Anyone up for the concert? I'm thinking of going ....
March 2004 Archives
Kind of a fun game, especially if you like card games and strategy, and I've never even seen the cartoon. Via Milk and Cookies
OK, I don't really understand this -- but congrats to Christina on her article on Yahoo Finance! (I guess that should be Yahoo! Finance!)
"Please DO NOT USE the Icebox Rolls recipe that appeared on p. 154 of the April 2004 issue of Southern Living. It has been determined that heating the water and shortening, as described in the original recipe, is dangerous, and may pose a fire and safety hazard. DO NOT USE this recipe." Via robot filter.
Gooooooood Morning, Park Slope!
Air America Radio, the new Liberal Radio Network, has started airing pure knee-jerk gold to me and my tiny enclave of irrelevant wedge-issue panderers. Come on and join the party!
So far it's got all the hallmarks of talk radio that I usually hate: it's unformulated and rambly, a little disjointed, and it doesn't tell me anything I don't know. But it's MY rambly disjointed unformulation, so I love it! Unfortuntely, to support the advertisers in their first ad block, I'd have to get commercial-free radio, join the Navy, eat a Tyson chicken, and -- finally -- give Sharon Stone some money for AIDS research.
So, go ahead, poke holes, but I'm loving the fact that someone (even someone from Harvard) is on the radio talking sh!t from the point of view that maybe the Wadministration and the right-wing media are up to something dodgy. (A minute ago, I think Bebe Neuwirth was doing an Ann Coulter impression. At the moment, they seem to be talking to G. Gordon Liddy... which would be REALLY funny if it's really him. I think they're actually cross-calling on each other's show. Wow.) As Michael Kinsley said when Clinton was elected, "I'm sure it will all end in tears, but...." I'm glad it's happening.
Cool treemap of news stories from Google News. via Eyebeam reBlog.
So George W. Bush today reverses course and lets Condoleezza Rice fulfill her wish to testify before the 9/11 intelligence investigation panel. So how is he going to say he didn't cave in to overwhelming public pressure when he obviously did? Not only will he prevaricate, others must join him. A letter from the White House counsel says that, to hear Rice, the panel must deny that an obvious precedent is a precedent.
Perhaps in Bush's church, one can lie so long as the fraudulent words come out of the pen of one's attorney. At least the fraud appears to be harmless*: the paper that Kean signs will have no authority.
*Beyond teaching our country's kids to lie.
Hey folks -- we're moving all discussion about DOTWH over to the discussion forum on www.designsonthewhitehouse.com. Email me if you want to be involved and need to log in.
It's "gruesome perdition" versus "merciful salvation" in the climax of the wildly popular Christian thriller series "Left Behind." In "Glorious Appearing," the title card bout, the Messiah is back and he is ready to rumble.
Continue reading Sunday, Sunday, Sunday.
An article, "Boo-Boos in Paradise," that, in my humble opinion, goes almost all the way in pegging David Brooks for what he is: a soft, sly wedge-issue panderer. It stops short of detailing how closely Brooks hews to the GOP talking points of the day, but offers a fairly robust shakedown of the "jokes" (as Brooks calls them) in his best-known piece. Worth a read.
Welcome to our newest Ishbalinker, little fucking ray of sunshine, who links to us because we sent him 12 Little Plastic Ninjas. Welcome, Adam!
The links section on the sidebar was in sore need of updating. It now includes links to rss feeds, for those blogs that have it. (If you haven't jumped on this bandwagon yet, I recommend bloglines as a free RSS reader. You can syndicate Ish via the links under "Syndicate" in the HERE column.)
You may now resume your non-Ish-reading lives.
Open thread: Who should we approach to be judges for the contest? As I see it, there are three basic groups:
1) Political Types (James Carville)
2) Design Gurus (Milton Glaser)
3) Lefty Celebrities (Al Franken)
Fire away.
A follow-up from yesterday's proposal to launch a design contest for better Kerry t-shirts. Here's the steps we need to take. If you'd like to help out, leave a comment and tell me which step(s) (other than 6.c., of course) you're willing to co-ordinate or help out.
1. Filing.
a. FEC
b. IRS
c. Open Bank Account
2. Website.
a. Grab www.designsonthewhitehouse.com, .org, .net.
b. Find someone who will donate hosting for us?
c. Web design
e. Database coding, especially if we're going to incorporate public voting.
3. Judges
a. Wishlist -- political figures, design gurus, celebrities
b. Draft letter
c. Recruit judges
4. Shirts
a. Decide -- cafepress, or another vendor?
b. Setup webstore
5. Competition
a. Promote to designers -- listservs, blogs, etc.
b. Figure out rules, categories, etc.
c. Judges (and public?) pick winners
6. Sell shirts! Raise money!
a. Promotion -- media, blogs, etc.
b. Reporting
c. Defeat of Bush and Cheney.
Some good analysis from Maria Tartar on the history and meaning of fairy tales, and what the Grimms were actually up to. Contains my favorite chapter title of recent memory, about female villains: "From Nags to Witches."
Unfutz cites this story from Iran claiming that the US is unloading old missiles to plant WMD evidence near Basra. File under Conspiracy Theories To Watch.
It's all Emily's fault, really, for pointing out the cool stuff you could buy for the Bush-Cheney campaign. Will I go with metrosexual, farm-ranch, "interstate", sports, or just plain patriotic? On the other hand, Kerry's got three designs -- plain jane campaign, Old-Navy-Type Faux Retro Vintage, and "target practice". Ugh.
But we're going to do something about that.
Here's the plan, kids. We sponsor a design contest. We get some folks to judge it. We take the top ten designs and make a store using cafepress. We sell loads of t-shirts. We take the money and donate it to the Kerry campaign. Everybody wins, except Bush and Cheney.
Are you with me?
As it turns out, there are a few steps we'll need to take to pull this off. For one, you can't just raise funds for a candidate willy-nilly. If our efforts raise over $1,000, then we have to register with the FEC as an independent political action committee, obtain an EIN and a 527 from the IRS, and open a separate bank account. (Any good ideas for a PAC name?) I talked with a guy at the FEC yesterday, and the rules are so byzantine that even he was confused about how the reporting would work for something like this. (I'm supposed to talk to him today to clarify the situation.)
Then of course we need to set up and design a website (designs4kerry.com?), put together a panel of judges, and get the word out. Simple enough, right?
Let's get this started! Who's in?
Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials Trilogy" is the best fantasy series I've read in a long time. Better than Harry Potter, better than Gormenghast. It's a theological fantasy, as the Narnia books are -- but here, the War In Heaven is replayed, and our heroes are not on the side of the Angels. It's a world of multiple universes, of witches and balloonists and dćmons and armored bears. While Rowling was writing her latest, it was our read-aloud series. Highly recommended.
So if you've read it, you'll be interested in this conversation between Pullman and the Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Given that the book has been controversial among some religious groups, the conversation is quite interesting, especially as they explore the relationship between religion and storytelling in various media:
RB: The questioner is asking whether perhaps the relationship between Christianity and fiction is that Christianity itself is a story, and is about incarnation.RW: Yes, I think there's a lot of truth in that, that you can't communicate Christianity simply as a set of ideas. At some point you're going to have to sit down and tell a story. And tell a story which, because it's a story, is bound to have some loose ends, some awkwardnesses. As it is we have four versions of the story of Jesus in the New Testament, because of that sense that a story can always be retold. And that introduces a bit of this irony in the narrative, which is very important in reinforcing the sense that this is something mysterious. I think there is something in that fundamental characteristic of Christianity which helps to enable a particular kind of storytelling.
PP: Story is fundamental. We began with Jesus. We might as well end by reminding ourselves that Jesus was one of the greatest storytellers there's ever been. Whether or not he was the Son of God, he was a great storyteller.
RW: [laughing] Eight out of 10!
First it was Paul O'Neill, former Treasury Secretary. Now it's Richard Clarke, former counterterrorism chief of the national-security staff. This is potentially much more damaging to the Wadministration, as Clarke alleges that Ashcroft, Wolfowitz, and Bush himself downplayed the Al Qaeda threat before 9/11, focusing instead on "drug trafficking and gun violence" -- and Iraq. Billmon has done some heavy lifting on who Clarke is and why this is a problem for Bush. "Clarke is a national security ultrahawk taking aim at a hawkish president."
Richard Price. Better even than Clockers. Read Emily's review. Thanks for the loaner, Emily!
Update on the 3-headed frog story posted here recently. There's evidence that it's not a mutant, but instead three frogs gettin' it on. A menage-a-trois-de-grenouille?
Eh. Doesn't really work as either a romance or a film about Jews in Fascist Italy. Watch The Bicycle Thief instead.
A game theoretic approach to understanding when people fake orgasm. The paper models sex as a signalling game and uses data from the 2000 orgasm study to test the model's predictions.
Fun for the whole family!
Now this is lo-tech at its finest: computer programs that were included on 45s by UK bands in the 80s. To play, you'd just record the screech onto cassette tape, and then run it through your Sinclair Spectrum. Oh yeah. The blog's got some other pages about vinyl, scroll down.
| What Irrational Number Are You? | |||
You are π Of all the irrational numbers, you are the most famous. You have many friends and fans. Like many people, non-Euclidean geometry makes you feel uncomfortable. You are involved in so many things that it seems like it would take two of you to make ends meet. You are particularly close to the rational number 22/7. However, you and e have been called "remarkable." Your lucky number is approximately 3.14159265 | |||
|
Of course you don't. But you can see it at the GUIdebook, which documents the icons of yore. Check out the icon matrix. Thanks to LmdH for the link!
* "The county that was the site of the Scopes 'Monkey Trial' over the teaching of evolution is asking lawmakers to amend state law so the county can charge homosexuals with crimes against nature."
* Gays and Lesbians in the federal workforce are no longer protected against discrimination on the job. (Thanks to Mark for the tip.)
* And while only breeders are allowed in the Boy Scouts, apparently breeder reactors are frowned upon.
Check out this map of Manhattan, showing where the political donors are. Plus you can see which campaigns your neighbors funded. The National Maps are pretty cool, too.
It's like American Idol. But with politicians. And jokes.
Unfortunately, the Google ads that pop up for this essay are for companies selling crutches.
1. Sunrise
2. Escape Ladder
3. People at Night, Guided by the Phosphorescent Tracks of Snails
4. Women on the Beach
5. Woman With Blond Armpit Combing Her Hair by the Light of the Stars
6. Morning Star
7. Wounded Personage
8. Woman and Birds
9. Woman in the Night
10. Acrobatic Dancers
11. Nightingale's Song at Midnight and Morning Rain
12. On the 13th, the Ladder Brushed the Firmament
13. Nocturne
14. Poetess
15. Awakening in the Early Morning
16. Toward the Rainbow
17. Women Encircled by the Flight of a Bird
18. Women at the Border of a Lake Irradiated by the Passage of a Swan
19. Migratory Bird
20. Ciphers and Constellations in Love With a Woman
21. Beautiful Bird Revealing the Unknown to a Pair of Lovers
22. Rose Dusk Caresses the Sex of Women and of Birds
23. Passage of the Divine Bird
Continue reading 23.
The blog Counterspin Central carries a story about the latest Kerry weak-on-defense-and-terrorism line. Paul Sperry, in the New York Post, quotes a former FAA agent who warned Kerry about Logan's security lapses in August 2001:
"He just did the Pontius Pilate thing and passed the buck" on back through the federal bureaucracy, said Brian Sullivan, a retired FAA special agent from the Boston area who in May 2001 personally warned Kerry that Logan was ripe for a "jihad" suicide operation possibly involving "a coordinated attack."
Evidently Kerry forwarded Sullivan's concerns to the Department of Transportation, where nothing was done about them. (That would be the "Pontius Pilate" thing.) Counterspin points out that the Executive, carry-out-the-laws branch is the one to be held accountable here, not Kerry, and goes on to quote an interview with Sullivan from 9/16/01 in which he said:
"I think Sen. Kerry did get it to the right people and they were about to take action."
Of course, he wasn't Candidate Kerry then.
It's going to be a loooong electoral summer. <Looks out window at snow.> Whenever that gets here....
Yup, that holds 4 gigs.
Good government: Rep. Henry Waxman's searchable database of Bush, Cheney, Rice, Powell, and Rumsfeld's misleading statements on Iraq. Collect all 237!
Bad Government: H.R. 3920, a bill introduced to shred the Constitution enable Congress to overturn Supreme Court decisions. Sponsored by eleven Republican Congressmen.
Well, here's why [the Internet's] not happening. I think the problem is cultural and not economic. For starters, this environment was created by a bunch of white guys who can't dance. And it is congenial largely to white guys who can't dance. The biggest problem I have with the Internet is there's not enough Africa in it.
-- John Perry Barlow in Upside
I think I'm a pirate elf. What about you?
Finally saw Greg's first feature, the many-award-winning Robot Stories, which is still playing at the Pioneer Theater here in New York. RS is four stories about technology and emotion -- the ambivalence of motherhood, a robot learning to love, an artist's stubborn insistence on the real over the virtual, a mother who can't let go of her dying son. The segments have the economy and directness of all good short stories. I saw a test screening several years ago, and it's interesting to see what Greg changed. Two of the stories (as I remember them) had more O. Henry endings, but Greg cut both down, ending them at their emotional peak rather than at the wry commentary in the coda. I believe he made the right choice.
Kudos to Greg (and Kim, Vin, Rick, and Trip!). Screw the Matrix, this is a move that really examines virtual reality and the new relation of man and machine. Go see it.
Update: If you can stream, listen to this
interview of Greg on NPR!
Recently, we wondered how the proposed Constitutional marriage amendment would actually define gender. Apparently GWB has some of the same questions:
Bush praises man in speech on women's rightsOK, so it's a mistake, but I can't help but think of the end of Some Like It Hot:
U.S. President George W. Bush has marked International Women's Week by paying tribute to women reformers -- but one of those he cited is really a man."Earlier today, the Libyan government released Fathi Jahmi. She's a local government official who was imprisoned in 2002 for advocating free speech and democracy," the president said in a speech at the White House on Friday.
The only problem was that, by all other accounts, "she" is in fact "he".
Jahmi & Bush ride in a speedboat. Bush is wearing a jaunty captain's hat.
Jahmi, ripping off wig: "I'm a man!"
Bush: "Nobody's perfect."
From The Virtual Stoa, a story about an academic whose personal views on the GOP, expressed on his personal blog, have come under attack by campus Republicans and the Wall Street Journal, prompting the usual barrage of hate mail. A cautionary tale for the academics amongst us.
From a brown skinned woman in NYC, to a friend of mine who also lives there:
I just wanted to let you know that today I was detained by 4 NYPD officers for half an hour under the pretext of obstructing seats on the subway because my leg was outstretched.
I refer to this as a "pretext" because it was clear that the reason I was detained was to run a warrants check on me for a racial reason. Under the Constitution, we have a right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, and when an officer takes you aside and takes your identification from you, it is considered a seizure. Technically, the police can run a warrants check on anyone they catch violating the law, but often they use the violation as an excuse to check for outstanding warrants/terrorist information on the person. If it is obvious that the true reason to stop the person is race/ethnicity, then it is an unconstitutional search/seizure.
So the reason for my email is two-fold: 1) to educate you on your rights and 2) to warn you that in the after-math of the recent tragedy in Madrid, we should expect to be stopped for stupid things like this. Therefore, be very careful in the
coming weeks--obey ALL traffic rules if you drive, don't jaywalk, don't litter, and of course, don't put your feet up in the subway. If you do get stopped, don't argue with the cop, but take notice of whether other, non-colored people are being stopped for the same behavior or not. If it is apparent that the stop is just racially motivated, then you may have a good foundation to fight the ticket.
[I've been meaning to blog about my increased racialization over time (predating but accelerated by 9/11) as well as my increased proficiency at "Stepin Fetchit" and "Angry Dark man", but not tonight. I'm not posting this in outrage, nor am I making claims that this is widespread, nor am I commenting on it. I'm simply passing this snippet along to inform and share.
p.s. if you comment, please use my handle "Ennis" rather than my name or initials.]
Amazing. Hilarious and informative. Like watching Roger and Me--you think, damn, we'll be hearing more from this guy. Opens May 7th--I'm at SXSW, thus the preview.
Top of the Blogdex chart today is the Bush-Cheney Custom Poster Generator, which was a lot of fun before they took the "custom" out of it. Like the Bush Letter Generator, which can be conveniently used to write letters opposing his campaign to your local papers, the sign generator could be used to create embarrasing posters for the campaign. I first typed in "Do All We Can to Defeat" to appear above "BUSH-CHENEY", but it rejected it. Evidently the slogans were being screened. I tried again with "Do All We Can to Unseat" and that went through fine -- what, no Roget's Thesaurus over there, guys?
So of course I had to start testing out what would go through their filter and what wouldn't. Following is a list of "BLANK FOR BUSH-CHENEY" slogans; see if you can guess which were allowed by the Bush Campaign Filter and which were rejected! Ishbadiddle's own ColorMask™ Technology is used here. Just select the text to see which are Acceptable Slogans.
Oh, and you can't try this any more -- since evidently everyone else was doing the same thing, they pulled all the customization out. Shucky darn. OK then, it's time to play....
THE BUSH-CHENEY ACCEPTABLE SUPPORTERS AND SLOGANS GAME!
Jews for Bush-Cheney yes
Jews for Jesus for Bush-Cheney no
Christians for Bush-Cheney yes
Nation of Islam for Bush-Cheney yes
Wahabists for Bush-Cheney yes
God for Bush-Cheney no
Jesus Christ for Bush-Cheney no
Holy Ghost for Bush-Cheney yes
Militamen for Bush-Cheney yes
Klansmen for Bush-Cheney no
Iraqis for Bush-Cheney no
Afghans for Bush-Cheney yes
Haitians for Bush-Cheney yes
Halliburton for Bush-Cheney yes
Fat Cats for Bush-Cheney yes
Greedy People for Bush-Cheney yes
Robber Barons for Bush-Cheney yes
9/11 Widows for Bush-Cheney no, but because of an "invalid character"
MILF for Bush-Cheney yes
SOBs for Bush-Cheney yes
Drunkards for Bush-Cheney yes
Addicts for Bush-Cheney yes
Idiots for Bush-Cheney no
Booger Flickers for Bush-Cheney yes
Fuckheads for Bush-Cheney no
Shitheads for Bush-Cheney no
Buttheads for Bush-Cheney no
Democrats for Bush-Cheney yes
Communists for Bush-Cheney yes
Anarchists for Bush-Cheney yes
Nazis for Bush-Cheney no
Aryans for Bush-Cheney yes
Brownshirts for Bush-Cheney yes
Fascists for Bush-Cheney no
White Men for Bush-Cheney yes
The House of Saud for Bush-Cheney yes
Saddam for Bush-Cheney no
Osama bin Laden for Bush-Cheney no
Yasser Arafat for Bush-Cheney no
Tony Blair for Bush-Cheney yes
Valerie Plame for Bush-Cheney yes
Frenchmen for Bush-Cheney yes
Michael Moore for Bush-Cheney yes
John Kerry for Bush-Cheney yes
Do All We Can to Defeat Bush-Cheney no
Do All We Can to Unseat Bush-Cheney yes!
Ten Ishpoints for the first to tell me what this list is. Five points off for using Google.
- Titeliture
- Doppeltürk
- Purzinigele
- Batzibitzili
- Panzimanzi
- Trwtyn-Tratyn
- Ricdin-Ricdon
- Tom Tit Tot
- Whuppity Stoorie
- Terry-top
We saw NDT at BAM last night, in an all-Jirí Kylián-choreographed program. I hated the first piece, Claude Pascal, which came across as a sort of Life Cycle Players (the send-up of avant garde theatre we did in the Purple Crayon) with sound effects, set to music that sounded like a piano was being masticated. However the evening was saved by the last two pieces. 27’ 52” had dancing that was quirky, energetic, and emotional. But my favorite was Last Touch, a slow-motion piece in Victorian dress. "It's like a collaboration between Ibsen and Edward Gorey," Debbie said, and I was also reminded of Bill Viola's "The Quintet of Remembrance" and, of course, Wisconsin Death Trip. It's also one of the few dance pieces I've seen that is actually frightening.
Very, well, Noel Coward. Celia Johnson is terrific.
Von Trier's mini-series The Kingdom is the Danish Twin Peaks -- dark, funny, quirky, creepy, haunting. Stephen King's remake Kingdom Hospital is none of the above. The series seems to operate on a Tell-Don't-Show basis, which is terrible for horror. "Nothing was as good as the opening credits," Debbie opined. (They're largely lifted from Six Feet Under's credits -- same production company?) Although the hospital's website is sort of fun.
Patrick and I took Nicholas and Ben to see Berkner in concert at the Scholastic Auditorium. Her Buzz Buzz Buzz album is one of the more adult-friendly kid's CDs in the house, boppy and cheery without being cloying. The kids had a great time -- Ben loves the mosh pit. But she's got groupies! Kids come with hats to wear during the hat song, stuffed animals to put on their heads, etc. "It's like the Rocky Horror Picture Show," I remarked to one mom. "Think they'll throw toast?" she replied.
Frank is worried about the French threat to our culture that is... BARBAPAPA!
A three-headed, six-legged frog was found in Britain. However, the Rapture Index is currently bearish, so there's no need to buy the Plagues of Egypt Finger Puppets just yet.
(Finger puppets found on Pop Culture Junk Mail).
Recent progress in the study of autism and an article on Asperger's clusters in high tech areas. What -- you only know NTs?
Even without M_____ here, I will continue to update you on this matter ;). Amric Singh's lawyers filed a summary judgement motion, hopefully there will be a ruling by this summer. A press conference was held with various Sikh police officers from London and Toronto present. If you're interested, the site has some supporting materials including photographs of various Sikh police officers in the UK and Canada.
A good friend sent me Kenyon's poem "Having It Out With Melancholy" while I was doing the same. It captured the Black Dog in a way not much else I've read has. So of course I had to read the rest. I wasn't disappointed.
So amidst all the Gay Marriage backing-and-forthing, one thing I haven't seen addressed is this: if the Constitution (as amended) will define marriage as "between a man and a woman," then how will we define "man" and "woman"?
The sex/gender distinction was somehow infused into us at Yale (did they put something in the food? did they go over this during orientation?): sex was determined by biology, while gender was a social construct. The question is, when defining "men" and "women" in the law, which should prevail?
Apparently, the answer differs from state to state. If you're transgendered (TG), and you live in Texas (TX), for instance, you are what you're born with. Born a boy, always a boy. Of course, this puts Texas in the curious position of legalizing "same-sex" marriage, according to this article that Ennis sent me, if one partner is, say, a M-to-F TG, and her partner is a born-XX female. In California, however, the TG would be considered a woman -- and therefore unable to marry her partner, unless in San Fransisco. Got that?
But wait! There's more! If, according to the Texas court, gender is "fixed by our Creator at birth," what about people who are born "intersexed"? According to the Intersexed Society of North America, as many as 1 in 100 babies have bodies that "differ from standard male or female":
Simply put, intersexuality is a set of medical conditions that features "congenital anomaly of the reproductive and sexual system." That is, a person with an intersex condition is born with sex chromosomes, external genitalia, or an internal reproductive system that is not considered "standard" for either male or female.
(This recalls a recent conversation we had at the Oscars, concerning rumors that Jamie Lee Curtis suffers from such a condition.)
Even if the ISNA's numbers seem high, we're still left for a puzzle for the legal scholars. If in some cases gender isn't "fixed by the Creator" but rather fixed by parents and doctors, then how do we define "man" and "woman"? By their genetics? By their gentials? By their appearance? By their identity? Those four may be highly correlated, but they're by no means the same thing.
Of course, I'm only using the example of transgendered and intersexed people to illustrate a point: this is not only Bad Culture and bad politics, but bad law. I can't imagine what it would be like to have your gender called into question throughout your life -- so I certainly hope we don't see the day when anyone (or everyone) has to submit to a battery of tests to "prove" their gender before they get married.
Also noted:
* The Daily Mislead says that Bush planned to support the amendment before the "activist" judges and mayors "forced" his hand...
* Why stop at Gay Marriage? God Hates Shrimp!
* Read this piece for one of the most truly bizarre pro-Amendment arguments -- that if we don't suppress gay marriage, we'll all become gay, because gay sex is so much better! "It's almost like pure heroin," says anti-gay crusader Paul Cameron. And how exactly do you know that, Dr. Cameron?
Need to convince your boss that you're stuck in traffic? Want to fool your partner into thinking that you're at the park? Well SounderCover has got you covered! My favorite ruse? The "phone ringing in the background." ("I've got to get that, sorry.") Least useful? A "circus parade." ("Sorry, boss, I can't make it to work -- I'm stuck watching this circus parade." Yeah, right.)
Via eyebeam's ReBlog.
Help! I can't get B, C, E, F, H, J, L, O, P, T, U, V, X, Y, or Z!
Why? To manage the transition from the George W. Bush Administration to the... George W. Bush Administration:
Bush seeks $1 million for transition. Just so you don't accuse me of rampant Bush-bashing, this "is the first time a president has sought to use public transition funds to prepare officials to enter a re-elected administration."
Remember, this from the Wadministration who admonished Congress to "focus on priorities, cut wasteful spending, and be wise with the people's money."
Story via the prolific-terrific go fish.
So, Dick Cheney comes out declaring -- if somewhat tepidly -- his support for W's constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. When asked how that squares with his gay daughter Mary's lifestyle choice, he told MSNBC:
"One of the most unpleasant aspects of this business is the extent of which private lives are intruded upon when these kinds of issues come up."
Um, yeah. I kind of don't know where to begin on that one. It's just so darn unpleasant when your private life is intruded on simply because you're intruding on private lives.
Friday night we went to see Wonderful Town, a revival of the 1953 musical by Leonard Bernstein, Betty Comden and Adolph Green (of Singin' in the Rain fame). It's pretty great in a 50s-view-of-30s-NYC kinda way, and Donna Murphy is fantastic, as is (Yale's own) Jennifer Westfeldt.
So I'm sitting on the aisle, and when intermission comes, I look up to see a tall grey-haired man striding up the aisle. We make eye contact briefly, and I think, "I know that guy from somewhere -- he's someone famous. A politician, I think." But I can't quite place him.
Then I'm on the way to the Men's Room, and I pass him on his way out, followed by three large men in long coats, each wearing a plastic earpiece. Secret Service. And it hits me:
It's Donald Rumsfeld!
We figured that if he was enjoying himself for an evening, we could relax. Nothing really bad was happening. And, as Debbie pointed out, at least he was at a light-hearted musical like "Wonderful Town." We would worry if we spotted the SecDef at, say, "Little Shop of Horrors."
