 
Cocktail of the day. According to Gary Regan in his book The Joy of Mixology, "This cocktail was created by Harry Craddock, for the Leap Year celebrations at the Savoy Hotel, London, on February 29th, 1928. It is said to have been responsible for more proposals than any other cocktail that has ever been mixed," reports The Savoy Cocktail Book (1930). This recipe is adapted from Craddock's original, but can certainly be enjoyed at any time of the year." Or certainly today, 76 years to the day after Harry created it for us.
Leap-Year CocktailAnd happy birthday to all you Leap Year babies!
Again. And again. And again. I read yet another article like this one, and I find myself tearing out more clumps of hair. If we don't get rid of this bastard by November, I'll be bald as an egg.
Bush Dismisses Members From Bioethics CouncilDon't even get me started with his cynical, politically desperate announcement of support for amending our Constitution by way of writing discrimination into it for the first time.
The joy of marriage, period. A wonderful article by the New York Times' Frank Rich, about whom self-proclaimed devout Catholic Mel Gibson said, "I want to kill him. I want his intestines on a stick. I want to kill his dog." Let's hope he doesn't. (Thanks, Haven!)
Here's the denouement of the epic drama over gay marriage. It's going to happen, it's going to happen within a generation, and it's going to happen even though George W. Bush teed off his re-election campaign this week by calling for a constitutional amendment to outlaw it. As the country has now had weeks to digest, it has already happened in bulk in San Francisco, where images of couples waiting all night in the rain to be wed finally wiped Janet Jackson off our TV screens. The first of those couples, Phyllis Lyon, 79, and Del Martin, 83, were celebrating a partnership of 51 years. Take that, heterosexual marriage! The most famous practitioner of mixed-sex nuptials this year, Britney Spears, partook of a Vegas marriage that clocked in at 55 hours.*sniff* ... I always cry at weddings.
Rumsfeld imitates The Onion ... again. Gee, I sure am glad this guy is in charge of our national defense -- confident and decisive leadership, that's what we need! (Via NTK)
Rumsfeld Says Osama Will Probably Be Found One DayI feel ever so reassured.
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Ardent Spirits and The Cocktailian. Gary and Mardee managed to squeak out a February issue of Ardent Spirits just before March came upon us -- read about discussing politics and religion, brandy defined, 19th Century bar life and more. In this fortnight's Cocktailian, The Professor twists the venerable English classic of Port & Brandy into something ruby and delicious.
The world's scariest musicians. This is hilarious, although a few of these folks (like doddering Ozzy) aren't really scary anymore. And Alice Cooper's a nice guy! He was once the grand marshal of a Mardi Gras parade when I was a kid (to the snorting disgust of my mother), and he skips rope with that little girl in the TV commercial ...
The Playboy of the Western World. We were mulling over what to do in Galway during our four days, when Paul said, "Hey, did you know they're doing 
Synge's
'Playboy of the Western World'
in Galway, with Cillian Murphy
in the lead role?" No, we didn't! And we'd love to go, thanks very much!
It was a production of Galway's distinguished Druid Theatre Company,
who are embarking on a long-awaited attempt to stage all of Synge's plays
in a two-year run. "Playboy" had just opened in Galway for a several-month
run that would take the production to Dublin, Mayo, Kerry, Cork and the
Aran Islands, and was being very well-reviewed in Ireland
and in Britain as well.
This is exactly the sort of thing I was looking for us to do in addition
to the Planxty show and pub crawling for pints and sessions; I wanted Wes
to have a great time too, with a variety of diverse experiences, 'cause as
far as I was concerned everything outside the Planxty show was lagniappe.Unfortunately (and unsurprisingly), when we rang the Town Hall Theatre we were informed, with regret, that the show's two-week run had been sold out since before it opened. (Feck.) Did we have a chance of getting in on a cancellation? She hesistated and said, skeptically, that we were welcome to come in and try, but she couldn't promise anything.
So Monday night we headed to the Town Hall,
one hour before showtime, hoping for tickets ... and there were none.
"You're welcome to wait," said the nice girl at the box office, "and the
We sighed, and figured we'd salvage the evening by going to the very interesting-looking Indian restaurant around the corner, and then heading to An Púcán or Tigh Colí for a session (as unlikely as that might be on a Monday night off-season). They were flashing the lights, herding the people inside and warning that no latecomers would be seated until the break after Act I. Then ... "Mr. Taggart? We have one upstairs and one downstairs." WOO! "We'll take 'em! T'anks!" And clever Wes added, "We'll swap seats at the intermission," prompting expressions of great approval from the girls at the ticket counter, applauding his sense of fair play.
It was a wonderful and thoroughly Irish cultural experience, being perhaps the only foreigners in an entire theatre of natives enjoying one of the great works of drama in their culture (and, by ancestry, my own heritage and culture). Brilliant.
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Yeesh. That bug I picked up in Ireland turned out to be the mathair of all head colds -- I've been completely wiped out all week. I'm mostly better now, but I think I'll put off any exercising until next week. Oh, speaking of which ... unsurprisingly, I put on 4 pounds whilst in Ireland, but it all came off this week, and I'm just about back where I was when I left. I suppose that cold was good for something.
I'm a distorter, not a divider. Naturally, that includes not giving a crap about anyone living on it, if they stand in the way of one's profits. Wired News reports on how "the Bush administration has distorted scientific fact leading to policy decisions on the environment, health, biomedical research and nuclear weaponry, a group of about 60 scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, said in a statement on Wednesday. Appalling, but unsurprising. (Thanks, Wes!)
Best meal I've ever had in Ireland. And I've had some good ones, too. People in the past have told dire tales of the food scene in Ireland, and in some ways for good reason. Such folks have undoubtedly had bad pub grub, or have been regaled with the classic Irish traditional dish called "bacon and cabbage", which tends to consists of three ingredients -- a chunk of raw pork shoulder, a head of cabbage, and boiling water. No herbs, no spices, no spuds, no pepper or even salt. As much as I love pigmeat, that's not exactly my favorite. As I mentioned earlier, the raw ingredients of Irish cooking are top-notch, and many of the traditional dishes are quite hearty and actually very good. Fortunately, over the last ten years or so (and particularly with the advent of "The Celtic Tiger", the booming Irish economy) the restaurant scene has really been looking up. The day after Valentine's we decided to dive right in, with dinner at a place that came highly recommended by an email correspondent: Cooke's Restaurant and Wine Bar on Upper Abbeygate Street in Galway.
If you don't have any appropriate music
handy, tune into NOLA.com's Mardi Gras Radio.
It had been way, way too long and it was great to be back. I'll have to make sure that I get back there every couple of years, if humanly possible. That said, it wasn't all a bed of roses; Irish showers suck, and the Irish people, whom I dearly love, still seem pathologically incapable of heating their bathrooms (there's nothing like a trickle of a hot shower cascading down your chest whilst at the same time your back and arse are a trembling mass of gooseflesh because the temperature in the bathroom and shower is about 7°C/45°F). Anyways, the people were lovely and the hospitality was tops and the craic was ninety; we never had a bad meal (although a few greasy fast food ones which were still good) because the food has come a long way, the pints were perfect and the whiskey was wondrous (with a cocktail or two thrown in for good and surprising measure) and the music ... oh, the music. We'll let that one in a few dribs and drabs over the coming days. Unfortunately, on our last night in our last pub whilst quaffing our last pint, I started feeling poorly, and by bedtime I was feverish and my head transmogrified into a phlegm factory. It wasn't a fun (11-hour) flight home, and I'm still sick today. We'll hop into and out of the Wayback Machine, though, and go over some travel highlights over the next week or so. Fáilte romhat isteach!
Recipe of the day: Irish Stew After a long, hard day of travel and a 3-hour drive to Galway, this is what was waiting for us on the stove when we got to our friends' house in Loughrea. I don't think we could have had a better meal waiting for us. One of the great things about Irish cooking is that the raw ingredients are just about the best anywhere -- the milk, the butter, the cream, the eggs, the cheese, the beef, pork and lamb ... just gorgeous. I can safely say you probably haven't had lamb until you've had Connemara lamb, so find the best quality stuff you can for this dish. It's hearty, filling and great for a cold night. Our friend Amanda in Co. Galway got this recipe from a friend's mom in Killarney, Co. Kerry, so it doesn't get any more authentic than this. Still, it contains a couple of small tweaks from me and an idea from our friend Terri, chef and co-owner of Auntie Em's Kitchen in Eagle Rock.
Mrs. O'Sullivan's Irish Stew with Lamb and GuinnessIs maith an t-anlann an t-ocras. (Or, "hunger is a tasty sauce" ... this'll certainly satisfy it.)
Cocktail of the day. This one was strictly therapeutic, but fortunately it tasted really good too. This one's right out of the annals of Irish medicine, with one little touch added by meself. It didn't exactly cure what ailed me, but it soothed the soul, spirit, nose and tummy.
Hot Irish Whiskey ToddyI feel better already.
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I'm off. Our flight leaves at 5pm, shuttle comes at 1:30, and I'll be very, very busy before then. We'll be in Ireland tomorrow morning, I may or may not have time to post whilst I'm away (if not, posting will resume on or around February 23), and on Wednesday we see Planxty. I'm very much looking forward to that first pint, too ...
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The Cocktailian. Today the Professor comes up with a south-of-the-border version of the venerable Singapore Sling, called the Horseshoe Sling, which sounds delectable and perfect for a balmy summer's day.
Curiouser and curiouser. Via USA Today:
Ex-officer: Bush file's details caused concernHere's The Daily Mislead's take on it, and here's Burkett's side of the story but as Wes points out, he does seem to have a bit of an ax to grind). Still ... curiouser and curiouser. This story just won't go away, will it? There's been very interesting coverage on Calpundit and Billmon's Whiskey Bar as well. Oh, and there was a hilarious White House press conference yesterday -- don't miss it. McClellan flops around like the proverbial fish out of water, and much worse at not-answering questions that Fleischer was.
Why Dean had to be crushed. It's sad ... I supported him for so long, and now, as his ruined campaign flounders he's resorted to attacks on John Kerry that are best left for George Bush (and which will likely alienate a number of the small percentage left that'll vote for him). He might have shot himself in the foot a couple of times, but this fascinating article sees Dean's plummet in a different perspective -- he dared to take on the media, and they crushed him.
On December 1, 2003, Howard Dean was ahead by twenty points in the polls when he appeared on Hardball with Chris Matthews and said, "We're going to break up the giant media enterprises." This pronouncement went far beyond the governor's previous public musings about possibly re-regulating the communications industry, and amounted to a declaration of war on the corporations that administer the flow of information in the United States.I won't go quite as far as the author did, but he raised some interesting and cogent points. While I'm still not sure Dean would have been able to translate his initial appeal to the unwashed masses, the media went after in a way that leaves one almost speechless; the media coverage of "the scream", just to name one, was unconscionable.
Yay, Josh!! Finally! A big, slobbery Newfoundland with a heart of gold -- a dog's dog, a real dog, not an absurd walking hedge -- won Best of Show in this year's Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show. 
Steve remarked that he felt like he did the night Bill Clinton
first won the presidency, a real dog after all those years of Republican
topiary dogs (and meringue dogs and dogs that look like something the cat
coughed up). Mary said, "I love that part of the reason the crowd and
the judge loved Josh was that he acted like a real dog, with dog
personality -- licking, barking, slobbering and apparently watching
himself on a video monitor." Good boy, Josh!
Don't get all excited and run off to a
breeder to get a Newfie, though -- they are huge dogs, they drool a
lot, they're a lot of work and they're not for everyone ... like people
who live in one-bedroom apartments. I once knew an awful eejit who went
to see the live-action "101 Dalmatians" movie and then ran right out and
bought a full-grown Dalmatian. He lived in a one-bedroom apartment, and
kept the poor creature cooped up inside all day ... whereupon the dog,
driven nearly mad by confinement and boredom, basically ate his entire
apartment. The poor creature went from the pound to bad owner and then
back to the pound again; I can only hope he was adopted by people who knew
what they were getting into. Such awful eejits should never be allowed to
have dogs.
Atkins diet centers on the green. No, not the green vegetables, the green cash money, as this Boston Globe article asserts in an examination of the "ghoulish Atkins postmortem imbroglio":
A vulgar, agenda-driven invasion of privacy? To be sure. An unnecessary and ultimately irrelevant spectacle exploiting unknowable facts about a man 10 months in the grave? Yes. But let's not forget: This is not a battle over ideas or public health. This is a dispute about money. Lots of money.Soybean-based pasta? Ewwww. Apparently the Atkins folks recently published an adaptation of one of the recipes from my site (and thanks for asking first ... oh wait, you didn't ask first -- never mind), and instead of flour for making the roux it calls for something called "Atkins Bake Mix", consisting of "Wheat Gluten, Corn Starch, Leavening (Baking Soda, Monocalcium Phosphate, Sodium Aluminum Phosphate), Casein Protein, Whey Protein, Salt." The shrimp and collard greens gumbo on my site calls for 2 tablespoons of flour to make the roux for a pot of gumbo that serves six people. That comes down to one teaspoon of flour per serving, for the roux. One teaspoon of flour is going to make you fat? Please. The WeightWatchers Points® value of one teaspoon of flour is ... zero. (The Points value for the whole 2 tablespoons of flour for the recipe is one.) They also change the shrimp stock the recipe calls for -- included so that, y'know, a shrimp gumbo tastes like shrimp -- and substitute canned (eww) chicken broth and water ... so that the supposedly shrimp-based gumbo tastes like chicken with some shrimp in it instead. The Atkinsites were kind enough to at least give credit to the original recipe that was adapted; that said, we disavow the recipe on the Atkins site. When I say shrimp stock I don't mean canned chicken broth, which I find salty and schmaltzy and which I think generally tastes horrible; in school I saw and tasted dishes which were ruined by the use of Swanson's canned chicken broth. If you're going to make a roux, make a roux, fer Chrissakes. Any fierce anti-carbohydrate regimen that even calls for the elimination of one teaspoon of flour from a gumbo, there simply to make the roux, doesn't border on the obsessive, it crosses that border and seems to me to be an invader. Eat a balanced diet with a reasonably sized serving portion! Get outside or to the gym and move that big arse of yours! (I've power walked 3.3 miles every day this week, and if lazy Chuck can do it, anyone can.) Furthermore, "Atkins Bake Mix" is not real food, and it contains corn starch. (What is corn starch, anyway? Car-bo-HY-drate!) The most shocking detail of all ... it's $12 for a 20-ounce can! You can get five pounds of flour for two dollars. That's a price difference of 60¢ per ounce versus 2.5¢ per ounce. The Atkins product is 24 times more expensive than flour. I'm beginning to see what yer man is talking about when he says it's all about the money, rather than being able to enjoy food (one of the great pleasures of life) and still lose weight. Oh, and speaking of taking things from my web site ...
Get a life, honey. Jeanna Marie, sweetiedarling, I would really appreciate it if you would get your own life and refrain from appropriating mine. (For comparison's sake, this is my life, the page for which has been up, with this design and content, for several years). I've had people copy recipes from my site, remove my attributions and credit to themselves, and I've seen people steal other people's page designs, but this is the first time I've seen anyone steal another person's biography -- in many instances on the page, verbatim. Word for word. The irony is that she even appropriates my life's motto -- "Whatever you is, be that!" Topping it off, when she substituted her picture for mine, she also neglected to remove the photo credit linking back to my friend's photography website, which is how she got caught (via his referral logs). I know, what's the big deal, it's only some little piddly personal bio page. But stealing is wrong, and in this case it also shows a rather egregious lack of imagination. I think this is more sad than malicious, but still ... the noive! Good grief.
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One week!!! I'll be seeing Planxty one week from tonight, something I've very dearly wanted to do since 1982. I still don't quite believe it's actually going to happen.
Here's what I'm in for, from a review of the first Dublin show by Siobhán Long of The Irish Times. ("The Good Ship Kangaroo" was the first Planxty song I ever heard, and the Irish word "gabháil", generally meaning "to catch, to take, to seize" has many, many shades of meaning, including that of a musical performance in which the listeners are completely captivated.)
There was an air of expectation hanging over the crowd beforehand that would fire a rocket launcher. 23 years is a mighty long time to wait for the rekindling, but somehow we guessed that the wait would be worth it.Oh, Jesus.
Yay! This just in: Chocolate is good for you!
Some of the world's most highly respected chocolate experts met yesterday at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington for tastings, lectures and discussions that focus on environmentally friendly ways to produce cocoa -- the powder that forms the basis of chocolate -- and the health benefits linked to it.The hell with Mars -- I've found that Scharffen-Berger, the finest chocolate maker in America, is now producing their chocolates packaged in boxes of 12 little squares. Each individually-wrapped square is 5 grams, and four squares constitutes a two point dessert (of roughly 80-100 calories). Break each of those squares into fourths and let them dissolve slowly on the tongue ... mmmmmm. That's sixteen little minisquares of intense, chocolately delight. Absolutely. Perfect.
Dr. Atkins' post-mortem. It seems to me to be an invasion of the man's privacy, but you can't un-leak a document, and since the information is out there I do have some comments. Dr. Robert Atkins, founder of the controversial and bizarrely popular diet that bears his name, died from head injuries following a fall and now is reported to have been obese, with heart disease and blocked arteries. His widow admits to the blocked arteries, but says that his excess weight was due to "bloating" due to cardiomyopathy and a viral cardiac infection (and people with that affliction do indeed bloat). I'm still skeptical of Atkins, and so is my doctor -- many, if not most, of his patients who are on the diet also have huge spikes in their cholesterol and triglyceride readings. For the last month I've been talking to many friends and acquaintances about this, and hearing stories about their friends and acquaintances as well. From what I can tell no one within that circle who tried Atkins has stayed on Atkins and kept the weight off. Conversely, everyone who's followed and stayed on WeightWatchers (with one exception, who stopped following the program and returned to her former eating habits) lost the weight and kept it off. (Your mileage may vary; my circle of friends and acquaintances is stacked with foodies, people who love to eat and who would never dream of completely eliminating bread, pasta, fruit and other carbohydrates from their diets.) I really don't believe in these bizarre diets where you cut out certain foods and gorge on others. I think the answer, hard though it is to achieve, is really very simple -- get plenty of exercise, and eat a balanced diet ... just not so goddamned much of it. I've been good this week -- I'm looking forward to Friday's weigh-in.
O'Neill's documents to be posted online. The Price of Loyalty: An Experiment in Transparency -- "These documents are drawn from a collection of 19,000 files of Paul H. O'Neill, the U.S. Treasury Secretary for the first two years of the Presidency of George W. Bush... Documents cited in the "The Price of Loyalty" are presented with explanations of context and little comment. They speak, as does all irrefutable evidence, for themselves. More files of compelling public interest will be released in the coming days and weeks." Ooo, here's a good one. Page 83 (22 pages), First Week's Plans For Iraqi Takeover: His papers for February 1, 2001, included an agenda for an NSC meeting to be held in the White House Situation Room that afternoon on U.S. policy in the Persian Gulf. The agenda -- an unclassified cover sheet to classified documents that were not included in O'Neill's papers -- refers to a secret paper on a "Political-Military Plan for Post-Saddam Iraq." Fascinating, Captain. (Thanks, Teri!)
Unrest. (Via Jason) Not only have the Bush administration's policies poisoned international relations, it seems that there's been an impact on interplanetary relations as well. I guess we'll be cancelling that pork-- er, manned Mars mission thing now, huh?
"Er, I have a question ..." That quote will be remembered by my old college and gradual school classmates, for being uttered in a parrotlike squawk, several times a day, by one particularly beloved classmate of ours. However, I won't be telling old college stories; I refer to Michael Moore, who asked some very, very good questions of George W. Bush in his excellent book Dude, Where's My Country? and now asks some more very, very good questions of Bush:
1. How were you able to jump ahead of 500 other applicants to get into the Texas Air National Guard, thus guaranteeing you would not have to go to Vietnam? What calls did your father (who was then a United States Congressman representing Texas) make on your behalf for you to get this assignment?He's already responded, via Scott McClellan, to the first (responded as opposed to answered) by claiming that no calls were made on his behalf, and saying that none of the other 500 was willing to make a six-year commitment. As for the first assertion, I add an additional question: How is it that you were so rapidly promoted within the Texas Guard, from Airman 2nd Class to 2nd Lieutenant and a pilot, after only six weeks of basic airman training and a score of 25% on the pilot aptitude test?
Bush and his father have adamantly denied that he received preferential treatment, despite the fact that his father was then a U.S. Representative from Texas and his grandfather Prescott had been a prominent U.S. Senator from Connecticut. But the Speaker of the House in Texas at the time, Ben Barnes, admitted under oath last year that he had received a request from a longtime Bush family friend, Sidney Adger of Houston, to help Bush get into the Air National Guard. Barnes further testified that he contacted the head of the Texas Air National Guard, Brig. Gen. James Rose, to pass along Adger's request.As for the claim that not one of the other men on the waiting list were willing to make the time commitment, not one of five hundred ... well, that's just absurd, isn't it? This story isn't going to go away, because as everyone from Michael Moore to John Kerry has pointed out, Bush sent our sons and daugters, brothers and sisters into war on false pretenses (and if he was a victim of faulty intelligence, as he keeps claiming, he certainly was a very eager victim), and that makes his military record to be very, very relevant indeed.
Quote of the day.
"Marriage as we understand it -- voluntary,
monogamous, legally egalitarian, based on love, involving adults only --
is a pretty recent phenomenon. For much of human history, polygyny was
the rule -- read your Old Testament -- and in much of Africa and the Muslim
world, it still is. Arranged marriages, forced marriages, child
marriages, marriages predicated on the subjugation of women -- gay
marriage is like a fairy tale romance compared with most chapters of the
history of wedlock."
Edwards for Prez! Well, not just yet; I've been a Dean supporter, even though he's doomed. But y'know, this little tidbit might just help edge Sen. Edwards forward, although you have to cough up $50 to get it. Hrmmm, can his Momma's peanut butter pie possibly be as good as my sister Melissa's peanut butter pie? (By the way, last time I made it I substituted mascarpone cheese for the garden variety cream cheese ... oh, my, Gawd).
Woo, news! Wes just me a whole pile of interesting movie news, so let's slog through it all:
The Return of the King: On Sunday, February 8, the Directors Guild of America named Peter Jackson best feature film director for his final Tolkien chapter... The award is considered a predictor for the Oscars still to come on February 29. Jackson recently told Entertainment Weekly that he is attempting to work an hour of footage cut from the theatrical release of The Return of the King into the expanded DVD.Yay Peter! Actually I heard this yesterday and wasn't surprised. If he doesn't win Best Director and Best Picture (really, an award for all three), then it means the forces of Sauron are at work once again.
Philip K. Dick: Variety announced Utopia Pictures & Television has acquired the rights to a number of genre projects, including three science fiction novels by Philip K. Dick. Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said is a futuristic thriller in which a TV celebrity loses proof of his existence; Valis concerns a messianic prophet who reveals an unexpected truth about the existence of God; and Radio Free Albemuth is Dick's brilliant, but indescribable last novel, published posthumously in 1985. Dale Rosenbloom and John Alan Simon will produce.He says, "Wow! Wow! And wow! Just don't fuck them up, is all I ask." Me too.
Anonymous Rex: The Hollywood Reporter states that the SciFi Channel has greenlit the production of a two-hour cable movie, based on Eric Garcia's novels, starring Vincent Rubio as a private investigator who is actually a velociraptor evolved to bipedal form and disguised inside a human-looking costume. Screenwriter Joe Menosky has been hired to write the adaptation and two further scripts, with a view to development as a TV series. Julian Jarrold will direct the pilot. Production is expected to involve CG, prosthetic and animatronic effects.Wes says, "Wow again! This was a GREAT book." I haven't read it yet, but I remember him describing it with breathless delight as he was reading it. I have great trust in the SciFi Channel, given what a great job they did with the "Dune" and "Battlestar Galactica" miniseries. And speaking of which ...
Battlestar Galactica: THR states that the SciFi Channel has picked up the casting option for a new TV series based on its recent miniseries which, in turn, was based on the 1978 ABC TV space opera. If the series launches, episodes will reportedly start shooting in Vancouver in April, with production costs estimated at $1.5 million per show. Zoic Studios supplied impressive visual effects for the miniseries.Wes comments, "This is only .5 million per episode more than the original series cost... in 1978. Not sure what that comes to in adjusted dollars, but I'm sure it's actually LESS expensive." I hated the original series, and I loved the remake last December -- it was well-written, well-acted, and a meaningful, grown-up story. Nowadays that same effects budget will make anything from 1978 look like stone knives and bearskins. I'm really looking forward to this.
The Bride of Frankenstein: Variety reports that Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, the directing team behind "American Splendor", are teaming up with producer Brian Grazer to shoot a remake of Universal's 1935 bee-hived horror matriarch movie, "The Bride of Frankenstein". Variety states that the film will not resemble Universal's recent horror romps, but instead will be a character-driven tale more akin to Rosemary's Baby -- about a New York college student who learns she is a reanimated corpse."Risky proprty, great team." I agree. I adored "American Splendor", and it was one of my favorite movies of last year. Speaking of which, I still haven't posted my favorites lists for movies and music from last year ... I'd better get my arse in gear. It's the middle of February already! That's enough news for now.
*gasp* ... *clutch chest* Via Tom Tomorrow, who has reason to believe there is snowfall in Hell today:
Conservative television news anchor Bill O'Reilly said Tuesday he was now skeptical about the Bush administration and apologized to viewers for supporting prewar claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.And while I'm nicking things from Tom, we'll paraphrase Christopher Durang's title and give you a little lesson, in today's installment of "Mr. Tom Tomorrow Explains It All For You":
Why Bill Clinton's statements on Iraq are completely irrelevant to the current debateTry to avoid the traffic, though.
"Please, sir, don't make me laugh." From today's Washington Post column by Richard Cohen:
During the Vietnam War, I was what filmmaker Michael Moore would call a "deserter." Along with President Bush and countless other young men, I joined the National Guard, did my six months of active duty (basic training, etc.) and then returned to my home unit, where I eventually dropped from sight. In the end, just like President Bush, I got an honorable discharge. But unlike President Bush, I have just told the truth about my service. He hasn't.Remember also that Bush's test scores to become a Guard fighter pilot were described as "abysmal", yet oddly enough he was "leapfrogged" to the head of a 500-man waiting list and got in. How did that happen, I wonder?
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My favorite moment of Tim Russert's interview with George W. Bush on "Meet the Press" yesterday morning was this one, where he asked a question and followed it with a quote from Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe regarding Bush's AWOL status when supposedly serving in the National Guard, then the look on Bush's face:
That was the biggest laugh I've had on TV since ... oh, since last week's episode of "Will and Grace". I don't have to give Bush's performanace on "Meet the Press" a bad review. I'll just let all the conservatives do it. He certainly seemed to have been giving his Winston Smiths lots of work over at Minitrue; for instance, revising his rationale for war with Iraq. Oh, the war was justified because Saddam supposedly could have made weapons of mass destruction. Funny, that's not what he said last March. There was another statement Bush made that struck me right in the middle of my forehead (one of several instances where I shouted at my television); Trapper John over at The Daily Kos picks that one apart far better than I could have, so if he'll indulge me I'll quote him (boldface emphasis mine):
There's no question that the idea that Bush may have been AWOL during part of his tenure in the Guard is intriguing. But it's not nearly the most offensive aspect of his military history, and it's mired in uncertainty. We need to avoid getting caught up in the legalistic AWOL/not-AWOL arguments, and focus on what Bush himself admits when asked how he got out of the Guard 8 months early: "I was going to Harvard Business School and worked it out with the military."As we say back home, yeah you rite.
The sky is falling. Except this time, it isn't just Chicken Little ... it really is falling. All you Bush administration apologists who scoffed when we warned you that our civil liberties were in grave danger should read this article. If this is upheld and the government gets away with this, this is a very dangerous precedent for the criminalization of dissent and crackdowns on constitutionally mandated freedoms of speech and assembly.
Food journalism blossoms. Via the American Journalism Review: "Food journalism, once a throwaway compendium of recipes and 'what's hot' articles, has gone upscale. Newspapers and magazines are dedicating top talent to the food beat, and they are hungry for sophisticated stories with timely angles. (Thanks, Meredith!)
If I ignore it, it will go away. Er, no.
Bush, Aides Ignored CIA Caveats on Iraq |
bar opens in 15 minutes." If nothing else, those last six words made my
heart glow. Unfortunately, the pint was shite (should've gotten whiskey,
like I noticed a few in-the-know gentlemen doing), and so we waited ...
and waited, and waited, and waited, and inquired (no, sorry) and waited
and waited and hesitantly inquired once more jesus I hate to bother you
again but could you just check ... ah, no, nothing yet, sorry. (One girl
in the box office giggled to the other as she asked, incredulously,
"Chuck? That's really his name?" ... aah, I should've given my middle
name, Éamon, as "chuck" in Ireland is a verb meaning to toss
something into the bin.)
The play was brilliant. Murphy was superb,
and I was pleasantly surprised to see Anne-Marie Duff (of "The Magdalene
Sisters") as Pegeen Mike, the female lead. It was the first time I'd seen
a Synge play performed, and I was delighted by the beauty and lilting
musicality of its language. It was funny as well as emotionally
intense, and for the most part beautifully performed by all the actors
(although I did share in some criticisms I read later of Duff's performance,
which did seem a bit rushed); Aisling O'Sullivan was particularly
wonderful as the Widow Quin. During intermission the lady seated next to me
told me in no uncertain terms that compared to the early 1970s Druid Theatre
production of the play, there was "no comparison" to Siobhán
McKenna's performance as Pegeen back then. Ah well, I was only
10.
