A Pilgrim’s Digression

White House Briefing

In case you skipped the Oscars last night, as I did (as I always do), here is Chris Rock’s riff on President Bush, courtesy of the Washington Post:

“A lot of people like to bash Bush. I’m not going to bash Bush here tonight. I saw ‘Fahrenheit 9/11.’ I think Bush is a genius. I think Bush did some things this year nobody in this room could do — nobody in this room could pull off.

“Bush basically reapplied for his job this year. Now, can you imagine applying for a job, and while you’re applying for that job, there’s a movie in every theater in the country that shows how much you suck at that job? It’d be hard to get hired, wouldn’t it? Now I watched ‘Fahrenheit’ and I learned some stuff, man. And Bush did some things you could never get away with at your job, man. Never, ever ever. You know, when Bush got into office, they had a surplus of money. Now, there’s like a $70 trillion deficit.

“Now just imagine you worked at the Gap. You closing out your register and it’s $70 trillion short. The average person would get in trouble for something like that, right? Not Bush. No. then — then, he started a war. That’s cool. Support the troops. He started a war.

“Now, just imagine you worked at the Gap. You’re $70 trillion behind on your register. And then you start a war with Banana Republic, ’cause you say they got toxic tank tops over there. You had the war. People are dying. A thousand Gap employees are dead, that’s right, bleeding all over the khakis. You finally take over Banana Republic. And you find out they never made tank tops in the first place.”

During the time that has passed since I last wrote, I have been pretty sick, a sickness which I passed on to my son. Thus the past weekend, while not being without its pleasures, has also been one of hacking coughs, phlegm, sore throat, headaches, and general sleeplessness for all involved. I don’t think I had a day in which I did not think about blogging, but “thinking about blogging” is all I managed.

I did watch a couple interesting films during my convalescence, however, Shyamalan’s The Village and Kerry Conran’s Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Both received mixed reviews, mostly negative, but I found both of them quite enjoyable.

I would be hard-pressed to say which of these two films have received the worst reviews, but Shyamalan’s film seems to have irritated and confused more people than Conran’s, which is after all merely a tribute to the post-World War II sci-fi genre. Therefore, I’ll begin with a few thoughts on The Village.
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“Wildwood Flower,” The Carter Family

I did not sleep well last night. I went to bed about 10:30 and lay awake for the longest time because of my cold. I don’t feel like I ever went to sleep really. I had to lie propped up on pillows, as if I were reading in bed, in order for my head to stay clear enough for me to doze. Dozing is about all I did, too.

I finally got up about three and wrote the following.
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Hunter Thompson shoots self

Overnight, I have gone from feeling reasonably well, save for that pain in my neck, to so sick I want to go back to bed and sleep for three days. Monsieur Mathieu, famous clairvoyant, has a bad cold.

I took a Claritin tablet I found in the bottom of my desk drawer, which has at least helped somewhat with the congestion, so I’ll make it through the day and probably be better tomorrow. You don’t have to tell me that Claritin is for allergies. I am intimately familiar with the whole range of meds for upper respiratory illness. Claritin is just what I happened to have on hand.

As of this writing, the archive of stories Hunter S. Thompson wrote for ESPN.com are still available on the website. The articles do not seem to be arranged chronologically, but I suppose a lack of simple organizational capacity is in keeping with a testosterone-enhanced, sports-themed website. The most recent Thompson column is dated February 15. It’s an unimpressive bit of dialogue between Thompson and Bill Murray on the merits of a new sport Thompson hopes to market, Shotgun Golf.

Personally, I was hoping Shotgun Golf would turn out to be something really radical, like a game in which golfers must play while spectators shoot at them with 12 gauge Remington pump guns, but in fact the sport consists of one man trying to throw off another man’s shot by shooting his ball with the shotgun.

Not having any particular appreciation for physical activity that does not involve at least partial nudity, I feel a bit sad whenever I see an otherwise decent enough male writer succumbing to the childish urge to write about games and guns.
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I got up this morning with a pain in my neck. I must have slept crooked in the night. After taking Brendan to school this morning, I stopped by CVS for some Aleve.

I ended up buying ibuprofen because it came with a “free” Mr. Potato Head. The pharmaceutical companies must have finally figured out that a parent will feel compelled to buy any product that includes a toy.

Although I admit that selling ibuprofen with a toy makes limited sense, since presumably parents need medication more than non-parents, I still can’t quite wrap my mind around the meetings that must have taken place at the pharmaceutical company prior to the decision to market a drug with a Mr. Potato Head.

And is this only a test case? What other odd toy/pharmaceutical combinations might we see in the future? Will other companies take notice?

As a parent, I might buy a bottle of Jack Daniels if it came with a plush Elmo.

Also, I can envision a Teletubby being sold with packages of KY jelly.

Of course, marketing food to kids has been a staple of our society for decades. Go down the cereal aisle at the Supermarket sometime. Every children’s movie, from Nemo to the Cat in the Hat, has a cereal tie in. At least the companies are trying to make these cereals more healthful today. When I was a kid, a movie cereal was bound to be the sugariest, unnutritious cereal one could buy, which was part of the reason kids liked it. Now such cereal is wheaty and vitamin fortified, though it is also still plenty sweet enough and chock full of marshmallows.
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We bought a new couch a few weeks ago, and it was finally delivered on Friday. I recall that my friend Todd sent us a picture of his new couch when he bought it. So in the same spirit, this is a picture of me on my new couch with my son at play on the floor beside me.

The book I am “reading” is a book of seventeenth century English political tracts Todd bought me after I completed my MA, at a time when he thought erroneously that I was going to be a scholar of some sort.

http://www.washingtonpost…005Feb16_2.html

“It may be only a matter of time before al Qaeda or another group attempts to use chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons.” CIA Director Porter Goss, February 16, 2005.

It’s only a matter of time before we die anyway.
It’s only a matter of time before an earthquake kills thousands.
It’s only a matter of time before a tornado tears apart a trailer park.
It’s only a matter of time before a shark consumes a swimmer.
It’s only a matter of time.

It’s only a matter of time before we are broke again.
It’s only a matter of time before we feel hungry again.
It’s only a matter of time before we vote again.
It’s only a matter of time before our children leave us.
It’s only a matter of time.

The inevitability of increase is countered by the inevitability of loss.

Scientists tell us that the matter of the universe
Is propelled outward from the source of its creation.
Is it slowing down or speeding up,
As it expands?
They don’t yet know.

Nor do they know more about the matter of time
Than any philosopher or poet, past or present.
All we need to know is that time is like the lion
Wandering forth, seeking whom it may devour.

“We should build a wall along our border,”
Someone proposes. “Like the Chinese did.”
How grand that wall must have seemed!
For it still seems grand today.
Yet few now remember the difference between
Whom it kept out
And whom it kept in,
And the border has moved anyway.

http://www.washingtonpost…-2005Feb15.html

I am always late to the ball, it seems. No pun intended. The story that has been burning up the liberal blogwaves the past week or so is the strange matter of Jim Guckert, a.k.a Jeff Gannon, a “reporter” and White House Correspondent for Talon News. Guckert/Gannon was exposed last week as a $200.00 an hour whore who bought his journalism degree for $50.00 from a diploma mill roughly a week before he was outed and ousted from the White House press corps.

It’s a pretty sordid story that I have been enjoying, but not feeling much compulsion to comment on. However, yesterday, Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post became one of the first major newspaper reporters to write a full length article about the subject, titled Online Nude Photos Are Latest In Jeff Gannon Saga. Then today, Maureen Dowd and Frank Rich at the New York Times joined the fray. Dowd’s article is titled Bush’s Barberini Faun and Rich’s is titled The White House Stages Its ‘Daily Show’, a reference to the Comedy Channel’s fake news program.

Incidentally, the title of Dowd’s editorial refers to a famous sculpture, the Barberini Faun. In on-line photos advertising his services as a prostitute, Guckert/Gannon adopted a pose very similar to the sculpture, except the Faun’s, um, genitalia are in what we might euphemistically call a “relaxed” position.

If you want to see Guckert’s take on the classical pose, americablog.org provides links to both censored and uncensored pictures of all of Guckert’s advertisements for his services.

Generally, I am rather wary of making too much of this. Sex scandals are what Republicans do best. However, the story is strange, to say the least, and rumors are flying.
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http://www.washingtonpost…005Feb16_2.html

(Quote of the day)
“I am not going to give you a number for it because it’s not my business to do intelligent work.”

Donald Rumsfeld yesterday, when asked about the number of insurgents in Iraq by Rep. Mike Skelton (D-Mo.).