Friday, October 10, 2003

Steig Remembered

The widow of the late William Steig tells us about her late husband.

• Posted at 11:49 PM · LINK

Penn on Roy

Why, after years of mocking Siegfried and Roy, is the tall, verbal half of Penn and Teller giving press interviews on Roy's behalf? Over on his website, Penn explains.

• Posted at 11:39 PM · LINK

Synchronicity

So I post the link to the John Dean article, get in the car, drive over to a nearby drugstore and who do I see shopping there when I walk in? John Dean. I should have linked to something by Halle Berry.

Actually, I always kind of admired John Dean and I wish there'd been a graceful way to tell him that. But he didn't look approachable, and I figured, "Hey, on my weblog I just linked to a piece you wrote" was among the geekier things you could say to a stranger.

• Posted at 7:56 PM · LINK

Campaign Issues

Here's another example of the shortcomings of campaign coverage in this country. It is now being reported — and this apparently didn't take any vast amount of digging to uncover — that as governor, Arnold S. may not be able to rescind the increase in the car tax. Why are we hearing about this now?

Schwarzenegger got a lot of votes from Californians because they were mad about the increase and because he promised to do away with it. Instead of asking him about frisking unwilling ladies, wouldn't it have been nice if journalists had asked him, "Are you certain you can deliver on this campaign promise to lower auto registration fees?" Perhaps he can. Still, the promise went by without anyone wondering if it really was as simple as he made it out to be.

For that matter, no one ever really went into the possibility that Gray Davis was not as wholly to blame for the increase as angry voters made him out to be. In one of those "town hall" interviews, Davis gave a complex, hard-to-follow explanation of how he inherited from his predecessor a budget/law situation that made such increases almost mandatory. I don't know if that's completely true, but this new story suggests that it may not have been completely false, either.

Davis deserves some blame for not explaining this more prominently and in a clearer fashion. But it would have been nice if a non-partisan reporter or two had looked into the matter before the vote, if only so we weren't getting all our alleged facts from candidates and their associates. There will now be some sort of public debate as to whether the governor can roll back what Arnold promised to roll back. And whether it turns out that he can or can't, I think this debate should have started before the election. But I guess it was more important to talk about the grabbing of breasts.

• Posted at 12:04 PM · LINK

Tiger Talk

Here's another opinion on what happened with Roy Horn and the tiger. Other animal experts are now saying that the tiger was trying to kill his handler and that it wasn't all an accident involving an otherwise benevolent animal trying to "help" Roy.

I'm not sure how much the difference matters or if both views aren't just a matter of humans pretending they know what's going on in an animal's mind. Seems to me the danger presented by a tiger like that is the same no matter what was on the critter's mind. It can hurt someone trying to help them just as it can trying to hurt them.

• Posted at 11:46 AM · LINK

Play Your Hunch

I have just made a small wager with someone that within the next week, Donald Rumsfeld will be changing jobs.

• Posted at 11:37 AM · LINK

October 9, 2003 • Current • October 11, 2003