbianism thing if he were projecting.
I have news for you, Joe: your daughters are both future Trivial Pursuit answers. They've got the shelf life of Justin Guarini, Stacey Q, or Tiffany. (Mark your calendars, kids -- the Ashlee and Jessica "comeback" pictorial in Playboy is only four years away. Of course, Daddy Simpson will probably be the first in line to get a look at those suckers all uncovered up. After all, they're double D's!) So let little Ashlee play whatever character with whatever sexuality she can play right now. That role and three years are all that stands between you and a soup kitchen line.
Posted by Christopher at 07:59 PM | Comments (0)FAREWELL TO A LEGEND
I'm a bit behind in this, but better late than never to say goodbye to a sporting legend. Mia Hamm played her last soccer match this month, retiring after spending nearly half of her life as the world's most recognizable female athlete.
Hamm's departure is notable on several levels. First of all, she achieved Jordanesque levels of domination in her sport; arguably, Jordan is the only other athlete in history who is qualified to be mentioned in the same breath as Hamm in terms of impact on their sport. (Okay, add Babe Ruth in there, and maybe Mohammed Ali. But we're still talking rarified air.)
Hamm made the US National Team at age 15. She won four consecutive NCAA titles -- she never played on a college team that she didn't lead to a championship. She played in four World Cups, and won two. She won two Olympic gold medals. She has scored more goals in international competition than any soccer player in history -- female or male. Her achievements alone are fodder for the "all-time great" designation.
But Mia Hamm's contirbutions to soccer -- and to women's sports -- go far beyond what she did on the field. 90,000 people watched the women's Olympic final in Atlanta in 1996 -- a then-record. Just three years later, the same number filled the Rose Bowl in Pasadena to watch the Hamm-led US team win the Women's World Cup. Another 40 million Americans watched on television. And over the course of her amazing career, it was who was watching -- and how many there were -- that truly defined Mia Hamm as one of the most influential athletes in American history.
With Mia Hamm, hundreds of thousands, if not millions by now, of little girls across America had a hero to call their own. They could look to a woman who starred in Gatorade commercials, who had the endorsement deal with Nike, who dominated her sport through ferocioius training, legendary determination, and years of practice and hard work. A woman could do it, you see. Mia Hamm did. And so little girls across America started hearing -- and more importantly, seeing -- that there was nothing they could not do on the athletic field.
If you doubt Hamm's influence, look around every year at the number of young girls who play soccer every year. Boys too. I remember a colleague telling me a couple of years ago that his son had insisted on getting the #9 jersey when his soccer team's uniforms came in. He wanted it because Mia Hamm was #9. No other little boy laughed at him. When you want to wear the number of the best player in the game, no one makes fun of you.
Hamm was always conscious of her status as her sport's ambassador, and she wore that mantle tirelessly for almost two decades. As MSNBC.com's Mike Celzic writes about Hamm and her fellow pioneers Julie Foudy and Joy Fawcett,
They conducted themselves in public in exemplary fashion. They signed the autographs, spent the time with fans, conducted the clinics, promoted their game, and never, ever complained about not getting the financial rewards their skills, had they been men, would have brought them.
There were fans who wanted her autograph, one last moment of the fleeting contact, and she would not disappoint them. She made little girls and their mothers and fathers feel special. She made a nation proud. And when the cameras and microphones were turned on, she talked only about how wonderful her life has been and how great it was to wear her nation's colors on the field of play, to hear the national anthem, to have such joy in playing a game.
There are some, of course, who will cavalierly cite the failure of the WUSA soccer league to catch on as "proof" that Hamm's influence is overstated. Such arguments are uninformed caveman rubbish. The WUSA's failure can be attributed more easily to the fact that professional soccer as a sport has never really caught on here in America, where it competes with football, basketball, and baseball. The league's failure was not due to Mia Hamm. But its existence in the first place most certainly was.
There are few players in any sport who can say that a sport grew 20-fold in attendance and viewership during their career. There are fewer still who can say that an entire league was formed around their star power. And perhaps only Babe Ruth could say that he induced more young kids to take up his sport than Mia Hamm. That's an empowering legacy that Hamm should be justifiably proud of.
If I ever have a daughter, I'd want to be sure she knew all about Mia Hamm. But somehow, I don't think I'll have to do much of anything about that; she'll know about Mia Hamm anyway, in the same way that I knew all about Babe Ruth and Jackie Robinson and Dick Butkus and Jim Brown when I was a kid.
Congratulations on a great career, Mia -- and on being even more influential off the field than on. Well played.
Posted by Christopher at 07:29 PM | Comments (0)THAT PERSONAL TOUCH
Here's another one from the "Is anyone really surprised?' files. This weekend, we saw another example of the Bush regime's utter indifference to the pain and suffering their war has caused American families. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has been letting an autosign machine "sign" the letters of condolences his office sends to the families of military personnel who have been killed in Iraq.
"While I have not individually signed each one, in the interest of ensuring expeditious contact with grieving family members, I have directed that in the future I sign each letter," Rumsfeld said in the statement.
In the interest of expeditious contact? You couldn't be bothered to personally acknowledge the deaths of young men and women serving under your command, Donald?
Then again, no one should be surprised that any member of this administration would treat our war dead with disrespect, like something to be expeditiously handled. In any organization, the tone is set at the top. And almost two years after he started the Iraq war, George W. Bush has yet to attend one single funeral of a serviceman or woman killed in Iraq. "Support the troops," indeed.
"My goodness, that's the least that we could expect of the secretary of defense, is having some personal attention paid by him," said Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb..
Well actually, Senator Hagel, the least we could expect is that the rationale for going to war be verified, correct, and candidly delivered to the American people. Instead, we got exaggerations, hysteria, and outright falsification and deception. The first duty of a secretary of defense would be to ensure that he sends troops to war for actual reasons and is honest with those troops about those reasons. But, beyond that, the second least we could expect from the secretary of defense is that he pay some personal attention to the families of the troops lost under his command.
But... he couldn't be bothered to find time for that attention, until now when public pressure is forcing his hand. Were I to lose a loved one in Iraq, I'd kind of be thinking, "Don't bother" now, if Rumsfeld is only going to do this because the public howled about it.
Machine signed letters. Not one funeral attended. And yet, "Secretary Rumsfeld is doing a spectacular job," [White House Chief of Staff Andrew] Card told ABC’s "This Week."
That tells you all you need to know about this administration.
BUY BLUE
I think this is a great idea -- I first saw it on Eden's site, so anyway..., and I am glad she pointed it out.
Fellow blue staters (and expat blue citizens who find themselves living in the Red Sea), someone's put together a buying guide for us. Want to feel better about spending your money? Want to make sure you're not giving money to red corporations and businesses? Want to be sure to reward companies on the blue side of the house? Then here's your list of who's been naughty and who's been nice: Buy Blue.
This is a good list to have handy -- and I feel kind of good in that many of the companies I already patronize are wearing the white hats. For example, I fly JetBlue frequently -- almost exclusively when on personal travel. I'm a Starbucks junkie. Guiness, Smirnoff, and Captain Morgan get a lot of my money already, as do Barnes and Noble and J. Crew. I'll need to start staying at Hyatts whenever possible, and avoid Marriotts when I can. Target shocks me -- as a good old Minnesota company with ties to the Dayton-Hudson corporation (whose scion Mark Dayton is a Senator from Minnesota), I would have expected better from them.
Sadly, Victoria's Secret appears to be in the red column. I may have a good cry about that one.
Anyway -- between "Buy Blue" and "Choose The Blue" (found here), here's a few ways you can start to vote with your wallet as well as your ballot.
Posted by Christopher at 10:21 AM | Comments (0)December 18, 2004
SOME INTERESTING THOUGHTS AND FACTS ABOUT VOTING IN THE USA
Courtesy of Brian Seadogs, who in turn saw this from Angry Girl... food for thought. I'm not wholly endorsing everything on this list; some of the arguments and connections seem a little specious or tenuous to me. But there's enough smoke here that I thought I'd point out to you that there might be a fire. I'm not saying there was absolutely vote fraud that put George W. Bush in the White House. But there's some compelling stuff to think about. For example:
1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S.
2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry (ie, while a felon may not VOTE, he could own a voting machine company and have his company be in charge of counting others' votes).
3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers -- thus putting the fate of 80% of American votes into the hands of one family.
4. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoralvotes to the president next year."
5. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became Senator in a surprise upset, with votes counted by ES&S machines.
6. Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee.
7. Hagel was on a short list of GeorgeW. Bush's vice-presidential candidates.
8. Diebold's new touch screen voting machines have no paper trail of any votes. In other words, there is noway to verify that the data coming out of the machineis the same as what was legitimately put in by voters.
9. Diebold also makes ATMs, checkout scanners, and ticket machines, all of which log each transaction and can generate a paper trail. (In other words, the technology exists... Diebold just opted not to build such verification capaibility into their voting machines.)
10. Exit polls are usually excellent predictors of election results. Reputable analyses could not find any explanation of the discrepancy between exit polls and results of the 2004 presidential election.
11. A Diebold subsidiary employed 5 convicted felons as senior managers and developers -- including a senior vice president convicted on 23 counts of felony theft. These people helped write the central compiler computer code that counted 50% of the votes in 30 states.
12. International election observers were not allowed to watch the polls in Ohio. This decision was made by Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell -- the co-chair of George W. Bush's Ohio re-election campagn.
13. California banned the use of Diebold machines because the security was so bad.
14. All -- not some -- but all the voting machine errors detected and reported in Florida went in favor of Bush or Republican candidates. You read that right. By some "miracle of technology," every single glitch that occured in Florida's electronic voting machines "accidentally" helped a Republican candidate.
The study "discovered that in the 15 counties using touch-screen voting systems, the number of votes granted to Bush exceeded the number of votes Bush should have received -- given all of the other variables -- while the number of votes that Bush received in counties using other types of voting equipment lined up perfectly with what the variables would have predicted for those counties.
The total number of excessive votes ranged between 130,000 and 260,000, depending on what kind of problem caused the excess votes. The counties most affected by the anomaly were heavily Democratic."
Gee, what a shock.
15. Serious anomalies have been demonstrated -- again, favoring Bush -- in Florida's three most Democratic counties.
"In Broward County, for example, Bush appears to have received approximately 72,000 excess votes, Hout said, adding that the research team is 99.9% sure that these effects are not attributable to chance. The other two counties that experienced unexplained statistical discrepancies in the vote are Miami-Dade and Palm Beach. The three counties revealed the most significant irregularities and were the most heavily Democratic counties in the state. Smaller counties that showed strong support for Bush didn't produce any statistical anomalies, Hout said."
Again, I'm not going to endorse Angry Girl's whole list; I find some of the things to be just too much of a stretch to be credible. But other pieces of this -- the direct connections between Bush and the companies that make the voting machines, the extra votes that just appeared for Bush in Florida's Democratic counties, the lack of a confirming paper trail for votes when the technology easily exists to do so, the inexplicable discrepancy between exit polling that has been reliable every previous year and the reported results of the election -- are worth your consideration.
IF I were ever inclined to try and steal an election, I might try to do it through manipulation of the vote tabulations, using political connections to engineer it and a lack of a paper trail to cover it up. That's if I were ever going to try. I'm just saying.
Posted by Christopher at 11:53 PM | Comments (0)December 15, 2004
THE RETURN OF THE
THE RETURN OF THE BIZAARE PENIS STORIES
Anyone who's been reading this site for any length of time knows that beyond bringing you astute sports analysis, indispensible political truisms, keen yet ironic social commentary, writing of unmatched quality and wit, and utter humility... well, at TCC we're also dedicated to bringing you as many strange stories about penises as possible. Some might call it juvenility; I prefer to consider it making a statement on society that we're so afraid of the human body that the only time we can mention the male member in the public domain without tittering is when it's an oddity. (It's more of that whole irony thing I mentioned a little while back. You'll catch on eventually.)
Anyway, after a couple of months' absence, the odd penis story has returned to the pages of Curmudgeonland. And once again, we're headed to the Balkans -- not Romania this time, but to Serbia -- to get the full scoop.
A Serbian man was so depressed by his family's dire financial situation that he cut off his penis with an ax, only to regret it afterwards and ask for help, Serbian media said Friday.
You know, I've been in rough financial situations. And as I've admitted before, I'm bipolar. But never once -- no matter how many bills went unpaid, and no matter how severe an episode was -- have I ever considered this a viable solution to my problems. Maybe I'm just weird that way.
"I saw no other way out, grabbed a rusty two-and-a-half-kilo ax, took my penis out, put it on a log and bam!"
Okay, how many of you men out there just fainted? Dude saw no other way out... just what way did he want to go?
The sight of blood brought him to his senses, he said. "Only then did I come to and screamed as loudly as I could, realizing I didn't have it any more," he was quoted as saying.
Okay, how many of you guys out there just fainted again?
I'm guessing that the sight of blood and the realization that Toto wasn't in Kansas anymore might just make me scream as loudly as I could. Then again, Scarecrow, you have the Tin Man's ax in your hand! Think that might have something to do with it?
Actually, the Wizard of Oz references have me thinking now... let's put our 30 year old Serbian idiot in Dorothy's path, what do you say? Here comes a musical interlude...
I could whip it out at parties/As conversation starters/The girls would want to talk... On the prowl, I'd be creepin', in my bed they'd soon be sleepin', if I only had a ...
I'd be linin' up the ladies/For lots of real hot daties/I bet I'd have my pick...
With the women I'd be scorin', I could be a lot less borin', if I only had a ...
Oh, I... could tell you why... Men like to read Playboy/I'd know why Siegfried stayed with Roy/And why Jacko's into little boys!
I would be a true stud muffin/With all my booty stuffin'/My ego proud and strong...
I would dance and be merry, Life would be a ding-a-derry, If I only had a...
I'll be here all week. Don't forget to tip your waitress and bartenders. Try the veal.
Posted by Christopher at 11:15 PM | Comments (0)December 14, 2004
ABJECT TERROR One of the
ABJECT TERROR
One of the sources of utter amusement for my friends and family over the years has been an unusual phobia of mine. So nice of the people who allegedly care about me to find humor in my panic, don't you think?
I'm terrified of bridges. I hate the damn things. Not little ones that go over a creek or a state road, but high ones, especially over water. I think it's the combination of 1) an intense dislike of heights, and 2) the trapped or claustrophobic feeling of knowing that once you're on a bridge, you can't get off it until you're on the other side... so if anything should happen, you're pretty much screwed. I mean, I know that the structure isn't going to suddenly fail while I am at mid-span, tons of concrete and steel crumbling and sending me plummeting to my death hundreds of feet below... but that's exactly what's going to happen every time I cross a bridge. I just know it; that knowledge lives deep in my psyche and asserts itself every time I even see a bridge tower.
I'll go miles out of my way to avoid driving over a big one if I can help it. When I have to go on them, I end up driving 20 mph slower than the speed limit while in the center lane, both hands gripping the steering wheel with white-knuckled ferocity, so intensely that it often literally takes a couple of minutes once I've crossed for me to be able to let go. If I'm not driving, I will almost always slump down in my seat or lay down in the back seat so that I cannot see outside the car -- in the hope that somehow if I cannot see the bridge, I might not really be on it.
Bridges have a remarkable physical effect on me. I break out in a sweat; my pulse races; my hands shake; I hyperventilate. Even the idea of going over a bridge terrifies me -- if you could see me while I'm writing this post, you'd notice that I am visibly paler than I was when I started it. This effect is the source of my friends' amusement. When I lived in the DC area and did the beach house thing every summer, my friends used to enjoy doing lots of sudden lane shifts while we were crossing the Chesapeake Bay Bridge's 4 mile length on the way to the shore... just to see the terror on my face as I crouched in the back seat with eyes closed. (Funny, they stopped doing it after the time I vomited out of the back seat... they had just gotten over the bridge, I warned them to pull over, and they hadn't even gotten the car stopped on the shoulder yet when I opened the door and hurled at 20 mph.)
Anyway, I am sharing this incredibly inane story with you because I saw an article today that chilled my blood. Seems that over in France, they have just opened the world's tallest bridge, with the roadway stretching for 1.6 miles at a height of 891 feet above the valley below.
Designed by British architect Norman Foster, the steel-and-concrete bridge with its streamlined diagonal suspension cables rests on seven pillars -- the tallest measuring 1,122 feet, making it 53 feet taller than the Eiffel Tower.
Did you see me shudder just now? When I watched the video that went along with this story, I nearly soiled myself. This would be my idea of hell... if I don't repent and get on the right path one of these days soon, I will end up spending eternity driving back and forth on this bridge. This would be my definition of abject terror.
A CHIP OFF THE OL'
A CHIP OFF THE OL' DOC
I've mentioned in previous posts that my lifelong resistance to children or the very idea of them has been worn down in recent years, as my friends have children and as I watch them grow up. I'm totally attached to Doc & Tim's kids... which you'd have bet a paycheck would never happen if you'd known me even a few years ago. Isn't it ridiculous that I am about to share photos of children -- and I'm not even the father?! But this one is just too priceless... I had to share. (with permission, of course.)
So in my last post, I told you all about our crazy karaoke night out. Well, Doc & Mrs. Doc left our Manhattan hotel Sunday morning, picked up the kids, and headed down to Baltimore for a mini-vacation in the Inner Harbor area. Turns out that at one of the children's museums, they had a music exhibit. And in this music exhibit, they had a karaoke machine.
Of course you know that the Princess followed right along in her old man's footsteps. The Doc lit up the crowd in New York on Saturday, and the Princess won 'em over in Baltimore on Tuesday. Could we be looking at the next Avril Levigne?
You can say you knew her when.
December 12, 2004
I'VE SEEN A DOZEN FACES...
I'VE SEEN A DOZEN FACES... AND I'VE *ROCKED* THEM ALL!
It doesn't happen very often, but every now and then I have a night where I kind of like New York for a few hours. Last night was definitely one of them.
We ended up with eleven of us in the posse for the evening. And there's nothing like a night on the town with your closest friends to dilute the impact of a lousy week. I think we all laughed enough last night to forget four weeks of stress, not just one.
We started out the evening at our hotel in Times Square, lounging in the lobby bar while waiting for the whole crew to make it to town. After about two and a half hours, we jumped on the subway to head to the Bowery. This was astute planning by the Doc and I -- because by then, just about everyone had had a drink or two and would thus take less time to warm up and not care about sounding bad.
Highlights (they would have been lowlights, but we were sealed in our private room, thus sparing humanity from having to witness any of our shenanigans) of the evening included:
>> Doc and I doing a very good version, if I do say so myself, of "Beer For My Horses" by Toby Keith and Willie Nelson;
>> The ladies trying to play Hanson's "MmmBop," only to find that a glitch on the CD resulted in no words being displayed to sing along to. Our friend Mike (not the Doc, but another Mike) saved the day by getting up and delivering a hysterical, though wholly unintelligible, "rap" over the music, backed by a chorus of wives and girlfiends repeating "MmmBop" in varying tones and styles. Mike finished the song with an otherwordly falsetto set of MmmBops. >> Doc delivering -- from his knees, no less (I know... how could we tell?!) -- a scorching version of some seductive song (wish I could remember which one) to Mike, who patted Doc's bald head while laughing hysterically.
>> Erika -- the youngest one in our group by a decade -- being the first to give out and begging to head back to the hotel because she was tired. Yep, kids... the 23 year old was outlasted by every single thirtysomething in the bunch. Give her lots of hell.
>> With Tim and Mrs. Tim, singing "The Chair" -- his Texas high school prom song -- to a room full of people who had never heard it and couldn't believe we were making them listen to country.
>> Unexpectedly being handed the mic when someone accidentally played James Taylor's "Handyman," and carrying it off well enough that Mike's wife said, "Wow, you really have a voice! Have you had voice lessons?" (That was one of my two ego boosts of the night... though I must admit we had all gone through a couple hundred dollars of alcohol by that point, so she can't be held responsible for what she thought she heard.)
>> Toward the end of the night, nearly six hours after we'd started, my voice was starting to give out... so it was left to Doc and Tim to finish the show with their version of "Mandy" -- which was as awful as that song deserves.
>> Mrs. Doc and her sister needing to pay off a bet they lost to me (and face it, Mrs. Doc... you guys did lose!)... I won't share the song out of respect for privacy, but suffice it to say that it was a song that a guy might decide a woman should have to sing to him for losing a bet. And they paid off their debt well -- I give them credit for giving a very gutsy performance.
>> Watching the looks on our waiter Vadim's face every time he came into the room for the next round of orders, as this group of people who seemed totally respectable and properly behaved when they walked in suddenly turned into frat and sorority kids before his very eyes as the night went on.
>> Reason to be glad it was New York: all-night walk-in pizza places that are open 24 hours. There may never be a more welcome sight at 1:45 am.
On the whole, not a bad evening. And I even felt fine this morning, too - sleepy, but no headache. And not a broken window in sight. Why do I think you care about my Saturday night? Oh, I know you don't. But not even I can issue angry rants about something the day after a night on the town.
Posted by Christopher at 06:06 PM | Comments (0)December 11, 2004
BE AFRAID... BE VERY AFRAID
BE AFRAID... BE VERY AFRAID
If windows start to shatter all across New York, New Jersey, and into the mid-Atlantic and New England states tonight, I will take responsibility now. The crew and I -- Doc & Missus, Tim & Missus, Erika, and a half dozen other of us are heading into Manhattan for a gigantic steam-blowing-off-of session; central to this effort is a protracted stint at Second on Second, the hippest karaoke bar in New York.
This one wasn't my idea -- you have The Doc to blame for this instance. About six weeks ago I was down visiting, and Mrs. Doc was nice enough to let the boys have a night out on the town. So we did... and then came home and opened up a few more beers, and the next thing we knew it was 2:30, out came the iTunes, and an impaired Doc and Mudge began attempting inebriated harmony. And you know what? We weren't that bad, considering our state. And thus the idea was born in the Doc's round, shiny cranium: we must get our friends together for a karaoke night. (Please give me credit for avoiding the obvious "we're getting the band back together" riff here.)
As I've written before, I have singing for a rock band in my college past, and have actually won over some southern good old boys -- who knew I was a New Yorker -- with some country karaoke. I can carry a tune even without handles, most of the time -- and while I'm never going to get a recording contract, I don't embarrass myself when given a microphone. Even so, there is something god-awful tacky about karaoke... kind of like letting a bunch of microwave bachelors into the kitchen at Emeril's place. And with Tim, Mrs. Tim, and Mrs. Doc all freely admitting that they can't sing, I should have slapped the idea out of Doc's drunken head the moment it occurred to him.
But I didn't. You know why? Because I enjoy it too much. I won't care which of my friends can't sing -- I'll enjoy every song. Music is one of those weird things in life that has an uplifting effect even when practiced by those without talent for it. (And I don't mean that as a slam on my friends.) Think about it: at sporting events, at political rallies, in movies, wherever... the introduction of music almost always signifies either an upshift in mood or the fervent desire to effect one. And so it won't matter to me who can sing and who can't. (Though I am grateful for the private room we reserved.) I'm looking forward to a night out for dinner, drinks and laughs with good friends.
(After this week at work, I need it.)
And yes, for those concerned with social responsibility, we have reservations at a hotel in Times Square, so no one will need to worry about driving home. (Whatever holiday celebrations you are engaging in this season, I strongly request that you make similarly responsible arrangements if you're going to be drinking. Please don't get on the road wth alcohol in your system. No one needs to have awful things happen during the holidays.)
I've been practicing some favorites in the car for the last couple days -- and, as Doc and I are the only country fans in the bunch, we plan to torture our friends with at least a few tunes you'd hear at a NASCAR race. (By the way, memo to NASCAR fans: Dale Earnhardt isn't even in the top five #3's ever. Driving in circles is not a sport. I can drive in circles. Anything I can do is not a sport. Babe Ruth, Jimmie Foxx, Harmon Killebrew, Bronko Nagurski, Alex Rodriguez and Seattle Slew were all far more notable athletes.)
Photos should be forthcoming. Have a good night, everyone -- and tape up your windows.
December 08, 2004
BECAUSE I'M BUSY AND YOU'RE
BECAUSE I'M BUSY AND YOU'RE BORED
December and January are the busiest months of the year for people who do what I do for my company -- as I suspect they are for many speechwriters/executive communications people across the corporate world. Between fourth quarter wrap-ups and exhortations to close strong, to preparing for and then delivering the rally-the-troops/go-forth-and-win-in-the-marketplace first quarter kickoff presentations, my schedule has become more loaded up than Robert Downey Jr.at a Phish concert.
I'll pretty much be treading water in this tsunami until about Super Bowl weekend. Not that I'm complaining -- this is actually in many ways a fun time of year, as crazy as it is. Because it is in these presentations and at these meetings that I get to be the most creative and take the most license to be entertaining as well as informative... and because there is the edge or adrenalin rush of basically needing to be "on" every day for the next two months -- no writers' block or lapsed concentration allowed.
It's stressful, sure. But I think if anyone who does what I do were being honest, they would tell you that we live for these stretches, the times when we have to consistently be at the top of our game and cranking out the most important material will write all year. I'll be exhausted by the first weekend in February, but this is the time when I really earn my paycheck, and the whole process just makes those two or three days off you finally take to decompress when things slow down that much sweeter.
Why am I boring you with this? Because I've already worked till 8:00 every night this week, and it's only going to get worse in the next few weeks... which means I may not feel like writing much when I get home... which means that it may be two or three days between TCC posts for a while. But fear not, my friends. I've been surfing and scouring around, checking comments here and on other sites I frequent, and I have a whole new list of blogs to point out to you. I haven't had time to really read everyone just yet, but these folks have been kind enough to drop by either my site or the sites of people I read, and it'd be nice -- if you have the time -- to drop by and say hello. As always, tell them the 'Mudge sent you.
Paragraphica: More political commentary from CW Fisher, who you may also know as "The Apologist" from the list of blogs over there on my list of Other Cool Blogs. Mr. Fisher apparently has more than one site. I'm impressed.
The Culture Ghost: A combination of political points of view and pop culture smart-assery. Any time a blogger has the audacity and complete lack of respect to put up a post unfavorably noting Laci Peterson's resemblance to Mary Richards of the Mary Tyler Moore show, he has a fan in me for life.
ChickyBabe: The adventures of a working mom. For my friends who have children, you'll probably relate better than I do -- but I find it interesting to see a side of life I don't often see.
James Governor: Mr. Governor's take on the technology industry, for those of you who work in high tech.
Watermelon Punch: Okay, not only is Chloe funny, but she finds these hysterical sites to link to... you can try your hand at doing a self-portrait in police composite drawing style, or my personal favorite: churchsigngenerator.com. (See below for my effort.) Hours of amusement!
Candy Blue Kite: As random as life, Sydney has discussed phlegm, trivia, travel challenges, and her family's Thanksgiving in recent weeks. I like blogs that have no particular topic area... they're more pandora-ish.
Political Site of the Day: PSOTD is a good old fashioned left-hand-side-of-the-aisle observer, while also posting random observations like his addiction to caffiene. And I happen to agree with him on Major League Baseball's anti-trust exemption.
So there you have it, kids. Or more accurately, there you have them. A bunch of new blogs to check out. Let 'em know where you came from. And don't forget that list over there on the left side of the page -- you know, the oh-so-creatively-titled "Other Cool Blogs."
As for me, I'll be back at it as often as I can during the next couple of months. Please indulge me if I go a few days between posts... and with that, I'll leave you (for now) with my best effort at a church sign, created at churchsigngenerator.com.
PAYING LAST RESPECTS, PRIMATE STYLE
PAYING LAST RESPECTS, PRIMATE STYLE
As an animal fan, I can't say this story surprised me, really -- though I was amazed by it.
After Babs the gorilla died at age 30, keepers at Brookfield Zoo decided to allow surviving gorillas to mourn the most influential female in their social family. One by one Tuesday, the gorillas filed into the Tropic World building where Babs' body lay... Babs' 9-year-old daughter, Bana, was the first to approach the body, followed by Babs' mother, Alpha, 43. Bana sat down, held Babs' hand and stroked her mother's stomach. Then she sat down and laid her head on Babs' arm.
This is just amazing. Anyone want to argue anymore that these are just "dumb animals?" There is more to these creatures than we could possibly understand, and yet much of the Western world stands idly by while poachers and development bring extinction slowly but surely closer.
Other gorillas also approached Babs and gently sniffed the body. Only the silverback male leader, Ramar, 36, stayed away.
So, to sum up: gorillas in a zoo mourn their dead... while George W. Bush has yet to attend a single funeral for any of the 1000+ men and women he sent to their deaths in Iraq.
There's an evolutionary message in there, if you look hard enough.
Posted by Christopher at 10:39 PM | Comments (0)THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO
THINGS THAT MAKE YOU GO "UUUUUGGGHH"
My first reaction when reading this story was to literally cringe in empathic pain, my shoulders tensing and curling forward protectively.
A woman survived being impaled by a 12-foot metal fence post that pierced through her mouth and came out the back of her neck in a car accident, authorities said.
That sounds like a scene from Elm Street or Camp Crystal Lake! I still shudder when I read that sentence.
Monday, Martinez drove through a stop sign at an intersection and hit another car, Anderson police spokesman Terry Sollars said. She then lost control, careened off the road and went through a chain-link fence.
The car hit a concrete porch, shoving it three feet back, Sollars said. The metal rod from the fence went through the driver's side of the windshield, he said.
Okay, that's just brutal to try and think about. But my attention was drawn to a statement from the local fire chief.
"Talk about having an angel as a co-pilot," Fire Chief J.R. Rosencrans said. "On her rearview mirror she had a picture of the Madonna. You can tell she is a religious person."
Oh really, Chief? How can you tell? Was it when she ran the stop sign? Was she a religious person then? Or wait - it was when she hit another car, wasn't it? Was it when her car smashed into the fence - was that when you knew?
Ohhh... you mean that while no Supernatural force was protecting her and keeping her from running a stop sign, hitting a car, careening off the road, or preventing her from being impaled in the first place, she had an angel as a co-pilot because she didn't die!
Man, if I was this lady I'd be suing that guardian angel for negligence.
Why is it that religious people always want to give credit to God for the good stuff, but none of them ever mentions God's role in the bad stuff? Kind of selective interpretation, isn't it? To say that an angel was her co-pilot because she lived, but never mentioning that this same angel must have been in the car when it ran a stop sign, hit a car, and bulldozed a fence?
Ahh, what do I know? I[m just one of those northeastern liberal elites who thinks too much.
Posted by Christopher at 10:19 PM | Comments (0)SAY WHAT? So Donald Rumsfeld
SAY WHAT?
So Donald Rumsfeld walked into a hangar full of troops and got the last thing that anyone in this administration wants: honest questions.
One soldier, identified by The Associated Press as Army Spc. Thomas Wilson of the 278th Regimental Combat Team, a Tennessee National Guard outfit, asked Rumsfeld why more military combat vehicles were not reinforced for battle conditions.
"Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to uparmor our vehicles?" Wilson asked.
After a minute or two of hemming, hawing and platitudes, Rumsfeld came up with this gem:
"As you know, you have to go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you want," Rumsfeld said.
Excuse me??? You went to war two years ago, Don! You've been planning this since January 2001 when the Bush regime took power! You mean to tell me that in two years of active combat and four years of war planning for Iraq, you still can't come up with adequate protection for our troops??
Sending thousands of young men and women to invade a foreign country under wholly false and deliberately exaggerated pretenses: $150 billion and counting.
Failing to adequately protect them and lying to their face about it: priceless.
Posted by Christopher at 10:07 PM | Comments (0)December 06, 2004
IT'S NOT EASY BEIN' CHEESY
IT'S NOT EASY BEIN' CHEESY
British bakery "Warburton's" has been sponsoring a survey of UK movie fans to determine the cheesiest movie lines ever. They've released the results... and it's hard to argue with them. However, I haven't seen all of them. In fact, given that we're talking about cheesiness, I'm kind of proud not to have seen them. Here's Warburton's list, along with my take... and then my suggested additions.
10. "The Postman": A blind woman says to Kevin Costner: "You're a godsend, a savior." He replies: "No, I'm a postman."
As the son of a postman, I think I like this one even if I didn't see the movie. Besides, this gets the obligatory Kevin Costner line out of the way early. What happened to this guy? "Bull Durham" is my favorite movie ever; "Dances With Wolves" was also a spectacular achievement. But this guy has made maybe one good movie in the last decade -- and "Tin Cup" is now about ten years old, so he's pushing it. What happened? (Alternate Costner possibility: "Is this heaven?... No, it's Iowa.")
9. "Jerry Maguire": Renee Zellweger to Tom Cruise: "You had me at hello."
Okay, this had a schmaltz factor, sure. But I thought it kind of fit. Overdramatic, maybe -- but not cheesy. (Alternate Cruise possibility: "Harold, you don't need a patch on your arm to have honor.")
8. "Braveheart": Mel Gibson's "They may take our lives, but they will not take our freedom!"
At one point, I kind of liked this movie. But the freakier he gets, the harder it is to like anything associated with Mel Gibson. Plus, his Scottish accent is among the worst non-Costnerian accents ever put on film. (Alternate Gibson film possibility: any time in any of the four Lethal Weapon movies when Danny Glover's Murtaugh says, "I'm too old for this shit.")
7. "Independence Day": Bill Pullman's "Today we celebrate our Independence Day!"
It's a movie where killer aliens use Mac OS. Did you expect good dialogue too? (Alternate space alien movie line: Any dialogue ever penned by George Lucas for the Star Wars movies; he is the worst writer ever to get screenplay credit. However, for the ultimate Lucas cheese factor, let's go with the Darth Vader as Jesus line from Phantom Menace: "There was no father. I carried him, I gave birth, I raised him. I can't explain what happened.")
6. "Notting Hill": Julia Roberts' "I'm just a girl... standing in front of a boy... asking him to love her."
Two Curmudgeon rules of movie watching: 1) Avoid all British romantic comedies like the plague that they are; and 2) Avoid watching anything with that overrated Julia Roberts, who makes the Mudge's "Top Ten People Who Are Supposed To Be Attractive But I Just Don't See It" list. (Alternate Julia Roberts Cheesy Line: not from a film, but real life -- when Denzel Washington had his big moment and won the Best Actor Oscar, and Julia began her announcement of his name with "I love my life.")
5. "Top Gun": Val Kilmer to Tom Cruise: "You can be my wingman anytime."
I was one of those strange kids who never liked this movie. Ironically, since I joined the Naval Reserves only five years later, one of the reasons I rejected it was that I thought it was propaganda for the US Navy. You'll forgive my antipathy toward the military in 1986. On April 14 of that year, merely hours after my soon to be 18 year old self had registered for the draft, Reagan bombed Libya. I was more than convinced that day that I'd end up on some sandpile bleeding to death for nothing. (Alternate Top Gun line: "I feel the need... the need for speed.")
4. "Ghost": Demi Moore's "Ditto," to Patrick Swayze’s "I love you."
As a straight guy, you learn by the age of about 17 that there are certain cinematic experiences that you are destined to be tortured with. They usually come along every two or three years, and no matter what you do there is no way that you can avoid being dragged to them against your will by whichever woman is in your life at that time. It's the dreaded hit "romantic" movie, and there's nothing you can do... and it's no coincidence that the four cheesiest lines on this list each come from one of these insipid films. In this case, we had to suffer through pottery, through Whoopi Goldberg, and through being expected to say "ditto" for the next year. (Alternate Swayze line: "What's the difference, Jed? What's the difference between them and us?" "Because... we live here." -- Red Dawn)
3. "Four Weddings And A Funeral": Andie McDowell's "Is it still raining? I hadn't noticed."
Two Curmudgeon rules of movie watching: 1) Avoid all British romantic comedies like the plague that they are; and 2) Avoid watching anything with the insipid and badly acting Andie MacDowell, who makes the Mudge's "Top Ten People Who Are Supposed To Be Attractive But I Just Don't See It" list. (Alternate Hugh Grant line: "How much will it cost me, Divine?"
2. "Dirty Dancing": Patrick Swayze's "Nobody puts Baby in the corner."
Until movie #1 came along, this was my least favorite movie ever. I was dragged to see it at age 19 by a girl in my French class at the University of Minnesota who had a body that would have driven me to watch Truffaut until my eyes bled if she'd have asked me to. I was even more motivated when she told me that she thought I kind of looked like Patrick Swayze. So I went. There was cheesy dancing, a lousy plot, a cheesier theme song, and of course there was a main character named "Baby." The fact that I got nothing more from the evening than a cheery hug had nothing to do with my disdain for the film, I swear. (Alternate Patrick Swayze line: "Pain don't hurt." -- Roadhouse)
1. "Titanic": Leonardo DiCaprio's "I'm the king of the world!"
Without question, this has to be the worst movie ever made that wasn't written by George Lucas. I could never figure out why I was supposed to think that a story in which the guy dies at the end was supposed to be the ideal to which I aspired to take the relationship I was in at the time. Add in ridiculously over the top dialogue, a hype machine bigger than that damn iceberg, and the worst song ever recorded, by the most annoying artist of all time, and everything about this movie makes me absolutely cringe. By fifteen minutes in, I was rooting hard for the iceberg. No alternate lines offered here, because the entire film, from fade in to the credits, was cheesier than Chester Cheetah vacationing in Wisconsin.
In the comment field, I'm taking further nominations for the cheesiest lines in movie history. (I'm especially looking forward to the contributions from Pete, our resident paid movie critic.)
Posted by Christopher at 10:38 PM | Comments (0)December 05, 2004
'ROID RAGE So all the
'ROID RAGE
So all the suspicions have been confirmed... everything we've all known simply through observation is confirmed via a grand jury. Barry Bonds (aka Ivan Drago) and Jason Giambi were using steroids to enhance their performance in Major League Baseball.
Let's get something straight right away: there are no angels in this whole scenario. No one gets out of this without looking blighted. That includes whoever leaked Bonds & Giambi's grand jury testimony to two reporters from the San Francisco Chronicle. Grand jury testimony in this country is secret. Secret. That should be held sarcosanct. And while I am taking a great deal of pleasure in Ivan Drago being exposed as the cheating fraud that he is, I must admit to some discomfort at how it's happening.
And let's dismiss right away the ridiculous and frankly insulting notion that race is a factor in this whole scandal, and somehow America is waiting to reject Bonds because he is black. While racism certainly exists, America has embraced successful athletes of every ehtnicity -- the most beloved sports figure of our time is Michael Jordan, and Tiger Woods has brought all sorts of new attention to golf, just to use two examples. There's a cracker element out there, sure -- but most baseball fans don't like Barry Bonds for any of the dozen reasons that he's given us with his own behavior. Introducing race into this argument is a gross oversimplification and insults the intelligence of the legions of fans who don't even think of a player's color. Moreover, it's a cynical attempt to absolve Bonds from any responsibility for the consequences of his own actions.
The Players' Association contributed to this scandal by opposing any meaningful steroid policies during the negotiations for the last two collectve bargaining agreements. The owners have a black eye, because they've pretty much turned a blind eye until now to what players took or did, so long as they played well.
The New York Yankees are utter and complete hyprocrites for trying to get out of Giambi's contract over the issue. This franchise has spent the last twenty years giving coke addicts (Steve Howe, Darryl Strawberry, Doc Gooden) chance after chance after chance to come back into baseball, and whose most beloved manager (Bill Martin) and most beloved players (Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle) were drop-down drunks. Giambi simply had the misfortune of having the worst season of his career last year. As the New York Times put it, "If Giambi had hit 50 home runs and denied using steroids, he would still be a New York hero."
As for Giambi himself... it's hard to feel sorry for him, despite the shameless treatment he's receiving from the team that signed him. He admitted to at least three years of steroid use, which calls everything he ever accomplished -- including that 2000 MVP Award -- into question. His health problems of the last year, especially that pituitary tumor, are all the more suspicious now. He's a shell of the player he never really was.
And he didn't have the integrity to come clean with the fans and his team even after his grand jury testimony -- still denying he had taken steroids when he was questioned in spring training about his slimmer physique. "I just cleaned up my diet. I stopped eating fast food, bottom line. I stopped eating In-N-Out burgers."
Giambi should be stripped of his MVP Award, in my opinion -- there are too many questions now about whether his performance was legitimate. He's destined to get brutal treatment and heckling from fans, who will call him every name in the book, and spew all sorts of vile things at him -- and then he'll go on the road. I've observed New York sports fans close up now for six years, and I can assure that no one can be meaner and uglier. Giambi's home fans are going to hate him now -- even if he's traded from New York, he won't be accepted anywhere now. And maybe he shouldn't be. His career is, for all intents and purposes, over. And maybe it should be.
But even Giambi looks like a saint compared to Ivan Drago out in San Francisco. At least Giambi understood the consequences of lying to a grand jury, and told the truth about what he'd done. Barry Bonds used steroids, and then actually had the audacity to claim that he didn't know what he was taking. Giambi is a cheater and a liar. Bonds is both of those, but he's also almost certainly a perjurer as well.
He's a professional athlete who makes millions off of his body... and we're supposed to believe that he just puts stuff into his system without knowing exactly what it is? He claims he didn't think the stuff worked... but he then turned around and gave it to his then-friend Gary Sheffield? How many times have you ever given a friend something that you didn't think worked? As the Washington Post's Thomas Boswell put it,
"If you read the grand jury transcripts in yesterday's San Francisco Chronicle and still believe Bonds, then look outside your door. A line of bridge and swampland salesmen may stretch to the horizon."
From another article that summarized the testimony. It contains even more incredulous and unbelieveable testimony.
Prosecutors showed Barry a piece of paper that said BALCO was screening his blood for steroids starting in 2001. Barry’s response: "I don't understand this piece of paper."
You don't understand? Or you just knew you were caught LYING and chose to plead ignorance?
Even if you don't believe that Bonds is a perjurer (and if you don't, I seriously have the original dagger that Theseus used to slay the Minotaur, and I'll sell it to you cheap!), he is definitively a liar. There is no getting around that. Even if he didn't know that "the cream" and "the clear" were steroids when he testified in late 2003, he was most certainly told so at that time. And yet he spent 2004 denying his steroid use, claiming that he just had naturally broad shoulders and had a tough workout regimen. He knew during the 2004 season that he'd taken steroids, and yet he told baseball, the Giants, and the fans that he had not. Barry Bonds is a liar.
The most apt comparison for Bonds (and Giambi) is not with the cokeheads of the 1980s, but with Pete Rose. Like Bonds, Rose was caught red-handed doing something illegal. Like Bonds, Rose ignored the moutains of evidence to the contrary and continued to proclaim his innocence to a public that believed him a little less every year. Like Bonds, Rose believed his skills on the field placed him above the rules. Like Rose, Bonds should be banned from the Hall of Fame for his transgressions against the sport.
And yes, this does matter a little bit more than Giambi. Jason Giambi isn't about to break the most hallowed record in all of sport. Jason Giambi hasn't eclipsed great names like Willie Mays and Frank Robinson. Jason Giambi isn't about to pass the most beloved name in baseball history (Babe Ruth) and the classiest hero in baseball history (Hank Aaron).
For Bonds to break the record now is like Milli Vanilli winning the Grammy for Best New Artist. Sure, they could dance and it was their look and stage presence that made the act huge -- but in the end, it wasn't them singing. They cheated, and they weren't worthy of their position. In the same way, Bonds was a great player before the late 90s, winning three MVPs -- but in the end, he has cheated, and he is not worthy of eclipsing a great man like Henry Aaron.
The Post's Thomas Boswell's column is an excellent indictment of this bad man's bad lies, and what the permanent impact of this scandal will be on his legacy.
All those records are now a steroid lie. Without Anderson's illicit help, there is no reason whatsoever to believe Bonds could have approached, much less broken, any of the all-time marks for which he lusted so much that he has now ruined his name. Throw every record that Bonds has set in the past four years into the trash can that history reserves for cheats...
There is no reason Bonds should ever again be considered one of the top 10 hitters who ever lived. The true elite -- including Babe Ruth, Hank Aaron, Ted Williams and Willie Mays -- are back where they belong. If you seek current players to keep them company, start with Alex Rodriguez and his 381 home runs at age 29. At that juncture, Bonds had 222.
The glory of Roger Maris's 61 home runs, which felt heavy to him in life, became a buoyant legacy to his family after his death. The disgrace of Bonds's 73 tainted home runs will become heavier with time until even fake muscles may not bear the weight... For Bonds, the number 73 will only loom larger. Even as, for the rest of us, it moves toward the horizon of memory and shrinks until it finally takes its place, remote but still distinct, next to that other sad number that never entirely fades: 1919.
Congratulations, Barry Bonds/Ivan Drago. You finally got the kind of recognition you deserve.
NOT QUITE THE JOINT THEY
NOT QUITE THE JOINT THEY HAD IN MIND
They don't raise 'em real smart up in the Florida Panhandle. (If you've lived there, you know the jokes.) If you need proof, check out this story.
A Panhandle couple is under arrest after notifying police Thursday that their quarter-pound stash of marijuana was stolen and that they needed the weed back, because they were going to later sell it.
Uh, yo officer? Okay, like this dude must have come into our house, right? 'Cuz all the macaroni and cheese was gone, and -- dude! -- our weed is gone! You gotta come do somethin', man! We were counting on the green we were gonna get from selling it, yo!
Deputies arrested 18-year-old John Douglas Sheetz and 17-year-old Misty Ann Holmes and charged the duo with possession of marijuana with intent to deliver and possession of drug paraphernalia.
According to the police report, the couple returned to the home they share and found the home broken into and a quarter-pound of marijuana missing. They immediately called authorities to report the break-in and theft.
Not swimming in the deep end of the gene pool, are they? I'm guessing middle school was a struggle for these two. They're a "Cops" episode waiting to happen. The real shame is that they're still going to breed someday.
Posted by Christopher at 10:59 AM | Comments (0)SOMETIMES, THEY JUST WRITE THEMSELVES
SOMETIMES, THEY JUST WRITE THEMSELVES
Scouring the Internet for things to write about isn't always easy. There can be stretches where nothing seems to catch my eye -- or if it does, the joke somehow escapes me and I don't know what to write or say to make something