Monthly Archives: September 2007

Over in this item, I explained the difference between the Popeye foes Bluto and Brutus. Over on his weblog, the gifted artist Stephen DeStefano shows you what this means in visual terms.

The jury in the Phil Spector/Lana Clarkson trial says that the case will go to the jury on Monday. If justice works the way it probably should, the jury will be out for about eight minutes — just long enough to vote once, hit the lavatories and gripe about how they could have returned the same verdict on Day One — and then they'll march back in and declare Spector guilty of second-degree murder. He will then be sentenced to fifteen years in prison and a lengthy, expensive appeals process will begin.

Since we all know how often justice does not work the way it should, I'm planning my killing spree. As I mentioned, if this guy doesn't get convicted, it's highly unlikely I would be. I'm white. I have some money and a couple of great lawyers. I'm in show business.

My friend Buzz Dixon wrote to ask, regarding my upcoming killing spree, "May we make requests?" The answer is no, Buzz. This is my killing spree, damn it. You're in show business. Arrange your own.

I'm going to try to make this my last Bush-related posting of the weekend. But Fred Kaplan has a good article up that asks the musical question, "Just Whose Idea Was It To Disband the Iraqi Army?" It seems to have been the single-biggest mistake of the whole occupation if you don't count occupying in the first place…and everyone's pointing fingers at everyone else. It'll probably turn out it was a leftover policy of the Clinton Administration.

Of all the things George W. Bush has said lately that strike me as unfortunate, I think the topper may be his recent claim that we're "kicking ass" in Iraq. Obviously, one can make a pretty good case that we're not kicking any asses but our own — but even if Bush is correct, it's a horrible way to look at the situation…like this whole operation is just about America proving it can beat anyone in a bar fight. Sadly, I think a large chunk of Bush's support on this war really only cares about that. The cost of the war in both human and financial terms can be ignored and so can the reality of Iraq's future. Just so long as we convince ourselves we're tough…and, oh yeah — that we weren't wrong to get into this war in the first place.

Joe Conason with more about the statistics out of Iraq and the way they're being juggled to make "The Surge" seem to be working.

From 1931: It's Jack Benny in a ten-minute short subject called Taxi Tangle. Benny's early film appearances are interesting because he was just beginning to develop his stage/screen personality — the cheapness, the clueless vanity, the expertly-timed exasperation, etc. He had a nice film career from the moment movies could talk but he really didn't become Jack Benny until the radio program.

The guy playing the cab driver in the beginning of Taxi Tangle is Tammany Young, a one-time supporting player in silent comedies who went on to countless bit parts in talkies, including roles in almost any movie that starred W.C. Fields. Hal Roach once told me that when talkies came in, only about 15% of the actors who'd appeared in silent films were able to make a transition and still have real careers. Young was among that 15%, though he rarely got much more dialogue than he has in this short.

George Packer pens a gloomy assessment of what's ahead with Iraq. What will happen if we withdraw sounds awful and what will happen if we don't sounds worse.

We may be only days from a verdict in the Phil Spector murder case. Yes, I tried to not pay attention to it but it's hard when you go to websites and in the margins, they have these intriguing News Headlines about the case. I'm proud to say that I didn't waste a lot of my life following this one but ashamed that I wasted any, and that I'm about to waste yours for a paragraph or two.

Admittedly, if you follow a trial via news broadcasts and articles, you hear a very different case than the jury hears. You hear all the stuff that the judge excludes. You hear about witnesses that he won't allow to testify. You hear about all the arguments that are specifically conducted with the jury out of the room. And of course, you're relying on brief summaries of the testimony and you don't actually hear the words or see the faces.

Still, I have to say: If this guy is acquitted, I'm going on a killing spree. Because it'll mean no one gets convicted of murder, especially if they're in show business.

We're going to be hearing a lot next week about whose statistics on Iraq casualties and progress are skewed and cooked and disingenuous. Here's Karen DeYoung to explain some of the possibly-misleading numbers that are presently framing the debate.

The annual Chabad Telethon is this Sunday night. If it's not being televised in your city, it's probably because not enough Jews live there. I'll post a link later to where it'll be streaming on a website, though that's a crummy way to enjoy it.

Among the performers this year and almost every year is Mordechai Ben David, who is sometimes called The King of Jewish Music. Well, okay. It's not like John Tesh is going to challenge him for the title or anything. I know very little about "M.B.D.," as he is also called, but I've always enjoyed him on the telethon and on a couple of tapes that I bought years ago for my car and keep meaning to upgrade into CDs. Here's a rousing (if overedited) music video of M.B.D. performing one of this bigger hits, "Moshiach."

This is funny. The 2008 Republican National Convention is scheduled to be held September 1 through 4 of that year in the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minnesota. That means that most prominent Republicans will have the opportunity to pass through the airport where Senator Larry Craig was busted for allegedly soliciting gay sex. They'll even have the chance to use that men's room.

Celebrating the 35th anniversary of The Bob Newhart Show.

Fred Kaplan on the upcoming Petraeus report to Congress. You get the feeling we're going to be in Iraq longer than even the Bill Kristols of the world want us to be? And they want us to not leave until a lot of things that are never going to happen happen.

Well, I finally watched as much of last night's Republican Debate as any sane man or even I could take. There's something really wrong when the most rational person on the stage is Ron Paul. Still, it's nice to know that if we ignore all the independent reports and about 90% of the military experts and keep saying "The Surge is working and we can win this thing," it will be so. I think if I were a Republican voter, I'd be insulted that these guys think that's all we want/need to hear.

Slate is presenting previews this week of Dead Certain, a new book by Robert Draper. Draper was granted great access to George W. Bush to write about him and going by the excerpts so far, it's hard to see why. We may be past the point where anyone's opinion of Bush is really going to change much but if I were managing his p.r., I think I'd figure, "This guy doesn't need any more print in which he comes off as a boob." Several years ago, someone in his posse — Rove, I believe — was quoted as saying that the more America saw and heard of Bush, the more they liked him. I don't know if that was ever true but it sure hasn't been true for a long time.