Happy belated Earth Day

The Rules

Political rule #1: Reducing your opponent to giggles is not a good sign. (See Feingold vs. Michels)

Political rule #2: After using the internet to do most of your campaigning do not do anything stupid (like screaming) at a rally in Iowa that can be easily downloaded. (See Dean)

Political rule #3: Having your name be used in a derogatory way by Dan Savage will end that name and probably end you. Forever. Try to avoid making Dan Savage angry.

Political rule #4: Calling the guy video-taping you a racial slur is not just dumb it’s “Cro-Magnon beating himself with a club” dumb.

Political rule #5: Realizing as an adult (and after many derogatory comments towards your apparent heritage) you’re the offspring of one of the most powerful Jewish families in the U.S. does not demonstrate a particularly high level of introspection or self-awareness.

Political rule #6: Naming your son after the founder of the KKK will at some point come back to bite you in the butt, even in the south.

Political rule #7: Thank you, Jon Stewart: Don’t claim to be a big game hunter one day, and the next reveal that you in fact have only hunted “varmints” from your back yard - - you can only claim you are a “big game hunter” if you have, in fact, shot a close friend in the face.

But if you go way over the top and do the deed everyone thinks is a lie you can still be elected, for instance:

Doing business (and in fact shaking hands) with Saddam Hussein (Cheney, Rummy)

Making fun of people with disabilities (as in those going blind) (Bush)

Owning a large share of a company scarily like OCP from Robocop (Cheney)

Calling a reporter a bad name in front of a live mic. (Bush)

Being one of a group to constantly remind someone else of “Chappaquiddick” when your own wife had her own “Chappaquiddick” (Bush, again)

Going AWOL for 2 years during ‘Nam and then hiring a complete staff of hawks that all skipped out on the war….. and/or coordinated the Iran-Contra affair. (Bush, Cheney, Rummy, Wolfie, and Negroponte, respectively)

Leading the war on drugs while having snorted enough nose candy at Yale to support Colombia’s economy for a full decade

Highly paid stunt linguist

That my fine feathered friends is a quote from Equal Rites the third book in the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett. I've begun rereading the Pratchett books, in order of publication this time, and I must say they are brilliant. It isn't that we have a dearth of books in the home, in fact we're in imminent danger of library floor collapse. But all that really means is that we'll have a two story library.
The real reason for rereading Pratchett stems from the fact that he is one of the greatest social satire writers alive. Although the genre says sci-fi, it is only the setting for the allegory that is fictional. The characters are drawn from the round-world, earth, no doubt.
I've already gotten through The Color of Magic, The Light Fantastic and the aforementioned Equal Rites this week, showing both that they are fast and enjoyable reads. The first two deal with the inept, cowardly, but hugely amusing Rincewind the Magician. These are travel novels in the finest tradition, just not the most common of locations. There are references to Laurel and Hardy (Rincewind and Twoflower or briefly Rjinswind and Dr. Zweiblumen), Conan the Barbarian (Cohen the Barbarian), the Lord of the Rings, ancient scientific beliefs (they are on a flat world remember), mimetic isomorphism and business theory (The Guild of Assassins), Boris Valejo's bare chested dragon riding women (the dragons of Wyrmwood), Freud (did I mention naked women on large dragons?) and many other interesting corrolaries to our everyday world.
The third book is the first of the many "witches" books which are really just stories about Granny Weatherwax (even the Tiffany books for kiddos). This book is a wonderful retelling of the standard feminist epic. The list of topics that are investigated here is too long to type, but a brief mention must be made of the joy of reading the interpretation of the special theory of relativity and the retelling of probability.
Again, I'm not a sci-fi fan, but I do love these books - and I can't wait to see the Hogfather movie once it's available on this side of the pond. Next up, Mort, the first of the "Death books." I can't wait.

Skip

I told you so.

That’s what you get for ignoring my warnings about bad movies.

Try Brick it will make you forget all about Nick Cage (his upcoming movie “Next” looks even worse).

Movies Good and Otherwise

This week has been somewhat slow on the movie watching scale, only 1, to be precise. That one movie, however, may be the best movie I've seen in quite some time.



Brick is an uncompromised delight for lovers of mysteries and dialogue. Speaking of the latter, I haven't heard language used like this ever (and not bad language, mind you - although Tarantino's use of language both holy and profane is quite brilliant). The cinematography is amazing and the acting is just plain out of this world. Not bad for a kid from 3rd Rock from the Sun.

On the other side of the coin, this was the review in the NYTIMES for Meet the Robinsons:
"Meet the Robinsons" is surely one of the worst theatrically released animated features issued under the Disney label in quite some time.

.... and that is saying something.