The tortoise and the... hippo?

So, it seems that a young hippopotamus calf in Kenya was swept away from his mother as a result of last month's tsunami. He was pulled into the Indian Ocean and then washed back onto the Kenyan shore where he was found and taken to a local wildlife refuge. Missing his mother, the young hippo has latched onto an aged male Aldabran giant tortoise as a surrogate mother. Apparently, things are going swimmingly. The hippo follows the tortoise everywhere. Kind of cute. Let's hope that the prudes in power over here don't find out about this story. Who knows, given the recent SpongeBob flap, they'll probably try to read something about gender confusion into this and try to ban that "Hungry, Hungry Hippos" game from way back when.

Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?

SpongeBob! SquarePants!

Yup. Another story on SpongeBob's insidious assault on the moral integrity of our country's children.

You've got to be kidding me

So George W. Bush was inaugurated for his second presidential term. Haven't heard all the news yet, but NPR seemed kind of petty in one segment where they nitpicked some aspects of his address. Not that I'm defending President Bush; it's more that I'm disappointed that NPR would succomb to such high school behavior.

On to more important issues: the newest enemy of moral decency is none other than... SpongeBob SquarePants. According to an article in this evening's online edition of the New York Times, the conservative advocacy group Focus on the Family has targeted SpongeBob SquarePants as an advocate for tolerance towards homosexuality.

Un-fucking-believable. Guerilla war in Iraq. Ongoing military operations in Afghanistan. Active efforts to dismantle Social Security. An Attorney General who has no regard for our Constitution or international law. And the most pressing issue is SpongeBob SquarePants?

In other news, I'm totally psyched for Darth Tater. Episode III may totally suck (or it may actually be decent, we'll have to see) but Darth Tater rocks. Check it out.

Deep Impact takes off...

... be afraid. Be very afraid.

Am I the only one apprehensive about this? Does no one else remember Star Blazers? Specifically, the Comet Empire. We couldn't fuck with them back then (i.e., the late '70s when Star Blazers was in its US TV run); what makes us think that we're up to the task now?

That's dedication

OK, I'll try not to post anymore Lord of the Rings stuff for a little while. I just finished going through the extended edition of Return of the King. (Took me two nights. Gah, I must be getting old.) My comments later. But first, this is from Flagpole, the local alternative newsweekly here in Athens. One of the movie critics took it upon himself to watch all three of the extended editions back-to-back-to-back in one sitting. What follows are his hour-by-hour musings (comments in brackets are mine):

Since first seeing The Fellowship of the Ring, I have salivated over the idea of experiencing all three films in one single viewing. With the Dec. 14 release of The Return of the King Special Extended Edition, this dream could finally be fulfilled. So with popcorn, pizza and Southfarthing leaf at hand, I began the longest cinematic journey of my life one Saturday morn at 10:30 am.

Hour 1. The first of countless over-pronounced Morders is uttered. Ian McKellan gets his ass handed to him by 80-year old Christopher Lee in the battle of the Geriatrics. Look, Peter Jackson is eating and burping through the streets of Bree. [Ooo, I'll have to look out for that!]

Hour 2. The day's first bathroom break occurring in only the second hour is a bad sign. What is Sawyer from "Lost" doing here? Wait, it is just Viggo.

Hour 3. Has anyone else realized how much the Balrog resembles Dio's all-pervading Devil?

Hour 4. Boromir's amazingly painful death is also a great moment of cinematic redemption. Fellowship ends at 1:53 pm with Two Towers beginning at 2:04 pm.

Hour 5. The fifth hour begins with Miranda Otto, Karl Urban, Bernard Hill, Brad Dourif, Treebeard and Gandalf the White all stopping by.

Hour 6. The Gollum/Smeagol conversation - the best scene of the series and 2002 - is funny, sad, and the best performance Andy Serkis will ever give.

Hour 7. The Elves appearance at Helm's Deep represents deus ex machina numero uno. The Energizer Battle of Helm's Deep begins at 5:00 pm sharp. Deus ex machina number two, Gandalf and the Rohirrim, appear.

Hour 8. It is 5:30 pm., and the battle still rages. I am surprisingly lucid at the seven and one quarter hours mark. Return begins at 6:05 pm, as does the pizza and beer. The restored confrontation with Saruman is nice but nothing to get worked up over. I would so take Eowyn over Arwen.

Hour 10. [Hey, what happened to Hour 9?] Of all the long hair, that of David Wenham (Faramir) is the worst. That new skull avalanche is tight.

Hour 11. The siege of Gondor is in full-swing, and I sit pondering the Orc who designed that faboo ["faboo"? The fuck?] battering ram. Legolas' oliphant-surfing proves once and for all who the biggest badass is.

Hour 12. I liked Rankin-Bass' Mount Doom better. [I hope you didn't like their songs as well. Did you like Thundercats? Thundercats rocked.] A fourth and final deus ex machina, the eagles, saves Frodo and Sam. [What was the third deus ex machina? Oh, nevermind.] The Eye of Sauron could use some Visine. Sam cries for the eight-billionth time, as do I whilst sitting through all these frigging endings. At 10:15 pm, 11 hours and 45 minutes since Fellowship began, the final credits roll.

The final tale of the tape: 705 minutes, 3 films, 6 DVDs, 1 pot of coffee, 2 breakfast pastries, 1 bag of popcorn, 1 Coke, 2 cookies, 1 pizza, 3 beers, 1 candy bar, 6 bathroom breaks, 0 phone calls, 2 roommates, and 1 cat (never really a factor). - Drew Wheeler

As for me, what's stands out the most from the extended edition of RotK was probably the parlay with the Mouth of Sauron. (Of course, this might change upon subsequent viewings.) I don't know whose idea it was, but for some reason, the Mouth of Sauron was really twitchy. It's as if he had some kind of neck tic. Even better, every time he twitched his head, he'd gnash his teeth, which got me thinking that behind all his insults and threats, what he was really trying to say was: "Do you see anything different about my smile? I got my teeth whitened. I used Colgate whitening strips. My dentist recommended them. I can give you his name if you're interested."

Maybe after all the fighting and crying and handwringing over Sauron's stupid ring (which, incidentally, I still don't understand how it fits over his finger if you look at the gauntlet he's wearing in the beginning of Fellowship of the Ring), perhaps Tolkien's moral was to practice good dental hygiene.

Eee-yikes! Calm down...

Got my hands on the extended edition DVD of "Return of the King." And yet, for all my excitement, I haven't been able to finish watching it. Not because I find the extended and newly added scenes boring. No - I just keep on insisting on attempting to watch it at the end of the night, fully aware that I'll probably fall asleep at some point.

Anyway. Here's an excerpt from a review posted on Amazon.com:

Far less satisfying was "The Witch Kings Hour". Something obscene and profane happened within this scene; something impossible within the context of the universe that Tolkien created. I can imagine him revolving in his grave like a turbine. When the Witch King swooped down into Minas Tirith to confront Gandalf, I expected something similar to the scene [the much ballyhooed showdown between the Fellowship and Saruman after the Ents go medieval on Isengard] described above. I expected a physical confrontation, although it did not exist in the book, and for the Witch King to be harmed, to an extent. Instead, the Witch King broke Gandalf's staff and Gandalf was thrown from his horse. Jackson, as a rabid fan of Tolkien's work, and surrounded by others who were also rabid fans, should have known better.

Laugh if you will, but I almost shut the movie off at that point, so great was my frustration. It's one thing to alter events to try and broaden the appeal of a movie (e.g., the inclusion of Arwen), one thing again to include things that didn't happen in the book to offer some form of structural symbolism (e.g., Gandalf being engulfed in flame), but it's another thing entirely to have something happen that could not *possibly* have happened. The Witch King of Angmar was no feeble opponent, to be certain, but he was only a man. Gandalf was not only of the race of the Maiar (within Tolkien's mythos, I analogize the Maiar to angels), he had also been reborn, sent back to Middle Earth cleansed and "greater". No man, regardless of his form, regardless of any ring he may wear, regardless of the power that runs within him, *could have possibly broken Gandalf's staff*. It disgusted me, as it should every fan of The Lord of the Rings. It was impossible, and entirely unforgivable.

Hmm, I guess I'm not a true fan, since I didn't find that scene offensive at all. After I read that histrionic passage, I started to think about my reaction to the first ten minutes of "Van Helsing" and how badly I wanted to walk out of the theater. (I didn't, but I was tempted.) But then I remembered how God-awful atrocious "Van Helsing" was and I didn't feel bad anymore.

Red Sox win World Series; Bush is re-elected to 2nd term

The score thus far:

Conservative Red Sox fans: seventh Heaven.
Liberal Yankees fans: ninth circle of Hell.

As for liberal Red Sox fans or conservative Yankees fans... I dunno. Somewhere in between, I suppose. Personally, I can handle the fact that my Yankees lost to the Red Sox (which, I suppose, represents some form of baseball Armageddon). Bush being re-elected? No, I'm not quite at peace with that. The difference? When my Yankees lost, it didn't imply the inception of the United Theocracy-Plutocracy of America. Bush's election victory does. Crap. We are so screwed.

Holy shit

At this point (12:34 AM EST), according to NPR's projections, Bush leads Kerry 246 to 206. Kerry needs to sweep the rest of the upper Midwest (Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa). Fuck. If Kerry pulls ths off, it's gotta equal the Red Sox coming back from 0-3.

Dammit. I don't think I can handle all the conservative gloating if Bush ends up being re-elected. Oh wait, NPR's calling Minnesota for Kerry. Make that Bush: 246 Kerry: 216. Fuck! This feels like the ALCS Games 4 and 5 all over again.

Fuck! Fuck! Fuckity fuck!

Even busy homophobes need to take a break

Case in point: this afternoon, maybe a half hour before kickoff for the Georgia-Tennessee game, I ventured out of the Chemistry building to get some lunch downtown. Maybe not the best timing, seeing how everyone and their mother was heading in the opposite direction towards the stadium. (To clarify: the Chemistry building is right next to the football stadium. And yet from my desk, I still can't see shit. Anyway.) So, there I was, slowly working my way against traffic when I see these preacher types with the 10 foot placards in the middle of the crowd, berating everyone for indulging in such open displays of drunken behavior. I think someone shouted, "I'm so wasted that I can't hear what you're saying." But I digress. One of the placards read: "Adam and Eve. Not Adam and Steve." I think the reverse side said: "Sodomy. It's to die for." For the most part, it seemed that most everybody was either vaguely bewildered or outright pissed that the preacher brigade decided to show up and spoil everyone's fun.

A couple of hours later after a rather leisurely lunch at the local 24 hour diner downtown, I headed back to work and figured I'd try to catch some of the game. Or at least try to figure out what was happening based on the crowd's reaction. Not the best way to take in a football game, perhaps, but I had no desire to buy a ticket. Apparently, neither did the preacher types. They were leaning over the railing just as intently as I was, trying to catch some of the action on the field. Hmm. I guess football is the secret ingredient that brings us all together.

Ooo, baby, baby, it's a wild world...

This is just too good to pass up...

"Tea for the Tillerman?" More like: "T" is for suspected "terrorist" connections. Put the emphasis on suspected. According to CNN.com:

Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge accused Islam [Cat Stevens' Muslim name] of having some unspecified relationship with terrorist activity.

"Celebrity or unknown, our job is to act on information that others have given us," Ridge said.

"And in this instance, there was some relationship between the name and the terrorists' activity with this individual's name being on that no-fly list, and appropriate action was taken."

Hmm, thanks for clearing that up. Geez. If Homeland Security can't handle Cat Stevens, one wonders how they'd react to Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan...

In other news, it's time for Best Day Ever! For me, that would have been yesterday. Specifically, the moment my face hit the ground when I tripped (spectacularly, I might add) over some random cinder block that just happened to be in the middle of the lane as I was jogging yesterday. If this had been the Simpsons, Nelson would have been there going "Haah, haah!"

In cyberspace, no one can hear you scream

Whenever I read David Brooks' columns, I'm always left feeling vaguely irritable. I haven't figured it out until now, after reading Brooks' most recent column. The reason's quite simple: the guy's a milquetoast prick. What a fucking condescending column. Having said that, I have to agree with Brooks' point; that is, Kerry just seems to be flailing blindly in order to get his campaign back on track (or onto any track, as external appearances might suggest). I just hope that President Kerry (premature, I know, but I can always hope...) is not nearly as big a douchebag as his current avatar, Candidate Kerry.

Other bullshit of the week... A nearly-completed version of the report being prepared by Charles Duelfer, the head of the weapons inspection team that's been scouring Iraq for weapons of mass destruction, made its way through Washington a couple of days ago. Consistent with previous conclusions, the Duelfer report asserts that Iraq did not have the ability to produce weapons of mass destruction, but given the chance, probably would. Fuck me. I can already hear the Bush spinmeisters inserting the following phrase into every stump speech from now until Election Day: "Y'see, he had the intent to produce weapons of mass destruction. That's why we were justified to go to war against him." In fact, that very prediction was echoed in Friday's edition of "All Things Considered."

And finally, this is something that's been cooking in the back of my mind for a few days. I propose a new game (sorry, only those whose politics lean to the left are eligible): Pretend to be a "conservative." (I put that in quotes, because genuine conservatives are just as annoyed at Bush as every one on the left.) Basically, every utterance out of your mouth must defend the Bush administration and every criticism must be properly rebuked as unpatriotic and possibly seditious to the point of being treasonous. For example, take this story from today's Times where President Bush responded to Senator Kerry's criticism of the administration's Iraq policy as "... undermining the efforts of American troops in battle." My normal, left-leaning self, would respond with: "Hmm, that's interesting. I'd say the administration's efforts to fight the insurgency in Iraq with the mentality of Ebeneezer Scrooge (e.g., being too goddam cheap to even secure adequate funding so all our troops can be equiped with body armor, etc.) seems to be doing more to undermine our troops than Kerry's criticism." But "conservative" me would say: "President Bush is exactly right. All this negative reporting from the liberal, elite media only serves to aid and abet our enemies. Reports of roadside bombs, suicide car bomb attacks, kidnappings, rebel insurgencies, and whatnot only perpetuate the cycle of violence. Our mission has been accomplished. The Butcher of Baghdad has been apprehended and is being brought to justice. The people of Iraq will never have to live in fear of Saddam Hussein anymore." (And blah, blah, blah. I could go on and on but I'm making myself sick.)

Fuckin' A. How can anyone who can see straight not see that a second Bush administration would be horrible for the US and the rest of the world? What the hell is Kerry doing, running his campaign so ineptly that he drops one opportunity after another to capitalize on Bush's weaknesses? If this were professional sports, someone needs to scream at Kerry to start playing to win rather than playing not to lose. Fuck. Now I'm pissed off again.

This just in

Horrible hostage crisis in Russia just got worse as Russian forces stormed the school, prompting a chaotic battle between the 40-some captors and Russian forces. Outcome still unclear. Meanwhile, US cable news networks too busy masturbating over the Republican convention to give a fuck.

What the fuck?!

Cleveland 22 New York 0

OK, had to get that off my chest. What was the Yankees' lead over Boston back on August 16th? 10.5. Today? 3.5. I knew I was asking for too much today. Had a great day in lab (i.e. - got a result that was much better than I had expected. Of course, it still needs to be repeated so check back to see how I'm feeling after the second attempt.); got the new Bjork album as well as Tool's "Lateralus." (I know, "Lateralus" has been out for a while but I never got around to getting it. Glad I did. Fun stuff. Although I suppose one can't deny the early Metallica influence, what with all the intricate arrangements.) Anyway. I guess hoping for a Yankees win was just getting greedy.

I'd have something snarky to say about the Republican convention but I just haven't had the heart to watch any of it. There's only so much "They don't represent the real America. We do. (And by extension, if you agree with them, then you must not be part of the real America either. Go back to where you came from, fucking pissant.)" that I can take. And by "only so much I can take," I mean "only so much I can take over the course of my entire fricking lifetime."

One thing I've realized recently while stewing over what exactly it is that drives me batty when it comes to the Republican Party of the past twenty-some years is that the Republicans have always managed to dictate the terms of debate and distract the public's attention from the core issues of any discussion to the more emotional, but ultimately less substantial aspects of the same discussion. Pick a topic, any topic. Gay marriage? Abortion? Gun control? Dare I say it, the war on terrorism? You name it, the Republicans have managed to push the public's buttons and manipulate it to respond with whatever knee-jerk response is required to turn the discussion against the Democrats. This gets at the double standard that Rolando brought up a little while ago. In a similar vein, here's the most recent column from Jonathan Alter in this week's Newsweek that explores the Democrats' seeming inability to take off the proverbial gloves.

OK, now I'm getting pissed off again. Humiliating late-season Yankees loss coupled with the Republican convention is going to pop a vein in my brain. Must go kill monsters in Diablo II. That'll make me feel better.

Florida again?!

Here are the second and third pieces from a recent series of columns by Bob Herbert from the NYT on recent shenanigans going down in the Sunshine State. In a nutshell, it seems that the powers that be in Florida (i.e., Governor Jeb Bush and Co.) are quietly but diligently working to intimidate black voters by investigating "charges" of voter fraud. The people who have been targeted have tended to be retired black citizens who have been active in voter registration drives. This from the state that demonstrated in spectacular fashion how to mismanage an election back in 2000 and 2002. And there's still the suspicious business about purging the names of former felons from the lists of eligible voters. Particularly the subtle point that those charged with removing the names of felons didn't seem to go to great lengths to check to see if they actually got the right person in the event that two people had the same name.

So much for my previous fretting about the subversion of the democratic process by the Democratic Party with regard to their efforts to undermine Ralph Nader's presidential bid.

(Note: the New York Times archives its online features about two weeks after they first go up. After that, the links will give you the first 50 words of the first paragraph of the article. If I get around to it, I'll try to figure out how to link the full text of both columns as independent HTML files rather than just as links.)