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January 30, 2007
Feckless Congressional crap-weasels
Where are the serious politicians, the ones who actually think about the consequences of their actions -- and put the national interest before that of self or party?
I'll tell you where they ain't: in the GOP.
Check out this exchange between Hugh Hewitt and House Minority Leader John Boehner, discussing the congressman's lame-brained idea to set a series of "benchmarks" for the war in Iraq.
HH: What do you think the enemy thinks about your benchmark proposal?
JB: Uh, I think it helps the administration. I think it puts pressure on the Iraqi government to step up. If you look at the President’s proposal, it’s dependent upon the relatively new Iraqi government to step up and do what it has to do. And I think that having these benchmarks out there send a very clear signal to the Iraqis that we’re going to expect them to do what they have to do.
HH: But the question was what do you think the enemy thinks about your resolution?
JB: We’re measuring progress. We’re measuring success.
HH: But do you think the enemy thinks it’s a bad thing that you’ve put this into place?
JB: I don’t think so.
Where're my blood pressure pills? I can hear the arteries in my brain creaking.
Unbelievable.
Dean Barnett has an explanation for Boehner's pathetic performance, and it's even more troubling.
SO WHAT ARE WE TO MAKE OF THIS? Two possible scenarios – one is that Boehner knows damn well what this will do for the enemy and yet he still wants to pass the resolution for political reasons. The other scenario, and frankly I find this one both more likely and more chilling, is that Boehner has never even considered, not for one second, the effect his resolution will have on the enemy. Hugh’s question caught him off guard and without an answer because to him, it seemed like a non-sequitur.
Such is the nature of the political vacuum that our politicians dwell in. While Boehner may not have considered what effect his resolution will have in the enemy, I would bet he spent extensive time figuring out what effect it will have on the political landscape. That one he no doubt calculated within an inch of its life.
Apart from the danger we face from abroad, this idiocy from the Republican leadership bodes ill for the political health of the Republic, terrorists be damned.
If the GOP can't muster just a little courage and smarts to differentiate themselves from the Democrats (ably represented by Hanoi Jane Fonda calling for an immediate withdrawl from Iraq), then there's scant reason for conservatives to cast a vote in the next election cycle.
Bad times, my friends, bad times.
Posted by Mike Lief at 11:40 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Picard, we hardly knew ya
Ricky Gervais, the brilliant British actor who created and starred in the original version of The Office -- upon which the American version starring Steve Carrell is based -- is currently starring in a series on HBO.
Called Extras, it follows the struggle of a British actor (Gervais), trying to achieve stardom, one painful bit-part at a time. The show has numerous stars playing warped versions of themselves, and this scene, with Patrick Stewart (Star Trek: The Next Generation) is simply priceless.
Don't miss the last 10 seconds; so true, so sad.
Posted by Mike Lief at 11:02 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 29, 2007
Tales from the courtroom
I just finished a drug-related trial and had an interesting experience during jury selection.
The judge had 12 prospective jurors in the box, with another six seated in the well in front of the box; after his initial questions, he allowed the lawyers to enter the well and begin voir dire, the questioning of the panel.
Juror #1, the president of the local chapter of the ACLU, thinks drugs should be decriminalized.
I ask her how she feels about being called on to remove her Birkenstocks and slip her calloused feet into The Man's jackboots, grinding them into the neck of the downtrodden member of the proletariat sitting in the dock.
"I can be fair," she says.
"So, even though you vehemently disagree with the law, you're confident that you could vote to convict the defendant of felony drug possession, if I prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he had meth in his wallet.
"Yes, I can."
Riiiiiiiiight.
"Your Honor, the People thank and ask the Court to excuse Juror #1, Ms. X."
Buh-bye.
The seat is filled by someone from the six-pack in front, and the peremptory is with the defense.
The defense kicks a juror, the seat is filled, the judge questions the new guy, then lets us inquire, and the pick is back to me.
"Your Honor, the People accept the panel."
"Ms. Defense Attorney, the peremptory is with the defense."
She boots another prospective juror out of the box, a replacement is seated, questioned, and it's again my turn.
"They still look good, Your Honor; People accept the panel."
This goes on for a while, with the defense culling the jury box, and me standing over and over to say, "I like these guys; looooooking good," etc.
Finally, I'm questioning a woman in the back row -- Ms. Y -- who had told us in chambers that she'd been prosecuted by my office in the past. I ask her, if she were in my shoes, would she want to have someone like her on the jury?
She pauses, thinks.
"That's a good question."
I tilt my head and gaze at her steadily, a quizzical look on my face.
"Yeah, I'd probably want me on the jury."
"Good enough for me," I say, and walk back to counsel table.
I had a good feeling about her; she said she'd been treated fairly by the system, and I think she wanted an opportunity to show that she was a law-abiding member of society.
"Pass for cause, Your Honor."
"The peremptory is with the People."
"Accept the panel, Your Honor."
"Peremptory is with the defense."
"The defense thanks and asks the Court to excuse Juror #4, Ms. Y."
A grizzled fellow settles into the empty chair and begins answering the judge's questions.
"My name is Sgt. Rock. I retired from the Los Angeles Police Department after 30 years."
I surreptitiously glance to my left at the defense attorney, who is staring at her legal pad.
He continues, in a gravelly baritone.
"I graduated from the police academy in 1963, was a patrol officer for eight years, then a patrol sergeant for 22 or 23 years. I worked in four divisions and spent some time working robbery/homicide."
I pinch myself, 'cause I must be dreaming. I look at my notes, pokerfaced.
Hey! I think she's used up all her peremptory challenges. That's gotta sting.
I sneak another glance, and the defendant is not looking very happy with this development.
If life has a soundtrack, the defense attorney's is sounding like this:
(muffled trumpets)
Wahhhhhhh,Wahhhhhhh,Wahhhhhhh,Wahhhhhhhhhhhh.
She questions the retired Sgt. Hard-ass, searching for a basis to challenge him for cause (and thus not needing a peremptory to bounce him from the panel), but he answers that, no, he won't give the testimony of a cop more weight than that of a criminal defendant.
He gives her nothing, and she sits, dejected.
I enter the well, look at him and say, "Sergeant, I've got no questions for you," and sit.
"People accept the panel, your honor."
They convict.
There are no rules in jury selection; it's an art, not a science, where gut feelings are more important than rigid guidelines, but this is a classic example of trying to save a couple of peremptories for the end, so you don't get stuck with the one juror you absolutely, positively don't want.
In ten years of doing this for a living, I've never seen a bigger, Homer Simpson-worthy "D'OH!" moment during jury selection than this.
If it's any consolation to the defense, at least it was a case where the defendant -- a mild-mannered hobo who likes to get high once in a while, without a history of violence or theft -- wasn't facing serious time.
Posted by Mike Lief at 07:09 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
January 28, 2007
Notes from Davos
So, a bunch of tree-hugging do-gooder politicians and wealthy celebrities are gathered in Davos, Switzerland, for their yearly gabfest, devising any number of schemes to blame the West -- and especially America -- for the ills of the world.
Global warming is amongst this year's greatest hits, although they might enjoy a little greater moral susasion, but for details like this from the Economist.
OK, WE'RE not in America, but a session in Davos today on American energy security would have been a touch more convincing if we hadn't been sitting in an overheated hotel room with the windows wide open so that this expensively produced heat dissipated into the freezing air outside.
That's some delicious irony, no?
Posted by Mike Lief at 09:55 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Andy Rooney, cheapshot artist
Andy Rooney's 60 Minutes commentary tonight was a classic Bush-is-an-idiot diatribe. My favorite cheap shot: Rooney saying "I wish the president would learn how to pronounce "nuclear."
Cue up the footage of last week's State of the Union address, with Pres. Bush saying "nuke-u-ler" twice.
Comments our cranky octogenarian, "Makes you wonder how he graduated from Yale."
Here's a question for you: Do you think Rooney ever lamented the inability of Pres. Carter to correctly pronounce "nuclear," as he wondered with a smirk how the ex-president graduated from the Naval Academy?
I didn't think so.
And it's not just Saint Jimmuh who gets a pass.
According to a post on Slate:
Bush isn't the only American president to lose the "nucular" war. In his "On Language" column in the New York Times Magazine in May 2001, William Safire lamented that, besides Bush, at least three other presidents—Eisenhower, Carter, and Clinton—have mangled the word.
The Slate article also notes that the Merriam-Webster Dictionary has listed the Bush/Carter/Clinton/Ike-preferred pronunciation as an acceptable alternative since 1961.
As for Rooney?
What a hack.
Posted by Mike Lief at 07:56 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Special features
I suppose if a custom-built home was a possibility, it'd be fun to add a few of these features to the design. The bookcase and the chair are especially cool.
Posted by Mike Lief at 07:26 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
January 27, 2007
Report from Baghdad
This report has to be seen to be believed. The Brit news anchor warns viewers that they're about to see "shocking" video of Iraqi troops beating the crap out of three unlawful combatants and -- horrors! -- the Americans stand by and do nothing to stop it.
The tone of the entire report is simply infuriating, and provides the best argument in favor of military censorship.
I'm quite convinced that we'd have quit WWII -- or in the parlance of today's Democrats and weak-kneed, fair-weather Republicans, conducted a phased redeployment of U.S. troops -- if the GIs got the same treatment by the media.
Mark Steyn commented to Hugh Hewitt this week that, while those opposed to the war have the Democrats on their side, it would be nice if those of us who support the fight had a political party reliably in favor of victory, not compromise.
Amazing that a mere 61 years have passed since Americans joined together, united in the belief that the United States should -- hell, must -- triumph over our enemies, and that death and destruction were the unavoidable consequences of war, to be grimly endured until the enemy was bled to the point of defeat ... or annihilation.
What's happened to us?
Posted by Mike Lief at 11:21 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Not a good idea
I'm pretty sure it's not a good idea to load this page on your laptop and refresh it while waiting for your plane to take off.
Posted by Mike Lief at 07:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 26, 2007
21 reasons for war (or 20 reasons other than WMD)
This graphic shows who supported each of the 21 reasons put forth by the Bush Administration for going to war against Iraq. Click on it to see a larger version.
It may be surprising -- or disappointing -- to those infected with BDS (Bush Derangement Syndrome) to note that Colin Powell, Joe Lieberman, Tom Daschle (remember him?) and the Media's favorite Republican, John McCain, supported many of the stated rationales.
I note also that three times during Pres. Bush's state of the union address, the Democrats refused to applaud and stand when he called for non-partisan goals: victory in Iraq; avoiding defeat; and seeking to vanquish the forces of terrorism.
He didn't call for unwavering support for himself, nor for his policies, but for victory.
He called on our Congress to applaud for the idea that our troops should fight to win, that America should prevail.
And the Dems sat on their hands.
Yeah, they support the troops.
They just don't want them to come home victorious.
Lest you accuse me of indulging in mindless cheerleading for the Commander in Chief, let me say this:
I'm disappointed in Pres. Bush's failure as a leader, inasmuch as it's his job to explain to the nation -- over and over and over, if necessary -- why the task before us is worth sending our troops into battle.
He has not done so, and I believe this goes all the way back to the days after September 11, when he told the American People that they must go about their business, working, shopping, living life as they did before the attacks, because to change the way we live would be handing our enemies a tremendous victory.
Poppycock.
Pres. Roosevelt did not counsel Americans in the days after Pearl Harbor to act as though it was December 6th; he spoke of total war, of mobilizing all sectors of society in the pursuit of victory, and victory was the drumbeat for years.
Americans were called upon to sacrifice, not through soak-the-rich tax hikes, but war bond drives, to voluntarily invest in our nation, and in rationing of everyday items, to provide more materiel to the war effort.
Is it any wonder that to so many Americans, the war in Iraq is an annoyance?
A friend e-mailed me a story, expressing his disappointment in the conduct of the war, and his growing doubts about the possibility of victory -- and his growing doubts about Pres. Bush's leadership.
I agreed with much of what he said, and forwarded to him this comment from National Review's The Corner, their blog.
"I understand that to you and many other Cornerites, Webb bombed last night and sounded bitter. But let me tell you something: he was a huge hit in my extended lower-middle-class Los Angeles-based family. We ignore the Jacksonians at our peril. They have turned against the war something fierce.
"A lot of people think the American people turned against the Vietnam War due to all the student movement and the protests. Nope, not even close. The ordinary, middle-class Americans turned against it when it was clear that overwhelming force would not be used purely for political reasons. Not seeing any will to win the only way a war can be won, they wanted out. Same deal here, same result.
"Webb's threat is very real. Forget the 'surge'. It may happen, but it's happening in a political vacuum. If the President doesn't get us out of Iraq by year's end, the electorate will go searching for whoever will."
I agree with the sentiments of the writer, but, inasmuch as the Democrats aren't offering any solutions, I've nowhere else to go.
Yet.
Graphic from Foreign Policy.
Posted by Mike Lief at 07:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 25, 2007
Barks and crafts
The wife was making a wreath to hang on the front door; when she left the room for a moment, Bogie carefully stepped into the middle and gingerly sat down.
Why?
I can't say for sure, but he does enjoy neatness and symmetry.
And sitting in the middle of circles, too.
Posted by Mike Lief at 10:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
More multi-culti madness
The latest insanity comes courtesy of our cousins at Scotland Yard.
A Muslim woman police officer has sparked a new debate by refusing to shake hands with Britain's most senior police chief for religious reasons.
The incident happened at a passing-out parade where Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair was inspecting a line-up of 200 recruits.
In addition to refusing a traditional congratulatory handshake from Sir Ian, the WPC - who wore a traditional Muslim hijab headscarf - also declined to be photographed with him as she did not want the picture used for 'propaganda purposes'.
The woman had earlier insisted that it was contrary to her religious teaching for her to touch a man.
Now The Mail on Sunday has learned that her gesture has sparked top-level discussions at Scotland Yard.
Some officers argue that her attitude towards men might impede her ability to detain offenders.
Really? You don't say. Or is that just some of that droll, understated English humor?
However, it is clear that she is happy to come into contact with men, just not shake their hand or kiss them.
[...]
[S]enior commanders are worried that dismissing her would deepen the atmosphere of mistrust between the police and the Muslim community.
I don't even know where to begin, it's so stupendously, gloriously, Paris-Hilton idiotic.
Have the English gone completely bonkers? That this woman was not immediately given the sack is evidence that -- other than advanced-stage syphilis -- nothing turns the brain to swiss cheese quite like political correctness.
Cops have to touch all sorts of people you and I would prefer to avoid; that's why they use vats of Purel disinfectant gel and wear Kevlar gloves when frisking skeevy skels.
Using religion to avoid something so basic as a handshake is a damning indictment of both the woman and the officials who tolerated her behavior.
Posted by Mike Lief at 09:49 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
January 24, 2007
Hitchens on Steyn
From Christopher Hitchens' review of America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It, the bestseller by Mark Steyn:
The most alarming sentences that I have read in a long time came from the pen of my fellow atheist Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith, at the end of a September Los Angeles Times column upbraiding American liberals for their masochistic attitude toward Islamist totalitarianism. Harris concluded:
The same failure of liberalism is evident in Western Europe, where the dogma of multiculturalism has left a secular Europe very slow to address the looming problem of religious extremism among its immigrants. The people who speak most sensibly about the threat that Islam poses to Europe are actually fascists. To say that this does not bode well for liberalism is an understatement: It does not bode well for the future of civilization [italics mine].
[...]
Two things, in my experience, disable many liberals at the onset of this conversation.
First, they cannot shake their subliminal identification of the Muslim religion with the wretched of the earth: the black- and brown-skinned denizens of what we once called the “Third World.” You can see this identification in the way that the Palestinians (about 20 percent of whom were Christian until their numbers began to decline) have become an “Islamic” cause and in the amazing ignorance that most leftists display about India, a multiethnic secular democracy under attack from al-Qaida and its surrogates long before the United States was. And you can see it, too, in the stupid neologism “Islamophobia,” which aims to promote criticism of Islam to the gallery of special offenses associated with racism.
Hitchens, an unrecontructed Socialist who has had something of a post-9/11 conversion to finding much in the West worth defending, also agrees that Steyn's take on demography as destiny has merit -- "[Steyn] makes an immensely convincing case ..." -- as the population of Europe craters and Muslim immigrants appear on track to more than make up for the absence of their dhimmi neighbors.
Posted by Mike Lief at 07:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 23, 2007
Tuesday Bogie
Bogie enoys a quiet moment with Sheriff Bob, sitting in the morning sun with the purple lawman.
Posted by Mike Lief at 11:19 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
Can you smell the hypocrisy?
Did you hear about the liberal Democrat who was recently elected to Congress by voters from a majority black district? As is usual, the newly-minted Congresscritter joined like-minded fellow pols in the Congressional Black Caucus, where they work to advance the causes of their black constituents.
Oh, did I say he joined the Black Caucus?
Sorry 'bout that.
He tried to join the CBC, but was refused entry, 'cause it's a NO WHITES ALLOWED club.
Turns out the very pale, very Jewish, Congressman Cohen (Dem., TN) was not welcomed by the members of the Caucus, the color of his constituents notwithstanding.
Yessiree, Bob. Jim Crow, multi-culti 21st Century style.
Which is as good an excuse as any to quote from the late Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s most famous speech.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
Someone needs to ask the racists who run the Black Caucus if they've ever read King's speech. And if they understand it. And whether they join in the slain civil rights leader's dream.
Shameful.
Posted by Mike Lief at 10:38 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Cats and dogs (and Teddy, too)
As you may have noticed, given the occasional picture of Bogie that finds its way onto this site, I'm a dog guy; my wife is a cat lover, although she thinks the hound is pretty awesome, too.
We both enjoyed this video of a cat trying to bully a small dog away from the food bowl; the terrier ain't buying what puss is selling.
One of the commenters at John Hawkins' website has the most evocative summary of the epic struggle:
"That cat looks like Ted Kennedy defending a bucket of sloppy-joes."
Posted by Mike Lief at 09:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Things that make you go, "Hmmmm"
Sen. Barack Hussein Obama (Dem., IL), the half-black, would-be presidential nominee of the Democratic Party, is more popular with whites than blacks.
Mickey Kaus has a theory why that's so, and why Hilary Clinton has a commanding lead in early polling.
Posted by Mike Lief at 08:04 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 21, 2007
Chris Muir's Day by Day
Posted by Mike Lief at 08:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 18, 2007
What makes them laugh?
John Hawkins takes a look at what makes the moonbats at the Daily Kos crack a smile.
Would you believe GIs coming home from Iraq in wheelchairs?
Man, those guys are a hoot!
Depraved.
Posted by Mike Lief at 08:42 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Disc or download?
CDs or digital downloads? Lifehacker weighs the pros and cons of the old-fashioned discs versus the convenient, shop-at-home-for-just-the-one-song-you-want ease of the iTunes store and its ilk.
I agree with his bottom line.
Posted by Mike Lief at 08:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
What's wrong with American cars?
Mickey Kauss -- nobody's conservative -- covers politics at Slate, with occasional forays into automotive-industry coverage.
I mention his politics because, in a discussion about why Detroit's best efforts are still so crap-tastic when compared to the Japanese, he finds an interesting cause that will give libtards fits: the UAW.
Of course those who will rise to the defense of the autoworker unions are the same libtards who wouldn't be caught dead in anything so un-hip, so un-cool as an American car.
But I digress.
The shift lever falls readily to hand for one R. Kuttner, who road tests the Pontiac G6. He doesn't like the door-lock releases. Or the steering. Kuttner concludes the problem with GM isn't its workers--or unions--it's GM's incompetent designers and executives:
You might blame GM's woes on poor American workmanship or the cost of American labor. But Japanese total labor costs are comparable, even with Detroit's higher health insurance costs. Increasingly, Japanese cars are being assembled in the USA, and the quality holds up just fine.
So what's wrong with GM? The cars. GM is famous for being run by bean counters and ad men. Toyota is run by engineers.'This is a common viewpoint, I've found, among my Democratic friends ... who would never actually buy a Detroit product but who want to believe the UAW can't be blamed. The argument seems to be roughly this: a) American cars are now reliable enough, having closed the gap with the Japanese brands, so b) the workers are doing their job; therefore c) if Detroit cars like the G6 are still obviously inferior--tacky and cheap, with mediocre handling--it must be because they're designed badly by white collar professionals, not because they're built badly by blue collar union members.
The trouble with this comforting liberal argument is labor costs.
When Kuttner says "Japanese total labor costs are comparable, even with Detroit's higher health insurance costs," he is--as is so often the case--talking through his hat. Look at this chart.
GM pays $31.35 an hour. Toyota pays $27 an hour. Not such a big difference. But--thanks in part to union work rules that prevent the thousands of little changes that boost productivity--it takes GM, on average, 34.3 hours to build a car, while it takes Toyota only 27.9 hours ... GM spends 43% more on labor per car. And that's before health care costs (where GM has a $1,300/vehicle disadvantage).
If you're GM or Ford, how do you make up for a 43% disadvantage? Well, you concentrate on vehicle types where you don't have competition from Toyota--e.g. big SUVs in the 1980s and 1990s. Or you build cars that strike an iconic, patriotic chord--like pickup trucks, or the Mustang and Camaro.
Or--and this is the most common technique--you skimp on the quality and expense of materials. Indeed, you have special teams that go over a design to "sweat" out the cost. Unfortunately, these cost-cutting measures (needed to make up for the UAW disadvantage) are all too apparent to buyers.
Cost-cutting can even affect handling--does GM spend the extra money for this or that steel support to stabilize the steering, etc. As Robert Cumberford of Automobile magazine has noted, Detroit designers design great cars--but those aren't what gets built, after the cost-cutters are through with them.
Look at the big Ford Five Hundred -- a beautiful car on the outside, based on the equally attractive Volvo S80. But thanks to Ford's cost-cutters it debuted with a tinny, depressing interior that would lose a comparison with a subcompact Toyota Scion. Ford wants $30,000 for the Five Hundred. Forget it!
Is it really an accident that all the UAW-organized auto companies are in deep trouble while all the non-union Japanese "transplants" building cars in America are doing fine?
Detroit's designs are inferior for a reason, even when they're well built. And that reason probably as more to do with the impediments to productivity imposed by the UAW--or, rather, by legalistic, Wagner-Act unionism--than with slick and unhip Detroit corporate "culture."
As great as the American auto design studios have been -- crafting show cars that are often stunningly beautiful, the bean-counters nickle and dime them mercilessly, until what rolls into the showroom is an awful, distorted, dumbed-down, cheaped-out ugly bastard step-child.
And it's the bean-counters who are responsible. Except that they're only doing what management tells them to do. The same management that signs these exorbitant labor agreements with the UAW, with terms that apparently make it impossible to build a car that feels reassuringly solid and luxe.
It reminds me of a story from David Halberstam's book about the decline of the American auto industry -- and the rise of the Japanese -- The Reckoning.
Halberstam tells of the problem Ford was having with one of its giant cars of the late '50s or early '60s. Customers were complaining of lousy paint and rust. The engineers investigated and found that the paint booths at the Ford factory were too small for the behemoth cars, making it impossible for the cars' paint to cure properly.
The solution? Build bigger paint booths for the assembly line.
But Robert McNamara, the whiz kid economist and uber bean-counter (who would soon do for the Department of Defense what he was about to do to for Ford) balked at the cost.
Why spend all that money when there was an obvious and cheaper solution? McNamara peered across the conference table and asked his engineers why they couldn't cut each car in half, paint the halves separately, then weld them back together.
One can only imagine the silence, as the dumbstruck car guys peered at the slack-jawed jackass who was running their company.
McNamara's spirit still lives in Detroit, where the Big Three's leaders can't figure out how to control costs without turning their cars into the automotive equivalent of a one-night stand.
Yeah, they look good during the fevered romance on the showroom floor, but in the cold, harsh light of morning, you'd chew your hand off to avoid sticking your key in the ignition of the pig sleeping in your driveway.
It's that failure of leadership that ensures that American drivers will continue to glance admiringly -- for a moment, from a distance -- at the latest American car, before happily driving off in their HondaToyotaNissan.
Posted by Mike Lief at 07:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 17, 2007
Steyn on music
If you thought Mark Steyn was simply (!?) a best-selling author, columnist and political commentator, you are sadly mistaken.
His writing on the arts -- be it jazz, songwriters, film or theater -- is as incisive, witty and encyclopedic as one would expect, if familiar with the source.
Take his latest piece, on the unforgettable Miss Peggy Lee.
Peggy Lee died five years ago this week – January 21st 2002. On a panel on the National Review cruise a few weeks back, I said that she was pretty much my all-time female singer. There were lots of great vocals gals who emerged in the Forties - Doris Day, Dinah Shore, Rosemary Clooney - but she chose better material and sang it like she’d lived it. Or as Jack Teagarden said: “When Peggy sings the blues, you’re gonna hear the truth.”
At the risk of an insulting comparison, go back to the pre-eminent singer of last week’s Song Of The Week: Whitney Houston. I don’t wish to pick on her but she’s a prime example of the dominant delusion of the age – that “emotion” in singing means vocal gymnastics and exhibitionist melismas; that the word “love” is somehow more felt if it’s stretched into a 15-syllable word. Peggy Lee could have done that (certainly in the early days), but she knew enough not to. She’s the Count Basie of singers: Lee’s is more. The composer and musicologist Alec Wilder put it best: He compared her voice to a streetwalker you’d pass by, but, if you ever stopped, you’d never leave.
In Peter Richmond’s exhaustive if underwhelming biography Fever, there’s a reminiscence from Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, the authors of “I’m A Woman” and “Is That All There Is?”
Leiber: I loved her. I even loved her big ass.
Stoller: She had much narrower hips at that time.Actually, that’s a not un-useful insight. The other female vocalists who emerged from the big bands were, as Rosie Clooney liked to say, “girl singers”. As the song advertised, Peggy Lee was all woman, and not just because she was shoehorned into gowns that exaggerated that hourglass figure: in the Fifties, the poise, the cool, the raised eyebrow and the beauty spot made her as defining an emblem of mid-century pop culture style for the distaff side as Sinatra was for men. She got nearer to him than anybody else did, male or female, in her command of the standard repertoire, in ballad singing and swinging - and she roamed much further than him from the Broadway/Tin Pan Alley core, recording Chinese poetry and Japanese music (in Japanese).
There was another difference, too. She wrote songs. Not in the occasional sense that a Sinatra or Crosby would wind up with a co-credit on something or other, but seriously and continuously. Indeed, she was one of the first “singer-songwriters”, and certainly the first lady one, three decades before Joni Mitchell and Carole King, half-a-century before Sheryl Crow and Madonna. One day, sixtysomething years ago, she was pregnant and pottering around doing some housework. “It’s a good day,” she thought. And the professional in her then had a second thought: “That’s a great title.” And so it was:
Yes, It’s A Good Day
For shinin’ your shoes
And It’s A Good Day
For losin’ your blues
Ev’rything to gain
And nothin’ to lose
Yes, It’s A Good Day from mornin’ till night…She wrote it up, words and music, and when her husband Dave Barbour – Benny Goodman’s guitarist – came home he harmonized the tune and they had a hit.
There's more below; I'd read the whole thing if I were you -- it's that good.
Damn, that woman could sing. And Steyn can write, too.
They did well with this one, too:
I know a little bit about a lot of things
But I Don’t Know Enough About You…Peggy Lee had great ideas, and understood singability. If you ever see the clip of The Judy Garland Show with her and Judy singing and kibitzing their way through Peg’s “I Love Being Here With You” you’ll appreciate what an adroit piece of material it is: in a way that a lot of songs aren't, it’s written with performance in mind. There was more to her than that: with Sonny Burke, she wrote the songs for Lady And The Tramp, one of the all-time great Disney scores – not just “He’s A Tramp”, not just “We Are Siamese”, but also that marvelously expansive bit of cod Neapolitana “Bella Notte”. She also had a very rare skill of being able to take pieces of essentially unvocal music, put a lyric to them and make 'em stick – “I’m Gonna Go Fishin’”, with Duke Ellington, for example, or “So What’s New?”, one of those insistent Sixties instrumentals Herb Alpert had a smash with and which tickled Peg’s fancy so much she wrote a great set of words for it.
I’ve always liked her songs. Some years back, I had the pleasure of interviewing Peggy Lee – or “Miss Peggy Lee”, as her stationery put it - for a BBC series about her songwriting that never got made. Battered by health problems, she was in her Marlon-Brando-in-drag phase then: huge puffy cheeks and big black eyelashes that rendered her eyes entirely invisible, with a wig that sat on her face like half-drawn curtains. What I could see was the trace of a scar on one side of her, from the heavy metal-ended razor-strap her ugly stepmother beat her with during her grim North Dakota childhood. (Heavy make-up covered it in public.) But, speaking or singing, the voice was as sensual as ever. I’d heard that the first lyric she came up with, at the age of four, when her mother died, was something called “Mama’s Gone To Dreamland On The Train”, and I was crass enough to ask her how the rest of it went. She dodged that one, but she did sing me a few bars of “Bella Notte”. And she explained that she disliked some of her lyrics – for example:
It’s A Good Day
For payin’ your bills
And It’s A Good Day
For curin’ your ills
So take a deep breath
And throw away your pills…Her own ill health had made her uncomfortable with the breezy optimism of that line, and she wasted a lot of time trying to find a substitute for it, but never could. For what it's worth, I love it. It’s such an unusual thought to find in a pop lyric.
But one of my favorite Peggy Lee compositions doesn’t even have her name on it. “Don’t Smoke In Bed” was written, officially, by Willard Robison. Born in Missouri in 1894, Robison is one of those curious diversions from the central thruway of American music. He was a composer and lyricist who played with some bands in the south and spent a few years in New York as leader of a combo called Willard Robison’s Levee Loungers. And, if the concept of a lounge on the levee bemuses you, it manages to hint at Robison’s place in the scheme of things. His songs are rural but not in the rough and raw vernacular of a Jimmie Rodgers, the Singing Brakeman. Robison’s work is crafted, yet very pastoral. It’s hard to imagine Rodgers and Hart or even Irving Berlin getting a yen to write a song called “Old Deserted Barn”, never mind seeing the symbolism in it. The critic Will Friedwald calls him one of “the first composers to connect jazz and country music… The songs are as urbane as Cole Porter and as earthy and mystical as Robert Johnson. He conveyed an America in transit from rural to urban with a kind of tainted nostalgia, conveying a message that you can’t go home again, and wouldn’t want to if you could.”
I don’t know about that last bit. His biggest standard, “A Cottage For Sale”, places the singer right at the gate yearning to go home again, but understanding that it’s a home no more. I had the weird experience of hearing Chuck Berry sing and play the song to me in an hotel room a few years ago, and I realized listening to the ancient old rocker doing a very intense ballad from the Twenties that, somewhere deep down, Berry still wanted to be Nat “King” Cole. Cole recorded “Cottage For Sale”, so did Sinatra and Billy Eckstine and many others: It’s very unusual – it’s a torch song about shattered domesticity. Robison had a very good eye for poignant vignettes. Once again, it’s Alec Wilder who put it best, describing him as the man who convinced Johnny Mercer and others that “there was more to write lyrics about than city life, that the world of memory, of remembered sayings and scenes, was as evocative as the whispered words of lovers”.
So how come nobody knows Robison or most of his songs? Well, he had a big bunch of problems, starting with alcoholism. Mercer and Mildred Bailey and all kinds of other luminaries tried to help him, but he was a hard guy to help, as Peggy Lee discovered. She loved Robison’s songs. “They’re sort of poems set to music,” she told George Simon. “Little character sketches.” And one day in 1947 he came to her with a title:
Don’t Smoke In Bed.
He had a situation – a woman taking her leave – and a first line:
Goodbye, old sleepyhead…
“And then,” said Peg, “he had a drink. Dear Willard. I used to lock him in a room and try to get him to work, and I’d say, ‘When you get all through, I’ll give you a beer.’”
This time he never did “get all through”, and Lee and Barbour wound up having to write the song themselves. They set up the story in a mournful verse:
I left a note on his dresser
And my old wedding ring
With these few goodbye words...She’s walking out, but it’s with regret. The tune is very spare, and there’s not a lot of it, but they kept Robison’s first line for the chorus:
Goodbye, old sleepyhead
I’m packing you in like I said…They finished the song and recorded it in a haunting arrangement intensified at the end by what’s surely one of the earliest musical uses of the echo chamber. The singer “returns” from the instrumental break for one last half-chorus, but so distant it’s more like a stab of memory to the guy she left behind:
Don’t look for me
I’ll get ahead
Remember, darling
Don’t Smoke In Bed.The song wasn’t that big a hit, but what did Barbour and Lee care? The novelty number they’d recorded a week earlier – “Manana” – was Number One for nine weeks in 1948. As for Robison, the Barbours were convinced this time that he was on his last legs and were worried that his measly royalties would be insufficient to support his daughter. “So David and I gave him sole credit on the song,” said Peg, “expecting him to be gone within a few months. He lived another 20 years.”
Even more irritating, Miss Lee lived long enough to see “Manana” rendered all but unperformable, a harmless novelty number (“I’ll go to work manana/But I gotta sleep tonight”) scuttled by political correctness. Meanwhile, “Don’t Smoke In Bed” slowly became a highly valuable copyright, second only to “Cottage For Sale” in the Robison catalogue. It’s been recorded by Nina Simone, Julie London, Ella Fitzgerald, Elkie Brooks, Rita Coolidge, Sarah Jane Morris, Carly Simon, k d lang, every torchy wannabe from cabaret to country to alt rock has it in her sights. Peg was right - Robison lived another 20 years – but this was the last song he ever wrote. Or “wrote”.
It was also the most affecting legacy of Barbour and Lee’s songwriting partnership. Indeed, Peg’s lyric prefigured her own leave-taking. She would remarry thrice, never for long, and her ex-husband remained her closest musical confidante. “For the last 13 years of his life, Dave didn’t have a drop to drink,” she said. “He asked me to marry him again. We were going to be remarried, and he had a physical. His doctor told him he was in excellent condition. Four days later, the aorta burst in his heart, and he died.” The much older, much sicker Willard Robison outlived him by three years.
One day some biographer will do justice to Willard Robison’s story and to Dave Barbour’s and Peggy Lee’s. But in the meantime we have this eerie crossing of their paths – two young talents on their way up, one also-ran on his way out. Peggy Lee is herself one of the great storytellers. There’s a whole lifetime’s experience crammed into her best songs, but especially this one, with the wedding ring on the dresser and a parting note:
Don’t look for me
I’ll get ahead
Remember, darling
Don’t Smoke in Bed.A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke, said Kipling. But he never heard a woman smoke like Peggy Lee.
Posted by Mike Lief at 09:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Clear your baffles!
Apparently all is not well in the U.S. sub fleet.
Nothing puts crews to the test like going up against highly-trained adversaries -- and getting their butts kicked.
My boat, the USS Blueback (SS-581), often stalked the carrier during war games, mainly because, as a diesel boat, we were the most common opponent the U.S. Navy would encounter when operating in enemy territory.
As I've written before, diesel boats are very quiet when operating on their batteries -- like a hole in the ocean. We once got close enough to the carrier to land a flare on her flight deck; the nuclear fast attack subs never saw us coming.
Unless the Silent Service gets some good training partners, they're liable to get their asses handed to them when they confront the latest generation of ultra-quiet conventionally-powered subs.
Posted by Mike Lief at 08:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Hi-tech military gear
Is this available in a pair of pants? They'll sell millions!
And the morale boost will be beyond compare.
Posted by Mike Lief at 08:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Jimmah Carter: Defender of the downtrodden
It seems like it's been a Carnival of Carter (Jimmah, that is). Not a week goes by without more proof that as bad as it seems, there's worse to be heard from or about the most reprehensible ex-president in U.S. history.
You know that I've long thought that Carter is a flat-out, Jew-hating anti-Semite, notwithstanding his smarmy, moist-lipped protestations to the contrary.
Allow me to add this to the growing evidence file: He tried to get special treatment for a real Nazi, a member of the S.S. who had murdered Jews in a concentration camp.
Neil Sher, a veteran of the U.S. Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigation, described a letter he received from Carter in 1987 in an interview with Israel National Radio’s Tovia Singer. The letter, written and signed by Carter, asked that Sher show “special consideration” for a man proven to have murdered Jews in the Mauthausen death camp in Austria.
[...]
[Martin] Bartesch, who had immigrated to the U.S. and lived in Chicago, admitted to Sher’s office and the court that he had voluntarily joined the Waffen SS and had served in the notorious SS Death’s Head Division at the Mauthausen concentration camp where, at the hands of Bartesch and his cohorts, many thousands of prisoners were gassed, shot, starved and worked to death. He also confessed to having concealed his service at the infamous camp from U.S. immigration officials.
“We had an extraordinary piece of evidence against him – a book that was kept by the SS and captured by the American armed forces when they liberated Mauthausen,” Sher said. “We called it the death book. It was a roster that the Germans required them to keep that identified SS guards as they extended weapons to murder the inmates and prisoners.”
An entry in the book for October 10, 1943 registered the shooting death of Max Oschorn, a French Jewish prisoner. His murderer was also recorded: SS guard Martin Bartesch. “It was a most chilling document,” Sher recalled.
The same evidence was used by the U.S. military in postwar trials as the basis for execution or long prison sentences for many identified SS guards.
“We kicked him out and he went back to Austria. In the meantime, his family – he had adult kids – went on a campaign, also supported by his church, to try to get special treatment. In so doing they attacked the activities of our office and me personally. They claimed we used phony evidence from the Soviet Union – which was nonsense. They claimed he was a young man of only 17 or 18 when he joined the Nazi forces, asking for some sympathetic treatment and defense from our office, which they claimed was just after vengeance.”
The family approached several members of Congress. “The congressmen would, very understandably, forward their claims over to our office and when they learned the facts they would invariably drop the case,” Sher recalled.
But there was one politician who accepted the claims without asking for any further information.
“One day, in the fall of ’87, my secretary walks in and gives me a letter with a Georgia return address reading ‘Jimmy Carter.’ I assumed it was a prank from some old college buddies, but it wasn’t. It was the original copy of the letter Bartesch’s daughter sent to Carter, after Bartash had already been deported.
“In the letter, she claimed we were un-American, only after vengeance, and persecuting a man for what he did when he was only 17 and 18 years old.
“I couldn’t help thinking of my own father who returned home with shrapnel wounds after he joined the U.S. Army as a teenager to fight the Nazis and hit the beaches at Normandy at that same age on D-day.
“On the upper corner of the letter was a note signed by Jimmy Carter saying that in cases such as this, he wanted ‘special consideration for the family for humanitarian reasons.’
“I didn’t respond to the letter – the case was already over and he was out of the country – but it always stuck in my craw. A former president who didn’t do what I would expect him to do - with a full staff at his disposal – to find out the facts before he took up the side of this person. But I wasn’t going to pick a fight with a former president. We had enough on our plate.”
Now, following Carter’s book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, Sher has decided to go public with the hope that a public made aware of Carter’s support and defense of a Nazi SS man will help illustrate why the arbiter of the Camp David Accords came out with a book defending the Palestinians after the landslide election of the Islamist Hamas terror group.
“It always bothered me, but I didn’t go public with it until recently, when he wrote this book and let it spill out where his sentiments really lie,” Sher said. “Here was Jimmy Carter jumping in on behalf of someone who did not deserve in any way, shape or form special consideration. And the things he has now said about the Jewish lobby really exposes where his heart really lies.”
And yet there are still people willing to defend this modern-day Quisling. Not content to be known as the foremost voluptuary of modern-day tyrants and madmen, Carter lends his name to the cause of war criminals from the ashes of the Third Reich.
Of some note is that this happened twenty years ago, undermining the argument that Carter's anti-Semitism is a recent product of incipient Alzheimer's-related mental derangement.
The sickness at the foetid, corrupt core of this man was terminal long ago.
Posted by Mike Lief at 08:15 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 15, 2007
[Insert your name here] at the Old Bailey
As a follow-up to the previous post, this is the trial transcript of a female pickpocket, sentenced to hang after her day in court at the Old Bailey.
The records from the famous English court -- best known to Americans via Leo McKern's indelible protrayal of the English barrister Rumpole, are fully searchable, giving the reader a front-row seat at countless trials.
I can almost hear John Mortimer's fictional barrister, grumbling about "She who must be obeyed."
Very, very cool.
Posted by Mike Lief at 12:12 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Everything you ever wanted to know about neck stretching
This is the most detailed examination of the history and mechanics of hanging I've seen, of particular interest recently given its use to execute Saddam Hussein and two of his most loyal henchmen.
Of particular note is the long-known possibility of the condemned prisoner's head popping off, if the hanging was inartfully executed. I mention this because an account of Hussein's cousin's hanging mentioned the "unprecedented" removal of his head, alleged evidence of the barbarity of Iraq's current rulers.
As the linked article notes, such an occurrence is hardly rare, and more often than not a sign of incompetence, rather than malice.
The author concludes that hanging is actually more humane than lethal injection -- if society is interested in lessening the suffering of the condemned, rather than alleviating the guilt and discomfort of the observers.
The full site details the history of capital punishment in the United Kingdom, and it's a well-written, detailed resource, for both supporters and opponents of the death penalty.
Posted by Mike Lief at 11:19 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 13, 2007
Policing for dummies
Although this is an oldie, it's a goodie.
Back in 1987, cops from the LAPD pulled over an unmarked car with two uniformed Los Angeles County Sheriff's Deputies returning from court.
Confused for unknown reasons, the LAPD officers "proned out" the two sheriffs, forcing them at gunpoint to lay face-down in the street.
An LAPD sergeant showed up, but he too was unsure about the bona fides of the uniformed deputies, and so they remained on their bellies for about 15 minutes before someone with an IQ above room temperature showed up and told the LAPD guys to holster their weapons.
The LASD was not amused.
They produced this video, to help their retarded LAPD brethren figger out how to ID law enforcement from other agencies.
Long-time Sheriff Sherman Bloch reportedly turned a blind eye to the video, which infuriated the LAPD brass.
The particulars of the embarassing event were confirmed in an e-mail by a retired deputy who was working the night of the incident.
Posted by Mike Lief at 04:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 12, 2007
Steyn on what's Next
Mark Steyn reviews the latest thriller from Michael Crichton, Next, his cutting-edge, day-after-tommorow look at a future that is all-too-possible.
Steyn sums up the novelist/physician/scientist's unique talent in the opening of his review.
He has a remarkable instinct not just for novelizing the hot topic du jour but for pushing it on to the next stage, across the thin line that separates today's headlines from tomorrow's brave new world.
He's especially good at the convergence of the mighty currents of the time -- the intersection of the technological, legal, political and cultural forces in society and the way wily opportunists can hop and skip from one lily pad to another until something that would once have sounded insane is now routine.
[...]
The best Crichton novels are like the DNA double helix -- strands of science and media, genius and huckstering that twist in and out of each other.
The new novel posits a future where DNA-manipulating researchers are able to create life -- ranging from talking animals to replacement body parts in petri dishes -- along with ethical questions that threaten to overwhelm society (and the reader, too).
Crichton offers a press release between chapters from MIT, after scientists succeed in growing a human ear, subtly improved over the original, to be offered for sale.
MIT scientists have grown a human ear in tissue culture for the first time . . . The extra ear could be considered "a partial life form -- partly constructed and partly grown." The ear fits comfortably in the palm of the hand . . .
Several hearing-aid companies have opened talks with MIT about licensing their ear-making technology. According to geneticist Zack Rabi, "As the American population ages, many senior citizens may prefer to grow slightly enlarged, genetically modified ears, rather than rely on hearing-aid technology." A spokesman for Audion, the hearing-aid company, noted, "We're not talking about Dumbo ears. Just a small increase of 20 per cent in pinna size would double auditory efficiency. We think the market for enhanced ears is huge. When lots of people have them, no one will notice anymore. We believe big ears will become the new standard, like silicon breast implants."
Which, of course, is all too likely. Picture Florida circa 2015, a gated community full of big-eared nonagenarians.
I like the way Crichton's thriller brings us the usual low characters with the usual low motives -- sleazy men with the hots for unfeasibly breasted babes. But, in doing so, he reminds you how easily we accept what would once have seemed downright creepy: cities full of women with concrete embonpoints that bear no relation to the rest of their bodies.
As one character says, he knows they're fake and they don't feel right but it turns him on anyway.
If you can accept, in effect, a technological transformation of something as central as sexual arousal, why would you have any scruples about what technology can do for the human body in far more peripheral areas? By the time an accused pederast is advised by his lawyers to claim his need for transgressive sexual encounters is due to his having the "novelty gene," you begin to appreciate the horrors that lie ahead: for tactical advantage here and there, we're likely to wind up surrendering strategically the essence of humanity.
Who knew that fake hooters heralded such profound questions about our species?
Not bad for a man declaimed by high-falutin' literary critics as a hack producer of pulp-fiction.
Posted by Mike Lief at 07:31 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 11, 2007
Uhh, yeah
Did you hear about the new series green-lighted by the geniuses at Fox?
Set your Tivo, folks! I hear "Supreme Courtships," focusing on the lives and loves of six Supreme Court clerks, is must-see TV.
Not.
You've got to be kidding.
Genius, right? Six unattractive men and women, who haven’t been exposed to the sun’s rays in years, spend 18 hours a day on Lexis Nexis, researching ultimately mind-crushingly dull legal issues.
The first episode will revolve around one of Justice Breyer’s clerks who fails in his efforts to make a pass at a colleague, after he attempts to test the limits of his new sexual harassment opinion. The second episode will deal with Justice Thomas’ head clerk, who has to cope with severe allergies and a nasal drip while composing the dissent for an opinion concerning RICO, while his lazy-ass boss watches soap operas.
The season-long storyline, of course, will deal with Justice Scalia’s secret gay love-affair with one of John Paul Stevens’ clerks, who lashes out at Scalia by penning opinions in favor of homosexual unions.
I guess it makes perfect sense; having mined every possible angle of court-related drama and comedy (Night Court and Law & Order, versions 1 through 27), the only possible venues left are the antics of the paste-eating nitpickers of the law-review set.
Meh.
Posted by Mike Lief at 06:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Worst president ever update
Would you believe yet another egghead is taking a pass on working with the Jimmah Carter Foundation for Ending American Success and Blaming Everything on the Joooooos (aka The Carter Center)?
Emory University Prof. Melvin Konner (who also happens to be an M.D.), provided a variety of reasons for refusing to advise the ex-president, including a passage from Carter's book that sounds like a call to kill Jews.
I will call your attention to a sentence on p. 213 that had not stood out for me the first time I read it: "It is imperative that the general Arab community and all significant Palestinian groups make it clear that they will end the suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism when international laws and the ultimate goals of the Roadmap for Peace are accepted by Israel."
As someone who has lived his life as a professional reader and writer, I cannot find any way to read this sentence that does not condone the murder of Jews until such time as Israel unilaterally follows President Carter's prescription for peace. This sentence, simply put, makes President Carter an apologist for terrorists and places my children, along with all Jews everywhere, in greater danger.
"Apologist for terrorists" is pungent stuff -- I prefer voluptuary of tyrants -- but it's accurate. If that's not good enough, Konner points out it's not just Jimmah's writing that offends; his conduct is just as awful, leading the more charitable to suggest that he's in the throes of Alzheimer's-induced dementia.
I'm not so inclined; I think he's simply an evil, anti-semitic bastard.
But Konner adds liar to the pol's repertoire.
President Carter has proved capable of distorting the truth about ... meetings and consultations in public remarks following them. In particular, he mischaracterized the meeting he had with the executive committee of the Board of Rabbis of Greater Phoenix, saying he and they had positive interactions and prayed together, when in fact others present stated that the meeting was highly confrontational and that the prayer was merely a pro forma closing invocation ...
[I]n television interviews I have seen over the past week, President Carter has revealed himself to be so rigid and inflexible in his views that he seems to me no longer capable of dialogue. In an interview with Soledad O'Brien of CNN he failed to address a single one of the criticisms she quoted from various experts in a very serious tone of voice, pointing out that she was not reading the worst of the criticisms; he began laughing inappropriately while she spoke, and when she asked him how he would respond to the criticisms he stated, "With laughter."
[...]
[H]is repeated public insinuations that the Jews control the media and the Congress -- well-worn anti-Semitic slurs that, especially coming from President Carter, present a clear and present danger to American Jews -- are offensive to me beyond what I can politely say.
Not just you, professor. Carter never fails to lower the bar on the behavior of ex-presidents, and his unsavory reputation serves as a useful measure of the character of those who still sing his praises.
Posted by Mike Lief at 12:05 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 10, 2007
I have less inclination to feel for her
I Don't Like You In That Way casts a jaundiced eye on the parenting skills of celebrity Angelina Jolie; her views are ... interesting, and the response from the always-snarky IDLYITW is predictably hilarious -- and cruel.
Angelina Jolie on why she likes her adopted kids better:
I think I feel so much more for Madd and Zee because they're survivors, they came through so much," Jolie says in the new issue of U.K. Elle. Shiloh seemed so privileged from the moment she was born. I have less inclination to feel for her...I met my other kids when they were 6 months old, they came with a personality. A newborn really is this...Yes, a blob! But now she's starting to have a personality...I'm conscious that I have to make sure I don't ignore her needs, just because I think the others are more vulnerable."
So I guess that means when Shiloh is in her crib crying Angelina acknowledges it with, "Hold on, whitey, Mommy will be there as soon as Madd, Zee and I are done gluing our United Colors of Benetton ad collage."
Then, after a lecture on why she is the devil, Shiloh gets her bottle. Of course the bottle is full of bean soda and Shiloh, the Nubian warrior, will have bean pie for dinner as she sits in her yellow, black, green and red colored high chair.
All kidding aside, did you catch what she said about her biological child?
Shiloh seemed so privileged from the moment she was born. I have less inclination to feel for her.
Pardon me, but that's deeply repulsive; however it was intended, and whatever Jolie meant to say, that statement will haunt her child.
Posted by Mike Lief at 09:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Regrets, I've had a few
The San Francisco Chronicle notes the regrets of a retiring old-school cop.
One thing you can say about outgoing Alameda County Sheriff Charlie Plummer -- he always spoke his mind.
In an interview with MediaNews reporter Chris Metinko, Plummer said he had one regret about his 50-plus years in law enforcement, and that was about his conduct during the Berkeley riots of the 1960s.
"I wish I would have hit some people harder," Plummer said.
I know the feeling, sheriff.
The same article details the Frisco-style reception given to the Yale a capella group, the Baker's Dozen, after they committed the ultimate gaffe in Moonbat Central: they sang "The Star Spangled Banner." It wasn't a very ... hmmm, how shall we say, sophisticated, tolerant, culturally diverse welcome.
Color me unsurprised.
Posted by Mike Lief at 07:27 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Spare me the sob story
Did you hear about Saddam Hussein's daughter? The poor dear never got a chance to say "Good-bye" to Daddy Deadliest, and -- oddly enough! -- a journalist is eager to tell us all about the cruel, callous way the tyrant's daughter was treated by his captors.
The pictures of his execution by balaclava-clad figures - and the taunts that accompanied it - have provoked revulsion around the world.
And today we can reveal the final indignity suffered by Saddam Hussein as he went to the gallows: he was forbidden to take one last phone call from his daughter.
Raghad, 38, told yesterday how she begged the International Red Cross to intervene and press his captors to allow her to say goodbye. “But they wouldn’t let me talk to him. He was probably never even told of my request,” she said.
“All I wanted was to tell him I miss him and love him as a father. My call was not allowed.”
Last night the Red Cross spokesperson for Iraq, Nada Doumani, told The Mail on Sunday: “Raghad called us late last Friday when she heard from lawyers that her father’s personal possessions had been collected. She knew it was the end. We have helped with the delivery of parcels and letters between them over the past two-and-a-half years but this time we could only pass on her request.”
Raghad’s complaint will fuel the controversy surrounding Saddam’s last moments, when spectators called out the name of his enemy Moqtada al-Sadr and urged Saddam to ‘go to hell’. Despite the promise of an inquiry by the Iraqi authorities, the enduring image of the execution is of a baying lynch mob and a dignified, even heroic, Saddam.
As Charles Johnson points out:
In 1996, Saddam’s monstrous daughter Raghad enticed her defector husband to return to Iraq, where he was swiftly murdered by her father’s goons. I wonder if he was allowed to call his relatives before being killed?
Why the whining? I've no doubt she'll be reunited with her father, sooner or later.
Posted by Mike Lief at 12:17 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Doing the civilizational superior dance
Victor Davis Hanson ponders what it will take to stir the ever-so-sophisticated West from its torpid, post-Modernist apathy.
So the great disconnect in this present war continues, one that tests whether a sophisticated affluent West that eschews violence and nobly professes its wish to evolve beyond war, capital punishment, and unilateral preemption can defeat an ideology that is openly reactionary and seeks to return to the primordial world of the 8th century when beheading, limb-lopping, sharia law, and half the population in burqas were normal.
This is now a boring topic since 9/11—our postmodern refinement and their premodern savagery. One final thought though. I used to hear people say “It will take another 9/11” to come to our senses about our real peril. Now in several gloomy conversations I hear instead, “It will take three or four 9/11s to …”
Indeed.
And he questions the current horrendous state of the American universities, noting some fantastically ironic labor practices in the heart of the academic beast, as well as the urge to intellectual conformity that stifles debate for anyone but the Kool-Aid drinkers.
Why do such vocal egalitarians stay mum, when part-time faculty and graduate students often teach classes for a fraction of professors’ pay, in a hierarchical system of exploitation that even the much maligned Wal-Mart would never get away with?
Why do professors insist after six years on life-long tenure—when everyone from garbage collectors to lawyers and doctors do not enjoy such insulation from both the market and accountability about job performance? If it is for the promise of “academic freedom” and “intellectual diversity” then the resulting institutionalized uniformity and mediocrity were not worth the cost.
Compare the lopsided Academic Senate votes about issues extraneous to the operation of the university from gay marriage to the war in Iraq. There are usually reminiscent of plebiscites in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq or Castro’s Cuba with majorities of 90-100%.
Again, indeed.
Posted by Mike Lief at 12:10 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
What a waste of time
This is remarkably juvenile, in poor taste, not safe for work, and amusing -- if you're easily amused. I recommend you don't waste your time watching it.
Nope, don't bother.
Posted by Mike Lief at 12:07 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
January 09, 2007
Be prepared
I told you folks about Kim Du Toit's post on people who want to depend on their better-prepared neighbors in an emergency; he now follows up with a discussion of what ought to be in everyone's SHTF kit.
Kim provides a thorough checklist of the items the Du Toit clan have gathered -- for those of us too lazy to do additional research -- but there's useful information in the comments, too.
Living in SoCal, earthquakes, fire and riots are the most common disasters we face; I've been here for the 'quakes of '71 and '94, as well as numerous fires, and my parents were in L.A. for the Rodney King riots, too. In every instance, we were able to stay at home and wait for the local authorities to restore power, water, put out the fires and kill control the rioters.
As some of Kim's readers correctly point out, having enough food and water to stay put is often all you need to deal with most disasters. At a minimum, three-days supplies is the least anyone ought to have stored at home; who wants to have to leave the house after the next earthquake to get something to eat and drink?
I'd rather make the trek to the (Costco) shelves in the garage and retrieve some (Costco) water and a few cans of (Costco) tuna and (Costco) beans, then pull a (Costco) book out of the rubble and ride out the aftershocks.
Have you started your SHTF cache?
Posted by Mike Lief at 11:35 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 08, 2007
Microsoft versus Mac
Bill Gates and his minions are finally ready to release the long-delayed successor to Windows XP, the operating system called, "Vista."
It was Windows that drove me back into the waiting arms of my Mac; driver conflicts, random system crashes, and the dreaded Blue Screen of Death. I lost a partially-written chapter from a manuscript for my second book, and when the screaming, Tourette's-like fit passed, I ordered a Mac.
OS-X, the latest iteration of the operating system on my desktop and laptop, has been bulletproof and transparent; it stays out of the way, allowing me to work without interruption, carrying me through that book and the next without any drama or cursing -- at least, not at my computers.
And, just to keep my anger levels up, I always have the PCs at work to drive me batshit insane, with their Millennium Edition Windows OS to freeze, crash and burn when some case-related motion or grant application absolutely positively needs to be done.
Well, Vista is finally here, and while it's an improvement over its predecessor, it ain't no X.
[W]hen I'm using an OS and I want to describe how I interact with it, what's the description that best suits it?
For Mac OS X, it's the classic English butler. This OS is designed to make the times you have to interact with it as quick and efficient as possible. It expects that things will work correctly, and therefore sees no reason to bother you with correct operation confirmations.
If you plug in a mouse, there's not going to be any messages to tell you "that mouse you plugged in is now working." It's assumed you'll know that because you'll be able to instantly use the mouse. Plug in a USB or FireWire hard drive and the disk showing up on your desktop is all the information you need to see that the drive has correctly mounted. It is normally only when things are not working right that you see messages from Mac OS X.
Windows is ... well, Windows is very eager to tell you what's going on. Constantly. Plug something in, and you get a message. Unplug something and you get a message. If you're on a network that's having problems staying up, you'll get tons of messages telling you this.
It's rather like dealing with an overexcited Boy Scout ... who has a lifetime supply of chocolate-covered espresso beans. This gets particularly bad when you factor in things like the user-level implementation of Microsoft's new security features.
To put it simply, you can work on a Mac for hours, days even, and only minimally need to directly use the OS. With Vista? The OS demands your attention, constantly.
Not all the changes from XP to Vista strike the reviewer as an improvement; in fact, the older system seemed more logical and user-friendly than its new-and-improved offspring.
For example, in Windows XP you have a control panel called "Add or Remove Programs." While not elegant, it is clear. You know what that control panel's functionality is, no guessing. It adds and removes programs.
The Vista version? "Programs and Features." Huh? What does that do? Well, you don't know from the name, other than it has something to do with well, programs and features. When you think about it, that rather covers the entire OS and everything you'd do on a computer.
Yet "Add Hardware" is the same on both versions.
In Windows XP, you set your display options using the "Display" control panel. That's nice and clear. Vista? It's buried in "Personalization." Because when I want to change my monitor resolution, that's exactly what pops into my head as an experienced Windows user: Personalization. Yet mouse settings, which look to have been rolled into "Personalization," still have their own separate entry.
But that fact notwithstanding, the new Microsoft operating system has enough going for it to earn it "better-than-the-last-one" marks, although it isn't yet the Mac-killer Microsoft hoped it would be.
At the UI level, the human level, Vista is different far more often than it is better. Even so, I think it must be said that Vista is indeed an improvement on Windows XP. Honestly, I think that's the only metric that really counts when you think about it: Is Vista better enough than XP to be worth the upgrade? I'll say yes. This may be more of a comment on how bad XP really is more than how good Vista is.
However, is it significantly, or even slightly better than Mac OS X? Maybe in a couple of low-level ways, like the randomizing memory address usage function, or being able to use USB memory sticks as additional RAM, but at the human level? Not even close.
I've yet to see anything in Vista that blows away the Mac OS, even a version of the Mac OS that's over a year old. Microsoft still can't manage to make something simple and easy to use. Vista reeks of committee and design by massive consensus, while OS X shines from an intense focus on doing things in a simple, clear fashion and design for the user, not the programmer.
Sounds like there's no compelling reason to switch back to Windows, although the competition is a good way to ensure that the boffins at Apple keep improving their product, too.
Posted by Mike Lief at 09:38 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 07, 2007
Essential rules for understanding the Middle East
It's fascinating that for all the talk of "celebrating diversity" I hear from the we-are-the-world peaceniks, the multi-culti crowd seems incapable of reconciling their belief that all cultures are equally valid with their antipathy to the idea that people are truly different.
Take, for instance, the Middle East. The striped-pants set at the State Department love to point to remarkably moderate-sounding statements from conciliatory spokesmen for terror groups as proof that we can resolve all our differences through diplomacy.
But organizations like MEMRI provide English-language translations of what the killers are telling their own people in Arabic, when they think the West isn't listening.
It's often -- ahem -- far less peaceful than what they say to our faces.
Which brings us to 15 rules for understanding the Middle East, from a reporter who learned first-hand that nothing is quite what it seems when dealing with Byzantine mindset of the Arab world.
Here are a few of my favorites.
Rule 1: What people tell you in private in the Middle East is irrelevant. All that matters is what they will defend in public in their own language. Anything said to you in English, in private, doesn't count. In Washington, officials lie in public and tell the truth off the record. In the Mideast, officials say what they really believe in public and tell you what you want to hear in private.
Rule 2: Any reporter or U.S. Army officer wanting to serve in Iraq should have to take a test, consisting of one question: "Do you think the shortest distance between two points is a straight line?" If you answer yes, you can't go to Iraq. You can serve in Japan, Korea or Germany -- not Iraq.
[...]
Rule 8: Civil wars in the Arab world are rarely about ideas -- like liberalism vs. communism. They are about which tribe gets to rule. So, yes, Iraq is having a civil war as we once did. But there is no Abe Lincoln in this war. It's the South vs. the South.
Rule 9: In Middle East tribal politics there is rarely a happy medium. When one side is weak, it will tell you, "I'm weak, how can I compromise?" And when it's strong, it will tell you, "I'm strong, why should I compromise?"
[...]
Rule 11: The most underestimated emotion in Arab politics is humiliation. The Israeli-Arab conflict, for instance, is not just about borders. Israel's mere existence is a daily humiliation to Muslims, who can't understand how, if they have the superior religion, Israel can be so powerful. Al Jazeera's editor, Ahmed Sheikh, said it best when he recently told the Swiss weekly Die Weltwoche: "It gnaws at the people in the Middle East that such a small country as Israel, with only about 7 million inhabitants, can defeat the Arab nation with its 350 million. That hurts our collective ego. The Palestinian problem is in the genes of every Arab. The West's problem is that it does not understand this."
Rule 12: Thus, the Israelis will always win, and the Palestinians will always make sure they never enjoy it. Everything else is just commentary.
Rule 15: Whether it is Arab-Israeli peace or democracy in Iraq, you can't want it more than they do.
We cannot succeed if we insist on pretending that our enemies are Americans in mufti; they're not like us, and we'll earn nothing but their contempt and much bloodshed if we fail to act accordingly.
Posted by Mike Lief at 09:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
In case of emergency, plan ahead
Kim Du Toit has a fascinating account from a reader about what happens when you tell California liberals that in an emergency, no, they may not come to your house.
On Christmas Eve I went to a party where the four liberal families I previously discussed were present, and followed your advice. After bringing up the emergency kit issue again, lots of people complained and teased me (in a good natured way) but as expected, the ”we’ll just come to your house” meme reared its ugly head. I stated, as you suggested, that I would *NOT* help them in an emergency unless they first took measures to help themselves. This did not go over well. Much argument followed. The net result:
1) I am no longer welcome at any of the four homes (no great loss).
2) I am now morally equivalent to Hitler and George Bush.
3) One woman called me a potential child molester (I’m not sure of the logic, but it had something to do with not helping her starving kiddies when the world goes whacky).
4) Republicans are evil, therefore, I am evil (being a Libertarian, this seemed a bit unfair, but the finer points of political philosophy were lost in the debate).
5) Another woman (a hardcore feminist) screamed “I’ll call the police!! Hoarding in an emergency is just wrong. You won’t get away with it.”
6) The case of home brew ale I brought to the party was consumed (even some liberals have good taste in beer).
7) It was the females who did most of the ranting about my vile character and lack of moral fiber. They also had the worst potty mouths.
8) As I was leaving (actually, “kicked out” ) one of the guys said, with complete sincerity: “If things get bad, I really hope you’ll help us out.” I said nothing, just shook my head and left.
Unreal. The infantilization of the American people continues; self-preservation, preparing for the possibility that you might actually be responsible for the survival of your family is simply incomprehensible to these people. If government isn't able to supple a teat to suckle, they'll just leech off their self-reliant "friends."
Nice.
Read the rest for more proof that Aesop knew what he was talking about more than 2,600 years ago.
Posted by Mike Lief at 09:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 05, 2007
Left? Right? Center? All in 25 questions
Law Prof. Ann Althouse took this quiz to see where she ranked on the political spectrum; 0 is Jesse Jackson and 40 is Ronald Regan.
Althouse, who prides herself on being a political moderate, scored 21.
I scored a 36 out of 40, which puts me to the right of Bob Dole, but to the left of Pres. Reagan.
The quiz is old (1994), hence the presence of Dole in the pictures, and many of the questions are badly phrased ("Who do I trust more: The FBI or the IRS"?! Puh-leeze.) -- I suspect it makes people like me fall farther to the right without placing libs on the far left of the scale.
Posted by Mike Lief at 08:00 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
January 04, 2007
Really, really lame
What do Cypher, The Red Bee, Brother Power the Geek, Matter Eater Lad, Dogwelder, Vibe and Aqualad have in common?
They're some of the lamest superheroes of all time.
Bonus question: What is "PLORP"?
It's the sound made when Arm Fall Off Boy pulls his left arm out of the socket to use as a cudgel to beat badguys.
Posted by Mike Lief at 11:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Dream palaces no more
Film critic David Denby takes an extended look at the future of cinema, and how technology is changing the way we watch movies.
He keys in on the way home video serves to diminish the movie-going experience, robbing us of the communal experience of losing ourselves in a larger-than-life image, of being immersed in sound, color, light and shadow.
At home, watching an old movie that once engulfed us, we yearn for more emotion, more color, more meaning. If we can’t get it, we have to fill it in from memory, the way someone listening to a beloved piece of music on the beach will fill in instrumental color and rhythms wiped out by a roaring surf...
I went to a friend’s house and sat alone, looking at some familiar old movies on an excellent forty-two-inch gas-plasma screen fed by a standard DVD player. The classic 1940 comedy “The Philadelphia Story,” starring Katharine Hepburn James Stewart, and Cary Grant, came pretty fully to life. The high-def screen yielded such benefits of M-G-M’s glamour years as the sheen (from backlighting) on Hepburn’s hair and the satiny white look of the studio’s imagined Main Line mansion. Few of the visual qualities were lost, and the fanged upper-class banter is so peculiarly intimate that it played very well at home.
Switching to color and to something that was largely digital and high-tech to begin with—the first “Spider-Man,” from 2002—I scored again. The director, Sam Raimi, went for a hard-edged jolt, with solid colors and the surging, swinging movement of the Marvel Comics style, and his graphics still looked sensational. There was little reality to capture—the movie, at its best, was pure artifice and pop rapture.
But Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver,” from 1976—a neo-noir film that exaggerated aspects of reality into something that was the opposite of pop—was a dud at home. What I loved in the theatre was the encompassing lurid rawness: the hookers, pimps, and thugs prowling the neon-red streets. On the home screen, the steam rising from the manholes—Dante’s burning underground lake percolating in Manhattan—didn’t loom up and envelop me, and the bloody violence at the end didn’t explode in my face.
The big plasma screen seemed inadequate; I was constantly aware of the outer edge of the frame just when I wanted to abandon myself within it, yielding to the power and sensuality that Scorsese and the cinematographer, Michael Chapman, had achieved. It wasn’t good, and it was worse than a diminution: it was a betrayal.
My first foray into big-screen home theater was prompted by an attempt to watch one of the Lord of the Rings films on a 32-inch CRT widescreen TV. The letterboxed image was about eighteen inches tall -- simply ridiculous.
A front projector and a screen six-feet wide, mated with Dolby 5.1 surround sound helped; not only did the ethereal New Zealand vistas fill my peripheral vision, but I felt as if I was peering through a window into Middle Earth.
Band of Brothers was a different experience when projected onto the screen, with bullets whizzing overhead and the sub-woofer WHOOMPing as mortar rounds fell near GIs in the snow outside Foy, Belgium.
Sure, I miss the waves of laughter rolling through the theater as a gut-busting comedy unspools, but I don't miss people talking, narrating the action, babies squalling, small children whining during R-rated violence, cell phones ringing, people answering them (Is she talking to her boyfriend on the damn phone!?), the rudeness of the audience reaching new heights of theater etiquette ignorance.
Which is why I rarely go to the movies anymore; the view from my couch is better than what's available at the local mega-plex.
Posted by Mike Lief at 10:43 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Speaking of Mel Gibson . . .
Denis Leary had a few choice words for the star, adding a whole new dimension to baseball color commentary.
Posted by Mike Lief at 10:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 03, 2007
Mad Mel's Apocalypto
In the aftermath of Mel Gibson's alcohol fueled Jew Haters Gone Wild! Malibu 2006 Edition, I've resisted the temptation to check out his latest film, Apocalypto. I don't actually hold his anti-Semitic outburst against his work; he does seem genuinely contrite, and if I used the innermost beliefs of the Hollywood elite as a go/no-go litmus test, I'd never see anything.
Rather, it's the exquisitely savage violence that I've heard about in countless savage reviews that has put me off the flick.
But Rod Dreher, the terrific writer/editorial board member at the Dallas Morning News has penned a review that has me rethinking my reluctance.
WARNING: There a a lot of spoilers in Dreher's review, so take a pass if you can't stand learning plot details before your butt is in the comfy, stadium-style seat with jumbo cup holder and patented rocking action.
Well, I finally got to see "Apocalypto" yesterday, and let me start by saying that I was wrong about the movie in my earlier comments here. It is a stunning film, and I heartily recommend it to those who can stand some gore. I did look away a couple of times, to be sure, but for most of the film, the violence is profoundly contextualized; I was not prepared for Gibson to show in the faces and reactions of his characters the pain of violence and cruelty. In this, it's much like "The Passion of the Christ," in which the violence was given deep meaning.
[...]
In fact, I can't think of a film that is at once so violent and such a protest against violence ... I came away from "Apocalypto" unsettled, convinced in an unfamiliar way that there is something deeply, deeply wrong with us humans. We are born to trouble and violence, and will to power.
[...]I should say too that as an exercise in pure filmmaking, "Apocalypto" is a phenomenal piece of work. I realized at the end that I had just watched a two-hour film about tribal derring-do, filmed in an ancient Indian tongue, and I had been entirely engrossed, as if hardly any time had passed at all.
Any filmmaker who can do that is a master. If somebody other than Mel Gibson had made this film, he'd be the toast of Hollywood.
Okay, that's good enough for me; I'm going to make the trek to the local mega-movieplex for my first flick of '07.
Posted by Mike Lief at 10:31 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
January 02, 2007
Start the year with a laugh
Well, we survived 2006. And by "we" I mean those of us who had the good fortune not to be the ex-dictator of a dusty patch of dirt somewhere near the confluence of the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers.
The past year was filled with death, destruction, gross violations of human rights -- and that was just in Congress.
So what better way to start the year than with a good laugh, courtesy of good, old-fashioned American capitalism.
Kodak, the Rochester, New York, firm that popularized photography during the 20th century, has looked like it was headed for the corporate scrapheap, a victim of the digital revolution. Oh, sure, Kodak has had decent consumer-level digital cameras, but they've been surpassed by the Japanese, who are churning out new and improved pint-sized picture-making machines of ever-increasing quality and sophistication.
Hell, pro-photog Ken Rockwell challenges his readers to guess which picture was taken by a $5,000 pro camera, and which one by his $150 pocket digicam -- and better eyes than mine have been fooled into picking the pix snapped by the one costing $3,850 less than it's bigger sibling.
Anyhoo, lest you think that the folks in Rochester have grown complacent, figuring that the digital fad will pass, take a gander at what may be the greatest commercial ever made.
If Kodak bought airtime for this, they'd gain HUGE market share, even if they were marketing pin-hole shoebox cameras -- Americans love a combination of self-deprecating humor, combined with real smarts, and the venerable film/camera maker has both in spades.
Happy 2007!
The ad starts off, looking like a conventional address by a white-haired corporate suit, lauding the corporate contributions to American life over the last century and a quarter, but then he changes tone and takes the ad to places no major company has gone.
... In fact, many of us fondly refer to those special times as "Kodak moments."
Gets you ... misty, doesn't it?
Yup, they shoveled on the schmaltz pretty thick, didn't they?
But that kind of crap doesn't work anymore! People want the latest digital things -- more power, more features. Wireless contraptions, innovative ways to bring their pictures into the 21st Century.
Well, guess what, Bucko, Kodak is doing it!
You thought they were just hiding out, waiting for this digital thing to blow over, didn't ya?
Oh, sure, for a while they were like, "Ooooh, there's no way digital's gonna catch on!"
Hell, twenty years ago they pawned the first digital camera off on Apple.
But now, Kodak is back! They're taking this digital thing to a level undreamed of, pioneering technology that'll redefine the digital revolution!
I know, big talk coming from the company that unleashed Advantix onto the world, right?
Well, turn down your Mini-Disc player, fire up your Newtons and listen up! 'Cause they're not playing grab-ass anymore!
They've got things in their research labs that'll make biometrics look like a HappyMeal toy!
I'm talking facial-recognition, GPS-enabled photography so my camera knows where it is. Pictures that learn and group themselves into stories -- We're talking meta-knowledge.
Cameras that automatically enhance the color of the grass -- because they know it's grass!
Try and patent that! Ohh, too late!
Ha-ha!
And what about sharing? I'll tell ya about sharing!
All your friends and family'll be e-mailing their pictures wirelessly to you, and sending pictures of grandma's birthday to your phone, and uploading shots of the dog wearing those big, stupid sunglasses to your PDA!
And they're gonna be everywhere, because now you won't have to be a Navajo code-breaker to use digital!
And they're all gonna look like freakin' Annie Leibowitz shot 'em, because they'll automatically adjust the lighting and the composition for you!
No more flash problems, no more red-eye! How's that for advanced? BOO-YA!
And you know what the best part is? They're gonna turn the schmaltz back up to ELEVEN! Oh, yes!
People will have their Kodak moments again. They're going to bring back all those damn pictures of the cute puppies and the cuddly kittens, and the cooing babies and that-that doe eyed kid -- you know the one!
They're bringing them all back, all in the same spot, and it's going to be 15 minutes long, and James Cameron'll direct it!
And Celine Dion'll sing the theme song while riding along on a unicorn through a field of baby animals under a BIG BLUE SKY ... and there's not a damn thing you can do to stop it!
You were a Kodak moment once, and by God, you'll be one again, only this time it's digital!
YEEARGH!
By the end, his hair is sticking out in all directions as he recovers from his Howard Dean-like scream, gathers his composure, and walks off the stage.
"Celine Dion'll sing the theme song while riding along on a unicorn through a field of baby animals under a BIG BLUE SKY!"
I don't care where you're from, that's funny.
Folks, trust me, this account doesn't do it justice. Watch the ad.
Awesome.
Posted by Mike Lief at 12:55 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack