023

Republican senator and mysterious bathroom misbehavior specialist Larry Craig announced the following at a press conference today:

"Let me be clear: I am not gay and never have been," said Craig, who has aligned himself with conservative groups who oppose gay rights.

But...

In his petition to enter a guilty plea, Craig acknowledged that he "engaged in (physical) conduct which I knew or should have known tended to arouse alarm or resentment."

He also was required to stipulate in the statement that he would "make no claim that I am innocent of the charge to which I am entering a plea of guilty," the document said.

Can this dude read? And was "arouse" really the best word he could have chosen?

So, to be clear, Craig allocuted to a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge as part of a guilty plea, which he now regrets because it makes him look gay. Oh no! Anything but that! Craig also talked about how much he loves his wife and cares about his friends, and we all know that only family- and friend-hating motherfuckers troll for man-on-man action in public restrooms.

The police report states that, after being taken in for questioning, Craig pulled out something and asked the officer: "What do you think of that?" Thankfully, it was his Senate business card and not his 62-year-old balls.

The full details in the CNN article of what led to the Idaho senator's arrest are...awkward to say the least, but this one is a gem:

When the police interviewed him later, the senator said that "he has a wide stance when going to the bathroom" and that was why his foot may have touched the officer's, the report said.

According to the CNN article, Craig has also been informed that the leaders of the Republican party are calling for an ethics investigation into what they termed a "serious matter," The aide said senators, who discussed the matter by phone, were especially concerned about the business card allegation.

See, Mr. Craig, the Republican leadership doesn't mind the gay stuff!

Well, most of them don't. In an interview on MSNBC, Mitt Romney compared this to ex-Florida Congressman/proud pervert Mark Foley (Okay...) and Bill Clinton. Wait. What the hell?! Bill Clinton?!

According to MSNBC.com, Romney said, "I think it reminds us of Mark Foley and Bill Clinton. I think it reminds us of the fact that people who are elected to public office continue to disappoint, and they somehow think that if they vote the right way on issues of significance or they can speak a good game, that we'll just forgive and forget...And frankly, it's disgusting."

Reaaally...Bill Clinton had a consensual affair with a female intern. Frankly, I didn't care then and I don't care now, because Bill Clinton never went on a crusade against unfaithfulness. Mark Foley, on the other hand, tried to fuck at least one underage congressional page. To quote one of the best movies to ever take place in L.A., he's a pederass.

Mitt Romney continues to impress the public with his ability to talk with his head up his ass and still have a perfectly combed head of hair. But for the record, what Clinton did is not on the same level of shame as lewd conduct in an airport bathroom or pedophilia. Fuck you, Mitt.

The full article about how much Larry Craig doesn't try to pick up men in airport bathrooms can be found here:
Craig: I did nothing 'inappropriate' in airport bathroom

If you want to read Mitt Romney stroking himself, the link is here:
First Read: Romney links Craig with Bill Clinton.

022

Everyone but Bush realizes Alberto Gonzales sucked at his job, even Alberto Gonzales:
Attorney General Gonzales leaves under pressure.

Gonzales also weathered criticism on several other fronts, including his support for Bush's domestic spying program and his 2002 legal opinion that parts of the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war were "obsolete."

He also called them "quaint," if I remember correctly. A seaside villa in Europe is quaint. A postcard with a picture of puppies and kittens hugging is quaint. An international agreement that torturing people is evil is not quaint...dick.

021

Kid Nation, the CBS reality show that neglects the existence of Lord of the Flies, is receiving some backlash from a mother of one of the contestants:
Participant's Mom Raps Kids Reality Show.

...but that mom should have thought twice before signing a 22-page document for her 12-year-old child [or "youngster"] to be on a reality show. The show is such a bad idea for so many reasons. Who wants to watch 8- to 14-year-olds argue and do manual labor in the desert? They're spending time on a movie set for a while, not actually forming a real society.

American Idol, American Inventor, Hell's Kitchen, whether or not you watch shows like them, are at least contests aimed at creating a lasting career, but Kid Nation consists of a bunch of awkward little dorks playing house for a few weeks. Not that children should be creating permanent settlements; see: Lord of the Flies.

According to documents obtained from the New Mexico attorney general's office, parents signed a 22-page agreement in which they waived their rights to sue the network or production company if their children died or were injured. The agreement also acknowledged that the participants "will have no privacy," except while using bathrooms or changing rooms.

The last thing I wanted when I was 12 was $5,000 in exchange for my privacy. But at least they can piss and change clothes in private. And at least we learned that children, even when supervised by a production crew, will try to drink bleach.



Also, the new season of The Real World, which takes place in Syndey, Australia, is kinda really terrible. That one girl is so dramatic, and that one dude seems like a tool. But the house is awesome! I especially like the kitchen and the doors to the bedrooms. I still don't understand why everyone has a huge-ass bed to themselves, though.

020

This is not a review or a spoiler, though I will do both of those if you have or have not read this book...

I wrote my worst essay in college on The Garden of Eden for Honors Freshman English, because when I went to write, I didn't know what to say. I loved the story, the tone, the settings, the simple way it was put together to address complexities. And I couldn't write about it.

The Garden of Eden is my favorite Hemingway novel. I haven't read them all [yet], but I think he's at his best in the novel:

...The hell with tomorrow. What a way to be. Tomorrow. Go in and start it now.

He put the note and the key in his pocket and went back into the work room and sat down and wrote the first paragraph of the new story that he had always put off writing since he had known what a story it was. He wrote it in simple declarative sentences with all of the problems ahead to be lived through and made to come alive. The very beginning was written and all he had ot do was go on. That's all, he said. You see how simple what you cannot do is? Then he came out onto the terrace and sat down and ordered a whiskey and Perrier. (108)

Catherine is absolutely alluring in the first pages, and you just want to tell David to stay the hell away from her while he can:

"Don't say it. I'm getting hungry already and we haven't finished breakfast"

"We can think about lunch."

"And then after lunch?"

"We'll take a nap like good children."

"That's an absolutely new idea," she said. "Why have we never thought of that?"

"I have these flashes of intuition," he said. "I'm the inventive type."

"I'm the destructive type," she said. "And I'm going to destroy you. They'll put a plaque up on the wall of the building outside the room. I'm going to wake up in the night and do something to you that you've never even heard of or imagined. I was going to last night but I was too sleepy." (5)

The strain between David and Catherine lives in their conversation, and I learned to [do my best to] write tense dialogue from The Garden of Eden:

"Who is the third drink for?"

"Marita."

"Your paramour?"

"You really said it," David said. "I'd never heard that word pronounced and I had absolutely no hope of ever hearing it in this life. You're really wonderful."

"It's a perfectly common word."

"It is at that," David said." But to have the sheer, naked courage to use it in conversation. Devil, be good now..." (155)

The novel deals with several threads, among them the loss of innocence. The death of innocence in the relationship between David and Catherine is complemented in touches like the green children's cahiers in which David writes, and the passages from David's story about elephant hunting in Africa with his father and his friend. He hates the elephant hunting, and Hemingway makes you hate it, too, while respecting the methods of the hunt. Young David wants to avenge the death of the elephant's friend, and the tone is empathetic to the boy's quiet lashing:

I care, David thought. I saw him in the moonlight and he was alone but I had Kibo. Kibo has me too. The bull wasn't doing anyone harm and now we've tracked him to where he came to see his dead friend and now we're going to kill him. It's my fault. I betrayed him.

Now Juma had worked out the trail and motioned to his father and they started on.

My father doesn't need to kill elephants to live, David thought. Juma would not have found him if I had not seen him. He had his chance at him and all he did was wound him and kill his friend. Kibo and I found him and I never should have told them and I should have kept him secret and had him always and let them stay drunk with their bibis at the beer shamba. Juma was so drunk we could not wake him. I'm going to keep everything a secret always. I'll never tell them anything again. If they kill him Juma will drink his share of the ivory or just buy himself another god damn wife. Why didn't you help the elephant when you could? All you had to do was not go on the second day. No, that wouldn't have stopped them. Juma would have gone on. You should never have told them. Never, never tell them. Try and remember that. Never tell anyone anything ever. Never tell anyone anything again. (181)

Ernest Hemingway was the one who taught me how to steal from Ernest Hemingway:

Thank God he was breaking through on the stories now. What had made the last book good was the people who were in it and the accuracy of the detail which made it believable. He had, really, only to remember accurately and the form came by what he would choose to leave out. Then, of course, he could close it like the diaphragm of a camera and intensify it so it could be concentrated to the point where the heat shone bright and the smoke began to rise. He knew that he was getting this now. (211)

David Bourne is not ruined. He fell in love and married a really unstable, dangerous woman. Catherine could not handle being married to a writer. She kept trying to create herself as a boy and create him in her image. They are ruined like that.

David loves Marita because of his support for his writing. She says she isn't going to share him like Catherine did, but she was part of that, too, and I think David knows what this means. I think David really loves Catherine and appreciated Marita's enthusiasm and honest support for his writing. Her support seems honest, at least, but I don't know that.

David eats eggs at the beginning and the end of the novel, so something new is born; He is still fertile as a writer. That's what saves him from his ruined relationship.

I don't understand Madame Aurol's black eye at the end. Something happens with Monsieur Aurol that I must have missed this time. But it's okay. I love this fucking book. But A Farewell to Arms is my favorite, too, and I think I might read that next.

019

Here is one of the more fascinating yet sensible new ideas in the green energy movement: electricity harnessed from the public gym:
Public Generated Electricity, by Anthony Deptula.

This is especially relevant in a crowded city like Los Angeles. We can afford to switch to compact fluorescent light bulbs, but most of us know our solar-powered houses are still twenty years from appearing as our return address.

018

This past weekend, I was having trouble finding something to watch. And Oxygen was playing a special, "I Am Mandy Moore," about the promotional tour of her new album Wild Hope.

So yes, I started watching the Oprah channel.

I really, really like the songs I heard. They were very smooth and cool. At one point, she busted out her BlackBerry to read the lyrics for a bluesy version of "Candy," a song she hates but felt obligated to play because it was her first sorta-hit. I hate it, too, but even it was tolerable in that version, if you forget about the lame video and choreography.

And I did. I forgot about all of that. I forgot I was watching Oxygen.

The performance was taped at Comix, a venue in New York City, to an audience mostly consisting of women and girls. The style of the show was like MTV Unplugged.

I like a lot of things about Mandy Moore. She looks healthy. She acts normal on stage. She always has great hair. We share the same birthday [with Omar Sharif, Harry Morgan from M*A*S*H, Joseph Pulitzer, and Commodore Matthew Perry, among others].

Whether or not those are good reasons to like somebody, I would actually buy Wild Hope. Mandy Moore seems to have grown into a wonderful musician. I'm sure a lot of people like her. She can do blues, folk, or country if she wanted, too. The vibe of the record sounds really mellow and good. And I don't care if I found it on Oxygen.

017

There was a guest on The Colbert Report this past week, Andrew Keen, who wrote a book called The Cult of the Amateur: How today's Internet is killing our culture. I thought immediately of my mass communication class at Bethany, and how a book like this would have been great to spark a debate.

His opinion is that the blogosphere, YouTube, Wikipedia, etc., are just methods to steal content, spread poorly produced/crappy material and lies, and make people dumb. He apparently has been published in The Weekly Standard, which, judging from editor Bill Kristol's appearances on The Daily Show, is...misguided. But they were nice enough to give Mr. Keen a rave review.

I see some of Mr. Keen's points, but I don't agree with him on the whole [based on his interview with Stephen Colbert], which is part of why it sounds like a fascinating read. The internet, like anything else, when used properly and responsibly, can be a great way to spread culture and enrich lives. But we know that already. The internet is not killing our culture. People who put no effort into education are killing our culture.

If the spread of stupid videos on YouTube is degrading our society, is Mr. Keen also going to blame the other companies whose technology make that possible? Is Sony or Canon or whoever to blame for producing a digital camera that records video? I don't think so.

He seems like kind of an ass, and seemed really miserable during the Stephen Colbert interview. Take this post from the book's page on Amazon.com about another recent discussion he had:

In my Guardian newspaper debate with Guardian Unlimited's digital supremo Emily Bell, she outwitted me and then took me to the cleaners. My hunch is that I went in a bit cocky, stuck out my chin and got a good walloping. She's a tough bird, that Emily Bell. I'm not debating her again.

I hope he's not serious about not debating her again just because she "won," but at least he's honest, I guess. The debate can be read in its entirety here:
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/take_two/2007/08/andrew_keen_v_emily_bell.html.

Anyway, the link to the book on Amazon is here, including some of the posts sent to customers who purchased the book:
http://www.amazon.com/Cult-Amateur-Internet-killing-culture/dp/0385520808.

016

Britney Spears is still a trend-setter in the Ohio Valley:
Father Arrested For Driving With Baby On Lap.

015

The picture in this article looks more like a book or album cover than part of an announcement about Tommy Thompson ending his presidential campaign:
Thompson dropping out of presidential race.

It really works well.

014

I watched the 1957 film version of The Sun Also Rises last night and this
morning, and I made some notes. I haven't read the book in at least two years, but I remember it pretty well. My mentor at Bethany is one of the most important Hemingway scholars in the world [and that's awesome!].

The opening explains too much. There's also a stupid flashback scene that explains everything about Jake's condition.

On the whole, the actors are very old for their characters, which is really disappointing. Tyrone Power acts more like a news anchor than the complex, torn Jake Barnes. There is no desperation to give life to the tense love between Jake and Brett. Robert Cohn (Mel Ferrer) is not enough of a mild pussy. The characters often feel old and weary, not disillusioned youth. The Lost Generation [which, in the novel, does not include all of the characters], scarred and jaded though they may be, still have a vibrancy about them.

However, Ava Gardner, though she was a glamorous Hollywood starlet, is a very good Brett Ashley.

The close-up shots in the bullfighting scenes are so obviously fake, due to the lack of special effects and to protect Robert Evens from injury, that the film would be better without them. They waste time.

Everyone's hair is really, really shiny, which is kinda irrelevant. And the punches are limp.

There is no urgency in Jake's decision that, in the novel, causes him to sacrifice his aficionado status to make Brett happy. In the film, he does not forfeit it at all. He does not lose something so prized for the sake of possibly making Brett happy. The film cheapens the scene.

You can't include every detail when translating the novel into film, but there are scenes missing that really add depth and tone and empathy.

In Jake's scenes with Georgette, it is not clear that she is a working girl, and the character is given a little too much screen time. In an intervening scene, when Brett enters the Bal Musette, it is not at all clear that she is with a group of homosexuals.

The fishing scenes lack beauty and serenity. They are just there.

The "rotten," "technical" Catholic theme is absent from Jake's character. The god-versus-man overtones are lost. He does not go swimming near the end of the story, a cleansing and rebirth that enhances the final line of the novel.

The film ends with Jake and Brett riding in the back of a cab, but the final line of the novel had been moved to the previous scene in a hotel room. And they are not drinking; Jake is stone sober, and the effect is really lukewarm.

The ending is sort of vague, which is fitting, but it loses so much by moving Jake's final line. You just don't care what happens to Jake and Brett.



It was, however, much better than A Farewell to Arms, starring Rock Hudson, which was even worse because A Farewell to Arms is my favorite Hemingway novel.

013

I wrote this as a sample a long time ago (last week), and I forgot to post it. I'll [probably] stop doing that...

BROKEN PROMISES: LINDSAY LOHAN APPEARS ON THE NEWS, DOESN'T PLUG HER NEW FLICK

According to the L.A. Times and every other media outlet here, Lindsay Lohan was arrested Tuesday in Santa Monica after the mother of one of her assistants dialed 911 to report that she was being chased by Lohan in her SUV. Police added that the assistant had quit her job just hours before. There's no word yet on why Lindsay wasn't driving a Prius instead.

After being stopped at 1:35 a.m., Lohan registered a BAL between 0.12% and 0.13%, besting the California legal limit by at least .04%. According to Santa Monica Police Lt. Alex Padilla, a small amount of cocaine was found in her pocket, the Times reported.

The actress was booked on several misdemeanors and felonies, including suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol, driving on a suspended license, possession of cocaine and transport of a narcotic, police said Tuesday morning. These charges against Lohan are agreeably not as original as Michael Vick's federal dogfighting charges. A police press release later in the day failed to mention the narcotic transport allegation, though it's hard to keep track of details like that with the blonde mug shot circulating everywhere like it's following you.

According to the Times, Lohan was released at 6:20 a.m. after posting $25,000 bond. No reports mentioned if she was allowed to keep the cocaine.

Her arrest comes just two weeks after she completed her most recent stint in rehab at Promises, an upscale rehabilitation center in Malibu, which followed a DUI-related crash in Beverly Hills.

Meanwhile, her father, Michael Lohan, has been loving enough to appear on every. single. outlet. he. can. This latest turn in the starlet's downward spiral might be severely devastating to her career, but it's been great for her dad's!

Michael Lohan will be more popular and more loved than the Beckhams in no time, as he tells Fox News' Hannity and Colmes (I told you, *every* show he can!) that she's all that's ever mattered to him, not her career or her stardom. I wonder how many other people have told her that...

Mr. Lohan also told OK! Magazine, "Lindsay is my daughter, I love her to death. You know if I could serve the time for her in jail I would myself, if they allowed me to I would. If I could die for my kids I would. I gladly, without a blink of an eye, give my life for my children. And that's what it's about, loving my kids."

These comments appeared in the same interview in which Mr. Lohan dismissed his younger daughter Ali's claims that he was "never there" for the family.

...Maybe he loves her for speaking her mind? He continues in the interview, confusingly, "For Ali to say that I was never there and I'm lying...People who have known us for 25 years know that I have always there for my kids. These lies have got to stop because they are having an effect on my children. We don't realize in life is that what I do affects my kids." So maybe mom's the one who sucks at parenting!

After Lindsay's crash in Beverly Hills, Mr. Lohan had suggested that Lindsay's "cool mom" stereotype, his ex-wife Dina, was a problem, and that she and their daughter should enter rehab together. Now he's saying that without a mother and a father with her in L.A., Lindsay is just in with the wrong crowd. It doesn't seem like the crowd at home has been all that impressive, either.

The hilariously frustrating 911 call can be heard on TMZ.com.

Lindsay is, not surprisingly, pleading innocent to all charges, which is the second most popular Hollywood legal term to "irreconcilable differences."

By the way, the horror/thriller flick starring Lindsay Lohan is called I Know Who Killed Me, and it opens Friday.

012

Hugo Chavez is right: Mystic River is an awesome film. The Dennis Lehane novel on which it is based is supposedly amazing, too. I think I own it, but I withdrew from a class before it was assigned.

I really respect Sean Penn, for visiting places that no one else does, going
alone and unannounced, to actually see how people live. And he's a gifted actor.

The entire article is here:
Sean Penn Praised by Venezuela's Chavez.