I didn't really have a dog in last night's hunt, even though Sean May is the son of former player of the year Scott May, who would have led the Hoosiers to undefeated back-to-back titles if those mizable pudknockers from West Lafayette hadn't cheap-shotted him and broken his arm in '75 (Q: What's the difference between Mackey Arena and a porcupine? A: A porcupine has the pricks on the outside). I spent most of the first half watching " Johnny Cash vs. Music Row" on CMT. Which was serendipitous, since I still have no idea what channel CMT is actually on.
They're repeating it Friday at 8 Eastern and Pacific, if you're interested. It's worth it.
Tuesday, April 5
Monday, April 4
Wall To Wall
All I have to say is if you have recently lost a religious leader and are now enduring a week's worth of coverage by that turnip truck Cary Grant, Bill Hemmer, a man with all the gravitas of a cartoon chipmunk, backed in the studio by the over-caffeinated Soledad O'Brien and the terminally graceless Daryn Kagan (who I swear that back when she was a sportscaster, in the days when I had no idea about her political inclinations or taste in beards, still gave the distinct impression that she couldn't wait to get back to her dressing room to continue pulling the wings off flies), you have my deepest sympathy.
Sunday, April 3
Appleby
"A nice dog," Appleby said.
Still benevolent, Mr. Gee swung round. "Dish-faced," he said in a voice of unfathomable gloom.
"Ah," said Appleby, rather at a loss.
"And undershot," Mr. Gee preserved his highly deceptive appearance. "Pig-jawed, in fact."
"Well, yes--I suppose he is, a little."
"She."
"Ah"
"Cow-hocked. No feather. Apple-headed. Pily."
"Pily? I suppose she is. But still--"
"Pily is the only good thing about her. Apple-headed. No feather. Cow-hocked. Pig-jawed. What do you think of the stifles?"
"I'm afraid," Appleby said modestly, "I don't know anything about dogs."
"I'm afraid you don't," said Mr. Gee gloomily. He continued to radiate the appearance of good cheer..
"At the moment, as a matter of fact, I'm more interested in horses."
"You don't look as if you knew much about them either. Taxis I should say was more your line."
from The Daffodil Affair by Michael Innes, pseudonym of the late John Innes Mackintosh Stewart, creator of Inspector John Appleby, first of the donnish detectives. Hamlet, Revenge! is the first and among the best. The comic spy novel From London Far is an underappreciated gem.
Still benevolent, Mr. Gee swung round. "Dish-faced," he said in a voice of unfathomable gloom.
"Ah," said Appleby, rather at a loss.
"And undershot," Mr. Gee preserved his highly deceptive appearance. "Pig-jawed, in fact."
"Well, yes--I suppose he is, a little."
"She."
"Ah"
"Cow-hocked. No feather. Apple-headed. Pily."
"Pily? I suppose she is. But still--"
"Pily is the only good thing about her. Apple-headed. No feather. Cow-hocked. Pig-jawed. What do you think of the stifles?"
"I'm afraid," Appleby said modestly, "I don't know anything about dogs."
"I'm afraid you don't," said Mr. Gee gloomily. He continued to radiate the appearance of good cheer..
"At the moment, as a matter of fact, I'm more interested in horses."
"You don't look as if you knew much about them either. Taxis I should say was more your line."
from The Daffodil Affair by Michael Innes, pseudonym of the late John Innes Mackintosh Stewart, creator of Inspector John Appleby, first of the donnish detectives. Hamlet, Revenge! is the first and among the best. The comic spy novel From London Far is an underappreciated gem.
Saturday, April 2
TV Guide™ Roundup
Okay, last week set a standard that may never be met. This week's issue has a distinct check-the-wastebaskets-we-need-42-more-column-inches feel:
Letters: V. Aleman, glad Rob Morrow is back on teevee. Jim Peffley reminding us that Blind Justice has some big shoes to fill: James Franciscus' eponymous blind detective in Longstreet. Kathy Grillo revealing that Luke and Lorelai's reconcilliation on Gilmore Girls was the most romantic thing she'd seen "since Rhett carried Scarlett up that staircase". Bill Hicks, who is unquestionably not that Bill Hicks but does know comedy when he sees it, averring that Saturday Night Live is a shell of its former self.
Poll: Is 24 Too Violent This Season? Yes 8% No 92%.
Here's the odd thing about that. They provide you with the rationale for your vote (Yes: It seems like every week someone is getting Tasered or tortured; No: The show has always pushed the envelope). I don't know about you, but I've had it with The Man tellin' me what to think.
American Idol Watch: Oh, Babies! Match the baby picture with today's American Idol finalists.
I was still steaming about the poll thing, so I deliberately got them wrong.
Reason To Go On Living: Fran Drescher returns to teevee in Living With Fran, in which she plays a divorced mom shacking up with a hunk who's not much older than her bitterly neurotic, failed med-student son.
Top Ten-to-Hundred of the Week: The 10 Greatest Sports Rivalries.
#1 Bosox vs. Yankees.
For cryin' out loud. If I wanted three pages of time-wasting conventional wisdom which even its author can't seem to work up an interest in I'd be reading...nevermind.
Thing I Did Not Know: There's still an E! network.
Letters: V. Aleman, glad Rob Morrow is back on teevee. Jim Peffley reminding us that Blind Justice has some big shoes to fill: James Franciscus' eponymous blind detective in Longstreet. Kathy Grillo revealing that Luke and Lorelai's reconcilliation on Gilmore Girls was the most romantic thing she'd seen "since Rhett carried Scarlett up that staircase". Bill Hicks, who is unquestionably not that Bill Hicks but does know comedy when he sees it, averring that Saturday Night Live is a shell of its former self.
Poll: Is 24 Too Violent This Season? Yes 8% No 92%.
Here's the odd thing about that. They provide you with the rationale for your vote (Yes: It seems like every week someone is getting Tasered or tortured; No: The show has always pushed the envelope). I don't know about you, but I've had it with The Man tellin' me what to think.
American Idol Watch: Oh, Babies! Match the baby picture with today's American Idol finalists.
I was still steaming about the poll thing, so I deliberately got them wrong.
Reason To Go On Living: Fran Drescher returns to teevee in Living With Fran, in which she plays a divorced mom shacking up with a hunk who's not much older than her bitterly neurotic, failed med-student son.
Top Ten-to-Hundred of the Week: The 10 Greatest Sports Rivalries.
#1 Bosox vs. Yankees.
For cryin' out loud. If I wanted three pages of time-wasting conventional wisdom which even its author can't seem to work up an interest in I'd be reading...nevermind.
Thing I Did Not Know: There's still an E! network.
Friday, April 1
Let Me Rephrase That For You
Media Matters takes Brit Hume to task for "minimizing Bush's actions" in the Schiavo case:
Fox News Washington managing editor Brit Hume downplayed President Bush's actions in the Terri Schiavo case by saying that "his [Bush's] intervention consisted mostly of a signature and some statements from the White House." Hume significantly understated the leading role the president and his staff played in the case.
Let's not be hasty. Try the picture without the frame. The Bush administration was dragged reluctantly into grandstanding the Schiavo case, let others do the heavy lifting, and faded into the woodwork as quickly as it could. On a single issue it proved that it must dance when the religious radicals pull the strings but will not offer leadership, even in a matter of the Right to Life, without reading every political signpost and covering its ass. And having been splattered with muck it will seek to disavow its own actions through a convenient media mouthpiece.
There. Same basic facts with the lights on. I think we all can agree about Bush now.
Fox News Washington managing editor Brit Hume downplayed President Bush's actions in the Terri Schiavo case by saying that "his [Bush's] intervention consisted mostly of a signature and some statements from the White House." Hume significantly understated the leading role the president and his staff played in the case.
Let's not be hasty. Try the picture without the frame. The Bush administration was dragged reluctantly into grandstanding the Schiavo case, let others do the heavy lifting, and faded into the woodwork as quickly as it could. On a single issue it proved that it must dance when the religious radicals pull the strings but will not offer leadership, even in a matter of the Right to Life, without reading every political signpost and covering its ass. And having been splattered with muck it will seek to disavow its own actions through a convenient media mouthpiece.
There. Same basic facts with the lights on. I think we all can agree about Bush now.
Music Industry in Crisis: Day 11688
Norbizness is smart, inventive and funny and does this every freakin' day. It's like whoever noted that Joe DiMaggio never got grass stains on his uniform. HFPST is a blog with no grass stains. Even when he's passing time with the topselling albums of alltime.
The really frightening thing there is not the cringe-worthy artists nor the shocking failure to choose the best albums by even the good ones, it's the number of Greatest Hits packages. Look, I know why I buy a Greatest Hits collection: the artist is long dead, long past recording, or had only a couple of songs I liked. Why do 21 million people buy "Billy Joel's Greatest Hits Vol. 1 & 2"? "Y'know, I really like that Billy Joel guy. Here's the 24 of his chartbusters I'd like to restrict my listening to" ?
[Ob.Simpsons. Helicopter pilot: "Another guy I like is that Leo Sayer."]
Alex of Buck Hill reminds me of the glory days of Bravo as an arts channel, when they'd fill open spots with independent shorts, which I am left to guess now play on IFC, which I can't get despite having the cable company complaint desk number memorized. Siddown with Alex and the academy leader starts, then there's something between 15 seconds and two minutes long which may frequently be described as magic. Wednesday he put the Grokster business to bed by quoting a sentence and a half. Wow-ee, as we say here in Dixie.
Which brings to mind the local dust-up over radio station format changes which had probably aready occurred in the other 49 states and Guam. The Oldies station is now a veritable iPod shuffle of "the 70s, 80s, 90s and today", while an adult contemporary station went to an eclectic country format. Front page story in the Star.
Like I care. I dropped the radio habit for good in 1977, when Elvis Costello and the Ramones did not blast "Freebird" off every FM outlet in the country. But there's two interesting things about this. One, these are both multi-station operators making the change, and it's usually amusing to see what an idea that passes through thirty corporate inboxes comes out looking like. Obviously, this one can't be chalked up to audience demand; somebody somewhere sold the idea, and somebody else wrote it up in a trade journal, and now everybody's just got to play "a wide range of music". Gee, that's a great idea. What's kept you from doing it for the last 25 years?
The other trend just now washing ashore on the mighty White River is giving these stations the diminutive of men's names, Jack and Hank, respectively, ("like in other cities with stations such as Bob, Joe, and Dave", notes the Star.) This crowns the effort to reduce the call letters to the singular. Apparently the reduction from three to one, plus three or four numbers, is still too challenging, and market research has shown that Americans respond best to products named by a specific barking sound. This does not bode well.
The really frightening thing there is not the cringe-worthy artists nor the shocking failure to choose the best albums by even the good ones, it's the number of Greatest Hits packages. Look, I know why I buy a Greatest Hits collection: the artist is long dead, long past recording, or had only a couple of songs I liked. Why do 21 million people buy "Billy Joel's Greatest Hits Vol. 1 & 2"? "Y'know, I really like that Billy Joel guy. Here's the 24 of his chartbusters I'd like to restrict my listening to" ?
[Ob.Simpsons. Helicopter pilot: "Another guy I like is that Leo Sayer."]
Alex of Buck Hill reminds me of the glory days of Bravo as an arts channel, when they'd fill open spots with independent shorts, which I am left to guess now play on IFC, which I can't get despite having the cable company complaint desk number memorized. Siddown with Alex and the academy leader starts, then there's something between 15 seconds and two minutes long which may frequently be described as magic. Wednesday he put the Grokster business to bed by quoting a sentence and a half. Wow-ee, as we say here in Dixie.
Which brings to mind the local dust-up over radio station format changes which had probably aready occurred in the other 49 states and Guam. The Oldies station is now a veritable iPod shuffle of "the 70s, 80s, 90s and today", while an adult contemporary station went to an eclectic country format. Front page story in the Star.
Like I care. I dropped the radio habit for good in 1977, when Elvis Costello and the Ramones did not blast "Freebird" off every FM outlet in the country. But there's two interesting things about this. One, these are both multi-station operators making the change, and it's usually amusing to see what an idea that passes through thirty corporate inboxes comes out looking like. Obviously, this one can't be chalked up to audience demand; somebody somewhere sold the idea, and somebody else wrote it up in a trade journal, and now everybody's just got to play "a wide range of music". Gee, that's a great idea. What's kept you from doing it for the last 25 years?
The other trend just now washing ashore on the mighty White River is giving these stations the diminutive of men's names, Jack and Hank, respectively, ("like in other cities with stations such as Bob, Joe, and Dave", notes the Star.) This crowns the effort to reduce the call letters to the singular. Apparently the reduction from three to one, plus three or four numbers, is still too challenging, and market research has shown that Americans respond best to products named by a specific barking sound. This does not bode well.
Thursday, March 31
Punk Bonzai #1: Meadow Sage (Dharma for Cows)
This was the original punk bonzai, the inspiration for all that would follow, and that's probably why there's no tree in this one. The religious theme is new this year. Previously the piece has contained only cows and the occasional land shark or fireman, depending on my wife's whim. They have been known to engage in unbovine behavior. Once they held a cotillion. One night last summer tiny malicious small-town wiseacres tipped every last one of them. The very large cow appears to be their leader.
My wife has a lifelong thing for tiny toys, especially animals. That's why I paid no attention to her when the cows came home. They were an electric orange. She spent the winter sanding and painting them. Late spring, two years ago, I went to check the moss container gardens and they were grazing on this one.
Sharp-eyed perverts may note the beginnings of sexual differentiation among the protonemata.
Pass The Popcorn
The New York Times> Opinion> Jon Danforth: In the Name of Politics:
By a series of recent initiatives, Republicans have transformed our party into the political arm of conservative Christians. The elements of this transformation have included advocacy of a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, opposition to stem cell research involving both frozen embryos and human cells in petri dishes, and the extraordinary effort to keep Terri Schiavo hooked up to a feeding tube.
Senator Danforth, you have a reputation as a decent guy, but I'm not sure the man who was single-handedly responsible for the elevation of Clarence Thomas should be pointing fingers. But you know me, it's your fight. I'm just here for the catcalls.
High-profile Republican efforts to prolong the life of Ms. Schiavo, including departures from Republican principles like approving Congressional involvement in private decisions and empowering a federal court to overrule a state court, can rightfully be interpreted as yielding to the pressure of religious power blocs.
It's early days yet, but I'm gonna show my cards anyway. Spare me the claims that this is some recent development. It's the result of thirty years of cross-breeding experiments. The whole Right to Life business has been money in the bank for your party for a generation. Reed and Falwell and Robertson were supposed to keep their people in check, as when they swallowed hard and backed Dole or when they agreed to stay off the convention dais during prime time. They got to enrich their licensed beggar operations via the public airwaves, they got to funnel money in who knows how many directions with no oversight, and they got whatever personal perks were thrown into the bargain. They've had veto power over Republican nominees for AG and education, until they finally got the appointment power ceeded to them. And that's not to mention the real money behind it all. This was always a bargain with the devil and you knew it. Now it turns to bite you and you say, "I just blinked and there they were"?
The problem is not with people or churches that are politically active. It is with a party that has gone so far in adopting a sectarian agenda that it has become the political extension of a religious movement.
Nah, it's with a party that thought it could buy religious radical votes with biennial Anti-abortion and School Prayer amendments it had no real interest in passing, a party which now finds its pet-food empire patricians encircled by the rabble. The Republican party could have prevented this continual traffic-jam of debate over 19th Century theology by putting the extremists in their minority place. Instead you stoked the fires. The Reagan FBI never investigated anti-abortion violence. "Just a series of local incidents." You could have done your job and upheld the rule of law. It would have cost votes and money, though.
Then came the time when your boy had to play the Jesus card to grab the office. Oh, Lord, who coulda foreseen it?
As a senator, I worried every day about the size of the federal deficit. I did not spend a single minute worrying about the effect of gays on the institution of marriage. Today it seems to be the other way around.
And it's been that way for a decade. C'mon, effective control of Congress, and the Executive, for most of the last quarter-century, and the only time we've cut the deficit was with a Democrat in the White House. Where is the Republican legacy? It's not in deficit reduction, jobs, or smaller government. We don't have term limits, voluntary or otherwise. Our military is fractured, our international standing is nil, our very words are suspect. The boats in that rising tide sailed for India with our jobs. And the national debate centers on the wording of the Plejuleejunce and whether pharmicists should fill prescriptions.
The historic principles of the Republican Party offer America its best hope for a prosperous and secure future.
Were you listening to what I just said? Massive deficits, cuts in Social Security threatening not just the future of the elderly, but the disabled and homeless as well. Increasing disparity between rich and poor. Deplorable health care and prescription costs. Monopolistic control of the airwaves. Foolish and ill-considered international adventurism. Of course, if by prosperous and secure future you mean one in which our elected officials will spend every non-fundraising moment searching for communists in Hollywood, or ordering Ten Commandment accessories for the courthouse lawn, or keeping science out of our public school rooms, then, yeah. I'd have to agree.
By a series of recent initiatives, Republicans have transformed our party into the political arm of conservative Christians. The elements of this transformation have included advocacy of a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, opposition to stem cell research involving both frozen embryos and human cells in petri dishes, and the extraordinary effort to keep Terri Schiavo hooked up to a feeding tube.
Senator Danforth, you have a reputation as a decent guy, but I'm not sure the man who was single-handedly responsible for the elevation of Clarence Thomas should be pointing fingers. But you know me, it's your fight. I'm just here for the catcalls.
High-profile Republican efforts to prolong the life of Ms. Schiavo, including departures from Republican principles like approving Congressional involvement in private decisions and empowering a federal court to overrule a state court, can rightfully be interpreted as yielding to the pressure of religious power blocs.
It's early days yet, but I'm gonna show my cards anyway. Spare me the claims that this is some recent development. It's the result of thirty years of cross-breeding experiments. The whole Right to Life business has been money in the bank for your party for a generation. Reed and Falwell and Robertson were supposed to keep their people in check, as when they swallowed hard and backed Dole or when they agreed to stay off the convention dais during prime time. They got to enrich their licensed beggar operations via the public airwaves, they got to funnel money in who knows how many directions with no oversight, and they got whatever personal perks were thrown into the bargain. They've had veto power over Republican nominees for AG and education, until they finally got the appointment power ceeded to them. And that's not to mention the real money behind it all. This was always a bargain with the devil and you knew it. Now it turns to bite you and you say, "I just blinked and there they were"?
The problem is not with people or churches that are politically active. It is with a party that has gone so far in adopting a sectarian agenda that it has become the political extension of a religious movement.
Nah, it's with a party that thought it could buy religious radical votes with biennial Anti-abortion and School Prayer amendments it had no real interest in passing, a party which now finds its pet-food empire patricians encircled by the rabble. The Republican party could have prevented this continual traffic-jam of debate over 19th Century theology by putting the extremists in their minority place. Instead you stoked the fires. The Reagan FBI never investigated anti-abortion violence. "Just a series of local incidents." You could have done your job and upheld the rule of law. It would have cost votes and money, though.
Then came the time when your boy had to play the Jesus card to grab the office. Oh, Lord, who coulda foreseen it?
As a senator, I worried every day about the size of the federal deficit. I did not spend a single minute worrying about the effect of gays on the institution of marriage. Today it seems to be the other way around.
And it's been that way for a decade. C'mon, effective control of Congress, and the Executive, for most of the last quarter-century, and the only time we've cut the deficit was with a Democrat in the White House. Where is the Republican legacy? It's not in deficit reduction, jobs, or smaller government. We don't have term limits, voluntary or otherwise. Our military is fractured, our international standing is nil, our very words are suspect. The boats in that rising tide sailed for India with our jobs. And the national debate centers on the wording of the Plejuleejunce and whether pharmicists should fill prescriptions.
The historic principles of the Republican Party offer America its best hope for a prosperous and secure future.
Were you listening to what I just said? Massive deficits, cuts in Social Security threatening not just the future of the elderly, but the disabled and homeless as well. Increasing disparity between rich and poor. Deplorable health care and prescription costs. Monopolistic control of the airwaves. Foolish and ill-considered international adventurism. Of course, if by prosperous and secure future you mean one in which our elected officials will spend every non-fundraising moment searching for communists in Hollywood, or ordering Ten Commandment accessories for the courthouse lawn, or keeping science out of our public school rooms, then, yeah. I'd have to agree.
Pruning Day
Pruning day (for roses) is usually the Big Event of the early spring season, but it got buried under work and dogsitting and misjudged dosages this year and is only half completed. This formerly would have been unthinkable, as everything else would have moved down the schedule until pruning was finished, but maybe I'm becoming more casual about roses the more I know about 'em. That, or the indolence thing.
I don't have many roses. Seven hybrid teas or multifloras, three climbers, five miniatures. I like to act like it's a huge spread of prize winners, but the truth is I do work like a maniac on roses, but it's because on the best ground I could provide them they get maybe 6.5 hours of sun at peak and it takes every advantage I can give 'em just to have what would amount to a mediocre season for someone with full sun. Because of the low light my roses have had every disease and insect infestation in the books, excepting anything fatal. I feed them every week, two gallons per plant of one thing or another on an arcane schedule. They seem marginally healthier for it than when they just got once-a-month rose food. I, on the other hand, am being consumed with increasing rapidity.
Which brings me to the dog. He's stupid. People involved with large purebred dogs can probably explain to me whether intelligence has been bred out of them as a matter of choice or it's just the inevitability of genetic law. He's a retriever, probably a cruiserweight. I can still hold my own with him left handed with one of those tug-of-war toys, but I'm slipping. He's entered a not-sleek-but-solid middle age just as I'm exiting one, which got me started figuring in dog years to see if I needed to start training. And the thing about dog years is they're factored wrong. Dogs live about ten years. Humans, about seventy. Ergo, each year for a dog is ten human years. Only, dogs, like every other mammal lives only half as long a humans. Measured by total respirations or heartbeats or something I don't quite remember, a mouse and an elephant, wildebeest and wombat, all live exactly the same span. And Homo sapiens live twice that. So it's actually 3.5 years of human time, and that dog's got several years of fight left in him. Better find where the weights got to after the last yard sale.
I don't have many roses. Seven hybrid teas or multifloras, three climbers, five miniatures. I like to act like it's a huge spread of prize winners, but the truth is I do work like a maniac on roses, but it's because on the best ground I could provide them they get maybe 6.5 hours of sun at peak and it takes every advantage I can give 'em just to have what would amount to a mediocre season for someone with full sun. Because of the low light my roses have had every disease and insect infestation in the books, excepting anything fatal. I feed them every week, two gallons per plant of one thing or another on an arcane schedule. They seem marginally healthier for it than when they just got once-a-month rose food. I, on the other hand, am being consumed with increasing rapidity.
Which brings me to the dog. He's stupid. People involved with large purebred dogs can probably explain to me whether intelligence has been bred out of them as a matter of choice or it's just the inevitability of genetic law. He's a retriever, probably a cruiserweight. I can still hold my own with him left handed with one of those tug-of-war toys, but I'm slipping. He's entered a not-sleek-but-solid middle age just as I'm exiting one, which got me started figuring in dog years to see if I needed to start training. And the thing about dog years is they're factored wrong. Dogs live about ten years. Humans, about seventy. Ergo, each year for a dog is ten human years. Only, dogs, like every other mammal lives only half as long a humans. Measured by total respirations or heartbeats or something I don't quite remember, a mouse and an elephant, wildebeest and wombat, all live exactly the same span. And Homo sapiens live twice that. So it's actually 3.5 years of human time, and that dog's got several years of fight left in him. Better find where the weights got to after the last yard sale.
Wednesday, March 30
Cheneymania
Via Oliver Willis, Jonathan Chait senses a draft:
The Draft Cheney movement is burbling just below the surface. Fred Barnes suggested it earlier this month in the Weekly Standard. Tod Lindberg of the Washington Times and Lawrence Kudlow of National Review Online echoed Barnes in columns this week.
Cheneymania has reached critical mass.
Now, maybe it's Cheney '08 springing into action in the wake of the Social Security fiasco, or maybe it's the Gray Man Group hoping to count Dick in or out so they can set their financing priorities. Of course, it could just be three right-wing tools taking payola for column inches, a possibility which has to be considered anytime any of those guys opens his mouth. Chait believes that Cheney is at least not averse to taking the job, but then there's the little matter of his promising not to do so. Tis an insignificant hurdle if he decides he needs to jump it, but it could be costing him valuable time considering that the religious radicals are out there and prepared to swarm. Absent a nod from Bush a draft movement is his only way for a quick start. I've got no idea what Cheney's intentions are, but it sure is interesting what's popped up before the daffodils this year.
Feerless '08 Prediction of the Week: One of those crypto-Stepford Wife Republican CNN/MSNBC or network correspondents will, live, on-camera, and in the presence of the GOP nominee, go into full Devils of Loudon, speaking-in-tongues mode.
The Draft Cheney movement is burbling just below the surface. Fred Barnes suggested it earlier this month in the Weekly Standard. Tod Lindberg of the Washington Times and Lawrence Kudlow of National Review Online echoed Barnes in columns this week.
Cheneymania has reached critical mass.
Now, maybe it's Cheney '08 springing into action in the wake of the Social Security fiasco, or maybe it's the Gray Man Group hoping to count Dick in or out so they can set their financing priorities. Of course, it could just be three right-wing tools taking payola for column inches, a possibility which has to be considered anytime any of those guys opens his mouth. Chait believes that Cheney is at least not averse to taking the job, but then there's the little matter of his promising not to do so. Tis an insignificant hurdle if he decides he needs to jump it, but it could be costing him valuable time considering that the religious radicals are out there and prepared to swarm. Absent a nod from Bush a draft movement is his only way for a quick start. I've got no idea what Cheney's intentions are, but it sure is interesting what's popped up before the daffodils this year.
Feerless '08 Prediction of the Week: One of those crypto-Stepford Wife Republican CNN/MSNBC or network correspondents will, live, on-camera, and in the presence of the GOP nominee, go into full Devils of Loudon, speaking-in-tongues mode.
Tuesday, March 29
TV Guide™ Roundup
Sorry, sorry, sorry. Please refrain from actually reading the TV Guide™ yourself. I'm late because of the holidays, because of pressing business, because I'm dogsitting Neighbor Dog, and I'm a very conscientious dogsitter. Much more so than blogger.
But the big reason TV Guide™ Roundup is late is...TV Guide™, which last year changed its format from Saturday-Friday to Sunday-Saturday. This was done, per TV Guide™ to better serve YOU! its readership. Because YOU! had written in so many times demanding just that change. Funny thing, though, from MY! perspective is that neither YOU! nor TV Guide™ saw fit to explain that what was once available the previous Tuesday for a week starting Saturday will now be generally unavailable until Saturday afternoon sometime. So now I've got to make a special trip. Well, Mr. Know-it-All Public, Mr. Big Time Media Publishing Conglomerate, I'm rarely sober enough on Saturday or Sunday to make the trip. Nobody thinks about the little guy in all of this.
The other thing that delayed me is, it's a really good issue. Letters:
Pro vs Con returns, this week: Chris Rock. Some like him (Kate Jones, Oak Park, IL where I roamed as a lad). Others don't: Cherry and Mike Okragly actually changed channels long before the show was over.
Sean Kelly wants people to quick overanalyzing Alias and just enjoy the ride! Tom M. Wallace offers a final salute to NYPD Blue's Steven Bochco and Dennis Franz. Catherine Smith, of the Latham, New York, Smiths, sees no more reason to watch JAG without David James Elliot than Colombo without Peter Faulk.
This week brought us two notable letters, one which got an editor's reply. Katrina Gross, of the charmingly named Loveland, CO, chided The Magazine of TV Record for the heavily airbrushed pic of CSI's Marg Helgenberger. Ms Gross says when she first picked up the issue she thought it was Pamela Anderson. Ms Gross thereby wins the First BLTR Free Speech Award for Lack of Treacle in a Letter to TV Guide™. The Editors reply that they did no more than some minor retouching. Marge, they tell us, looks great! So, we all go home happy.
Barbara Gagnon though, gets a award I had to make up on the spot, the Shapiroesque Reviews Award for Achievement in Conceptual Art. Hailing from Bakersfield, CA, which reminds us not only of Buck Owens and Buck Owens' Personal Branson MO, but also Bakersfield PD, one of the funniest programs on teevee, ever. Ms Gagnon opens with a standard paean to Matt LeBlanc and Joey, then grabs the near-sonambulent reader by the jugular: "Producers should call in Tony Danza to play Joey's uncle, who's still trying to make it in Hollywood." Ms Gagnon, on that glorious Day when you are called before St. Peter, Jorge Luis Borges himself in gonna be heading the welcoming committee.
Cheers and Jeers: 3 Cheers, 4 Jeers. Is this possibly a stock market indicator? Could that be why they changed the distribution, hmmm? Anyway, it's all boring, except the Jeer to Tyra Banks for not picking plus-size women models is illustrated by a photo of the, I'm guessing here, petite Ms Banks in full cantilever. I'm assuming this is supposed to be ameliorated by the photo at top of Fat Actress's Kirstie Alley in some decolletage ensemble.
And, joy of joys in this season of rebirth, it's Another One of Those Top Twenty-Five of Somethings. Sadly only ten in this week's listing of "TV's Biggest Brats". Bart Simpson, #1. That'll have 'em talking over the watercooler tomorrow. Oops, sorry, yesterday.
But the big reason TV Guide™ Roundup is late is...TV Guide™, which last year changed its format from Saturday-Friday to Sunday-Saturday. This was done, per TV Guide™ to better serve YOU! its readership. Because YOU! had written in so many times demanding just that change. Funny thing, though, from MY! perspective is that neither YOU! nor TV Guide™ saw fit to explain that what was once available the previous Tuesday for a week starting Saturday will now be generally unavailable until Saturday afternoon sometime. So now I've got to make a special trip. Well, Mr. Know-it-All Public, Mr. Big Time Media Publishing Conglomerate, I'm rarely sober enough on Saturday or Sunday to make the trip. Nobody thinks about the little guy in all of this.
The other thing that delayed me is, it's a really good issue. Letters:
Pro vs Con returns, this week: Chris Rock. Some like him (Kate Jones, Oak Park, IL where I roamed as a lad). Others don't: Cherry and Mike Okragly actually changed channels long before the show was over.
Sean Kelly wants people to quick overanalyzing Alias and just enjoy the ride! Tom M. Wallace offers a final salute to NYPD Blue's Steven Bochco and Dennis Franz. Catherine Smith, of the Latham, New York, Smiths, sees no more reason to watch JAG without David James Elliot than Colombo without Peter Faulk.
This week brought us two notable letters, one which got an editor's reply. Katrina Gross, of the charmingly named Loveland, CO, chided The Magazine of TV Record for the heavily airbrushed pic of CSI's Marg Helgenberger. Ms Gross says when she first picked up the issue she thought it was Pamela Anderson. Ms Gross thereby wins the First BLTR Free Speech Award for Lack of Treacle in a Letter to TV Guide™. The Editors reply that they did no more than some minor retouching. Marge, they tell us, looks great! So, we all go home happy.
Barbara Gagnon though, gets a award I had to make up on the spot, the Shapiroesque Reviews Award for Achievement in Conceptual Art. Hailing from Bakersfield, CA, which reminds us not only of Buck Owens and Buck Owens' Personal Branson MO, but also Bakersfield PD, one of the funniest programs on teevee, ever. Ms Gagnon opens with a standard paean to Matt LeBlanc and Joey, then grabs the near-sonambulent reader by the jugular: "Producers should call in Tony Danza to play Joey's uncle, who's still trying to make it in Hollywood." Ms Gagnon, on that glorious Day when you are called before St. Peter, Jorge Luis Borges himself in gonna be heading the welcoming committee.
Cheers and Jeers: 3 Cheers, 4 Jeers. Is this possibly a stock market indicator? Could that be why they changed the distribution, hmmm? Anyway, it's all boring, except the Jeer to Tyra Banks for not picking plus-size women models is illustrated by a photo of the, I'm guessing here, petite Ms Banks in full cantilever. I'm assuming this is supposed to be ameliorated by the photo at top of Fat Actress's Kirstie Alley in some decolletage ensemble.
And, joy of joys in this season of rebirth, it's Another One of Those Top Twenty-Five of Somethings. Sadly only ten in this week's listing of "TV's Biggest Brats". Bart Simpson, #1. That'll have 'em talking over the watercooler tomorrow. Oops, sorry, yesterday.
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