G.I. Jane gives a thumbs up! to POW abuse

And now here's a bit of personal philosophy from alpha charlie bravo:

Either one lives according to principles or one does not. One should not espouse a principle and then use the unprincipled actions of others to justify its violation. Otherwise, the principle becomes meaningless and nothing within the ethical realm is not relative. Of course, one may freely choose to advance a model of the world without clearly defined principles. But, that is not the sort of world I would prefer to live in.

I'm looking for this album:

Angola 72 by Bonga.
If you have it will you please make me a copy so I don't have to buy it from some European World Music wholesaler. Damn Europeans.... Or if you see it somewhere toss me a head up. I haven't yet begun to search the brick and mortar.

It's not as bad as you would hope, but it's not good either:

"Mr. Combs is not the wholesale embarrassment that connoisseurs of schadenfreude were hoping for...

Most disspiriting, though, is his lack of variety. Though his eyes gleam promisingly in the early scenes, there is rarely a flicker of transforming feeling on his handsome, self-assured face. You can only sympathize with [director Kenny] Leon, who has come up with various devices for working around this stolidity..."

But, he's eating the eggs!

God save Audra McDonald.

Cold. So very, very cold.


Sign the petition!

Paperback Writer Pt.II

New American Library has still not released Lynne Cheney's novel "Sisters," first published in 1981, much to the chagrin of anyone wanting to read it today. A few excerpts are available on this website.

My understanding is that Mrs. Cheney no longer holds the copyright on this work, so the decision to release the book or not is solely the publisher's.

And now, you can sign an online petition to compel the publisher to release this book and make it again available to the public.

Reissue Lynne Cheney's "Sisters" Petition

Did you see Meet The Press yesterday? Was not Saudi Arabia's Prince Bandar bin Sultan the shiftiest interviewee in television history? If you didn't see it, catch the rebroadcast on CNBC tonight and tell me, was he not the shiftiest interviewee in history?

"Dare to eat the eggs"

P. Diddy's Broadway Crash Course:

"Mr. Combs made a point: 'You have all these other teachers like Strasberg,' he said, turning toward Ms. Batson to check whether he had correctly pronounced the name of the illustrious acting teacher and co-founder of the Group Theater. Ms. Batson, who studied with Strasberg at the Actors Studio, nodded. 'But,' he continued, 'Susan has been able to simplify and make it more direct. Sometimes her help can be as crazy as `Dare to eat the eggs.' '

He was referring to an early scene in which Walter Lee's wife, Ms. McDonald makes him scrambled eggs. In the first few previews, Mr. Combs left the eggs on his plate, but after that he started taking a few forkfuls. 'People have come to see the play, real New York thespians and they're like, `Damn, he's really eating the eggs,' ' Mr. Combs said. ' `I can't believe it. He really can act.' "

Um... right.

Whatever

My favorite moment of the draft:

Bears third round pick, Bernard Berrian, was answering questions over the phone during the media conference call conducted by the team. He was apparently in a room where a party was taking place: you could hear people talking and music in the background. At one point, while fielding a question from a reporter, a young woman's voice comes clearly over the phone, "Baby, we're going to the store. Do you want anything?" "Whatever," Berrian replied and resumed his first meeting with the Chicago media.

alpha charlie bravo is on the clock...

Pat Tillman was killed in Afghanistan, which probably makes him the most famous soldier to die in recent conflicts and therefore, the most important.

"My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori."

-Wilfred Owen

I just worked 8 hours at a part-time job. Go, overworked American labor force.

Ok, just so there's no confusion, I am not really listening to Neko Case right now, I just don't feel like changing the image. I'm actually listening to Steve Dahl right now. My musical landscape is somewhat barren. Got any suggestions?

Write this down: M-A-R-S. Mars, bitches.

If there's anyone you really, really dislike and you wish that they were dead, set up a press conference announcing that person as the new head of Hamas in Gaza. Then just sit back and watch the missles fly.
But as always, I urge all sides to show restraint.

Whoever did John Kerry's makeup this morning on Meet the Press is one hell of an artist.

Paperback Writer

I didn't know this, but perhaps you did: the Vice President's wife Lynne, is a novelist. Among her literary accomplishments is a book called Sisters, which was first published in 1981. It was scheduled to be reissued this year, but for some reason the publisher had a change of heart. Here is the text of one reader's review from Amazon:

"[Sisters is] the lusty story of frigid, 19th century house wives thawed only by the gentle, loving caresses of one another. [It] probes trepidatiously into the sweet, secret delights that await them and brings forth the deep, damp passions lurking in all women as they take their first trembling steps toward their most fervent desires on a tawdry journey of self discovery."

Someone should start a letter-writing campaign to the publisher to have this book re-issued. It's time has finally come.

Which is more shocking?

Giant plastic fish,

or

Giant pink bunny?

Life During Wartime

Holy Saturday, Batman!

Shouldn't the networks start ramping up their Iraq coverage again? Kind of like when CBS leaves an NCAA tournament game because the favorite is up by twenty points, but comes back to the game when the underdog cuts the lead to five.

Nevertheless, I have been following the events in Iraq and if I've said it once, I've probably said it more than once:

"This ain't no party, this ain't no disco, this ain't no foolin' around."

Dats my word.

Weightless Again

The post that got misplaced last night was a strange rambling tome about cookies, yo-yo's and Leila Josefowicz. None of those topics have anything to do with each other, but as I recall, there was some lovely diction in the text. And this paragraph has nothing to do with the paragraph that follows:

I was driving home tonight contemplating dinner. My gut told me I should contrive a sensible meal so I can eat and go to bed comfortably at a reasonable hour. My dopamine receptors told me I should acquire two McRib sandwiches and stay up until at least 4am 'surfing the net' and playing PS2. Well, the only people who ignore their dopamine receptors are recovering substance abusers; and Bill is no friend of mine. So here I am.

But with it being Good Friday now, I won't eat meat for another 22 1/2 hours.

If I have nothing better to do on this Holy Weekend, I may indulge in some false cinematic piety and catch a screening of the "Jesus Chainsaw Massacre."

I really wish I had some cookies and yo-yo right now.

About seven hours ago, I was writing a post here. But, I lost the text and then I went to bed. I would recreate it, but at 9:00am those words don't make the same kind of sense they did at 2:00am.

Seen on the Highway:

A woman in a convertible with a refrigerator in the passenger seat.

A flatbed truck with a dozen 10-foot tall fiberglass guitars.

It's warm outside, it's baseball season and the McRib is back. What wondrous times we live in.

I should really write something here...