Bzzzzzzt.

He's none of those people. He was either this guy, this guy or this guy.

Marlowe's my personal favorite in this horse race, but that's just me.

{hat tip: Sully}

Posted by: Kathy at 10:18 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Jonathan points the way to the trailer for the new Ridley Scott movie, Kingdom of Heaven and makes some predictions:

{...}In the past, Scott has been fairly unflinching in his depiction of certain enemies of Western civilization (see Black Hawk Down and G.I. Jane). It will be very, very interesting to see how the Kingdom of Heaven handles the crusades and how the CAIR-style backlash is manufactured leading up to the film's release (expect Time and Newsweek cover stories in April). Also of interest will be the European reaction to the movie. What happens to European anti-Americanism when Europe is cast in the role of America?{...}

(If, like myself, you're overwhemed in this acronym laden world, CAIR is the Council on American Islamic Relations.)

Interesting, but I think Ridley will indeed get off Scot free. I predict he will be laughing all the way to the bank. Unlike Oliver Stone, who laid the blame for Alexander's recent failure at the feet of uninterested American Bush-votin' fundamentalist homophobes, Scott doesn't go into a movie blatantly pushing an agenda. He goes into it to tell a story. There may be controversial aspects to that story, but Scott handles them deftly as they come along: they're simply a part of the story to him, not the story in itself. Stone also goes into filmmaking to tell a story, but he carries with him an agenda. He prefers to perform morality plays, wherein his message is the morality preached. Scott doesn't do that. I don't doubt that Scott does have an agenda to promote regarding Western Civilization, but he doesn't slam you over the head with it. He gives his audience credit for having a brain and allows them to come to conclusions themselves. If anything, he's the braver of the two, because he's not afraid of the audience. If the audience fails to laud Stone we're all stupid, as the above links show. The difference between the two men and their styles of storytelling is obvious.

For instance, Gladiator, if it had been made by Oliver Stone instead of Ridley Scott, would have been all about the evils of slavery. Stone, I'm fairly certain, would hammer this point home, with every character conundrum and plot point revolving around it. Scott's version, however, was about a general being sold into slavery by his enemies, and having the character to not only survive the perils of forced servitude, but to rise above it and to vanquish his foes. Was slavery any less evil in Scott's film, even though he didn't flog the dead horse of slavery every chance he got?

Any publicity this film gets along the lines of Jonathan's predictions will only be invalidated when the movie is released, and (I predict confidently) is critically acclaimed. It'll be a big non-starter. Alexander's failure to reap any critical acclaim and box office gives me hope in for this film. As for the Europeans, well... If they thought Alexander was good, do we really need to be consulting them for their opinion about films and their relevance to the ongoing debate of how best to combat Islamofascism?

Related side note: could someone tell me what the fascination with Orlando Bloom is? Bleh. I'm just not getting this one. He does absolutely nothing for me. He looks like an eager puppy, rather than a brave man. If this movie fails it will be because of him, I'm pretty certain, and not because of the message.

Posted by: Kathy at 03:28 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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As an outflow of yesterdays' lingerie discussion, Feisty Christina has a question for the men out there.

Posted by: Kathy at 12:19 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Courtesy o' the Llamas, we have Michelle Malkin on cutting:

Have you heard of "cutting"? If you're a parent, you'd better read up. "Cutting" refers to self-mutilation -- using knives, razor blades or even safety pins to deliberately harm one's own body -- and it's spreading to a school near you.

Actresses Angelina Jolie and Christina Ricci did it. So did Courtney Love and the late Princess Diana. On the Internet, there are scores of websites (with titles such as "Blood Red," "Razor Blade Kisses" and "The Cutting World") featuring "famous self-injurers," photos of teenagers' self-inflicted wounds and descriptions of their techniques. The destructive practice has been depicted in films targeting young girls and teens (such as "Thirteen"). There is even a new genre of music -- "emo" -- associated with promoting the cutting culture.

In Britain, health care researchers estimate that one in 10 teenagers engages in addictive self injury. According to psychiatrist Gary Litovitz, medical director of Dominion Hospital in Falls Church, Va., the growing trend here in America has alarmed school guidance counselors around the country.{...}

Go read the whole thing.

While Malkin is quick to lay the blame of this alarming practice at the feet on Hollywood, I, just like Robbo, think she's way off the mark. The girl referred to in the piece is a child of divorce and is no doubt seeking attention. Cutting is just the hip way to do this.

When I was that age, well, sleeping around or getting obnoxiously drunk on a regular basis was the way to garner the attention of one's parents. And yes, at age fourteen, people in my eighth grade class were sleeping around and getting loaded regularly. This was in in 1985. The phrase "bl0w j0b" had entered into my lexicon when I was twelve, two years earlier.

And I went to Catholic school.

Yet, since those are commonly accepted activities for teenagers nowadays and there is no stigma attached to them, well, the kids have to look elsewhere for outrageous things to do to make mommy and daddy pay attention. I never drank in high school or slept around: my parents would have killed me if I had done either. Never mind the peer pressure, or the fact I knew I wasn't ready for either activity, the main reason I never did those things was because I didn't want to have to sit and be yelled at by my father for days. And, wow, can my father ever bellow. You don't want to sit through it. Trust me on this one. That was enough to keep me in line.

What's surprising to me about this article is that Malkin took the cheap and easy way out. She pulls out her old battle ax once again and blames Hollywood for this new and disturbing trend. Well, ok, but it seems to me that she missed the greater opportunity to make some points about how society encourages parents to handle teenage rebellion today.

Teenagers are going to rebel. That's just a fact of life. I did it. I'm sure you did, too. There is a point in every adolescent's life where whatever yoke a teenager is burdened with, whether it be light or heavy, becomes a bit much to take. It seems to me they will find things to rebel against, no matter what. This is the time when a teenager is preparing themselves to enter the adult world. Rebelling against authority is part of the game. It is an age where you're figuring out your capabilities as a human being; where you test your limits. If you have no limits to test against, you're going to find new things to do, like cutting.

I'm sure you know what I'm talking about when I claim those limits have been removed. In an effort to lessen the damage of teenagedom, some parents try to make those years safe for their kids, like they were trying to childproof the cabinet under the kitchen sink. They're going to drink, lets buy the beer so they don't have to proposition someone at the 7-11. Let them drink at the house, so they're not out on the roads. They're going to have sex, let's get them set up for birth-control. Let's tell them about HIV/AIDS and STD's, so they'll use a condom. Let's let them use their bedrooms, so they're not doing it in the backseat of a car. And so on and so forth. The "they're going to do it anyway" reasoning has led to activities like cutting, in my humble, non-kid-owning opinion. When you're a teenager and you feel the need to rebel, and your parents take away the commonly accepted ways of showing that rebellion, well, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that the kids are going to find other ways to rebel.

Now, like I said above, I don't have kids. I could be way the hell off the mark here. This is just what I've observed with friends and family. I'm not saying that trying to keep your kids safe is a bad thing. It's a scary world out there and I can understand the desire to protect and defend. But I believe there is a point where plain old fashioned parental disapproval has to come into the equation if you want your children to become productive adults. After all, if your parents tell you that you can't go to a party without parental supervision and they're going to keep you in the house that night as a result, if you're a teenager you're going to stew about that, aren't you? You'll be pissed and frustrated, and you might think of all the things that you can't do because you're a teenager...and you can't wait until you grow up and move out of the house so you can do what you want to do. Right? That was my common complaint when I was a kid. I couldn't wait until I got out of there so I could start living my life. I wanted to grow up. I wanted to make my own decisions. I wanted to be an adult. My parents lived up to their end of the bargain. They disapproved and they showed it. I whined and complained, but I also grew up, too. Given the extended adolescence of some young adults today, you have to think that if only their parents had said 'no' once in a while, they'd be much more productive adults.

Malkin missed the bigger picture here. She laid it all on Christina Ricci's shoulders, because, I have to think, they were a convenient place to put her angst. If anything, good ol' Wednesday Addams has proved my point about teenagers finding new ways to test themselves. Her comments go a long ways toward showing exactly what the problem is.

Posted by: Kathy at 12:10 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Smallholder's got a problem.

Hmmmm.

I would have to go with the Maximum Leader's solution:

{...}In the style of your Maximum Leader: Shoot it. Drag it out and shoot it. Allow its body to bloat in the sun as an example to all other uppity racoons lest they get ideas.

In the style of Winston Churchill: Shoot it. But don't waste time. Just walk right up and shoot the bloody thing. Of course, don't be rude either. When killing a racoon it costs one nothing to be polite.

In the style of the Joseph Stalin: Shoot it. Walk up and POW! One round in the back of the head. Note to self: invoice the racoon's family for the bullet.{...}

Yep. The Max Leader is on to something, even if the Ny-Quil is keeping him from realizing it. The best solution here is for Smallholder to pretend he's someone else and then shoot it that way. In fact, Smallholder could adopt the Cake Eater animus toward racoons and it just might serve him well in getting through this gruesome task.

Raccoons are the bane of my existence in the summertime. The trash goes out on Sunday night for Monday morning pickup, even though the raccoons are quite capable of pulling the lids off all the cans, even when they're buckled down by the can handles. Wily little fuckers. Well, you say, why don't you just take the trash out on Monday morning, so you don't have to be woken by the little fuckers when they trip the motion-sensor light right under your bedroom window? Well, the trash is the one thing our downstairs neighbors take care of around here. They take it out Sunday night, and lest I discourage them from getting more involved (i.e. taking over some of the snow shoveling) I'm not going to say a damned thing.

Most of the time, the nasty Cake Eater neighbor leaves his cans wide open and they go munching in there. When they do come over here, however, they leave an unholy mess! Aieee. Garbage---nasty, nasty garbage---everywhere. Which, of course, we have to clean up. Bleh. My sister, who has her own raccoon problem, says that pouring liquid ammonia into the trash cans works quite well as a repellent. I haven't tried this yet, but I probably will.

In the meantime, however, Smallholder can feel free to access my angst and shoot the varmint.

Happy shooting!

Posted by: Kathy at 03:14 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Heheheheheheh.

Better you than me, Robbo.

Rent a laptop.

Puhleeeze?

Posted by: Kathy at 02:18 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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...is finding someone else who is similarly obsessed with a particular topic.

Courtesy of Ilyka, I found that Ith at Absinthe and Cookies is also a big House fan! She's even got an email list. Wooooh. Impressive.

So, this is a good thing. More people chatting about this show means it won't disappear any time in the near future. Das ist gut. I'm afraid, however, that I still need to keep chatting about House. I'm sorry if this bores you to tears, but I'm terrified that the only reason it's doing well right now is because it's on right after American Idol. I'm afraid that when Idol disappears, its ratings will go back into the toity and that will be the end of that. I don't want to be able to see how that's possible, but unfortunately I can. There's been plenty o' quality television over the years that's done very, very well for a time in a good slot, and then has subsequently disappeared into the ether, like a spaceship on the X-Files, because its lead-in disappeared as well. It's times like this when I really, really wish Nielsen would give me one of those boxes so I can fuck with their heads about what is and isn't good tee-vee.

It's worrying.

Hugh Laurie should have this job for as long as he wants it. And if I have anything to say about it, that will be for a long, long, loooong time.

Posted by: Kathy at 01:22 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Given these recent developments, I'm so prescient.

Sure it's all about beer and trivia now, but they're milling about and organizing. There are weekly meetings that serve a roughly sketched, "figuring it out as we go along" initiation purpose. There's even a blogroll so we know who is a member and who ain't.

Yes, kids. I think we all know where this is headed.

The MOB will soon be applying for a charter and requesting entry into the Panhellenic Council. It is, in short, turning into a Fraternity or a Sorority.

What's next? A reworking of the initiation ritual to something where we all have to bow down and pay homage to Lileks, Hewitt, NARN and the Powerline guys? Will ritualistic chanting be involved? Will we all be uttering shortly, "Thank you, sir! May I have another?" What else will be required? Candle passings? Serenades? Will we be ordering sweatshirts with 'MOB' scrawled across them? Will we be participating in Greek Week and the compulsory bed races? Will we be forced to whip out our trusty cordless screwdrivers to construct a homecoming lawn display? Will float building two weeks before finals be mandatory? Will we now have to perform intricate Rush dances on the front lawn of the MOB house? Or---holy of holies-- will the ghastly phrase, "Fire UP!" be repeatedly squeaked out by perky blondes for motivational purposes?

Heaven forfend!

Soon, I am pretty damn sure, I'll be drafted into licking envelopes. This is how it always starts.

Join up for the fun and tongue numbness will shortly follow.

Posted by: Kathy at 01:27 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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For my fellow Minnesota residents who received an anti-trust settlement offer from Microsquash last fall: it has to be postmarked tomorrow or you lose out on all that cashola!

And the only reason I know this is because the husband just filled ours out.

Go forth and bask in the righteousness of the well-informed.

Posted by: Kathy at 12:05 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I THINK NOT!

Posted by: Kathy at 02:33 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Sadie, in response to an idiotic call for Brit Hume's resignation, points us to where the real problem at Fox News resides.

To go one step further in blogswarming the apparent plastic surgery addiction at Fox News, I humbly present to you, my devoted Cake Eater readers, this:

Dearest Shep needs to cut back on the old Botox injections. I still find myself watching his broadcast, waiting for a random forehead line to pop up. Alas, it never happens. In fact, he doesn't seem to have a whole lot of facial expression, does he? Sure he can do stuff with his voice, but when it comes to expressing with his facial muscles, well....

I have this image of him being shot up every day, right before Studio B, when he's getting his makeup done. Does Fox keep a plastic surgeon on retainer?

Hmmmm. I smell an Area 51 conspiracy.

I'm assuming all my fellow CITIZEN JOURNALISTS will jump on this one now that I've proved there is a plastic surgery conspiracy occurring at Fox News.

Go forth and act all Mulderish in pursuit of the truth. And if you wind up singing the theme song to Shaft during your investigation, I want the video.

Posted by: Kathy at 01:54 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Over at the Fraters, St. Paul discusses the various privileges of union membership and makes some excellent points.

As far as the benefits of union membership, well, as far as I can see, there really don't seem to be any. But don't tell the unions that. You might just put Jimmy Hoffa Jr in his grave prematurely. And let's face it, if there's anyone who's probably really afraid of dying, it's him. It would be cruel to taunt him about such a thing. Really. (Don't think it'll stop me, though.) But I digress. Anything they might have been able to take credit for in the past is now legislated. What purpose do they serve nowadays, other than arguing about health insurance prices? I don't really see the need for them to be fighting THE MAN all the damn time. At least not here in the States.

On a related note, I would still like to know why the Teamsters can call itself an international organization if it only operates in the United States and Canada.

What? Don't workers in developing countries deserve to be represented by Jimmy Hoffa Jr. in their fight against THE MAN? I mean, if it's all about fighting THE MAN, you'd think they'd want to go someplace where they'd actually have to, you know, fight.

Or isn't five percent of a $14/week Mexican/Indonesian/Malaysian paycheck enough to sustain their activities?

Makes one wonder, doesn't it?

/sarcasm

Posted by: Kathy at 12:13 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Jonathan asks us who our Law and Order dream team would be.

Hmmmmm.

This is a toughie for me mainly because I quit watching a while back, so my choices are bound to seem dated. I stopped watching because if I had to listen to the phrase "Ripped From the Headlines!!!!" one more time I was going to gag. It was one thing for the writers to use real cases as an inspiration for their plotlines and to examine them from that angle, but it was another thing entirely to advertise it. It was like going from subtle tap on the head that asked us, politely, to pay attention, to being knocked over with a sledgehammer. Highly annoying. One of my all-time favorite Law and Order episodes was the one where they fictionalized the Tawana Brawley incident. Richard Brooks' assistant AD Paul Robinette was stuck between the proverbial rock of being a black man and the hard place of defending the law. It was a brilliant performance and one that sticks out clearly in my mind, all these years later. Even thought the writers were fictionalizing a real-life case, they did it with class and grace and no viewpoint was left untended. But at no point did they advertise this episode as "Ripped From the Headlines!" It was what it was, and it was brilliant.

The urge to make a Law and Order franchise struck down the integrity of this show, in my humble opinion. That's why I stopped watching. Bringing on a Baywatch babe only sealed the deal for me.

That said, however, here's my dream team.

The law side:

Chris Noth (with Benjamin Bratt a close second)

Jerry Orbach

S. Epatha Merkerson

The order side:

Steven Hill (Dianne Wiest or Fred Thompson? Ha! I think not!)

Michael Moriarty (Sam Waterson is great. Don't get me wrong. I just get the feeling if I ever had to be around McCoy on the show, I'd be showered in spittle every time he decided to get righteous. Bleh.)

Jill Hennessy (With Richard Brooks a very close second. A very close second. In fact, I'd love to see them bring him back and put him in the Waterson/Moriarty slot. Claire's dead. (or so they say! I never saw a body!) I can't say the same for her.)

Posted by: Kathy at 01:16 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Which Family Guy character are you?

"I say! Fetch me some clean linen to throw on before I call child services!"

{Hat tip: Doug at Bogus Gold}

Posted by: Kathy at 01:26 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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.... "You can bend over and kiss my lily white, Kappa Alpha Theta ass," is what I have to say to the Crack Young Staff of "The Hatemonger's Quarterly."

Your generalizations have dumped you neck-deep into the soup this time, Chip.

Posted by: Kathy at 01:04 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Was just perusing the TV listings for this evening's episode of House and am suddenly edgy.

If, at any point, during this very special detox episode, Dr. House finds his way to a twelve step meeting, I will give up this show. For good. And I won't watch again.

I might have more to say about this later on tonight. I sincerely hope I don't, though.

UPDATE: Yay! Good episode, too. more...

Posted by: Kathy at 03:38 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Terry Teachout is not so much speaking ill of the dead, but rather gives an honest obituary when it comes to Arthur Miller.

Personally, the fact I went to an all-girl Catholic school saved me from much of Miller's work. We never read or presented "A Death of a Salesman" in high school because we didn't have any boys attending our school. Would have been a bit hard to cast, eh? We had enough trouble trying to find a Tevye and three suitors when we presented Fiddler on the Roof. But mainly I believe we were spared Miller not because we were a provincial school in Omaha, but rather because our English Department thought his work was overrated crap. (This is also the same English Department who made us read Macbeth instead of Romeo and Juliet because they didn't want to focus too much on Shakespeare. We spent more time on Chaucer and Beowulf in Brit Lit than we ever did on good ol' Will. Take what you will from that observation.)

So, having never been educated in the "joys" of Arthur Miller, but having heard quite a bit about him and his work, I was a bit surprised one night when I sat down and watched The Crucible. For someone who had been heralded as the playwright of our time, I was a wee bit surprised at how quickly and easily Miller pressed the "mass hysteria" button. It's his play and he was entitled to do whatever he wanted, but it seemed a cheap trick for one who was supposedly so talented. There was untouched ground in that play that could have been much more interesting and insightful, but Miller focused instead on slamming home his message about the dangers of witchhunts.

Ugh.

I came to the conclusion that the English Department at my old high school knew what they were talking about.

Posted by: Kathy at 10:22 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Wellstone Syndrome has gone national.

Posted by: Kathy at 03:13 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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As a blog junkie, I read a lot of posts from day to day. I like to see how people will argue a point. The style of the debates that ensue are just as interesting to me as the debate topic itself. For me, it's not only about what Picasso painted, but how he did it, what brushes and paints did he use, etc.

If this sort of thing interests you, first go here.

Then go here for one exceedingly well-argued point of view.

This is what the blogosphere is all about. This is why I love it so.

{hat tip: The Naked Villains}

Posted by: Kathy at 02:58 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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{If bigger is your thing, click to enlarge}

I swear to God, if this yet another attempt to get me to read Penthouse Forum I will go and get the cast iron frying pan and I will smack you upside the head with it.

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