Over One Thousand Served!

It gives the staff here at Naked Singularity tremendous pleasure to announce the marking of a milestone: Late last night, while we were all off seeing The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, this site received its one-thousandth visitor!

(Brief pause for wild applause, cheers, catcalls, gushing confessions of love, etc.)

The lucky customer is a Mrs. Edith Turnipseed, 57, of French Lick, Indiana, who happened across Naked Singularity last night at exactly 11:23 pm, Central Standard Time, while performing a web search on Costa Rica for her granddaughter's 7th grade anti-drug report. One thing led to another. She uses AOL; what can I tell you?

Mrs. Turnipseed was more than gratified by the festivities surrounding her arrival. She writes: "As a contributor to the Family Research Council, I am pleased to see that the violence on your blog is minimal, and the sex largely restricted to mood, tone, and metaphor which no ordinary person can make any sense of, anyway. Points off for the word "naked" in the title, however. And I do wish you'd stop using such big words."

Criticism accepted in the spirit in which it was given. For her inadvertant singularity, Mrs. Turnipseed will recieve a 2001 Kia Spectra courtesy of Bigg Dogg's Pre-Owned Auto Mart in Macon, GA - retail value: $299.99!

Thanks for the visit, Mrs. T. And to the rest of you who contributed hits to the counter in this, perhaps the most auspicious blog launch in the history of modern media, we here at Naked Singularity salute you - and thank you, from the bottom of our hot little hearts, for your support.

You... you complete us.

Men of Steel

It's Friday, and in a new Naked Singularity tradition I am hereby declaring, that means it's time for Hotspur to gush.

You might not know it from my erudite manner and Cary Grant-ish accent and physique, but your Friendly Neighborhood Fire God is something of a pop culture junkie. Being the generalist that I am, I can't claim to match the fanboy monomania of some of the Comic Book Store Guys out here in cyberspace, but the diary of my heart is replete with entries chronicling the crushes, infatuations, obsessions, heartaches, and long-term romances I've had with various denizens of the pop-cult multiverse. (Last week you met one, Nikka Costa.)

This week's torch is lit in honor of a coming attraction featuring one of my all-time favorite fictional creations: the son of Jor-El, the last survivor of Krypton, the original stranger in a strange land, the heir to Hercules and Beowulf and Galahad, the prototypical superhero.

Still don't know who I'm talking about? Check Shaquille O'Neal's bicep tattoo.

It's more than just the fact that, with the creation of Superman, whole genres - whole media, practically - came into being or gelled into their modern forms. His historical significance needs no elaboration. At one point in the 20th century, one pithy observer noted that there were three fictional names known to practically every human being on the face of the planet: Sherlock Holmes, Mickey Mouse, and Superman. That's all impressive, but my fondness for the character supercedes (as usual) any influence from elsewhere; even if he was the lowliest, most pathetic demigod in the comic book universe, I'd still love him best.

Almost alone most major superhero characters, Kal-El is not moonlighting when he's flying around in the cape - he is the cape. He's a good boy, saved by birth parents who sacrificed themselves that he might live, raised by loving foster parents who have no truck with moral ambivalence, and he wants badly to make all his parents proud of him. There is right, he is taught, and there is wrong; the right generally involves doing something to help someone else, and the wrong generally involves putting your own wants above the well-being of others (see my recently discussed list of political principles for elaboration and an insight into how this mindset has influenced my own). The problem, of course, is that he is fighting an unwinnable battle; he can never fully succeed at the mission his parents give him, because there's always someone else who needs saving (hell, three of his four parents are dead before he even gets out of high school, so he'll never even hear most of them tell him he's a good son).

So Superman is motivated not by a need for revenge, the chic raison du jour in this self-involved, paranoid era, but rather by an honest fealty to an ideal of what being a truly good person means. Superman has a dark side, but it's not the darkness of Batman or Daredevil or Wolverine - it's the Sisyphean weight of literally unfulfillable responsibility. Frank Miller, in the Dark Knight books, depicts him dismissively as a prig, a self-superior boy scout, but that's just because Miller can't wrap his brain around the man's situation, so obsessed is he with his own Catholic impulses of sin and expiation. In his vision, Batman and other heroes well acquainted with Superman's history always refer to him not as "Superman" or as "Kal-El" but as "Clark"; Miller doesn't get even the most basic fact of the character's identity. "Clark Kent" doesn't exist; he's an alias, a cypher. Superman, the real man, is an alien; he looks human enough to pass, but he never loses that sense of not belonging, of being an outsider, a poser. He is a great and a good man, but the moral politics of his calling require that he hide his light under a bushel, and he's forever unable to shake the constant, nagging fear of being found out. I find him fascinating and deeply sympathetic, and yeah, if you're into that cocktail party question, I would choose the power of flight faster than you could say "Rocketeer." I also dig the suit.

Anyway, enough armchair analysis. What I really came here to do is give you a peek at the new Superman.

Bryan Singer is currently directing Superman Returns for Warner Brothers in Australia (the writers are Michael Dougherty and Dan Harris, who previously worked on Singer's X2). After the way Joel Schumacher eviscerated all that was worthy in the Batman franchise - and God bless Chris Nolan, by the way, whose Batman Begins looks to set that train back on the rails this June - any fan of DC characters (and I'm one of the few who will admit to preferring them to Marvel's as a group) would be forgiven for feeling trepidation at the prospect of a new opportunity for Hollywood to screw up the greatest name in the pantheon. Happily, such pessimism seems thus far unwarranted. Singer professes a love for the first two Donner/Lester films from the 70s - indeed, he took the job knowing it might well queer his relationship with Fox and X3, which it did - and has proven it by publicly proclaiming his intention to use John Williams's spectacular theme music and to make his movie a sequel to Superman II. (But wait, the eagle-eyed among you shout; weren't there already sequels, viz. Supermen III and IV? Yes, and they sucked. That Singer knows this and has chosen to ignore them is further proof that he was the right man for the task.)

A few details about the Donner/Lester films. Richard Donner, now known as a very solid mainstream Hollywood director/producer, shot footage for both Superman and Superman II during principal photography for the first film. For reasons which are still in dispute, producers Ilya and Alexander Salkind took the second film away from him before the first had been released - the early buzz was negative, though it turned out to be wrong - and had Richard Lester (A Hard Day's Night) finish the job. I like both movies, but the fanboy contingent argues incessantly that Donner was unfairly screwed (which he was), that Lester was a catastrophe (which he wasn't), and that Warners ought to release the Donner version of Superman II, as if such a thing even existed.

But none of that hullabaloo mattered, ultimately, because of one man: Christopher Reeve.



It may surprise some of you to know that Reeve is a controversial figure in the disabled community; most able-bodied folks assume that he must have been as towering a hero to disabled people as he was to the rest of the world following his accident. In fact, that is not uniformly the case. Many disabled folks saw his insistence that he would one day walk again as a rejection of the realities of their lives and a tacit endorsement of the notion of disability as a fate worse than death. Regardless, my memories of Chris Reeve come dressed in a sky-blue leotard, and a more gratifying personification of the Man of Steel it is hard to conceive. He had the requisite height and he gained the requisite muscle, but Reeve was an accomplished stage actor and from the beginning he grasped the underlying truths of the character. His Clark Kent is a comic tour de force, but Reeve knows "Clark" is just an act; when the tie comes off and the cape comes out, Reeve believes totally in the essential goodness, the self-sacrificing decency, of the man he's playing. He simply becomes Superman - makes him flesh-and-blood and human while rendering utterly plausible his quasi-divinity - in a way unthinkable before or, for me, since.

It's very gratifying, therefore, to see that, at least in terms of looks, Bryan Singer is really sticking to the blueprint. The photos of the new Superman, Brandon Routh, are striking insofar as the effort made to make Routh look like Reeve. Check out these Clark Photos. Here's Reeve:



And now here's Routh:



Spooky, huh? And I just love how the clothes and the haircut are almost identical. Singer clearly isn't kidding when he says he's continuing the story from Superman II. I wish he were being as faithful with the main event:



Granted, Routh looks great, and I like the beveled edge on the shield. I'm not crazy about the darkening of the red to maroon (I'm hoping this is just a dark or improperly timed shot, but Singer is on record as saying the cape and trim are maroon, not red, despite the fact that anyone who's ever used a color wheel knows cyan wants red, not maroon, as a complement) and the smaller chest shield diminishes, in my mind, what should never be diminished.

Nonetheless, the overall effect is still super.

Oh, and if you're interested in seeing Singer, Routh, and the rest of the crew in action, Rastar shot some great amateur video on the set in Sydney a couple of weeks ago and has cut it together to the theme music. It's a terrific first look at the next chapter in my personal favorite mythology.

June 2006. Can't hardly wait.

(Fanboy geekout postscript: I'll be seeing The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy tonight, a movie I've only been awaiting for twenty years. Review to come...!)

Politics

The Crow Flies North

The Blog-A-Thon continues: Laine of As The Crow Flies... has flown in and perched on the interviewee's couch, thence to be incisively analyzed by yours truly. So without further ado, here are your questions, Madame Crow:

HOTSPUR'S BLOG-A-THON QUESTIONS FOR LAINE

1. A movie is being made of your life, and, shockingly, you have veto power over every choice made in the production. (Hey, this is fantasy.) Who do you choose to play you, and why?

2. Recount your most vivid and memorable dream, and what you came away from it with (what you thought it meant, if you're into that, or just the response it provoked in you).

3. You are, as Sole U.S. Legislator of the Day, allowed to make one ironclad national law which can never be revoked without your consent. Describe that law and the reasoning behind it.

4. How has your experience of being a parent differed from what you expected before the fact?

5. Tell us one thing you've never told anyone before. Ever.

Earn This

THIS JUST IN: The Associated Press, via the Washington Post, is reporting that the Pentagon has finally relented after over three years and released photos of flag-draped coffins containing the remains of United States military personnel being returned from Afghanistan and Iraq. Mighty Christian of 'em.

How nice to see that "Support Our Troops" is no longer just a bumper sticker to Dubya and Rummy. Now maybe we can see about getting those kids some armor. Or am I just being hopelessly naïve?

Politics

The Thrill of Victory, The Agony of Defeat

Poor Dennis Hastert. He and the House Republicans have officially thrown in the towel on their attempt to defang the Ethics Committee after Democrats simply refused to meet if the committee wasn't going to have any power to do its job. I gotta tell you, Denny, Tom DeLay simply isn't worth the public approval hit you guys have been taking on this thing as you've circled the wagons; he's lower than the insects his company exterminates. Oh, but you already figured that out, didn't you? Hence the surrender.

I also have to hand it to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. Bush and his Congressional allies have been stymied at every major turn since the second term began in January. Social Security privatization? Sorry. Using the federal government to intervene in the Terri Schiavo case? Not so much. John Bolton as U.N. ambassador? Doesn't look good. And now this. (Yeah, they passed the Bankruptcy Bill, but with the financial lobby outweighing the consumer lobby by about a billion dollars to none, there was no realistic way anybody was going to stop that one.) Plus, the chances of Bill Frist actually pushing the little red button on the "nuclear option" are looking weaker than Condi Rice saying, "I think the title was something like 'Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside The United States.'"

So despite GOP control of the executive branch, both houses of Congress, the Supreme Court, and much of the federal judiciary, if you're scoring at home (or even if you're by yourself, bah-DUM-bump) the card now looks like this:

Democrats.....4
Republicans....1

With a Dem in scoring position and no outs. This is David-and-Goliath stuff, folks.

But then again, a few months ago the Boston Red Sox came back from an 0-3 deficit to beat the Yankees and win the World Series, didn't they? Must be something in the water...

Politics

Interview with the Fire God

So Cricket over at Boobs and Legs has started this little diversion called the BLOG-A-THON, where one blogger gets asked questions from another and posts the responses, and then asks questions to any other blogger who wants to join the fray. My questions come courtesy of Rednaked (of Rednaked Woman), and a dandy set they are. So buckle up tight - and keep your arms and hands inside the vehicle and on the bar in front of you at all times - as we take off on the E-ticket thrill-ride that is an unfiltered glimpse into the mind of your Friendly Neighborhood Fire God...


REDNAKED'S BLOG-A-THON QUESTIONS FOR HOTSPUR:


1. Where do you expect to be seven years from now? (In any or all life aspects.)

Umm... I was told there would be no math...

Seven? Not five? Not ten? ('Cause those I have answers for.)

Sorry. This is serious. I'll be serious.

The easy answer is: Seattle. Next year in Seattle.

The harder answer is to the unspoken question: Doing what? And that, I do not know. I can't imagine I won't be writing, which is what I do more of nowadays than anything else (screenplays seem unlikely to be a big hit up there, so maybe I'll turn to novels or plays). I hope I'm making music in some way, shape or form (and I don't mean just sneaking out to karaoke bars; I need to play some bass again, and write and record some music). Directing some theatre, perhaps; maybe even filmmaking, if I feel the urge. Eating some really fine Alaskan salmon on a regular basis. Drinking better coffee than in L.A. Playing with my kid.

It's not that I have no ambitions, but you didn't ask what I hoped or wanted to be doing, you asked what I expected. And if I've learned anything in all my travails, it's that life has a way of mocking one's expectations. John Lennon said life is what happens while you're busy making other plans, and I think I've finally come around to focusing on that and not worrying so much about the plans themselves. In seven years I'll hopefully be doing things that make me happy; if they make me prosperous and successful as well, so be it.


2. What do you wish you had more time in your daily life to do?

Besides all of the above? Read, think, create, watch movies, exercise, play piano, sing, spend time with the people I love.


3. If you were to run for a political office, what would your slogan and platform be?

Ah. I sense the good Rednaked Woman is trying to draw me out a bit... Well, no sweat. I am not known for my reticence.

Slogan: Common Sense, Common Ground.

Platform: Well, let's talk philosophy first. Let's start with the really important stuff.

I believe the Enlightenment was a good thing. I'm not a big fan of the Dark Ages, and I am discomfited almost as much by the current threat of their return as I am by the number of people, in America and worldwide, who seem utterly unconcerned by that threat.

I believe in empiricism over religion when it comes to matters of governance. We can never all hope to agree on who (or if) God is or what s/he wants us to do, and in any case the issue is moot; the principal point of law and government is to provide a means by which human beings can get along in the same general space without killing each other. Therefore, screaming at people, hurling epithets, dividing the populace according to religion, race, gender, sexual orientation, region, class, or anything else is manifestly counterproductive to the purpose; the more people define themselves by what separates them from their neighbor rather than what unites them, the more impossible it becomes for them all to coexist. I submit to you that coexistence is a value. If you think your god wants you to kill or oppress me, you and I have a serious problem and need to step outside.

I further believe that the proper function of government - and this is so obvious, it astounds me we can't all agree on it - is to help people where it can and get out of their way the rest of the time.

(A lot of people have been misled by the Republican Party into thinking that liberals want government involved in every aspect of their lives. This is hogwash. Liberals want government to help people live better where it can. And some Republicans are hypocritical on the issue; they only want government out of their lives in the areas they want them out of their lives in. They're happy to get all up in your bedroom, your doctor's office, your hospital room, your funeral, etc.; they're happy to use government to impose their religious or "moral" views on you in your private life, even where no reasonable person could discern any possible harm to them either way. Cf. Whoopi Goldberg on gay marriage: "Don't want gay people to get married? Then don't marry one.")

Anyway, as a guiding principle for governance, I think that credo is plenty: Help people where you can, and then get out of their way.

As for platform planks... Franklin Roosevelt, in his 1944 State of the Union address, set out a vision of a second Bill of Rights, "under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all regardless of station, race or creed," including:

"The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation.
"The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation.
"The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living.
"The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad.
"The right of every family to a decent home.
"The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health.
"The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident and unemployment.
"The right to a good education."

Now, as Frank Herbert noted the other day in the right-coast Times, imagine a president today saying something like that. It's almost inconceivable; he'd be ripped to shreds in the Fox-Limbaugh-Dobson echobox. And yet, I think those are entirely appropriate goals - indeed, in a country with as much creativity and resources and wealth floating around as ours has, it is in no way unreasonable to consider them rights. We have the material ability to ensure them; we lack only the political will. Were I running for office and looking for a concrete platform, this list would make a pretty damn good start.


4. What are your prejudices?

This is an excellent question, and a vital one for a liberal. Conservatives are supposed to be oblivious to their own biases; it's part of the job description these days. But liberals are lampooned for the opposite - taking on so much guilt for crimes for which they themselves can hardly be indicted that they snap like joss sticks at a Dead concert under the weight of cultural shame. It's a fair cop. So I'll answer the question as honestly as I can.

I am prejudiced against people who don't use whatever brains they have. I do not think less of them if they are not as smart as I am - they have no more control over what intelligence they are born with than do I over mine - but I most certainly think less of them if they don't have the drive to think as much and as well as they are capable of doing. Stupidity is not a sin; mental laziness is.

I am prejudiced against people who habitually put their own personal interests above those of others, particularly when those others form a community of which they should by rights be considered part. I don't know what higher human aspiration there could be than to make someone else's life a little better just because it's within your power to do so. This is not entirely altruistic; if enough people did it, we'd all be doing it together and we'd all be a lot happier. But especially living in Los Angeles and working in the entertainment industry, I've just about had it with the greed and overweening ambition and self-serving callousness. And L.A. is America writ small, sad to say.

I am prejudiced against people who never make the slightest effort to consider what it might be like to be someone else - to have grown up and lived life under a different set of circumstances, to consider the impact those circumstances might have on a person's experience. (Being an artist forces one admirably to flex those mental muscles, which, I think, explains quite a bit about why so many of us are social liberals.)

(Note that I did not say I am prejudiced against Republicans, because I'm not - although a snarkier blogger than I might suggest that the above-described traits are characteristic of some members of that group. I have no personal quarrel with empathetic, clear-headed conservatives, and I enjoy discussing politics with sharp-minded individuals of any persuasion who have the betterment of their world and their fellow human beings as their primary objective. Those who do not - them I am prejudiced against, regardless of party or lack thereof.)

I am, it gives me no pride to admit, prejudiced against beautiful people and people born to wealth, because, notwithstanding the personal problems they go through like any human beings, they get so much so easily without having earned it and so few of them take the trouble to be grateful. (Also a reason why L.A. is a bad place for me to live.) I am likewise prejudiced against people whose lives have been cakewalks. Not that it's their fault; it's not, and I try not to hold it against them too much. But the shallowness that obtains as a result... that gets to me. I've known some people who had all the ingredients you need for a truly first-rate human being - only they had no depth whatsoever, because nothing bad had ever happened to them. Not knowing first-hand the possibility of loss or heartbreak, they sauntered through their lives blithely, without the ability to truly care about or for another human being. I resent them for that.

I am prejudiced against athletic men, because they receive adulation completely out of proportion to the contribution they make to society, and because, in my experience, most of them are shallow and narcissistic as a result. Athletic women, not so much; they don't get the big bucks and the endorsement deals. Although that is changing. Brace yourselves, ladies.

Finally, I am prejudiced against people who hate and fear and mistrust that which is different from them. By the same token, I am a human being, and like all human beings I have a brain which is the result of millions of years of evolution aimed at increasing my odds of survival by identifying threats as quickly as possible. One way we do this is through the evolved impulse to classify people, almost at first glance; we are biologically hard-wired to associate unfamiliar people with known groups so as to shorten the response time when they appear on top of yonder ridge and we have only scant moments to decide whether to shake their hand, invite them to dinner, attack them pre-emptively, or run.

So the urge to generalize - to BE prejudiced - is one which is written indelibly in our genes, specifically in our limbic systems, the oldest parts of the brain which we share with ancient cousins like reptiles. Our newer, mammalian cerebral cortexes, on the other hand, are capable of imposing rational thought on those emotional responses, and so we have a responsibility to use our higher minds to regulate our lower ones. The tricky bit is, the lower ones do their magic via electrical impulse, which is literally lightning-fast; the higher ones, sad to say, do theirs chemically, which takes a little longer. The upshot is that time lag we all know so well, between the first blinding flash of an emotional response and the delayed and smoother buzz of an intellectual one. Our brains are marvels, but they are works in progress; notwithstanding the Judeo-Christian tradition of viewing humanity as the glorious end-point of God's inscrutable process, we are nothing like finished products. We are a jumble of different systems working at times uncomfortably together, at best. But that's part of what makes human life so interesting, and human social life such a challenge.

All of that to say: we all have prejudices, and we all have an obligation to try not to let them dictate our choices. I'm no different from anybody else in this regard.


5. You've been given the chance to view the last 10 minutes of your life. Will you watch and why / why not?

Sad to say, I won't be able to prevent myself. I'm the kind of guy who suddenly stops in the middle of books and flips to the end to see who's dead and who's left standing. I can't keep secrets and I hate when they're kept from me. If somebody's offering me the opportunity to see how I shuffle off this mortal coil, I will undoubtedly feel compelled to do so, if for no other reason than that, if it strikes me as insufficiently aesthetic, I may want to do a rewrite/reshoot. I will have an Oscar-worthy death scene, so help me God.

Which is a very true and, I suppose, very weird glimpse of one of my more idiosyncratic traits: I can't stop being an artist. Ever. Everything I do, there's a third eye watching and evaluating it as to its artistic merits and appeal. For example, at times it pains me that I'm not more externally beautiful than I am (I'm no ogre, but George Clooney can rest easy), simply because the aesthete in me sees my mind and heart and soul as gorgeous, but finds my outside to be incongruously incommensurate. But maybe everybody feels like that sometimes. (Except Paris Hilton.)

Anyway, pop the popcorn and save me a seat; I'm there. Hope it's a good show.


Thanks, Rednaked! (And forgive me for taking so long; I wanted to do this justice.)


Blog-A-Thon Instructions:
Here’s how it works:

Leave a comment saying "interview me" if you’d like to be interviewed.
I’ll respond by asking you 5 questions here. They’ll be different than those above.
Update your blog with your answers to the questions.
When you do so, include this same explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same manner.
When others comment asking to be interviewed, you’ll ask them five new questions.

Politics

You Can't Fool All of the People All of the Time

Gosh, it pains me to be the bearer of bad tidings for the Bush administration, it really does. But those of us living in the reality-based world have a responsibility to face up to the facts. Since, by their own proclamation, that doesn't include the Bushies, they'll probably ignore this new polling info (that is, if anyone in their tiny little circle even tells them about it.)

From the Washington Post:

"FILIBUSTER RULE CHANGE OPPOSED

"As the Senate moves toward a major confrontation over judicial appointments, a strong majority of Americans oppose changing the rules to make it easier for Republican leaders to win confirmation of President Bush's court nominees, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll.

"GOP leaders are threatening a rule change to prohibit the use of filibusters to block judicial nominees and have stepped up their criticism of the Democrats for using the tactic on some of Bush's nominees to the federal appellate courts. They say they are prepared to invoke what has become known as the "nuclear option" to ensure that Bush's nominees receive an up-or-down vote on the Senate floor.

"But by a 2 to 1 ratio, the public rejected easing Senate rules in a way that would make it harder for Democratic senators to prevent final action on Bush's nominees. Even many Republicans were reluctant to abandon current Senate confirmation procedures: Nearly half opposed any rule changes, joining eight in 10 Democrats and seven in 10 political independents, the poll found..."

Let's go to the numbers:

SUPPORT FOR SOCIAL SECURITY PRIVATIZATION PLANS: 51%-45% against (up from 44%-56% in mid-March)

"The biggest changes in opinion came on Social Security, which Bush has made the principal domestic priority of his second term. Three in 10 (31 percent) approved of the job Bush is doing on Social Security, while 64 percent disapproved, an eight-point increase in disapproval in a month. Only a third said they trust Bush more than the Democrats to handle the Social Security issue, a new low for the president.

"In little more than a month, there has been a double-digit shift in sentiment. In mid-March, 56 percent favored private accounts, compared with 45 percent in the latest poll, which marked the first time in Post-ABC News polling that less than half of the public supported allowing workers to invest some of their Social Security contributions in the stock market.

"The decline in support was widespread. The poll found that support among Republicans fell by nine percentage points, among Democrats by 10 percentage points and among political independents by 12 percentage points..."

SHOULD TOM DELAY STEP DOWN? 40% in favor (including 66% of those who say they have been following the DeLay scandals, a group which comprises 36% of the total poll group)

BUSH OVERALL JOB APPROVAL RATING: 47% favorable (matches his all-time low in Post-ABC News polls), 50% unfavorable. Nice going, voters.

"The poll also registered drops in key Bush performance ratings, growing pessimism about the economy and continuing concern about U.S. involvement in Iraq..."

"Taken together, the findings suggest that Bush is off to a difficult start in his second term, with Democrats far less willing to accommodate him and his agenda than his reelection victory last November may have foreshadowed. Beyond that, the survey highlights the divisions within the Republican Party, whether that involves Bush's signature Social Security proposal or the intersection of religion and politics that has become a defining characteristic of today's GOP...

"On several other key measures of performance, Bush's standing with the public was at or near new lows, with less than half the public supporting the way the president is handling the economy, energy policy and Iraq..."

BUSH'S HANDLING OF THE ECONOMY: 40% in favor (down six points since the start of the year).

"Slightly more than a third of the public approved of Bush's energy policies, and Americans were more inclined to blame the president rather than oil companies or other countries for soaring gasoline prices..."

BUSH'S HANDLING OF IRAQ: 42 % in favor (a slight increase from the all-time low in March of 39%).

"Almost six in 10 (58 percent) said the United States has gotten bogged down there, and 39 percent said they are confident Iraq will have a stable, democratic government in a year...

"Bush continues to get strong marks on his handling of the campaign against terrorism, with 56 percent supporting his actions, down five points since January. But the survey also found that the sluggish economy has eclipsed terrorism on the public's list of top priorities, fueling Bush's drop in the polls...

"Neither party is held completely blameless in the increasingly acrimonious Senate battle over judgeships, with only four in 10 saying they approved of the way Democrats or Republicans were handling the confirmation process. But other findings suggested that Senate GOP leaders risk alienating the public over their efforts to circumvent opposition to nominees who Democrats say are far too conservative.

"So far, the Senate has confirmed 35 federal appeals court judges nominated by Bush, while Senate Democrats have blocked 10 others by threatening to filibuster. According to the poll, nearly half of the public said Democrats are right to block the 10 contested Bush appointees, while slightly more than a third said they are wrong..."

Shh. Put your ear to the ground, Dubya. You too, Karl. Dick, Rummy, Wolfie, Bug-boy, Fristian. All of you.

Listen.

You hear that? Far, far away?

That's the sound of a distant drum. Beating for you.

Boom.

And it's getting louder.

Boom

And it's getting closer.

Boom...

Politics

Cruising Under Your Radar, Watching the Seattlites

With apologies to XTC, do they need another 2 (er, 3; er, 4 if you count Mickey) Seattlites?

I think we may be about to find out.

(Thanks, Rosalie!)

Monday Brunch

A mid-morning buffet of scintillating news and opinion items, selected for your palate personally by Chef Hotspur. BAM! (Free registration required for the N.Y. Times stuff.)

• The invaluable Paul Krugman notes that, so far in their second term, Bush and the GOP leaders in Washington have been on the wrong (that is, unpopular) side of nearly every major public issue: Social Security privatization, Terry Schiavo, you name it. One of their limitations, says Krugman, is the fact that they only ever talk to each other, the radical Christian Right, or the wealthy CEOs they see in the restaurant at the club when they're having lunch; they don't know what people who make less than $500,000 a year (and who live off wages, not dividends or interest) think or feel about anything. This syndrome was previously noted regarding where they were getting their information on Saddam Hussein's mondo cache of WMDs, and look how well that turned out. Difference being, Krugman sports a rasher of polls showing the American people aren't following Dubya and his well-heeled pals off the cliff this time.

• Speaking of our delightful Iraqi adventure, the east coast Times relates that some Marines stationed there are going public about their anger at their lack of Humvee armor. One unit, after losing a third of its people to ambushes on their Humvees and getting no armor to protect them despite repeated requests to the insensible Department of Defense, apparently took to finding and making its own; for this ingenuity in the care of his people, its previously lauded commander was removed from his post and may be discharged.

• It doesn't look good for Bush U.N. nominee John Bolton. You know, for once it's nice to see somebody who treated people like crap on his way up paying a price for it down the line.

• James Dobson and Tony Perkins's "Justice Sunday" TV hate-a-thon went out to churches all over the nation as planned last night. (Special guest star via the miracle of video technology: Bill Frist!) And Frank Rich rips through the whole charade with panache, as usual, tying in observations regarding the immoral tendencies of moralizers and the coded gay-bashing they spout - both of which are talking points you've read in this very blog over the last two weeks, you lucky dog.

Politics

Head-Scratcher of the Week (digitally challenged version)

From the Associated Press, via Salon:


"WENDY'S HOPES ARREST WOOS BACK CUSTOMERS

"April 23, 2005  |  SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Wendy's restaurants are hoping business will bounce back now that a woman who claimed she found a finger in her bowl of chili has been arrested and investigators say the whole case was likely a hoax.

"Anna Ayala is accused of attempted grand larceny, a charge authorities said relates to the financial losses Wendy's has suffered since Ayala claimed she bit down a 1 1/2-inch finger tip in a mouthful of her chili on March 22.

"The loss to Wendy's restaurants in the Bay area is $2.5 million, according to the felony complaint against her.

'''Indeed, what we have found is that thus far our evidence suggests the truest victims in this case are indeed the Wendy's owner, operators and employees here in San Jose,' San Jose Police Chief Rob Davis said Friday.

"Sales dropped at Wendy's in Northern California because of the furor, forcing layoffs and reduced hours...

"Ayala's claim that she found the well-manicured finger during her meal at a San Jose Wendy's initially drew sympathy. She hired a lawyer and filed a claim against the franchise owner, but dropped the lawsuit threat soon after suspicion fell on her.

"Ayala, who has a history of bringing claims against big corporations, was arrested at her suburban Las Vegas home Thursday. A court appearance is scheduled for Tuesday.

"San Jose Police Capt. David Keneller said police consider Ayala's claim a hoax. Police refused to say where the finger originated and exactly how the hoax was carried out.

"But according to a person knowledgeable about the case who spoke on condition of anonymity, the charge stemmed from San Jose police interviews with people who said Ayala described putting a finger in the chili..."


Now, having read Eric Schlosser's head-spinning Fast Food Nation and seen Morgan Spurlock's only slightly less alarming Super-Size Me, I no longer patronize fast food chains not named In & Out - and that one only sparingly. (If you haven't availed yourself of those two little gems of infotainment, I suggest you do so at your earliest convenience; your conscience and your waistline will thank you.) Nonetheless, given the particular fondness that characterizes my childhood memories of Wendy's, I am compelled to ask two questions:

1. What kind of total wacko wants a payoff badly enough to acquire a severed human finger and drop it into a bowl of chili?

2. Where exactly does the aforementioned so-inclined total wacko get a severed human finger for the purpose? Fingers-R-Us?

News

Joining a Fan Club

Sometimes, ladies and gents, I am reduced to helpless gushing. Resistance is futile. I just have to gush until I'm all gushed out. When I like someone or something, my effusiveness can be embarrassing for all involved, especially me.

Those of you who know me at all know this about me.

So at the risk of becoming a walking caricature of myself, here's a quick little post for no good reason other than that it gives me joy to do it:

If you've read my profile, you know that I am, among other things, a musician, and you further know that the only halfway-current musical artist on my list of faves is Nikka Costa. This is no accident. Nikka Costa, 33, is what you would get if you rolled Tina Turner, Janis Joplin and Chaka Khan in beignet dough, flash-fried the tiny, delectable result, drizzled it in caramel, and set it down on a stage in front of a stack of Marshalls. She evokes new ways of spelling the word "tasty," not to mention pronouncing it. She is the only young female singer-songwriter-performer-knockout of international stature who seems not only to love rock, blues and funk but to want to take them to new places. I have yet to see her perform live, but I hear it's a religious experience and I don't plan to make the mistake of missing her the next time she's in town...

Which should be soon. May 22, to be exact.

If you haven't heard la bellisima Costa's first album, Everybody Got Their Something, then rundon'twalk your little fingertips over to Amazon or iTunes and get to work. If you have, you will rejoice with me to hear that her long-delayed second album, cantneverdidnothin, has been given a firm release date of May 24, 2005. The first single, "Till I Get to You," can be heard on her newly revamped website, and it's a funky harbinger of things to come. And if you're into it, the tour dates are listed there as well.

I love this woman. I love her so much that I'm writing a screenplay for the express purpose of giving her a cinematic vehicle for her fabulosity. If you are mired in Death Cab for Cutie, she might not be your thing. But if you love Tina and Janis and Prince and Chaka Khan and Zeppelin... well, you'll be in bluesy-funk-rock nirvana.

Which, in my humble opinion, is a fine place to be.

Music

Friday Political Digest

You know, as Dennis Miller used to say back when he was still cool and marginally sane, I don't wanna get off on a rant here...

So I won't.

It's Marine-Layer Friday here in the City of Angels, which means an uncharacteristic melancholy in the air - a vibe I actually find quite salutory. Nice change of pace and all that. So I'm not going to sully my Friday mellow by going postal over the run-of-the-mill crap going on in our nation's capital. This has not been my most carefree week ever, and I ain't gettin' worked up over the same-old-same-old.

Instead, I'll just toss out for you two items of note off the Salon wires.

One is the return of that sinking feeling for Washington Republicans as it slowly starts to dawn on them that

a) a majority of unexpectedly lucid Americans of every political stripe are suddenly realizing that their party, whichever it may be, may not always have the same number of Senate seats from now until the end of time - and, realizing that, have arrived at the opinion that doing away with the filibuster rule might not be such a great idea;

b) that same majority of Americans are starting to get the uncomfortable feeling that their president and Congressional leaders are overreaching bull-goose loonies who are making their party look like a bunch of nut-cases (when in fact most Republicans are very nice, very reasonable folks who love their country and want to play well with others).

The second - and I know I could be inviting a hornet's nest of flaming spam here, but hey, I've never been one to shy away from controversy - is a fascinating article by Corey Pein that discusses the apparently impending English-language international version of Al-Jazeera, the Arabic news channel reviled by some as a disseminator of anti-semitic, anti-American propaganda, while championed by others as a lone independent voice on the Arabian peninsula (and a source of much-needed counter-perspective to obsequious American TV news coverage of the war in Iraq). Interestingly, the Bush Administration itself is apparently considering whether the network, which it has repeatedly defamed, might in fact be an asset in the ongoing campaign to democratize the Middle East.

Most of what I know about Al-Jazeera I know from watching the excellent documentary Control Room, which, while not explicitly on the network's side, is nontheless somewhat sympathetic to its own idea of what it is. Pein seems to think Al-Jazeera is more pro-radical Western than anti-American, and from what little I know I'd tend to agree. I've never watched it myself - and wouldn't get much out of it if I did, since I don't speak Arabic - but, though I am sensitive to the accusations of its anti-Israel bias (discussed in the article), I must say that if I have to live with Fox News Channel and the Rodan-like damage it's doing to civil media discourse in this country, I don't see why what's good for the goose oughtn't to be good for the gander. I will invoke the First Amendment; I say, let all voices be heard, and let the public decide who's right and who's full of hummus. At the very least, we could use a news channel in this country that isn't in thrall to American corporate advertisers and whatever political administration happens to be in power at the moment. (No, BBC International doesn't count; Adelphia doesn't offer it in the Valley, the bastards. Maybe after Time Warner takes them over.)

Anyway, if you feel strongly on the issue, by all means comment below. But save your vitriol for Al-Jazeera or those who oppose it. Me, I got no pups in this little skirmish, aside from being a fan of divesre points-of-view. If you're not into that, you probably stopped reading a couple of paragraphs back, anyhow.

Politics

Dark Horse Under Big Sky

Those of you who read this blog regularly may recall my having mentioned the opinion of my stepfather, the wisest man I know, that the only way for the Democratic Party to recapture the White House in 2008 is by running a red-state governor. I think he's definitely onto something; by-and-large, voters don't have to time to parse issues and read up on things, and it's been suggested and supported elsewhere (most recently last year in The Atlantic Monthly) that they tend to make their choice based on a kind of empathic short-hand. Who's the candidate, they ask themselves, who seems the most like me, in the sense that I figure, having done the reading and issue-parsing, he'll be likely to come to the same common-sense conclusion that I'd come to if I had time?

My theory is that voters then answer that question using the criterion of perceived authenticity: they tend, all things considered, to go with the candidate who seems the most real, the least contrived and artificial and programmed and focus-group tested and fake, because they sense that candidate is the most likely to be like them - i.e. a real human being. (That they often fall for the candidate who has simply been contrived and programmed and focus-group tested to seem authentic is an irony that never fails to leave me crying in my beer. I'm lookin' at you, Dubya.) Point being, my stepfather would then add, that outside-the-Beltway Dems with legitimate executive-branch experience and solid-seeming authenticity are a lot more likely to slice off enough slivers of the electorate in the next big dance than the D.C. insiders who are more familiar with the best restaurants in Georgetown than the best places to eat in their own "home" states.

I mention all that as preamble to a terrific piece in today's Salon, part of a new series they're doing on the future for the Donkeys called "Life of the Party." Today's article profiles Brian Schweitzer, Democrat and governor of Montana (don't rub your eyes; you read it right): rancher, gun-owner, beer-drinker, bowler, pro-choice defender, education and medical coverage reformer. He's all heart and big-sky plain-spokenness, and he makes George W. Bush look like Howdy Doody.

My favorite quote:

"Kerry may have been the best candidate, but he wasn't selected because he was the best candidate from the heart. He was selected because in Iowa and New Hampshire people intellectualized it. They said -- and remember, this wasn't Joe and Mary Six-Pack making this decision -- 'I love Howard Dean, but I think I'll marry John Kerry because Mom and Dad are going to like him better.'"

Now that's what I'm talkin' about. We could do a hell of a lot worse than this cowboy.

Politics

Down (But Not Out)

Photo: William Rain, Black Feather, 1998

Hope is the thing with feathers...
- Emily Dickinson, "Hope," 1924

Hope is not "the thing with feathers." The thing with feathers has turned out to be my nephew. I must take him to a specialist in Zurich.
- Woody Allen, Without Feathers, 1975

It's a glorious day to be naked and alive, my friends.

I Say It Here, It Comes Out There...

Never one to miss an opportunity to point out the rare occasions when I may have actually blazed a trail, I can't help providing a link to this morning's Doonesbury. Looks like I'm not the only one convinced Tom DeLay is a dead man walking.

No sweat, Garry. Anytime. Call me; we'll do lunch. Kisses to Jane and the kids.

By the way, in the New York Times over the weekend, Frank Rich pointed out the particular scandalous straw he thinks may finally crack the spine of DeLay's little dromedary, in the public mind at least (click here for a newsy explication). You will be as shocked as Claude Rains at Rick's Café Americain to hear that it involves rank hypocrisy, wrapping DeLay, Ralph Reed, the suddenly ubiquitous Jack Abramoff, and GOP poster-rabbi Daniel Lapin up in a bow with money made from casinos, despite the Bennettesque rantings of DeLay and Reed over the years against the mortal dangers of gambling. Jeez, sometimes these people make it so easy.

Word to the wise among you contemplating public service: the trouble with moralizing is, at the end of the day we are all of us human. The holier-than-thou they come, the harder they fall.

Politics

Can I Get An "Amen"?

Okay, let me make something clear: It was not my intention to celebrate my triumphant return from Mexico by posting several times in succession about things that are pissing me off. That was most definitely NOT the plan. The plan was to climb back up on my virtual soapbox, luxuriate in my Cuervo Gold tan, bask in some trivial but pleasant musings, etc.

Sorry, folks. No such luck.

From today's New York Times:

"WASHINGTON, April 14 - As the Senate heads toward a showdown over the rules governing judicial confirmations, Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, has agreed to join a handful of prominent Christian conservatives in a telecast portraying Democrats as 'against people of faith' for blocking President Bush's nominees...

"Organizers say they hope to reach more than a million people by distributing the telecast to churches around the country, over the Internet and over Christian television and radio networks and stations...

"Some of the nation's most influential evangelical Protestants are participating in the teleconference in Louisville, including Dr. James C. Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family; Chuck Colson, the born-again Watergate figure and founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries; and Dr. Al Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

"The event is taking place as Democrats and Republicans alike are escalating their public relations campaigns in anticipation of an imminent confrontation. The Democratic minority has blocked confirmation of 10 of President Bush's judicial nominees by preventing Republicans from gaining the 60 votes needed to close debate, using the filibuster tactic often used by political minorities and most notoriously employed by opponents of civil rights.

"Dr. Frist has threatened that the Republican majority might change the rules to require only a majority vote on nominees, and Democrats have vowed to bring Senate business to a standstill if he does.

"On Thursday, one wavering Republican, Senator John McCain of Arizona, told a television interviewer, Chris Matthews, that he would vote against the change.

"'By the way, when Bill Clinton was president, we, effectively, in the Judiciary Committee blocked a number of his nominees,' Mr. McCain said...

"The telecast also signals an escalation of the campaign for the rule change by Christian conservatives who see the current court battle as the climax of a 30-year culture war, a chance to reverse decades of legal decisions about abortion, religion in public life, gay rights and marriage.

"'As the liberal, anti-Christian dogma of the left has been repudiated in almost every recent election, the courts have become the last great bastion for liberalism,' Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council and organizer of the telecast, wrote in a message on the group's Web site. 'For years activist courts, aided by liberal interest groups like the A.C.L.U., have been quietly working under the veil of the judiciary, like thieves in the night, to rob us of our Christian heritage and our religious freedoms.'

"... Mr. Perkins stood by the characterization of Democrats as hostile to faith. 'What they have done is, they have targeted people for reasons of their faith or moral position,' he said, referring to Democratic criticisms of nominees over their views of cases about abortion rights or public religious expressions..."

Now, I'm not going to waste space or energy explaining why this little TV special is massively offensive, even by this crowd's standards. You good people are all smart enough to figure that out without my telling you, and the couple of you wandering through who aren't can just click up there on "Next Blog" and move right along. The old Fire God has no time to blow tossing pearls to piggies, anyway.

What I am going to do is this:

I may not call myself a Christian, but I was raised one. Got baptized Methodist, grew up in a liberal Presyterian church (where I was confirmed, just before it started to occur to me to wonder whether I really wanted to be), spent some time in a couple of Episcopal ones in high school. In the process I read the Bible, cover-to-cover. On top of all that, as a southerner I carry a certain spirituality around in my DNA; gospel music gets my heart racing like a teenager's on his first movie date. I may not go to church, but I am of the church; I know the church.

And knowing the church as I do, I know that there are a great many marvelous churchgoing people in America who know the Christian Right is full of crap. I know them; they tell me so. Some of them are reading this blog right now.

Knowing the church as I do, I know that there a great many American Christians who actually make some effort to honor the teachings of Jesus, not just use them as a pretext on which to impose their own agenda on other people. I know there are a great many American Christians who actually believe in loving their neighbor as themselves, who actually believe killing is wrong - and who actually believe in giving people who don't believe the same things they do the room to follow their own spiritual north star.

And since I know that, I am asking them - you - to speak up. I appreciate those of you who have taken the time to make comments on this blog; it means a great deal to me. I read them all and respond to most. But I know some of you haven't even noticed that little thing below each post that says "COMMENTS," much less clicked on it. Now's your chance.

I'd just like those religious folks (of any persuasion) who are reading this to weigh in publicly. Just give me a "hallelujah," or a "hell yeah," or whatever you feel like. I know you're out there, because, like I said, some of you are friends or family. So do me a favor: click on that link below, and when the pop-up window pops up, add your voice to the choir. Make a statement. Tell Bill Frist and Jim Dobson and Chuck fuh-petes-sake Colson that they do NOT speak for all Americans of faith.

Let's see how many we can get. Sing it, sisters and brothers. Can I get an "Amen"?

Religion

Bastard Out of Carolina

I remember the day I heard Atlanta, my hometown, had won the right to host the Summer Olympics. I was living in Philadelphia, sleeping on an apartment floor belonging to a good friend's magnanimous mom. This was the fall of 1991, a glorious season that began improbably for me with the eerie sound, first heard over a television speaker from another room, of 52,000 people chanting in unison as they swung little foam tomahawks (I know it's ridiculous and jingoistic, but understand, 52,000 people had never done anything at a Braves game before, and the chant was otherworldly; it made goosebumps stand out on my skin). It was a season that would culminate in the greatest World Series ever played - and in the middle of the baseball delirium somewhere, there sticks in my memory this Headline News clip of Juan Antonio Samaranch at a podium before an assembled crowd, announcing in his strangled little voice: "The 1996 Summer Olympics have been awarded to the city of... ATLANTA!" Prior to that golden autumn, most Atlantans would have placed the odds of either the Braves making the World Series or Atlanta winning the Olympics at approximately whatareyousmoking-to-one.

Pride swelled in the heart of this Georgia boy.

Dissolve to five years later. I went home in July to visit the family, maybe sit in with the old band (still playing around town with a new lead singer), and, of course, go to the Olympics. People in Atlanta had ordered their tickets months ahead of time. We saw basketball, we saw baseball, we saw track and field. In between, we went to Centennial Olympic Park and watched all the happy people milling around like flower children in the Haight in 1967. It was an incredible moment; I don't know that I've ever again seen that many people looking that contented. Everyone was smiling, everyone was kind to everyone else, everyone was having a great time.

And then one night, after the 'rents went to bed, I popped on the tube in my old bedroom around 11:45... and saw Centennial Olympic Park, the happy gathering place I had been standing in only hours before, filled with cops and flashing lights and people screaming, some with blood dripping down their faces. A shrapnel bomb in a bag had exploded at the bottom of the Coca-Cola tower at the south end of the plaza. Killed an innocent woman named Alice Hawthorne and injured 111 other folks whose crime was joyful participation in the greatest moment in their city's history.

America, meet terrorism. Innocence, get lost.

This was, I realized years later, my first real brush with terrorism close-up. Before that, it was something that happened somewhere else - Israel, usually, if you'd asked me (and, of course, 9/11/01 was not yet even a tear in my eye). Now it was suddenly not just close to home but literally in my home, on a spot I had been standing at earlier that very day. My mind was scrambled: why on earth would someone want to explode a bomb in the middle of that celebration? They just hated Coke that much?

The first thing that happened was, the FBI investigators realized that a moonlighting security guard named Richard Jewell had noticed the bag before it went off and tried to move spectators away from it. They hailed him as a hero, and opined that the perpetrator must have been a foreign national. (Only foreigners are evil enough to kill Americans, you know.)

The second thing that happened was, they noticed that he was a fat redneck with a crappy mustache and that he lived alone with his mother. Having no other leads and being FBI investigators, they jumped immediately to the only logical conclusion. (Only loner rednecks are evil enough to kill normal family folk, you know.)

Richard Jewell spent the next several years being wrongly vilified, indicted, and ultimately, quietly, cleared. The man's life was ruined, and all he had done was prevent more people from being hurt or killed by the real bomber. But who was the real bomber? No one seemed to know.

Six months later, a similar bomb exploded in an abortion clinic in Birmingham. A year later, another at one in suburban Atlanta. A month later, another in a midtown Atlanta gay and lesbian nightclub. Those of us who lived in Atlanta or kept up with the news there noticed these things, and wondered what the hell was going on. This was not the place we knew; this was like something out of a Stephen King novel, a town silently invaded by some indefinable, implacable evil and slowly transmogrified into a twisted, cancerous parody of itself. And anyone who thinks of Atlanta as some sort of hick backwater (impossible if one has actually been there) need only look at the targets in this trail of tears to discern how the REAL backwater hicks see it: one notch below New York and San Francisco on the sliding scale of Irredeemable Sin.

No, those of us who knew the city knew something was wrong. We could smell it; we could taste it. This was not the work of a local, and it was not the work of a foreigner.

It was the work of a backwater hick.

An ingenious, bilious backwater hick.

And now he's going down.

As the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (yes, the fish-wrapper) reports today, Eric Rudolph - Freeper, white supremacist, religious radical, slimeball hatemonger - has pleaded guilty to all four bombings. Rudolph easily eluded the FBI for years whilst hiding out in the North Carolina mountains (with the help of backwoods locals who brought him food and lied to the authorities about his whereabouts), and was caught only when a local deputy in a small N.C. hamlet spotted him rummaging through a dumpster behind a strip mall in the middle of the night and took him in for vagrancy. The lucky cop didn't recognize Rudolph at all; he was utterly unaware of the size of the fish he had landed.

Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good.

Rudolph, characteristically, was a smug creep during the court proceeding. He crowed that, in pleading guilty, he had cheated the United States Government out of its ultimate goal of putting him to death. Fella knows how to find a silver lining, I'll give him that.

Personally, I'm anti-death penalty - not because there aren't people who deserve it, but because I don't believe in handing the state the power to kill its citizens. Especially given how often convictions in such cases have been subsequently confirmed as erroneous. Our justice system is built around the notion that it is better that a hundred guilty men go free than that one innocent man be imprisoned or, God forbid, put to death. Capital punishment clearly violates that principle.

But I will say that if there is a circumstance which ever in the dark of night causes me to question my conviction, it is the intentional murder of innocent people. Such coldness, such brick-hard inhumanity, literally makes my stomach turn. (It's only made exponentially worse when discovered to be the result of the religious extremism, irrespective of sect, that now threatens to crumble the columns of our civilization.)

I will not support the right of my government to kill the monsters who do such things (although I delight in its right to lock them up and throw away the key, which actually seems to me a far worse fate), but if somewhere and somewhen down the line the monsters are held accountable in another, less worldly forum...

... notwithstanding the fact that I generally don't believe in that either...

Well, I will shed not one blessed tear.

Sleep well in your cell tonight, Mr. Rudolph. And I sincerely hope, for your sake, that you're wrong about your God - because if his Hell exists, there is most certainly a place there waiting for you.

Lavender Hearts

From the Associated Press, via the Chicago Sun-Times:

"WASHINGTON -- An Army sergeant who was wounded in Iraq wants a chance to remain in the military as an openly gay soldier, a desire that's bringing him into conflict with the Pentagon's 'don't ask, don't tell' policy.

"Sgt. Robert Stout, 23, says he has not encountered trouble from fellow soldiers and would like to stay if not for the policy that permits gay men and women to serve only if they keep their sexual orientation a secret.

"'I know a ton of gay men that would be more than willing to stay in the Army if they could just be open,' Stout said. 'But if we have to stay here and hide our lives all the time, it's just not worth it.'

"Stout, of Utica, Ohio, was awarded the Purple Heart after a grenade sent pieces of shrapnel into his arm, face and legs while he was operating a machine gun on an armored Humvee last May.

"He is believed to be the first gay soldier wounded in Iraq to publicly discuss his sexuality, said Aaron Belkin, director of the Center for the Study of Sexual Minorities in the Military at the University of California-Santa Barbara.

"'We can't keep hiding the fact that there's gay people in the military and they aren't causing any harm,' said Stout.

"Stout, who served in Iraq for more than a year as a combat engineer, said by acknowledging he is gay, he could be jailed and probably will be discharged before his scheduled release date of May 31.

"'The old armchair thought that gay people destroy unit camaraderie and cohesion is just wrong,' Stout said. 'They said the same things when they tried to integrate African-Americans and women into the military.'

"Martha Rudd, a spokeswoman for the Army, said soldiers who are discharged under 'don't ask, don't tell' typically receive honorable discharges. She wouldn't comment on Stout's case."

I don't have a lot to add here, other than to say: what the hell? Will someone please explain to me how it is that a military overstretched to fight two wars in two different theaters and gearing up for more, a military already hurting from AWOLs and declining recruiting numbers and dissatisfied soldiers, can possibly justify excluding anybody? Especially on the basis of who they prefer to sleep with when they're not on duty? This is a guy who took bullets for his country. How dare they call him a second-class citizen? How dare they threaten him with even the possibility of dishonorable discharge? The only thing dishonorable here, ladies and gents, is the way this United States military is being run - starting with this moronic policy...

Okay, you know what? I do have something to say. It's generalized and it's sloppy and it probably won't be as pretty as some of the things I write, but what it may lack in organization it will sure as hell make up for in passion.

I am a straight man, folks. I would give myself about a 1.5 on the Kinsey scale, max. When I think about sex - and we're all adults here, so let's not dissemble on that point; we all think about sex - women are what I think about. I love women. LOVE them. Can't for the life of me figure out what they see in men, sometimes, but I do love them.

I tell you that so you will know where I'm coming from when I say:

WHERE DOES ANYBODY GET OFF TELLING OTHER PEOPLE WHO THEY CAN SLEEP WITH?

I am sick and tired of gay and lesbian people getting bashed and mocked and denied rights that everybody else takes for granted. I am sick and tired of straight people (if indeed that's what they are, he said with a sneer) accusing gays and lesbians of "sick" and "immoral" behavior - as if these same "straight" people don't get up to some pretty freaky business in the privacy of their own bedrooms or computer chat rooms. I am sick and tired of the ignorant derision focused on gays and lesbians: that all dykes want to be men, or that all fags want to screw every man they see (especially the homophobes), or, worst of all, that gay people are sexual predators, constantly on the prowl for children to molest. I am absolutely sick to death of all of it.

Most of all, I am sick of the hypocrites. Because you and I know that the people who rail against "immorality" with the greatest fervor are usually the ones getting the weirdest behind closed doors. You know what I'm talking about: the Jim Bakkers, the Jimmy Swaggarts, the Dick Morrises, the J. Edgar Hoovers. The ones who declaim the loudest are usually fighting what they see as demons inside themselves. And the rest of us are too often forced to pay the price for their self-loathing, as minorities of moralizers impose their sociopathy on everyone else.

Well, I've bloody well had it. Bring it on, Freepers. Bring it, Righties. Bring it, Jesumaniacs and Allahmaniacs and anybody else who thinks it's his or her God-given right to tell other adults how to live their lives - to tell them whom they can and cannot love. I'll take on the lot of you, right here and now. You don't scare me. You're nothing but a bunch of cowards, compelled by your cowardice to take out your self-hatred on people you think are safe to bash. You're pathetic.

You say gay people are un-American? Let me tell you something: There is nothing more fundamentally American than the right to be who you want to be, to be who you are. The principle, set in stone by some Supreme Court justice (I forget which one), is very simple, and very direct: Your freedom to swing your fist ends where my nose begins.

And not one goddamn inch beyond.

You think the very presence of gay people in your community threatens you or your children in that sense? You're a fool. Move. Move to Saudi Arabia. Move to Pakistan. Move somewhere where they love repression, where they love fascism, where they love bigotry and hatred and even murder in the name of God. You are in the wrong country, my friend. This is the land of the free. That doesn't mean just the people you agree with; it means everybody. If you can't handle that, then get the hell out. You don't deserve this country.

Just wanted to get that off my chest.

Signs of the Apocalypse: The Cult of Paris Hilton

Editor's Note: This is the first in a running and irregular series of articles detailing the decline and fall of American civilization, as evidenced by crap that could never happen in a world that had its act together.

Paris Hilton. Paris Hilton, man.

Walked ever on this earth a bigger waste of water and carbon? A more worthless excuse for a human being?

This is a woman who never finished high school, who has never accomplished anything or even attempted to accomplish anything, who was born a multimillionaire and has led the life of a spoiled child ever since. She is famous, as one can be only in this ludicrous joke of a culture, for being rich and stupid and frequently naked on film or tape or cell phone. Her single legitimate claim to fame, if it can be called that, is co-starring with another spoiled heiress in a reality TV show that revolves around the two of them laughing at poorer people.

Paris Hilton makes George W. Bush look like Mahatma Gandhi.

The improbable nature of her celebrity alone qualifies her as the (drumroll, please...) First Official Naked Singularity Sign of the Impending Apocalypse. But it's apparently about to get worse.

According to an interview she did with MTV.com, there is "some talk" of her starring in remakes of The Seven-Year-Itch and Some Like It Hot.

Sorry. I need a moment to cool down.

(tick... tick... tick... strangled scream into a pillow)

Don't get me wrong: The Seven-Year-Itch is no cinematic classic. But Some Like It Hot? Who the hell gets the Curtis and Lemmon roles - Seann William Scott and Ashton Kutcher?

All I have to say is: Paris - and unnamed movie studio executives who might actually be contemplating such a travesty - I knew Marilyn Monroe. I watched Marilyn Monroe, I breathed Marilyn Monroe, I loved Marilyn Monroe. Screwed-up dame that she was.

And you, Paris Hilton, are no Marilyn Monroe.

Not in your wildest freaking dreams.

I can take GOP election fixing and I can take the Christian Right perverting everything this country stands for in a hubristic power-grab of breathtaking boldness.

But I can't take this.

Next week: Michael Bay directs a stirring remake of Laurence of Arabia starring Jimmy Fallon!

UPDATE: Apparently truth is nearly as strange as fiction. Would you believe Will Smith in Bridge on the River Kwai?

Soy El Mar

The following is a partial transcript from a postcard delivered this morning by mule to the U.S. Consular Office in Mexico City.  The front of the card featured a clearly digitally altered photograph of Salma Hayek semi-clothed in a toreador costume; its significance has so far eluded the local authorities.

They spiked the damn beer. Of that I have no doubt.

That was no ordinary Negro Modelo. I know Negro Modelo like the milk of my mother's mammaries, and it's glorious stuff: the dark secretions of a million humid fantasies en español, the sweat of a million entwined lovers, collected from between sun-licked shoulder blades in the humid Caribbean night. But as I think back now, that bottle was perfect - too perfect, like a platonic ideal of Negro Modelo that last existed in the split-second before the very first bottle of the real-world stuff rolled off the line.

One second I'm onstage at Tía Juanita's House of Questionable Judgment, sitting in with the house band, led by the incomparable Miguelito de los Huevos on Spanish guitar - and this gato can really strum, let me tell you; he makes grown Merchant Marines weep with longing...

... and the next I'm downing black-and-Yucatáns with the working chicas at the bar, making cracks in broken Spanglish about the American frat jerks in the back and what they expect for 150 pesos, and drinking in the ladies' spiky liquid laughter like seven tiny swallows of mezcál drunk from seven silver shot glasses...

... and the next I wake up in this tiny room, closet really, hotter than el Inferno and twice as badly decorated, tied to a seatless john with my own bass strings, the room moving up-and-down and side-to-side.  Although I'm used to that last bit lately.

Possessing as I do the superhuman strength of one hundred ordinary writer-directors, I break the ties that bind me, thanking God and Jaco Pastorius that they only used the D and G strings.  Probably used a pick, too.  Suckers.

I burst from my diminutive prison cell into dazzling sunlight, to find myself on a finely appointed catamaran - well, finely appointed as catamarans go.  The first thing I see is the cooler full of tequila jello shots and crab legs.  (Did I mention the seafood here?)

The second thing I see is Tía Juanita at the helm, hands on her hips and smiling, one dulce de leche dimple piercing her cheek knowingly as the corner of her mouth curls under a nose like a family heirloom passed down from a Mayan queen.

"Kukulcán," she whispers.

The third thing I see, of course, is the whitewashed two-by-four she's swinging with uncommon force at my skull.  Like my head needed help with the whole pounding thing.  I had it coming, I expect, though I'm damned if I can remember what for.

Over the side I go, into an azure expanse that swallows me up lovingly.  It occurs to me that perhaps the sea exists to give us poor humans a hint of just how many shades of blue there actually are in the world.  Why did I never notice that before?

The surface billows above me like a silvery down comforter, the sun beyond it fractured into a million shards, all of them brilliant, all of them blinding.  I should have spent more time beneath the surface; the view is radically unexpected.

As I fall, bubbles trailing skyward from my nostrils like tiny crystalline thought balloons, I see a devil ray - a huge, majestic beast with a seven-foot wingspan, gliding above the sand below me - to dart elegantly into a coral reef of surpassing beauty, beyond which the ocean floor drops off into an apparently infinite chasm, blue fading to black.  I am caught up in the magnificent creature's wake, dragged, willingly at this point, by currents to hover for a moment over the abyss.

A glint floating in space to my right.  My hand reaches out, closes instinctively.  I look down into my palm...

A gold coin.  Spanish doubloon, minting date 1720, its edges flattened but its luster undimmed. I kiss it like a holy relic and slip it under my tongue. A toll for the ferryman.

Wasn't it grand?

I exhale.

I sink.

Blue fading to black...

And that's when I see it.

What's the Spanish word for sea serpent?

Because that's what rises up from the inky depths below: a great snake, a serpent sporting feathers the colors on blankets the locals sell from their roadside shacks, saturated hues that sear themselves onto my corneas like phosphene firebrands. Twenty - no, thirty feet long, or so it seems; I've nothing to scale it against.

It occurs to me it's been an uncomfortably long time since I last took a breath. A moment ago this bothered me not a whit. Now it suddenly seems relevant.

The serpent ascends and writhes around me, its feathers tickling my skin, its scales whispering across me with a cool underwater rasp:

Kukulcán.

Phantasmagoric images cascade into my brain with electric abruptness: visions of small brown people at the feet of limestone temples oriented to the cardinal points, dancing atop a seaside cliff, silhouetted against the rising sun, singing paeans to zero, hymns to the notion of nothingness.

Let it go, says the serpent, or maybe thinks it. Let it all go. The sea washes all things clean in time.

So I do. I lean back, shut my eyes and let my limbs go limp. I stop fighting dying, I stop fighting living, I stop fighting drowning, I stop fighting breathing, I stop fighting pain, I stop fighting joy. I give up. I submit to the current.

And the serpent slides between my legs like a lover's thigh in sleep and lifts me up. It carries me back toward the surface, back toward the sky, back toward the sun hanging high in the sky like a 1720 Spanish doubloon. I sprawl backward across the convex curve of its spine, six feet in diameter, a broken shipwrecked sailor on a rock, oblivious to consequence, as the serpent rises through the water and up past the coral reef and rock to deposit me as gently as a new mother on the sand of a beach.

I feel as if I've been kissed. Hello or goodbye is the question to which I have no answer. Maybe both.

The serpent loops up and over the surf, once, twice, in farewell, its Mayan-blanket feathers sparkling wet in the wind. I hear it again:

Kukulcán.

Somewhere, from across the waves, I imagine I hear a baby crying softly.

I lie on the beach, unable to move, dripping, depleted - but warming slowly, like a snake, in the golden embrace of the doubloon sun... and I wonder if it's me.

Pssst...Que Bueno...

The following is a message written in the margin of a torn-out scrap of p. 42 of a paperback copy of the 1970 edition of The Motorcycle Diaries. The scrap was found, worm-eaten, in the bottom of an empty mezcál bottle found in the corner of a local lock-up in Cozumél, Quintana Roo, Mexico, behind a seatless toilet.

Dear God... If anyone finds this, please help... I don't know how much longer I can hold on. The deputy speaks no English and I have essentially no Spanish at all, but that hasn't prevented him from taking forty freakin' hands of Baja Hold 'Em in a row, and with them every last peso I had left after the incident with the border police at La Iguana Turquesa. Oh, but the taste of salt on skin lingers on my tongue like a fever dream in a a summer solstice. Although I do think I should probably consult a doctor if I ever manage to make it back across the border...

My mind does cartwheels at the jewel-toned Mayan memories - but how much was real, and how much imagined? I can no longer tell. I can only say that my every waking moment since I got here seems tinged with soul-bending psychedelic sounds and colors, and I sit bolt upright in the middle of the heat-soaked nights with the unshakable certainty that I am only just now finally asleep. North is south and the shallows hide unplumbed depths. I need another drink like I need this stupid tattoo I noticed yesterday morning on my shoulder. Come here, wormie... Inch a little farther down the hatch, and take me sliding with you...

Dios mio, but the shrimp tacos are exquisite.

Here comes the guard; I've got to look comatose again...

¿Vas a extrañarme?

I know, I know: you just now got used to my being back, and here I am going away again. Why, Hotspur cariño, why must you leave me so soon? you moan breathlessly as one tiny, perfect tear trickles from the corner of your eye and down your caramel cheek.

Nothing personal, I assure you; it's just been one hell of a tough ride lately for El Dio del Fuego and he's gonna go cool his hot heels on a Mexican beach for a few days. I wish I was rich and tech-savvy enough to take my 17-inch Power Book out by the water and post to you lovely people from the comfort of my lagoon-side cabaña chair - like in a Corona commercial, only with decent beer. But I don't have a 17-inch Power Book, and frankly I don't even know if they have internet cafés down there.

But I promise to try and find one, and to post as much as possible if I can. If I can't, rest assured I'll be back and waxing virtual again by Monday the 11th, if not sooner. Check back then, if not before, and I'll whisper lime-scented reveries in your ear.

Until then, in the words of my cell phone's greeting:

Be naked. Be singular.

Hey, it works for me.

Sin-cerity (or, Valkyrie Shot the Fool!)

It says plenty about the current what-passes-for-thinking in the corporate cesspool we call Hollywood that March has come in like Simba and gone out like that little shorn fella in Boundin', and yet so far this year we've had not a single major American film release good enough to merit even getting your friends to help you sneak in the back door of the theater. The studios have reduced the year to two seasons: Summer, for blockbusters, and Christmas, for awards (and they've precious little interest in those baubles any more, truth be told). In between come the Fallows, dumping months for movies which exist for no reason but to remind us that there are other, more pleasurable things to do with our time and money. Dental surgery, for instance.

So it's exhilarating to finally have a reason to go to the movies for the first time since Oscar season expired (and with it, praise Kurosawa, the nagging guilt a quote-unquote film industry professional like, oh, say, myself might still be nursing over never having mustered the masochistic force of will to sit through, oh, say, Being Julia). And whatever else you might say about Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez's Sin City, it's unquestionably the first wide release of 2005 that feels even vaguely like it wasn't the product of studio notes, market research, and focus group testing. The content may be soporifically derivative, but the form is breathtakingly original - and a screaming success, at least on its own terms.

Sin City is comprised of three stories which are all really the same story: Noirish tough-guy anti-hero finds jaded-heart solace in the person of a virginal whore/stripper, whom he then must protect against villains of almost otherworldly perversion, at the ultimate cost, in two of the three cases, of his life. The anti-heroes wear trenchcoats, guzzle whiskey, and bleed copious amounts in various colors; the dames wear dominatrix lingerie and smirk like porn stars. Women exist to be saved and men exist to die saving them, preferably while taking down as many creeps in as disgusting a manner as possible. It's the standard noir moral landscape taken by Miller, in his graphic novels which form the film's source material, to a ludicrous extreme.

But it's that very ludicrousness that gives the movie its electric jolt. For example, in the best story of the three, "The Hard Goodbye," Mickey Rourke (Mickey Rourke!)'s Marv marauds around the city and its outer environs, popping anti-psychotic medication, in search of the silent, bespectacled freak (the good and freaky Elijah Wood) who murdered hooker Goldie (Jamie King), an "angel of mercy" who won Marv's heart by being the first woman ever to let his hideous mug within ten feet of her. (And she didn't even charge him.)

The delight one starts to feel watching this bizarre guignol comes from the swift realization that, whether because of the purity of his devotion to his "angel" or just because he's too big and too hard-headed to go down, Marv simply can't be stopped. He falls ten stories, gets hit head-on by several cars (and several times by one car), gets shot with hundreds of bullets, and yet shrugs it all off. Alone among the three major protagonists, Marv is morally unambiguous (unless you count killing slowly and painfully people who unquestionably deserve it, and in a movie like this, if you've got that sort of qualm, you'd best go turn in your ticket and get your money back). He's a lovable monster, and when he finally goes down it's only with his own consent; even then, he doesn't go easily. The performance would be a career-jumpstarter if only Rourke were actually recognizable under all those hulking prosthetics and House-of-Wax facelifts. (Probably just as well; that scrawny chihuahua of his would only waste away pining for him while he was away on location anyhow.)

The other two performances that jump out are Rosario Dawson's and Carla Gugino's. Clive Owen's Dwight calls Dawson's Gail his Valkyrie, and when you see the glee with which she pumps Uzi bullets in a fishnet body-stocking you can't help but laugh admiringly. In voice-over (and there's more voice-over here than in any given forty-seven episodes of "The Wonder Years") he repeats her earlier line that she "will always, and never, be" his - a line which underscores the abused-adolescent nature of the hearts beating in the perforated chests of these wiseguys. You can sneer at the retrograde sexual politics of the stories, you can decry the reduction of the women to porno icons on pedestals, but you can't deny the naked, futile longing the men feel for them. The guys may be pathetic, but they're sincere. Gugino, as a lesbian parole officer, is notable for a) being easily the best actor in the film, and b) spending nearly all of her screen time in nothing but a g-string or less. I point this out because her body, voluptuous and womanly and real in all the best senses, bears little similarity to the standard Hollywood ideal; that she is naked at all in this post-porn age of neutered American cinema is a minor miracle, and that she is unapologetically so with the body she sports is a sign of just how iconoclastic a project Sin City is. No major studio would have put up with it, or her. Their loss.

Other actors don't fare as well. Brittany Murphy seems to be in another movie, channeling Adelaide from Guys and Dolls and nearly ruining her scenes with a screwball comic tone 180-degrees out of sync with the poker-faced seriousness of the rest of the cast. And Jessica Alba, as the 11-year-old saved from rape and murder by Bruce Willis's Hardigan and now all grown up into The Purest Yet Hottest Stripper Ever, was surely cast in the part because any random survey of straight American men aged 18-45 would no doubt rank her as the Second Hottest Starlet in America (behind Angelina Jolie, who has her beat by a country mile but is too old for the role). What an inopportune moment to show the world that she unmistakably cannot act.

Neither actress is helped by Rodriguez, who has in his filmmaking career demostrated two principle traits: a manic work ethic that makes Thomas Edison look like a stoner, and a total lack of understanding of anything having to do with actors. I'm sure they like him fine to work with, but he clearly doesn't relate to their process and he's apparently not interested in trying. As a result, the acting in his films is a little uneven in the same way that the Himalayas are a little hilly; the actors are left to sink or swim on their own, essentially undirected, and only the good ones like Gugino, the smart ones who can figure out the overall tone of the movie on their own and gauge their performances to fit in like a good jigsaw puzzle piece, come out looking good. It's not that Brittany Murphy is untalented - anyone who's ever heard her voice-over work as LuAnne on "King of the Hill" or seen her turn in "Clueless," back before she sold her soul to Satan in an unsuccessful effort to become Cameron Diaz, knows that's not the case at all. It's just that she needs to be directed. Absent a knowledgable jockey, Smarty Jones may make it across the finish line, but he's not likely to win the race.

This is especially sad given the ambitious technical achievement the film represents. Shot digitally, as are all Rodriguez's projects now, Sin City represents the fruition of a bold and simple idea: Put the comic book on the screen - literally. The actors were shot against green screens and the rest was filled in digitally after the fact. This still-nascent approach has its pitfalls - witness the static, lifeless camerawork of the Star Wars prequels, or the flat fuzziness of Kerry Conran's hugely disappointing Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow - but Rodriguez, working hand in hand with Miller (and, in one of the best sequences, with "special guest director" Quentin Tarantino), manages to avoid most of them. The camera moves dynamically, the images are clear (in an inky black-and-white with occasional splashes of color that niftily replicates the look of Miller's graphic novels), and if the frequent use of long lenses and flat space seems too wedded at times to its comic book inspirations... well, hey, it was an aesthetic choice, and it just doesn't always work. No shame in that. Jesus, it's just nice to see anybody trying anything in this day and age, when the phrase "independent film" usually implies low budgets, kitchen-sink realism, and no plot to speak of. ( I'm looking at YOU, Gallo.) Sin City is totally independent cinema in the best sense - it has ambition, ideas, the gumption to try things that the Wharton weenies running the studios would never sign off on. It has the courage to try grandly, and to fail grandly - and, having that courage, it succeeds.

Again, that success is on its own terms, the terms it sets up. You may not like it. You may, in fact, loathe it - and God knows there's a lot on view here that's loathesome, from cannabalism to manual emasculation to the literal pounding of one baddie's head into yellow goo. (Sounds nasty, and it is, but it's also highly abstract in its visualization - the only way this hellride could possibly have gotten an 'R' rating - and thus less disturbing than, for instance, a similar scene last year in Gaspar Noë's more naturalistic Irreversible.) But one thing is certain: you will emerge from the theater having just seen something unlike any other movie you've seen this year. Maybe ever.

And in this day and age, that's worth something. That's worth a lot.

Movies

Is This On?

You know, it's not that I want to talk any more about Terri Schiavo. Quite the contrary. I am sick of the whole spectacle, as I suspect you are.

But having taken a big, fat bat to the GOP piñata for their disgraceful exploitation of the situation, I notice I have neglected the media hogs also fatting themselves at the Schiavo feeding tube. They, too, deserve a few hundred good, strong whacks.

Luckily for me, Salon's Eric Boehlert has saved me the trouble, revealing the lunatic circus in all its seedy glory as it camped outside the Florida hospice, allowing the self-aggrandizing horn-tooting of a few to stand in for the appalled disapproval of the many. It's a Felliniesque spectacle and Boehlert captures it perfectly, if you have the stomach. I recommend putting on a Nino Rota album before you start reading. (Google him, cinema-illiterates.)

This may not end up being the very last word I'll have to say, or link to, anyway, on the subject - I've a line in the water that may or may not get a bite - but I rather hope it is. Is there anyone at all who came out of all this looking better than when he or she went in?

DeLay Praises Restrained Judiciary!

And a happy April Fools' Day to you, too!

In fact, as Salon's War Room reports, DeLay not only didn't thank the 23 state and federal judges who upheld the law in the Terri Schiavo case, he actually hit them with a right to the solar plexus, saying "the time will come for the men responsible" for Schiavo's death "to answer for their behavior."

Now the good part: Senator Frank Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey, has sent DeLay a letter suggesting the Hammer's remarks constituted a possibly felonious threat to the safety of the judges in question - a particularly poor choice, given the murders of a judge, a judge's family, and various court officers in Chicago and Atlanta in the last three weeks.

Lautenberg: "As you are surely aware, the family of Federal Judge Joan H. Lefkow of Illinois was recently murdered in their home. And at the state level, Judge Rowland W. Barnes and others in his courtroom were gunned down in Georgia.

"Our nation’s judges must be concerned for their safety and security when they are asked to make difficult decisions every day. That’s why comments like those you made are not only irresponsible, but downright dangerous. To make matters worse, is it appropriate to make threats directed at specific federal and state judges? You should be aware that your comments yesterday may violate a federal criminal statute, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 115 (a)(1)(B). That law states:

"'Whoever threatens to assault…. or murder, a United States judge… with intent to retaliate against such… judge…. on account of the performance of official duties, shall be punished [by up to six years in prison].'

"Threats against specific federal judges are not only a serious crime, but also beneath a member of Congress. In my view, the true measure of democracy is how it dispenses justice. Your attempt to intimidate judges in America not only threatens our courts, but our fundamental democracy as well.

"Federal judges, as well as state and local judges in our nation, are honorable public servants who make difficult decisions every day. You owe them – and all Americans – an apology for your reckless statements."

Nice going, Frank. I said it before and I'll say it again. Given that the House Majority Leader is under indictment and facing growing opposition at home in both parties, mark my words: one way or another, Tom DeLay will not be returned to the U.S. Congress in 2006.

On a day dedicated to celebrating fools, that's a cheerful thought.

Politics