Okay. Maybe I’m just a middle-aged fart, but WHEN will this tattoo fad END? It’s getting really out of hand:
Oscar Blog
TNR just launched a pretty good Oscar blog, which might be interesting for, oh, a week or so.
The MySpace Election
Which ’08 President candidate has the most friends on their MySpace page?
According to this, it’s Obama:
Democrats – # of friends
Obama – 43003
Clinton – 23428
Edwards – 11593
Vilsack – 1347
Kucinich – 1078
Richardson – 661
Biden – 510
Dodd – 172Republicans – # of friends
Paul – 2501
Romney – 1373
McCain – 1356
Tancredo – 1051
Giuliani – 637
Huckabee – 385
Brownback – 166
I don’t think this really means anything. MySpace users and readers tend to skew younger, and younger people don’t (or can’t) vote. Plus, we have a year and a half to the general election. Still, it’s indicative of a new type of campaigning, and something at which the Democrats are clearly excelling.
Britney’s Hair Is For Sale
Not available on eBay. Apparently, the owners of the salon where Britney had her head shaved have set up their own website, http://www.buybritneyshair.com, in an effort to sell Britney’s now-detached hair (as well as the Red Bull she was drinking).
Starting price: $1,000,000.00
Oy.
New Footage: JFK Assassination
It’s a little hard to find on the Internet right now, but I have it here: the complete never-before-seen footage taken by a guy named George Jeffries on November 22, 1963 in Dallas.
The silent footage of JFK and Jackie is brief, lasting only seconds. Less than ninety seconds after this footage of the President and First Lady was filmed, Kennedy would receive a fatal shot to the head.
As a bit of a JFK assassination buff, let me point out a few things:
(1) The logo is that of the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, who made it public today.
(2) This is unquestionably the clearest footage of Jackie in any of the Dealey Plaza films taken that day. She really does look radiant, albeit a little tired.
(3) I may be mistaken, but I believe this wasn’t actually shot on Dealey Plaza, but on Main Street — just prior to the right turn onto Houston Street at the east edge of the Plaza. Houston Street goes north to the Texas School Book Depository (the red dot on the map at right). The motorcade traveled a short jog on Houston, and then took a left onto Elm (the red rectangle). That’s when the shots were fired.
Still, the Jeffries footage was certainly within 90 seconds of the shooting.
(4) Assassination conspiracy theorists have always questioned the bullet hole in JFK’s outer jacket. The bullet hole in the jacket was almost 6 inches below the base of the neck — and odd place for a bullet that supposedly came from above (the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository) and exited through the front of the neck at the Adam’s Apple. However, this footage shows conclusively that JFK’s jacket was bunched up around the neck. So this would explain the "low" entrance hole in the jacket.
(5) Jeffries apparently took a few seconds to film the front of the depository, obviously after the assassination. There is a brief shot in which you can see the 6th floor window. Note the tree in full bloom between that window and the Elm Street. Conspiracy theorists claim that the full bloom of the tree made a clear shot from the 6th floor window to the motorcade impossible, especially the first shot (the non-fatal shot) which came before the motorcade came to a large sign. The window, the tree, and the sign are all lined up in Jeffrie’s footage.
Daddy’s Dyin’s Dead
Well, the run is over, and the show was a surprising success. Trailer trash comedies really pack ’em in down here. Saturday night sold out (we turned people away), and even the Sunday matinee had a hefty 160-plus.
The play itself is (IMHO) not as entertaining as Del Shores’ "Sordid Lives", and my contrubitions to this particular production were not as good as I hoped. Flubbed lines, early entrances, and on-stage bleeding (from a glass cup that was supposed to break, and eventually did …into my finger) seemed to plague me, although it’s probably not as bad as I make it out to be.
Not sure what, if anything, is next on the slate for me. My "home" theatre company is doing "Hair" next — I’m probably not right for anything in that. The Gallery Players in Burlington is doing "The Importance Of Being Earnest" soon — that’s a possibility. But I may want to do something more local — maybe "Guys & Dolls" in K’ville.
The CTG/LTWS production of "The Full Monty" is in the summer — I’m probably not right for that either (except possibly chorus) and the early buzz is there will be lots of competition for good roles.
Hmmmm. Maybe it’s time to do some backstage work for a while….
Today In History
On this day in 1942, Adolf Hitler signed an order requiring 120,000 Jews into to be forced from their homes and placed in remote, miltary-style camps throughout Germany.
Except it wasn’t Hitler. It was Franklin Roosevelt.
Except it wasn’t Jews. It was Japanese-Americans.
Except it wasn’t Germany. It was in America. Right here. No trial. No hearings. The Department of Justice was simply allowed to round up Japanese-American families and "relocate" them into camps behind barbed wire.
While nothing like the concentration camps of the Holocaust, it is still disturbing that Americans, many of whom took and passed "loyalty tests" to America, were rounded up and shipped to remote deserted areas, simply by virtue of their race and heritage. Learn more.
Support The Troops
Yuck:
[P]art of the wall is torn and hangs in the air, weighted down with black mold. When [he] stands in his shower and looks up, he can see the bathtub on the floor above through a rotted hole. The entire building, constructed between the world wars, often smells like greasy carry-out. Signs of neglect are everywhere: mouse droppings, belly-up cockroaches, stained carpets, cheap mattresses.
This is what outpatient care is like at Walter Reed Hospital for wounded soldiers. Please find time today to read the whole article.
So Long, Karibati
The Republic of Karibati — an English-speaking country consisting of 33 low-level islands in the North Pacific — population 105,000 — is considering the possibility of no longer being a country.
International efforts to curb global warming have come too late and, according to the country’s president, they are now considering the possibility of evacuating and abandoning the country altogether.
Most of Kiribati will be uninhabitable by the middle of this century because of weather damage and rising tides, all the by-products of global warming.
The Murtha Move
Brilliant. Just brilliant.
Anytime a Democrat expresses opposition to the Iraq War (and, in current terms, the Bush plan to escalate the number of U.S. troops in Iraq), that Democrat is accused of not "supporting the troops".
Senator John Murtha, a combat veteran, has long opposed the war in Iraq, and now he has a bill which puts Bush in a corner:
By mid-March, Murtha will unveil legislation that he says would set such stringent rules on combat deployments that Bush would have no choice but to begin bringing troops home.
His legislation would dictate how long troops can stay, the equipment they use and whether any money could be spent to expand military operations into Iran. Murtha says few units could meet the high standards he envisions, meaning Bush’s plan to keep some 160,000 troops in Iraq for months on end would be thwarted.
Under his plan, he says, Democrats would be helping and not hurting troops by making sure they have what they need before being thrown into combat.
“This vote will be the most important vote in changing the direction of the war,” Murtha, D-Pa., told an anti-war group in an interview broadcast on the Internet Thursday.
“The president could veto it, but then he wouldn’t have any money,” he later said.
Murtha’s bill will end the stopgap procedures, end the extensions of deployments, and end the deployment of troops without sufficient training, equipment or time between deployments. The Murtha plan raises the ante, and puts the ball in Bush’s court. "You want to send more troops to Iraq?" the bill asks. "Well, HERE’S how to do it and ‘support the troops’ with more than just empty words."
What’s Bush to do? Refuse to sign the bill?
Love. It.
Bush Words
There’s a lot of things interesting about this poll question, but one of the first things I noticed is how "Christian" no longer comes up as a response.
NOTE: You make have to click on this graphic to see it in full.
The Alabama Sex Toy Case
Well, the Eleventh Circuit has ruled (for the fourth and probably last time) and the statute has been upheld: it is now illegal to sell sex toys in Alabama. (Guns, however? No problem).
All tittering aside, the legal issues in this case were complex. In the end, however, I think the Eleventh Circuit got it wrong.
Let me explain.
In the U.S. Supreme Court case of Lawrence v. Texas a few years ago, the Supreme Court struck down a Texas statute that criminalized private sexual conduct (specifically, homosexuality). Simply put, a state must have a "legitimate state interest" before it can regulate how people conduct themselves in a private sexual context. That’s the bar: a "legitimate state interest". Thus, states cannot prohibit adults from engaging in homosexual behavior in the privacy of their own homes — because the government has no legitimate interest in consensual sexual practices. Conversely, there IS a legitimate state interest in outlawing, say, child molestation, even if those acts are conducted in private.
The Alabama legislature passed a law banning the sale of sexual toys. The ACLU and other organizations challenged the law, citing Lawrence. "Look", they said. "The Supreme Court in Lawrence said that a state must have a legitimate state interest before it can regulate or criminalize private sexual conduct. Therefore, Alabama cannot ban sexual toys.
That argument ultimately failed with the Eleventh Circuit. And here’s their reasoning: the sale of sexual toys (according to the court) is not a private thing. It is public commerce. And although the state has no right or interest in regulating private morality (see Lawrence), the state has every right to regulate public commerce and public morality, just as they can regulate strip clubs, etc.
So says the Eleventh Circuit anyway. However, I disagree with their interpretation of Lawrence. In my view, Lawrence stated that states cannot regulate public morality either, unless there is a compelling (as opposed to "rational") government interest, and the law in question is narrowly tailored to address that interest. (This sets the bar much higher than the "rational basis" standard).
But leaving the test aside, the court held that Alabama can prohibit the sale of sexual toys. Under the holding, you can still USE them (or give them away for free), but the ban on sales is upheld.
This strikes me as rather spurious reasoning, even under the "rational basis" test. I, of course, have no inside knowledge, but it seems to me that the Alabama legislature’s ban on the sale of sex toys was merely an outgrowth of their moral opposition to the private use of sex toys. Why would you ban the sale of something for which you, in theory anyway, have no moral objection to the use? This is consistent with other laws: We ban the sales of certain guns as a way to curb the USE of certain guns; we ban the sale of certain drugs as a way to curb the USE of certain drugs.
Similarly, the Alabama legislature has attempted to curb the private use of sex toys, by doing an end run and prohibiting the public sale. And they (for now anyway) have gotten away with it. No matter how you slice it — and whatever your personal views on sex toys — we should be concerned about this trend to regulate private morality. It’s not a good thing; it’s unconstitutional, and it’s dangerous.
Because you know what’s next? Birth control….
RELATED: The State of Tennessee is considering passing a law requiring the issuance of a death certificate for aborted fetuses, as a way of identifying (and by extension, intimidating) women who have had abortions.
What Does The House Non-Binding Resolution In Opposition To The Escalation In Iraq Have In Common With “Wicked”?
54 percent.
That’s the number of Americans who would vote to cut off funding for President Bush’s escalation plan if they were in Congress, according to a Fox News poll.
So while most Americans simply want to STOP the escalation, the Senate cannot even engage in a debate about whether or not to pass a non-binding resolution voicing opposition to the plan.
The House, to its credit, is at least considering a resolution in opposition to the Iraq legislation. However, the rhetoric there is not very high-minded.
For those of you who saw The Daily Show last night, I hope you enjoyed it as Representative Bishop of Utah tried to make the odd comparison between the House resolution on Iraq, and the Broadway musical "Wicked" (which he happened to have seen the night before):
"There are some people who have opposed this war from the very beginning; they still oppose it now; and I give them credit to their commitment to consistency, although I don’t necessarily agree with their decision. Some of those have also criticized this resolution as also being too weak of a resolution, for indeed the resolution today is a nonbinding resolution. By definition, it means it does nothing. It changes nothing, but allows us all to make statements for media consumption and allows some of those who made the original vote to use force the ability to shirk the responsibility of that particular action.
Yesterday, I had the opportunity of going back to Baltimore and watching a play, ‘Wicked’. And in the play, the main character, the male lead, Fiero, is in love with Elphaba. And she tries to distance herself from him by saying, ‘Yeah, but you’re thoughtless and shallow.’ And Fiero says, ‘I know, but I am a deep shallow.’
This resolution is a deep shallow. It may have words aimed at the White House and the White House action, but regardless of those words, when history is written the finger of accusation will not point to the executive branch, who has been consistent, it is going to point back here to Congress, to our actions."
From their seats, other representatives urged Representative Bishop to "sit down", while others urged "somebody to open up a window". Then they all went to the Jellicle Ball.
Harold And Maude
Well, not quite. At least Harold in the movie was of legal age:
An 84-year-old woman who confessed to having sex with an 11-year-old boy in her foster care reached a deal with prosecutors and pleaded guilty Thursday to attempted sex abuse, officials said.
Florida Girl Tries To End Hiccups By Contracting Salmonella
She was on the Today show this morning, so maybe you already know this story:
She has tried holding her breath. Drinking water from the far side of the glass. Putting sugar under her tongue. Sipping pickle juice. Breathing into a paper bag.
But none of those home remedies has helped 15-year-old Jennifer Mee, who started hiccupping three weeks ago and hasn’t stopped.
Something like 50 times a minute, she hiccups, a staccato sensation that resembles a smoke alarm with a dying battery. Her mother, Rachel Robidoux, thinks Jennifer sounds like a barking chihuahua.
***
Jennifer, a ninth-grader at Northeast High School, was in first-period science class when the spasms began.
After about 15 nonstop minutes, she went to the campus medical clinic. The staff there worked with her for five hours, and still she hiccuped.That was Jan. 23.
In the weeks since, she has seen a pediatrician, a cardiologist and a neurologist. She has had blood tests, a CT scan and an MRI. She had an allergic reaction to one medication, which triggered hives.
One doctor surmised that Jennifer has a tic disorder, perhaps even Tourette’s syndrome, but Robidoux said her daughter does not twitch or have inappropriate outbursts, two common symptoms of the condition.
The accompanying photograph shows Jennifer with a variety of hiccup cures. I note that she also has a jar of Peter Pan peanut butter, which is being recalled for salmonella. Oh, poor Jennifer.