Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Happy New Year!
Tomorrow I go back to work after an 11-day vacation. I haven’t been at work since December 21. For my own future reference, here’s what I’ve done on my vacation:
Fri. 12/21 - left work early; met up with Luke to see “Michael Clayton,” followed by dinner at the Popover Cafe.
Sat. 12/22 - I saw “Atonement” by myself. At night, Matt and I saw a preview performance of November, David Mamet’s new play about the White House, starring Nathan Lane as the president. It sucked. Big disappointment.
Sun. 12/23 - Matt and I saw “Sweeney Todd.” We were invited to gathering at a Brooklyn bar but it was rainy and gross out so we just went home.
Mon. 12/24 - During the day, watched “Ratatouille” on DVD. At night, we had dinner with my parents and my brother and sister-in-law at Docks, a seafood restaurant on the Upper West Side. Christmas Eve and it was hopping, as was the West Side. Afterwards, Matt and I and my parents walked down Broadway and passed Al Franken and a woman (his wife?) walking in the opposite direction.
Tues. 12/25 - I went for a Christmas Day walk through Central Park by myself. Crowded. I walked from the northwestern to the southwestern corner. Then I met up with Luke and we saw “No Country For Old Men” at the AMC on 42nd Street. Afterwards, he came over to our apartment, and Matt and Luke and I ordered in Chinese food and played with the Wii.
Wed. 12/26 - Took the subway down to the Village. Got a haircut, went bookstore hopping, bought The Nine at the Strand. At night, we saw The Receptionist. Creepy! Then we came home and I watched the Kennedy Center Honors on TV. I’d never watched this before — it’s quite fun. I’ll have to watch it next year too.
Thurs. 12/27 - My birthday! I went to the movies by myself; I saw “The Savages.” Excellent, excellent movie. At night I had a birthday gathering at the Xth Avenue Lounge. Got drunk. Matt shepherded me home.
Fri. 12/28 - I can’t remember what I did during the day. At night, met Mike, Luke, Jim, and Jim’s friend at the Duplex for Mostly Sondheim. It was pouring when I left the Duplex. Got home at almost 4 in the morning. Trip home involved subway and taxi due to my impatience.
Sat. 12/29 - Watched “Zodiac” on DVD and fell in love with it. Struggled with the hardest NYT crossword puzzle ever. At night, went to Jim’s birthday party in the way East Village. Luke and Mike were there too. Got home late again.
Sun. 12/30 - Curled up with the Sunday paper, watched “Meet the Press.” Around 3:45 in the afternoon, I went out for another walk around Central Park — I desperately needed to get some daylight in before sunset. Walked around the northern end of the park, then partway down the east side, then took a crosstown bus home. At night, Matt and I saw “National Treasure: Book of Secrets.” Still in love with Justin Bartha.
Mon. 12/31 - Went for yet another long walk through Central Park. Popped into Barnes & Noble by Lincoln Center. Came home, read some more of my book. At night we went to a New Year’s Eve party at a swanky floor-through apartment in the Village along with Mike and our friend Dan. Got drunk. We got home at 2 a.m. and then watched Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin celebrate New Year’s in Times Square, which we’d TiVo’d. Gayest CNN New Year’s Eve ever?
Tues. 1/1 - Happy New Year. It looks crappy outside today. I’ll read more of my book and relax. Maybe see a movie? Who knows.
I tend to get sad about the passage of time. Happy moments occur, and then they end. But there are always more happy moments just over the horizon. The happiest moments often come unexpectedly. This vacation — heck, this month — was filled with them. Performing at the Big Apple Corps holiday concert on December 1 (it felt ridiculously early to be singing holiday songs), having our own chorus concert the following weekend, going up to sing at Vassar the weekend after that (well, I had awful laryngitis so I merely watched, but road trips are great).
Going on a road trip to a new place, curling up on the couch with a great movie: happy moments can be found anywhere.
May your 2008, and mine, be filled with such happy little moments.
Happy New Year.
2:36 PM | 5 drops of oil Here are some hilariously awful classical music album covers.
5:24 PM | 1 drop of oil Thursday, January 3, 2008
As a political junkie, I’m excited about tonight’s Iowa caucuses. But it’s a totally ridiculous system. As Gail Collins writes, “the sturdy Iowa voters will pull on their parkas and go out to fulfill their historic destiny. Perhaps as many as 15 percent of them!” Even David Broder, who is increasingly senescent, is on target here.
Not only will an incredibly small percentage of voters be choosing delegates in a process that doesn’t even allow a secret ballot; they’re not even choosing that many delegates. For instance, on the Democratic side, of the more than 4,000 delegates who will attend the Democratic Convention in August, how many delegates are Iowa Democrats choosing?
Fifty-six [whoops] Forty-five.
Yeah, 56 45 out of more than 4,000. That’s less than 2 percent of all delegates.
And yet the media will be hysterical and breathless tonight and tomorrow, and candidates will drop out either after Iowa or after New Hampshire next week.
It’s ridiculous.
I suggest a compromise. Let Iowa and New Hampshire be the first states to elect delegates (if they must), but make the results secret. No state should reveal the results of its primary or caucus until all 50 states have voted. That way, Iowa and New Hampshire can still go first, but they won’t have undue influence over any other state.
It’ll never happen, of course. Congress can’t make rules for state-by-state elections, let alone intra-party elections. And media companies will never forego their exit polls. And in our hypersaturated media age, the results would inevitably leak out somehow.
Our system sucks.
3:57 PM | 3 drops of oil I have this weird interest in the front page of the New York Times. One afternoon a few weeks ago I got quasi-Aspergic about it. It turns out you can look at any New York Times front page since February 13, 2002 by using a URL formatted like this one. Just enter the appropriate year, month and day.
Anyway, I realized that in all of 2007, the Times ran only two banner headlines. Neither of them took up more than one line and neither was in all caps, which usually identifies something REALLY IMPORTANT.
The first was on March 7, 2007, after Scooter Libby was convicted:
The second was on April 17, 2007, reporting the Virginia Tech shootings:
In fact, the last time the Times ran a multi-line, all-caps banner headline was more than a year ago (December 30, 2006), after Saddam Hussein was hanged:
I wonder if the Times is trying to de-emphasize banner headlines.
4:33 PM | 2 drops of oil Sunday, January 6, 2008
I still haven’t decided who I’m going to vote for in the New York primary next month.
I watched both the Republican and the Democratic debates last night. I watched the former for entertainment and the latter for information. I thought Obama and Clinton both acquitted themselves well. Edwards doesn’t seem to have much of a message other than “powerful people stand in your way,” and I’m sorry, but anger isn’t a plan.
One thing to keep in mind is that unlike in the general election in November, most Democratic presidential primaries are not winner-take-all; delegates are assigned somewhat proportionally to the vote the candidates receive. Therefore, if your favorite candidate isn’t polling among the top two candidates, you shouldn’t worry that you’d be throwing away your vote on that candidate or casting a spoiler vote.
Still - I honestly don’t know who I support.
10:47 PM | 4 drops of oil For those of you who are inclined to like Huckabee: keep in mind he’s got a completely insane tax proposal. How does a 30% sales tax — or more — sound? That’s incredibly regressive. (Taxes are progressive if people who make more money pay more taxes; they’re regressive if everyone pays the same tax rate, which means that the poorer you are, the higher proportion of your income that goes to taxes. Way unfair.)
He seems like a friendly guy, and he’s against Bush’s foreign policy, but this is an incredibly stupid tax plan.
11:03 PM | 17 drops of oil Bill Kristol’s first column for the New York Times — which runs in tomorrow’s paper — shows that he at least has a sense of humor.
We don’t want to increase the scope of the nanny state, we don’t want to undo the good done by the appointments of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, and we really don’t want to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory in Iraq.
Oh. You mean he was being serious?
[Mike Huckabee] began by calmly mentioning his and Obama’s contrasting views on issues from guns to life to same-sex marriage. This served to remind Republicans that these contrasts have been central to G.O.P. success over the last quarter-century, and to suggest that Huckabee could credibly and comfortably make the socially conservative case in an electorally advantageous way.
So Kristol advocates running on the wedge issues. Not only is he ideologically blinkered — he also supports cynical politics. Does he have any redeeming qualities as a thinker?
11:21 PM | 2 drops of oil Monday, January 7, 2008
Chris Bowers points out that even if Obama wins every primary before Super-Duper Tuesday on February 5th, Clinton could still have the most delegates and win the nomination:
Collectively, Clinton’s advantage in Super Delegates, Michigan, and February 5th home states provides her with roughly a 500 delegate advantage on Obama. If she were to also win Florida and California, which combine for 555 pledged delegates, it would be impossible for Obama to be ahead on delegates after February 5th. He could win every other state between now and February 6th, and never make up that sort of delegate deficit.
There are flaws in this analysis, as various commenters point out. But isn’t this fascinating? When was the last time the race was so fluid that people actually had to pay attention to delegate counts?
As for the Republican race - in which nobody seems to be a front-runner right now — I could see a scenario where February 5th doesn’t decide anything. If that happens, the last thing the Republicans would want is for a fight to break out at their nationally-televised convention in September, so there’d probably be some sort of brokered deal before then.
What a year.
1:54 PM | 2 drops of oil Okay, I think I’ve got a new crush: Will Coghlan of Political Lunch.
2:04 PM | 5 drops of oil I would love to know what Bill Clinton’s thinking right now.
On the one hand, he supports his wife, the mother of his daughter, his life partner of almost 40 years. Like Bill, Hillary’s incredibly smart and a policy wonk, and she’d be able to restore the Clintons to the White House, which would only help burnish Bill’s legacy.
Bill has said a few times that he’d be campaigning for Hillary even if they weren’t married.
But you just know that’s a lie. Bill’s got to be looking at Obama right now — a young, fresh-faced, incredibly talented politician with terrific communication skills — with a mixture of admiration, envy, and recognition, and I’m sure there’s a part of himself that wants Obama to win. If he weren’t married to Hillary, he’d totally be supporting Obama. And if Obama gets the nomination, he will be — not just out of party loyalty but out of sheer joy.
3:13 PM | oil me Tuesday, January 8, 2008
In this great piece about Obama, Gary Kamiya (one of Salon’s best writers) captures much of what I’m feeling.
Those who support Obama argue that he will be able to work more effectively with Republicans and independents than his rivals. Those who support Clinton or Edwards argue that Obama is a political naif who will go down singing “Kumbaya” while being eaten alive by the right wing. His critics also claim that Obama is too inexperienced to be entrusted with the nation’s highest office, but that argument smacks of bogus “war-on-terror” fear-mongering — Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz, who helped bring us the Iraq war, had decades of experience. It’s a false argument in any case: Character and brains count more than decades of cutting deals and shoveling pork through Congress.
The truth is, it’s impossible to know whether Obama would be a more effective president than his opponents. The question of whether bipartisan gentleness is more effective than tough confrontation is meaningless, both because there’s no single answer to it and because we have no way of knowing how any of the Democrats will actually govern — for all we know, Obama may turn out to be a harder-edged negotiatior than Edwards. So it’s really about intangibles. In the end, it may come down to how one feels about the great divide that was so painfully revealed in the 2004 elections.
1:34 PM | 1 drop of oil You have GOT to be fucking kidding me.
As one commenter on Salon said, “He has killed satire by pre-emption.”
1:44 PM | 1 drop of oil Here’s a live-blog of last night’s disappointing episode of “The Daily Show” (”an uncomfortable monologue and a near-endless interview about the strike”) and here’s one for last night’s “Colbert Report.”
Rovzar: ANDREW SULLIVAN IS THE GUEST. YES.
Kois: OH, NICE. ANDREW SULLIVAN: SCAB!
Rovzar: He sounds a little weird out loud. I say that with all due respect as a gay and an Andrew Sullivan reader.
Kois: Wait, what is his accent? Where is he from?
Rovzar: He’s British.
Kois: He is?
Rovzar: Yeah, originally. He’s not a citizen, I don’t think. So him talking about “us” and who “we” need is a little weird.
Kois: He sounds as though he’s stuck somewhere in, like, eighteenth-century Massachusetts.
Rovzar: I can just imagine him churning butter in a peasant frock.
5:24 PM | oil me We went to the theater tonight. As soon as we got home at 10:15, I turned on the TV to see that Clinton was leading Obama. What the hell? Twenty minutes later, news organizations began projecting her as the winner.
Despite being undecided, my heart sank. Does this mean I support Obama after all? I don’t know. But all the commentary in the last few days predicting a long-awaited end to the Bush vs. Clinton culture wars made me happy and excited. I was ready to wipe the slate clean. An end to political conflict.
And then I foresee Clinton winding up the nominee, and we get the same old politics; if she somehow gets elected, we return to the old Machiavellian-Clintonian tactics of the 1990s. Is that good or bad? I don’t know. I’m so confused. I thought I liked the Clintonian tactics. But although I’m a huge fan of Bill Clinton, his little rant today about the Obama “fairy tale” pissed me off.
Anyway, what this means is that we’ve got a race after all. Which is probably a good thing. The longer we go without a candidate, the longer we go without giving the Republicans a clear target.
If there hadn’t been any polls, this wouldn’t be such a shock. It would just be a result. The New Hampshire outcome is still close — it appears to be Clinton 39% to Obama 36%. This means they each get 8 delegates in New Hampshire.
This is so incredibly exciting. I love it. Even if I don’t know who the hell I support.
11:19 PM | 1 drop of oil Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Sign of the future: the New Hampshire primary is unusual because it’s an open primary — independents can vote in it. But in exit polling, among registered Democrats, Clinton beat Obama 45% to 34% — better than her showing among independents who voted in the Democratic primary. This is to Hillary’s advantage as the race continues goes on to states that have closed primaries.
12:12 AM | 3 drops of oil You know what — if I had to choose between Clinton upsetting Obama, and Romney upsetting McCain, I’d choose the former. I respect John McCain and I loathe Mitt Romney.
[Morning update: I shouldn’t have said “loathe.” In the past eight years, I’ve known what it truly means to loathe a politician. (Well, two.) I don’t think anything will ever match what I feel toward the current administration.]
12:25 AM | 2 drops of oil What is the New York Times’s problem? The day after the Iowa caucuses, the front-page headline was
OBAMA TAKES IOWA
IN BIG TURNOUT;
HUCKABEE VICTOR
This morning, it’s
CLINTON IS VICTOR,
DEFEATING OBAMA;
McCAIN ALSO WINS
Yes, Clinton’s win was a surprise, and therefore more “newsy” than McCain’s win. But Obama’s and Huckabee’s wins last week were both newsworthy and yet the headline made Huckabee’s win seem like an afterthought.
I’m sorry, but hiring Bill Kristol while openly rooting for Democrats on your front page is not what “balance” means.
10:04 AM | 4 drops of oil A little over a year from now, we have a good chance of having one of the following: the first black president (Obama), the first female president (Clinton), the first Mormon president (Romney), the oldest president to take office (McCain), the first Italian-American president (Giuliani), the first New York City mayor to become president (Giuliani).
Or it could be Huckabee or Thompson. (Don’t count him out in the South, especially in this unpredictable year.)
11:52 AM | 8 drops of oil ITDS. (It’s the delegates, stupid.)
1:39 PM | 1 drop of oil Friday, January 11, 2008
I spent my entire therapy session last night talking about politics.
Seriously. Except for one sentence at the beginning about something else, I spent the entire 45 minutes talking about the presidential race. But it was not a waste of money — it tied into my psyche.
I’m taking my vote in the New York Democratic primary next month very seriously. I’ve never thought so hard about a vote before. This is my first time voting in a primary, so it’s my first time having to choose between two or more Democrats.
Voting is a completely irrational act. The idea that my single vote will make a difference in an election is ridiculous — rare is the election that has been decided by one vote. There’s no need for me to spend so much time deciding whom to vote for when it’s extremely unlikely that my vote will matter.
And yet my vote does matter, because everyone else’s vote matters. Each individual voter, making up his or her own mind, is an important molecule in a large weather pattern.
And anyway, we should all think hard about our opinions on important issues, whether we get to vote on them or not. Thoughtful opinions lead to thoughtful discourse.
So, I keep going back and forth between Obama and Clinton.
I’m wary of anyone who’s too enthusiastic about Obama. All the Obama-worship is unsettling. This comment touches on much of what I feel about him. “Obama is a self-conscious messianic figure who is running a messianic campaign.” Yes. I find it creepy.
Our civic culture is going down the tubes, and it goes beyond the White House. Special interests control Congress; the media is lazy, distorting, and entertainment-driven; the American attention span shrinks by the month. A charismatic president alone can’t fix things. In fact, the executive branch isn’t supposed to be able to fix things all by itself. Our constitutional system is set up to resist change. It’s naive, idealistic and foolish to think that one incredibly well-spoken man (and he is incredibly well-spoken) is going to bring us all together, that he’ll inspire the Republicans and the corporations and the insurance companies to hold hands with all of us as we solve health care and skip down that happy yellow-brick road into a land filled with rainbows.
New Hampshire was a relief. Some people were speculating not if, but when Hillary should drop out. I saw or read something like the following: “The Clintons will have to decide if they really want to be the ones who tried to get in the way of this amazing historical moment.” Something like that. It felt like drug-induced euphoria, and even I got caught up in it, and looking back at those giddy five days from Thursday through Tuesday, it was really, really weird.
On Tuesday night I decided I was probably going to vote for Clinton. And despite what I just said in the previous few paragraphs, I’m ashamed to say that the reason was almost entirely emotional. Call me a sap, but when Hillary got on stage and said, “Over the last week, I listened to you, and in the process [pause, then softly:] … I found my own voice,” it touched something inside me. I’d never heard her say anything like that before. It built on her famous emotional moment the day before. (Which was not “tears” or “crying,” by the way, and I wish people would stop mischaracterizing it. And fie on anyone who thinks she was faking it. One, she’s not a good enough actor to fake it, and two, why would she want to, when conventional wisdom told us that an emotional breakdown would mean instant death to any female presidential candidacy?)
What really got me was the next day. I was talking to my mom over the phone the day after the New Hampshire primary, and I asked her what she thought. “Good for her,” she said emphatically. She said Obama seems to be all talk and she liked seeing Hillary win.
Listening to Hillary, talking to my mom, hearing my mom support Hillary… this all mixed together in my brain, and I realized what was behind my feelings. When I finally saw Hillary’s softer side this week, to me it made her seem… maternal. I love my mom, and I received enormous affection from her when I was growing up. So I guess something in me adores middle-aged maternal women, and I saw it in Hillary in those two days.
And I thought, that’s the only thing Hillary had been missing: heart. She has experience, she’s tough-minded and practical, she knows how to deal with Congress — and on top of all that, she’s actually human after all.
I’d yell “You go, girl!” if it wasn’t such a cliché by now.
All of this started to fade yesterday to the point where I don’t know anymore. I’ve realized Obama isn’t an idealistic empty suit after all; it’s just that the messianic fervor around him turns me off and makes me wary. But Clinton isn’t a valueless Machiavellian; she really does want to make the world a better place.
I’m still leaning toward Clinton right now. But I reserve the right to change my mind again and again before February 5 — and I probably will.
4:04 PM | 7 drops of oil Sunday, January 13, 2008
I just finished reading The Votes That Counted: How the Court Decided the 2000 Presidential Election, by Howard Gillman. It’s a well-balanced focus on the court decisions involved in resolving the 2000 election - the lower courts, the Florida Supreme Court, and the U.S. Supreme Court.
I checked to see if I could find a diagram online of all the complex litigation surrounding the Florida recounts, and boy did I find one.
2:19 PM | oil me Monday, January 14, 2008
I found this quote from an old profile of Barack Obama in the May 31, 2004, issue of The New Yorker:
Jan Schakowsky told me about a recent visit she had made to the White House with a congressional delegation. On her way out, she said, President Bush noticed her “obama” button. “He jumped back, almost literally,” she said. “And I knew what he was thinking. So I reassured him it was Obama, with a ‘b.’ And I explained who he was. The President said, ‘Well, I don’t know him.’ So I just said, ‘You will.’ ”
11:12 AM | oil me Congratulations to my home state, New Jersey, which yesterday became the second state in the country to join the National Popular Vote Compact, after Maryland.
The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is essentially an end run around the electoral college. It stipulates that participating states will assign their electoral votes in a presidential election to the candidate who wins the popular vote nationally. The catch is, it won’t go into effect until states possessing a majority of electoral votes (270) pass the law. This matters because if at least 270 electoral votes are committed to the popular vote winner nationally, the candidate has won the electoral college and therefore the election. It makes the electoral vote, and therefore the election, dependent on the national popular vote.
It’s ingenious. To amend the Constitution directly, 3/4 of the states’ legislatures would have to agree, which will never happen because there are enough small states that prefer the disproportionate advantage that the electoral college gives them.
But the National Popular Vote idea is perfectly constitutional, because under the Constitution, states can allocate their electoral votes however they wish. (They don’t even have to assign it according to the state’s popular vote if they don’t want to.)
With Maryland and New Jersey, there are now 25 electoral votes on board. Only 245 to go. There’s practically no chance this will go into effect by the 2008 election, and after the 2010 census, perhaps Maryland or New Jersey will lose electoral votes. Maybe enough states will sign on by 2012.
5:17 PM | oil me This appears to be a clip from a production of “Moose Murders,” the infamous Broadway flop.
11:09 PM | 2 drops of oil Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Amen. Tim Russert is too interested in playing “gotcha” and making headlines.
1:06 AM | oil me Happy Blogaversary to me.
9:36 AM | 5 drops of oil Hey - you guys? Those of you who think Mitt Romney wouldn’t be such a bad Republican nominee? Those of you who think he’d be the least-bad Republican that could take office next year?
Last month, Charlie Savage, Pulitzer-prize-winning Boston Globe journalist and author of Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy, wrote up the results of a questionnaire he sent each of the major presidential candidates regarding their views of executive branch power. Along with a summary, he presented each candidate’s responses to the questionnaire.
Romney gave some of the scariest answers, basically supporting everything that Dick Cheney and David Addington have done over the past seven years to create a monarchical executive branch that can do whatever it wants.
Excerpts:
1. Does the president have inherent powers under the Constitution to conduct surveillance for national security purposes without judicial warrants, regardless of federal statutes?
Intelligence and surveillance have proven to be some of the most effective national security tools we have to protect our nation. Our most basic civil liberty is the right to be kept alive and the President should not hesitate to use every legal tool at his disposal to keep America safe.
Surveillance without warrants is a-o.k., and damn any Congressional statutes — they’re only the law, after all.
4. Under what circumstances, if any, would you sign a bill into law but also issue a signing statement reserving a constitutional right to bypass the law?
I share the view of many past presidents that signing statements are an important presidential practice.
President Bush has issued a record number of signing statements that he claims allow him to bypass any laws he believes are unconstitutional. The proper response to such bills is to veto them. More on signing statements. (This was the basis for Savage’s Pulitzer.)
7. If Congress defines a specific interrogation technique as prohibited under all circumstances, does the president’s authority as commander in chief ever permit him to instruct his subordinates to employ that technique despite the statute?
A President should decline to reveal the method and duration of interrogation techniques to be used against high value terrorists who are likely to have counter-interrogation training. This discretion should extend to declining to provide an opinion as to whether Congress may validly limit his power as to the use of a particular technique, especially given Congress’s current plans to try to do exactly that.
Translation: Presidents can authorize torture no matter what Congress says.
8. Under what circumstances, if any, is the president, when operating overseas as commander-in-chief, free to disregard international human rights treaties that the US Senate has ratified?
The President must carry out all of his duties in a manner consistent with the rule of law, whether it is our Constitution or valid international agreements, so long as they do not impinge upon the President’s constitutional authority.
“[S]o long as they do not impinge upon the President’s constitutional authority.” These are code words for the unitary executive theory, which misinterprets the Constitution to grant the president near-monarchical powers in certain areas of law. For instance, each of Bush’s signing statements says that he will execute the law “in a manner consistent with his constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch.” How broadly does Romney interpret “the President’s constitutional authority”? See question 10:
10. Is there any executive power the Bush administration has claimed or exercised that you think is unconstitutional? Anything you think is simply a bad idea?
The Bush Administration has kept the American people safe since 9/11. The Administration’s strong view on executive power may well have contributed to that fact.
That speaks for itself. Everything Bush has done is fine!
Romney may not be as socially conservative as he currently claims to be. But when it comes to executive power, Romney would be as much of a nightmare as Giuliani.
2:17 PM | 6 drops of oil Thursday, January 17, 2008
A few months ago a film director pseudonymously named “T.S. Slaughter” asked to send me a copy of his recent film, “Skull & Bones,” in return for a review. It’s a gay-themed horror film that takes place on a college campus. Very, very, very low-budget production values, from all appearances, except the vermin are apparently real.
It really wasn’t my cup of tea at all, but “Mr. Slaughter” did send me a copy of the film, so I owe him at least a mention. Here’s the trailer.
2:18 PM | 3 drops of oil My hero Michael Chabon weighs in on Richard Cohen’s guilt-by-association hackjob the other day on Obama.
[Update: “hackjob”? Perhaps I meant “hatchet job.” It’s not like he hacked into Obama’s computer or something.]
5:25 PM | 1 drop of oil Friday, January 18, 2008
As a U.S. history buff, I like this idea:
[Barack Obama] is more likely to be remembered as the first authentic 21st century presidential candidate–as arguably Theodore Roosevelt was the first 20th century candidate and Thomas Jefferson the first 19th century candidate. As such Obama, like Roosevelt and Jefferson before him, transcends traditional categories we have constructed to analyze and understand presidential candidacies.
12:37 PM | 2 drops of oil Saturday, January 19, 2008
Here’s a site with sound files for network news music. It even has NBC’s election coverage music, which seems to be the same music that MSNBC has been using in this election cycle.
(Election coverage music sometimes sends tingles down my spine. Yeah, I’m a political junkie.)
6:28 PM | oil me Ann Lewis, one of Hillary Clinton’s senior advisers, is speaking on MSNBC right now, and when she speaks she totally reminds me of Mrs. Landingham.
6:32 PM | oil me Y’know, Hillary Clinton says y’know a lot. She uses it whenever she speaks extemporaneously in an interview or a debate. Once you first notice it, it’s impossible to ignore.
7:22 PM | oil me So, McCain has won the South Carolina primary. As he said in his victory speech, it only took him eight years.
His win is pretty amazing when you consider his prospects last summer. In fact, I just found a New York Times article from exactly six months ago — July 19, 2007 — that presents a vastly different Republican race.
The decline of John McCain’s presidential campaign, and the rising profile of Fred D. Thompson as a prospective contender, are forcing candidates to rewrite their strategies as they adjust to a playing field vastly different from just one month ago…
The shifting strategies reflect a Republican campaign that remains in extraordinary flux, particularly compared with the Democratic field. In the space of a month, the party has witnessed not only the near-collapse of the campaign of Mr. McCain, once considered the party’s most formidable contender, but also the ascendancy in polls of Mr. Thompson, a former actor.
To confront a Thompson candidacy, Mr. Romney’s aides said they were adding to their forces in South Carolina, the state with the fourth nominating contest, in hopes of handing Mr. Thompson a decisive defeat in a state with a heavy conservative population and where he presumably has regional appeal…
Mr. Thompson’s advisers, saying they would speak only anonymously until their candidate gets into the race, confirmed that assessment, saying that Mr. Thompson intended to present himself as the most conservative candidate in the race and would go to South Carolina as part of his announcement swing….
In interviews, aides to the Republican candidates said they did not want to say or do anything — like poaching former McCain aides — that could offend Mr. McCain and complicate any effort to win his endorsement should he drop out of the race…
The article also mentions Rudy Giuliani several times. But it doesn’t mention Mike Huckabee at all.
How things change.
10:35 PM | oil me Sunday, January 20, 2008
It’s official: George W. Bush leaves office in exactly one year.
I’m not as concerned with how much time he has to further fuck up our country (plenty) as I’m concerned with how long it’s going to take us to clean up all the damage he’s done.
T-minus 366 days and counting…
12:00 PM | oil me An oldie but goodie:
Universe Ends As God Wakes Up Next To Suzanne Pleshette.
R.I.P., Suzanne Pleshette.
7:31 PM | oil me Monday, January 21, 2008
Ten years ago last night, several days after it appeared in the Drudge Report, the news of Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky broke into the mainstream news media via ABC News and the Washington Post.
From the Washington Post print edition, January 21, 1998: Clinton Accused of Urging Aide to Lie.
Independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr has expanded his investigation of President Clinton to examine whether Clinton and his close friend Vernon Jordan encouraged a 24-year-old former White House intern to lie to lawyers for Paula Jones about whether the intern had an affair with the president, sources close to the investigation said yesterday.
Clinton, coincidentally, had several media interviews scheduled that day to discuss his upcoming State of the Union address, including this one with Jim Lehrer of PBS.
JIM LEHRER: Mr. President, welcome.
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Thank you Jim.
JIM LEHRER: The news of this day is that Kenneth Starr, independent counsel, is investigating allegations that you suborn perjury by encouraging a 24-year-old woman, former White House intern, to lie under oath in a civil deposition about her having had an affair with you. Mr. President, is that true?
For an engrossing narrative of the events surrounding the eruption of the scandal, read this excerpt from The Survivor: Bill Clinton in the White House, by John F. Harris.
4:15 PM | 2 drops of oil Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Yesterday I finally saw “Fight Club” for the first time, that cultural touchstone, becoming the last American male over the age of 20 to do so. Took me long enough.
Unfortunately, about a year ago someone spoiled me on the plot twist. (Whoever it was, I hate you.) I tried to watch the movie pretending to myself that I didn’t know, but it didn’t totally work. Various scenes took on extra meaning even though I tried to pretend they didn’t.
I still enjoyed the movie — how can you not enjoy a David Fincher movie? And in a way I feel like I saw the movie for the first and the second times simultaneously.
So I guess I’m all caught up on pop culture now.
11:13 AM | oil me Note to self:
To avoid heart attack, do not look at 401(k) or Roth IRA balances over the next few months.
12:48 PM | 1 drop of oil I have nothing to add to this.
In his dress shirt and tie, and with his unwavering smile, [Mitt Romney] walked over and posed for photographs with a group of black youngsters. Putting his arm around a teenage girl, he waved to the cameras and offered, “Who let the dogs out?” He added a tepid “woof woof.”
Somewhere, the Baha Men, the Bahamian group whose 2000 song the candidate was referencing, must have been shuddering.
Kevin Madden, one of Mr. Romney’s campaign boyz on the bus, said the candidate had been joking around and had responded to someone who asked, “Who let you out?”
Later, Mr. Romney admired a child’s gold necklace and said, “Oh, you’ve got some bling-bling here.”
2:41 PM | oil me I like this article from Sunday’s Times about Obama’s 26-year-old speechwriter, and not just because he’s cute.
When Mr. Obama’s White Sox swept Mr. Favreau’s beloved Red Sox three games to none in their American League 2005 division series, the senator walked over to his speechwriter’s desk with a little broom and started sweeping it off.
(OK, I just realized I’ve linked to New York Times articles in my last three posts. Need more sources!)
3:02 PM | oil me I’m sorry, but this really freaks me out.
3:13 PM | oil me Well, that sure was an uncomfortable debate to watch last night. You think maybe Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama don’t like each other these days?
I think last night’s debate was more of a meta-debate. It was less about the candidates’ positions on the issues and more about how the candidates handle conflict and challenge. And Obama disappointed me there.
This piece explains it: Big Speech Obama is not the same as Debate Obama. Clinton played loose and unfairly with the facts at times, — for instance, harping on Obama’s “present” votes in the Illinois legislature. Obama tried to explain those votes, but I don’t totally understand his explanation, even with the help of this. Then she attacked him for what he’d said about Reagan, totally distorting his words. It was dirty.
But unfortunately, the meta-debate is what mattered last night. And Obama is just not good at arguing with Clinton. He’s not good at arguing with anyone — not good at the rough-and-tumble, while Clinton excels at it. She is tough. I think she’s going to get the nomination and she’ll be a much better candidate than Gore or Kerry was. I was thinking last night that I can’t wait to see her in a debate with the Republican nominee next fall.
Obama has had the misfortune in these primaries to go up against her, because she seems to be the best debater out of all the candidates in either party this year. But honestly, if you’re not good at the rough-and-tumble, you won’t make a very good president. Obama defenders, feel free to disagree with me, but that’s where I see things.
I think Clinton’s going to get the nomination. And it’ll be nice to have the person who plays tough and dirty be on our side for once. We don’t need another milquetoast Democrat running against the Republicans.
3:50 PM | 2 drops of oil I’m not a New Jersey resident, but since I work in the state I have to fill out a non-resident tax form when I do my taxes. I’ve noticed that this year, the non-resident and resident forms refer to “spouse/CU partner” for the first time. (Civil unions went into effect in New Jersey last February.)
It’s nice to see these relationships “officialized” on tax forms.
4:33 PM | oil me Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Last night we had our first chorus rehearsal of the spring season. It looks to be a terrific concert, including works by Schoenberg, Brahms, Mozart, and others.
One piece we’re singing, “Last Letter Home,” blew us away. It was composed last year by Lee Hoiby; the text comes from a letter written by a U.S. soldier who died in Iraq. Private First Class Jesse Givens was killed on May 1, 2003, when his tank plunged into the Euphrates River after the bank on which he was parked gave way. The other crew members escaped, but Givens drowned.
He’d written a letter to his family to be opened in the event of his death: his wife Melissa, his stepson Dakota (nicknamed “Toad”), and his unborn son, nicknamed “Bean.”
We sang it for the first time last night. Half of us were wiping our eyes afterwards. My voice kept breaking as I tried to sing the text.
…I searched all my life for a dream and I found it in you. I would like to think that I made a positive difference in your lives. I will never be able to make up for the bad. I am so sorry. The happiest moments in my life all deal with my little family. I will always have with me the small moments we all shared. The moments when you quit taking life so serious and smiled. The sound of a beautiful boys laughter or the simple nudge of a baby unborn. You will never know how complete you have made me… You opened my eyes to a world I never knew existed…
Dakota you are more son then I could ever ask for. … You have a big beautiful heart. … I will always be there in our park when you dream so we can still play. I hope someday you will have a son like mine. … I love you toad I will always be there with you. I’ll be in the sun, shadows, dreams, and joys of your life.
Bean, I never got to see you but I know in my heart you are beautiful. …
I have never been so blessed as I was on the day I met Melissa Dawn Benfield. You are my angel, soulmate, wife, lover, and best friend. I am sorry. I did not want to have to write this letter. There is so much more I need to say, so much more I need to share. A lifetime’s worth. I married you for a million lifetimes. That’s how long I will be with you. … Please find it in your heart to forgive me for leaving you alone. … Do me a favor, after you tuck Toad and Bean in, give them hugs and kisses from me. Go outside and look at the stars and count them. Don’t forget to smile.
Here’s the entire letter. Links to the original, handwritten letter are at the bottom of the page.
His son was born a few weeks after he died.
12:59 PM | 1 drop of oil Unsurprisingly, “Brokeback Mountain” and “A Knight’s Tale” are both among the 20 best-selling DVDs on Amazon.com today.
3:00 PM | oil me Thursday, January 24, 2008
I had jury duty today. I have it again tomorrow.
This is my first time having jury duty. I don’t know how I’ve managed to avoid it in the past, but I guess everyone’s number comes up eventually.
I wasn’t picked for a jury today - I didn’t even get randomly picked to go through voir dire. But I got to watch a bunch of other people go through it. It was actually really interesting to listen to a group of randomly-assembled New Yorkers talk about their jobs, where they live, their family status, and whether they’d ever been the victim of a crime. (If I get chosen for voir dire tomorrow I guess I’ll mention this incident.)
It’s fun playing anthropology at jury duty. Especially in Manhattan, with all its diversity. Among the randomly-chosen people were a fashion designer, a magazine editor, some corporate types, a vegetable-stand owner, a custodian, and an actress/cocktail waitress.
Also, there were two Svetlanas.
Assuming I don’t actually get picked for a jury, jury duty isn’t so bad.
9:07 PM | 2 drops of oil The New York Times has endorsed Hillary Clinton and John McCain for the Democratic and Republican nominations.
This passage from the McCain endorsement is sure to get the most press:
Why, as a New York-based paper, are we not backing Rudolph Giuliani? Why not choose the man we endorsed for re-election in 1997 after a first term in which he showed that a dirty, dangerous, supposedly ungovernable city could become clean, safe and orderly? What about the man who stood fast on Sept. 11, when others, including President Bush, went AWOL?
That man is not running for president.
The real Mr. Giuliani, whom many New Yorkers came to know and mistrust, is a narrow, obsessively secretive, vindictive man who saw no need to limit police power. Racial polarization was as much a legacy of his tenure as the rebirth of Times Square.
Mr. Giuliani’s arrogance and bad judgment are breathtaking. When he claims fiscal prudence, we remember how he ran through surpluses without a thought to the inevitable downturn and bequeathed huge deficits to his successor. He fired Police Commissioner William Bratton, the architect of the drop in crime, because he couldn’t share the limelight. He later gave the job to Bernard Kerik, who has now been indicted on fraud and corruption charges.
The Rudolph Giuliani of 2008 first shamelessly turned the horror of 9/11 into a lucrative business, with a secret client list, then exploited his city’s and the country’s nightmare to promote his presidential campaign.
I don’t think the Times like Rudy very much anymore.
By the way, here’s the paper’s 1997 endorsement of Giuliani for re-election as mayor.
9:27 PM | oil me Friday, January 25, 2008
Two short items:
(1) I’ve deleted my Friendster account. I never use it anymore and I’ve been getting too much Friendster spam messages from fake women lately. So it’s gone.
(2) Don’t you wish you could do CTRL-F in real life to find your keys, your glasses, your cellphone?
6:02 PM | 4 drops of oil Sunday, January 27, 2008
After Obama’s unexpectedly large victory over Hillary Clinton in South Carolina yesterday, I’m leaning toward voting for him again.
Bill Clinton’s been pissing me off lately. My opinions of him have changed over the years. When he first started running in 1991 and into 1992, I thought he was a big slimeball. This northern Jew would never vote for a slick Southern small-state governor. And then somehow things changed; was it when he picked Al Gore as his running mate? Was it when Ross Perot dramatically dropped out of the race mere hours before Clinton gave his stirring acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, allowing him to make a fresh appeal to dissatisfied voters and catapulting him into the lead with the greatest post-convention poll bounce in 50 years? (This article sums up that crazy week in which Bill’s fortunes changed.)
At any rate, I fell in political love with Bill Clinton. He was incredibly smart. He knew everything about everything and could talk about all of it. On top of that, he loved the New York Times crossword.
I winced at all his missteps in early 1993. I felt personally hurt when the Republicans took back Congress in 1994. I supported him for re-election in 1996, even if I cringed at his bland, substanceless “build that bridge to the 21st century” claptrap. I supported him wholeheartedly during the impeachment crisis, even though I was disappointed at what he’d done to cause it.
I was sad when he left office. I missed him whenever I watched George W. Bush give an Oval Office speech or a State of the Union address. I was impressed with the Clinton Global Initiative. Bill Clinton seemed to have turned into a real statesman.
But in the last few weeks he’s gone down into the gutter. I don’t like it, and I don’t like how Hillary is letting Bill do her dirty work for her. It just seems — well, unfair. Not only that — it also gives the Republicans great ammunition for the fall if Hill