Things That Don't Suck: King of California

So, at the end of my last post... earlier today, I promised my next post would be apolitical, and here goes. Last night I saw a pretty enjoyable movie, King of California. Evan Rachel Wood (open question: who names their daughter Evan?) plays Miranda, the 17 year-old daughter of an eccentric man who we see picking up her father, Charlie (Michael Douglas), from a mental institution in the first few scenes of the film.

Over an hour and a half we follow them on a treasure hunt filled with some goofy incidents, recollections of Miranda's youth, and exploration of a dysfunctional but interesting relationship between father and daughter. The journey is inspired and guided by readings Charlie found while he was in the loony bin. Wood plays an over-mature young woman pretty well, we meet her first at her job behind the counter at McDonalds. Her scrappy story of surviving while her father was locked away sets the stage for the distance she displays throughout the movie. Still, she can't resist following and eventually helping her hapless and goofy father, Charlie as he embarks on a garbled adventure.

I wouldn't say Douglas is brilliant, but his character sure is fun. The movie overall was enjoyable if not groundbreaking. It was relatively simple, smart but not preachy and inhabited by characters that were interesting enough to draw you in, accessible and fairly believable.

Some might guess I was drawn to the movie by its bright yellow box, given that a) I like bright colors b) I loved Little Miss Sunshine which also comes in a bright yellow box and c) I'm much like a moth... unable to resist visual stimuli. Even if these people are right, I enjoyed hanging out last night with the King of California and I recommend checking it out.

Zinger VS Burns

Last night I watched a good bit of SNL's the Best of Alec Baldwin, whose presence has been amazing on 30 Rock, no matter what you may think of his voicemail messages and other nasty habits. Some fine laughs were had over the absurdity of the Zinger v.s. Burns skit featuring Seth Meyers and Baldwin. Today, I caught a couple stories out there that struck me as little blogosphere zingers on Camp Clinton... both interesting in their own way.

First, I saw a piece from Andrew Sullivan over at the Atlantic, describing a poll that shows New Jersey democrats, who voted for Hillary by a 10% majority are now demonstrating some buyer's remorse. I think polls like this one are really interesting, especially given how much recent political conversation has been focused on who is electable in the fall.

Then, this afternoon, a piece floated out across the AP wires about how fake Hillary's stop by a gas station was. Wonkette had a nice tongue-in-cheek (surprise there) piece on how hilarious it is for the AP to stress the fakeness of one photo op, when all the campaigns are pretty much daily engaging in little choreographed exhibitions... anyway, whether it's fair or not, I thought the piece was pretty interesting, if only for the fact that they give you a nice portrait of the staging that goes into a "casual visit to a NC gas station."

Is anyone surprised when politicians are playing fake-it-till-ya-make-it? It's old news that a large chunk of America's best informed citizens (or at least best informed young people) tune in more reliably to the fake news than almost any other news source. Still, if the scheduled conversation between BillO and Hillary tonight is any indication, I don't see the Democratic discussion in the next few days veering back towards the land of the sensible. I bet we'll be hearing more about useless "tax vacations" and crazy preachers. YAY!

Does all that sound... jaded? Be not jaded! Laugh at this (Hillary trying to figure out a coffee machine):



Ok... not sure that last one was entirely fair... but it is funny. Promise to you: my next post will be about something entirely apolitical.

Karl Rove: forgetful or worse?

So I came across an editorial on the WSJ today. It's written by Karl Rove and talks about what a swell guy McCain is and how Americans need to know this. It's mostly fluff, but it got me all riled up. I'd like to explain why. Consider this passage:

For example, in 1991 Cindy McCain was visiting Mother Teresa's orphanage in Bangladesh when a dying infant was thrust into her hands. The orphanage could not provide the medical care needed to save her life, so Mrs. McCain brought the child home to America with her. She was met at the airport by her husband, who asked what all this was about.

Mrs. McCain replied that the child desperately needed surgery and years of rehabilitation. "I hope she can stay with us," she told her husband. Mr. McCain agreed. Today that child is their teenage daughter Bridget.

It is a nice story isn't it? all warm and fuzzy. But shamefully, Mr. Rove leaves out a crucial part of the story, one that took place in the 2000 South Carolina primary. McCain was locked in a tight battle with Rove's former boss, the then-Governor of Texas, George W. Bush. During that primary, Bush supporters spread rumours that McCain had an illegitimate child with a black prostitute. He even had the nerve to appear in PUBLIC with this child. The proof was his daughter, Bridget. Photos of the two of them together were circulated. the rumours were considered very damaging and probably were part of the reason McCain lost.

Now, I'm not saying Rove had anything to do with this. really: I'm not. But he must have known. How could he not bring this up? Isn't it relevant to what he's talking about? For this failure alone, the editorial is deeply flawed at best and at worst is...something I'd rather not say.

Is this Blog Obamaganda?

Damn right! Ok... well, seriously though, sometimes I think I'm too much of a one-man pro-Obama stomping ground, but when I come across something like the video below, I just can't resist (plus it's not a one-man show anymore around here anyway).

I found the clip in the collection of amazing videos over at The Jed Report today. It shows a fired-up 82 year old lady, Mrs. Weiss is her name, I think, at an Obama rally asking a question, then being asked to be Obama's VP. The video is followed by one other interesting thing sent my way by Adam, who recently sent me the great "Skywalkers Crossing Han Solo" story.



So on to the fascinating story Adam passed along, it's actually something that showed up a few days ago on the New York Times editorial pages. I enjoy it when people test out some of the narratives we see trotted around the Cable news punditry. In this case, the author takes the image of "The Guy Who’s Where He Is Only Because He’s Black" for a walk around the block to see what he looks like in the light of day. Ultimately, the piece is pretty enjoyable, thought provoking, and very readable. There are pieces of me that wishes the author had pushed the edges of this a bit further, but he certainly gives the reader enough to realize what a silly idea this is.

I post this because I think it's worth noting that in politics these sorts of caricatures, these easy simple 2-dimensional pictures play so large and so long. Just look at the whole Wright thing blowing up yet again this week. In that case, at least, it seems this week like Rev. Wright is trying to prove the boogey man is in fact 3-D, real, and is him... but that aside, I recommend the "Visible Man" story.

Check it out, let me know what you think. Once you're done reading, if you're feeling bogged down in some of the heavy issues this all brings up... go back and visit with Mrs. Weiss in the video clip again... she's a spark plug and sure to get you back to feeling a little encouraged.

The Love That is Forgotten

Have you ever loved something truly, madly, deeply, and then completely forgotten about it?

No???

Ok... maybe I'm all alone on this one, but I used to read the Best of Craigslist a few times a week. It was often good for a wee dose of hilarity in my day. Recently, not so much. I just completely dropped it from my internets routine. Today, however, in the midst of a project for work Craigslist came up... and a light bulb flicked on somewhere deep in the recesses of my consciousness. Memories of laughter in days-gone-by hit me like a wall of water and I pulled up a new window to revisit my long-lost love. What did I find?

Kissing Lessons (favorite line from this post, "Pick up the phone now! And then put it back down and send me an email for an awe inspiring experience!!"), a Cat Bus (amazing picture), and a hairpiece that inspires rage in animals.

Believe me, that's only the beginning. Ah, Best of Craigslist... I'm so happy you're back.

A Picture's Worth A Thousand...

So, I don't know about you, but I had a GREAT weekend. I was down in Atlanta, celebrating my brother's 30th birthday and his friend Chris's 30th as well (do you make a word that ends in s possessive with an apostrophe s or just an apostrophe? Thanks in advance, grammarians). I took a zillion and a half pictures and will spend the next 6 weeks cropping and color correcting in photoshop, then uploading them all to Flickr. Or maybe it will happen more quickly than that. We'll see, but suffice to say there are some hilarious pictures that came out of the birthday celebration/"Play All Day" in the park.

I returned to work today and dug into my pre-work political blog reading to discover something wonderful posted over at Jed Report... originally posted at The Craggle Post.

Can't Stop the Awesome

Sorry... after my last post I also caught a great clip over at Purple State Blog, part of their Daily Diversion series... a fun bit to catch, if you're into... you know, laughing.



(Oh, and yesterday's diversion is pretty enjoyable too.)

Skywalkers Cross Han Solo

Now, looking at the title of this post, you might think that you could only ever see it on a blog. If that's what you're thinking... check this out. My buddy Adam recently mentioned, and then yesterday emailed me a story he was blown away by... wherein the headline, "Skywalkers (in Korea) cross Han Solo" makes sense in a real world context. Thus begins today's post, themed FRIDAY AWESOMENESS. For more random, joyful, distract you from the democrats bashing eachothers' heads in, ridiculous, goofy awesome, read on below!

• This week in Taiwan, a lawmaker famous mostly for shouting and picking his nose in public will step down from his post. Bummer. I only wish we had been tracking his career these past few years.
  
• Ok, maybe you're not bummed about the nose picker, but you should be bummed out about the priest in Brazil who floated out to sea under thousands of helium party balloons as a fundraiser... for a trucker chapel (how much awesomeness can there be in one post???). Sadly the Brazilian authorities are calling off the search for him, saying there is little chance they will find him at this point. Now, my question is this: how can you miss the guy who's washing around in the ocean attached to over a thousand party baloons? Are the balloons all teal?
• Wow, is this post of awesome things turning into a post of sad things? NO! Here's some awesome for ya: Fictional President Josiah Bartlett endorses Barack Obama.
• Not awesome enough to kick off your weekend? How's this: Cartographer Hillary redraws the US to her liking... er... to the "will of the votes of the people who have voted..." or something like that.

Finally, we'll close out the awesome for now with the Superfun Video of the Week: I Was Told There'd Be Cake



The people who made it do such interesting stuff. You can check out another of their YouTube videos here.

Lou Dobbs is Satan

In case anyone was wondering, Lou Dobbs is possibly my least favourite person. Ever. Don Boudreaux made a good point about him the other day. I just saw it and liked it so much I needed to post a link. Like many Americans, I believe immigration is one of the most important issues facing our country. Unlike many of my compatriots, however, I believe we need much, much more of it. Check out the link (by clicking on the post title)!

Obama and the Harsh Realities of Pennsylvania Politics

I had hoped to make my first post something a bit more upbeat, but ideas for posts are starting to pile up and I figure it would be best to get a move on. How's that for an introduction?

The straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak, was reading Dana Milbank's article in today's Washington Post about Obama's visit to McKeesport, PA yesterday evening. McKeesport, the "Second City of Allegheney County", was our father's hometown and a place we visited often growing up. We would take week-long trips out the length of the Pennsylvania Turnpike to see our grandparents, often finding time to visit Kennywood or the garden club where our grandmother was a member. By the time I started forming memories about the city, it was already in decline from the heyday of Dad's youth. Most of the steel mills sat silent. Stores were melting away from the downtown area. As we grew up, McKeesport sank deeper. Steel mills were torn down, blast furnaces toppled while grown men cried, and little grew up to take the place of the huge and rusty old factories. I recently visited McKeesport for the first time in ten years in order to show my wife where we had spent so much time as children. I was aghast to see how little had changed and how seemingly nothing had changed for the better. The Eat N' Park full of smiley-faced cookies is still right where we left it and with some searching I found the retirement homes my grandparents briefly occupied. Other than that, I didn't know what else to show off. There just isn't much there anymore. I feel a bit sad even for typing that.

So with that in mind, the Washington Post article didn't come as much of a surprise to me -perhaps just a sad reminder of the difference between today's McKeesport and the one Dad talked about all the time. When the furor over Obama's "bitter" remarks flared up, McKeesport is actually one of the places that immediately came to mind for me. With its shrinking, aging population and a lack of jobs, it's just the type of place where people might justifiably be bitter about their lot in life. Regardless of whether Obama misspoke or voiced an opinion he shouldn't have shared, the reactions in the article shows the problems facing his campaign: for people who have been battered by our economy for the better part of the last three decades, Obama will need to talk about something more tangible than hope if he wishes to mend the wounds of his comments and allay the voters' sometimes "illogical" peccadilloes when it comes to his candidacy. Hope is great, but it isn't creating jobs right now in McKeesport.

Big Ole Day Down in PA

Well... it's going to be a heck of a day down in my home state. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the Keystone State doesn't turn out to be yet another anti-climax in this long drawn-out experience, but we'll see how it goes. Until we find out... here's a goofy little diversion:



And if you're not feeling the politics today, perhaps you should watch this one instead. I found it yesterday on You Tube in the "Featured Videos" section... funny little music video for a singer songwriter I hadn't ever heard of (Jack Conte, the song is, "YEAH YEAH YEAH"). Anyway, enjoy both if you like!

Start to a New Week

Globe Lights Blue Sky, originally uploaded by Chambo25.

This should be an interesting week out there in the world, and especially in American presidential politics.

I, like many people out there, am hoping that this will be the week Democrats begin to coalesce around their presumptive nominee. I also acknowledge this may be wishful thinking. I'm hoping my home state will play a dynamic and cool role in helping the Dems start acting decisive.

Meanwhile, I don't know how much this was true anywhere else, but it was a lovely weekend in Connecticut. I spent the majority of Sunday afternoon outside playing softball, and enjoying the sunshine. Today it seems like it's just as wonderful out in the outdoors. I'm hoping to take a lunchtime walk and pull in some fresh air. I capped my weekend by watching the Phillies eek out a win against the Mets to prevent a sweep in their weekend series.

Beyond the primaries, baseball, and the weather, there's a whole world of other cool stuff going on... so stay tuned.