ET TU, BUSTER?

First, they came for the Teletubbies. Then, they came for SpongeBob. And now, they're after Buster Baxter, the snack-food snarfing bunny known to any parent who's come within 100 feet of the book, TV and video empire inspired by Marc Brown's Arthur series (which are actually quite good, as kids books go, despite the fact that the author appears to have drawn them with his feet).

But I digress. Seems that Baxter unwittingly "visited" a real Vermont family that lives on a farm and makes maple syrup -- oh, and just happens to have two mommies. Or a step-mommy. Or something. So the Feds have layeth down the smack, ordering PBS to 86 this particular episode or lose a big chunk of funding.

To which I say bravo -- only they haven't gone far enough. If you've ever watched Arthur, you know that the universe in which these cartoon animals live has its own share of morally troubling issues. For starters, Baxter is growing up in a single-parent bunny household of his own. Apparently his father -- a hotshot pilot -- left his family, presumably after chasing another enticing critter down a rabbit hole. I mean, doesn't this just glorify tired old stereotypes about rabbits and their breeding habits? Or, worse, is it a way to inculcate impressionable youngsters to the coastal elitist moral relativism that gave us Bill Clinton, balanced budgets and unprecedented prosperity? Lest there be any lingering questions about this, consider that Baxter's mother -- his only parental influence -- is a newspaper reporter. With that horrifying fact in mind, I'm shocked that the FBI hasn't gone in to "rescue" him, Elian Gonzalez style.

You might think I'm blowing all this out of proportion. Perhaps. But when I get a sweet six-figure "grant" from a cabinet-level federal entity for my pro-traditional family proselytizing, we'll see who's laughing.

MY INTEGRITY WILL NOT BE UNDERSOLD!

Hey, remember that time when that journalist guy got paid $240,000 to shill for the Bush administration? Yeah, that was awesome. But as is usually the case in the writing business, turns out there's someone out there willing to work cheaper. Today's market price for integrity: a mere $21,500.

My favorite quote:

"Did I violate journalistic ethics by not disclosing it?" Gallagher said yesterday. "I don't know. You tell me."

Um, okay -- yes. Frankly, I'm just shocked that Gallagher is seen as having so much influence. Guess smashing watermelons with a mallet is a lot more persuasive than a bunch of stuffy op-ed pieces.

BLACK THURSDAY

No, I'm not refering to the inaugural -- I'm too much of a fan of John Ashcroft's Goulet-inspired "Let the Eagles Soar" to call any event highlighting the song an unmitigated disaster. But is it any coincidence that on the same day, the evil editors at Amazon.com decided to systemically delete every last one of my 90-plus well-reasoned, articulate and objective reviews?

I think not.

Perhaps I overreached somewhat. For instance, referring to the movie The English Patient as the "best critique of the British single-payer health care system ever committed to celluloid" might have been a bit... oh, I dunno, over the top. And I suppose giving Amber Frey's tell-all memoir five stars and calling it an "invaluable how-to guide on picking up desperate, single massage therapists" could be considered callous and insensitive.

Fortunately, I managed to save my reviews for posterity here. And maybe, over time, I'll begin contributing again, presumably under a different pseudonym. Who knows, maybe ultimately I'll rise back up into the vaunted echelon of the top 2,500 Amazon reviewers (watch out "iheartcats57" of North Spittle, Arkansas -- I'm gunning for you!)

Or maybe I'll start torturing the folks at Barnesandnoble.com instead.

WHATEVER YOU DO...

Don't get pulled over in Marshall County, Alabama. Meet the sheriff.

I was raised in era, the 1940's as a child and the 1950's as a teenager, which I remember with great affection.

[snip]

Parents could allow their children to go to a movie without having to screen it first because the good guy always wore the white hats. There was no question who the "Good Guy" was. Even the "Bad Guy" in the movie didn't use foul language.

Say what you will about Hitler -- at least he didn't have a potty mouth.

It goes on and on, hitting all the expected talking points, but my favorite part is the reference to the halcyion 1940s and the 1950s. Let's just say I've lived in the South long enough to know that what he's nostalgic for isn't Big Band music.

RECOMMENDED: SHAUN OF THE DEAD

Nothing like a quiet night in with your significant other, watching a romantic movie after the kids have gone to bed. Well, what passes for a romantic movie in our household, anyway.

The movie's a hoot--a clever but predictable premise you could jot down on the back of a business card, but so perfectly executed and well acted it's impossible not to laugh. A lot. In short, it's a romantic comedy for people who don't like romantic comedies (but do like zombies). Think Army of Darkness meets Four Weddings and a Funeral meets I Spit on Your Grave--or maybe that other well-known horror of horrors, Notting Hill. In fact, that's probably how it was pitched in the first place.

SO LONG, HFS

And hola, el zol. (I don't speak Spanish, but I'm guessing that, loosely translated, "siempre de fiesta" works out to "music everyone can agree on--even the boss.")

Long before the airwaves were paved over and strip-malled, WHFS was a legendary alternative-rock station. I remember listening to it when I was in high school, back when it was still on the trailing edge of being "cool" (the trailing part, though, is probably why I had actually heard of it). It had an awful signal back then, meaning that tuning it in from the Virginia suburbs was something of an accomplishment that, in its own right, gave one some limited hipster cred.

Of course, if HFS hadn't spent the past decade trying to attract a sliver of that lucrative 15-to-17-year-old skateboarder demo by playing Lincln Park (or whatever 3l33t misspelling they chose for their moniker) on the half-hour, maybe it wouldn't have come to siempre time. Of course, the same could be said for almost every cookie-cutter station out there. A few years back, I agreed to periodically listen to snippets of new "hot rotation" songs as part of an ongoing automated survey purportedly used to refine playlists at Top 40 and AC radio stations. A robotic voice would call, play six seconds of some crappy, angry-but-not-angry-enough-to-worry-the-parents Matchbox 20-sounding song and ask me to rate it from 1 ("like") to 6 ("really, really like"). The song would invariably suck, so I'd stab my phone's zero or star key until they'd pipe another snippet of an identical-sounding song down the line, which would also invariably suck.

Not surprisingly, the robot stopped calling me after a handful of times and, as we all know, Matchbox 20 achieved its longstanding goal of world domination shortly thereafter. Hey, don't blame me -- I tried.

MAYBE THEY'RE JUST UPSET THAT YOU CANCELED MARMADUKE

Here's the most brilliant idea I've heard all week: Calling people who've canceled their newspaper subscription and asking them to reconsider by pointing out that you publish pieces that are supportive of the president. (Also note the patronizing comment about interacting with the huddled, non-cocktail party-attending masses -- "If they want to talk, that's a bummer.")

Hey, if declining circulation revenue is the worry and you have no qualms making what's essentially an implicit offer of fealty for cash, why not just cut out the middleman completely and go straight to the source?

(via Poynter).

DO NOT TAUNT HAPPY FUN IPOD, EITHER

See the footnote at the end of the display type touting the newest iPod's size? Here's exactly what the legalese says, buried amid a raft of other fine print involving AAC bit rates and Apple's always-questionable battery claims:

2. Do not eat iPod shuffle.

I don't know which explanation is more horrifying: that some corporate attorney billed upwards of $250 an hour coming up with that disclaimer, or that somewhere out there, someone might actually confuse a Flash player with a stick of Feenamint.

FOR $240,000, I'D WRITE A FLATTERING PROFILE OF... WELL, OF THIS GUY

Move over, Jayson Blair and our friend with the soggy cheese on the private island off Sri Lanka. There's a new kid in town:

Seeking to build support among black families for its education reform law, the Bush administration paid a prominent black pundit $240,000 to promote the law on his nationally syndicated television show and to urge other black journalists to do the same.

The campaign, part of an effort to promote No Child Left Behind (NCLB), required commentator Armstrong Williams "to regularly comment on NCLB during the course of his broadcasts," and to interview Education Secretary Rod Paige for TV and radio spots that aired during the show in 2004.

Williams said Thursday he understands that critics could find the arrangement unethical, but "I wanted to do it because it's something I believe in."

The top Democrat on the House Education Committee, Rep. George Miller of California, called the contract "a very questionable use of taxpayers' money" that is "probably illegal." He said he will ask his Republican counterpart to join him in requesting an investigation.

Yeah, don't hold your breath.

Wow. Bear in mind that along with being a "pundit" (whatever that means), this guy is a newspaper columnist. I hate to add to the self-righteous rhetoric that pervades a profession that has long favored self-righteous rhetoric over actual ethics, but this is truly astonishing. I'm almost sick to my stomach.

(via USA Today via Eschaton).

REQUIEM FOR A MEGTRON(tm)

After two years at my current job, my ca. 1994 Megtron(tm)(R) PC has finally growled menacingly at Mothra for the last time. Much to my amazement, I now actually have a brand-name computer running this strange, futuristic OS by the name of -- what do the kids call it again? -- Windows XP.

But my Megtron is still sitting forlornly in a corner of my office, waiting for me to offload the last of my files (assuming I can without it locking up). And every time I look over at it, memories wash over me.

• No more rock-tumbler-like "fan" sound.
  
• No more waiting for 2 minutes and 20 seconds for Microsoft Word to load (I timed it once when I first started working here, largely out of disbelief)
  
• No more walking out of a meeting to see thick smoke billowing out of my office after my Megtron's attempt at self-immolation.
  
• No more thinking I'd get a replacement PC after an inconsquential mishap like a fire, only to have the IT folks have it up and running again in 20 minutes (which, I guess, makes sense when you're talking about a machine with roughly three moving parts).
  
• No more worrying about it crashing if I did something unadvisable, like attempt to work on two files at once.
  
• No more trying to pop in a CD before remembering that the Megtron concept of a CD drive -- a permanent, hermetically sealed tomb for any item foolishly placed inside -- was a bit different than mine.

It's been a long decade, faithful friend. May you slumber in peace at the landfill.

(Note: I did a Web search to look for an image of the Megtron(tm)(R) logo, and apparently this particular brand can now only be found in Yugoslavia, Germany (presumably what used to be East Germany), and other decidedly non-Coalition of the Willing countries. But check out the great price on this German site. Who says you don't get what you pay for?)

THE TRUE TRAGEDY OF IT ALL

Leave it to the Post to capture the full dimensions of the devastation wrought by the tsunami last week:

There were 15 of us gathered around the dinner table, from four continents, celebrating Christmas on a fantasy private island in the Indian Ocean... Hoots of laughter greeted my brother Geoffrey as he instructed us how to slice the Stilton cheese he had brought with him from England. On no account must the Stilton be dug into with a spoon, he insisted.

Sure, more than 150,000 people died, but I'll bet that Stilton got really, really soggy.

AT LEAST IT WASN'T COL. CLAUS



Oh, well. At least we didn't wait in line for two freaking hours to see Santa this year.

On the bright side, both girls awoke on Christmas morning besides themselves with excitement because they had heard not only Santa's heavy, plodding footsteps the night before, but also the flush of the toilet. (Apparently milk and cookies are a diuretic.) I'm not sure I'll ever have the heart to tell them that instead of Kris Kringle, it was most likely a jet-lagged and slightly inebriated aunt.

MERRY CHRISTMAS, GHANDI!

As I continue my holiday shopping (though using the word "continue" suggests, perhaps incorrectly, that I've actually started), I found this thought-provoking quote in an ad in the Utne Reader (don't ask). Now, you may ask, what were Ghandi's philisophical teachings being used to sell -- world peace, perhaps? Not quite -- try a cuticle pusher.

That's the thing about Ghandi: Whether in the midst of a hunger strike, leading a nonviolent national movement, or just lounging around the house, his fingernails were always immaculate.

No wonder the red staters hate us.

UP TO NUMBER 3,252... WITH A BULLET

The scary reviews don't stop 'til we get to the top. Here's some of the take-no-prisoners style of commentary you won't find in the New York Review of Books (scroll down to the user reviews). You probably won't find these fine products in the New York Review of Books, either, but that's hardly the point.

Readin'

Pickin'

Grinnin'

The full list

Until next time, keep your feet on the ground, and keep reaching for the stars.

IF YOU'LL EXCUSE ME, I HAVE TO GO CODDLE MY LOZENGE

I've let my medical degree from one of the Carribean's most prestigious correspondence schools lapse, so I can't make heads or tails of this e-mail I just received.

These lozenges are just like typical pills but they are specially explicated to be coddled and dissolvable below the lingua. The lozenges is took up at the oral cavity and goes in the blood instantly instead of progressing through the stomach. This effects in a faster more strong effect which yet up to 39 hours!

Why, you may ask, am I actually reading my pharmaceutical-related spam? Um.. let's just say it has something to do with the size of my lingua, and leave it at that.

THIS JUST IN, PART 2

Who knew that being a journalist didn't automatically exempt you from paying taxes?

Looks like I'll be spending my weekend filling out retroactive 1040 forms...

THIS JUST IN

Since the Post has decided to make a cause out of running shorter stories, I thought I'd help them edit down this front-page story: Spoiled suburban kids like brand-name crap. I mean, who knew?

To be fair, the story has a great, great lead:

Brandon Singleton was 8 when he first saw the movie "Clueless," and it changed his life.

I knew a guy in high school whose life was changed by a movie. Only that movie was "Cocktail," and instead of buying a $450 pair of shiny black pants, he spent far more sizable sums on a degree from the Bartender's Academy (as Seen on TV!) At last report, though, he has yet to shack up with Elizabeth Shue.

THE VICTORS WRITE THE HISTORY BOOKS

Given the calm, rational, even-handed way people have responded to the recent election, I couldn't help but find this funny:

For roughly a decade, a film has been shown to visitors at Washington's Lincoln Memorial, depicting historic events that have taken place there — from civil rights marches to antiwar demonstrations.

Then, one day the Rev. Lou Sheldon saw it. "It showed only those liberal, pro-abortion, pro-homosexual marches," said Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition.

Sheldon would like film of some conservative marches intercut as well, though it is unclear whether any major conservative marches have taken place at the Lincoln Memorial itself, which is the film's focus.

Funny, the only conservative-inspired march on Washington that I can think of is this.

It may be a scary four years, but at least it will be rife with irony.

NOW I'M IN THE HOLIDAY SPIRIT

Forget the Christmas decorations already beginning to pop up across the DC area's more tired-looking shopping centers. If you really want to announce to a Nation Divided(tm) that the holidays, with all their promise of hope and healing, are on their way, try something like this on for size:

I'm not particularly surprised that a coworker ran into something like this at a Cracker Barrel in quasisuburban Maryland (though I'm a bit more surprised that my coworker was inside a Cracker Barrel). What *does* surprise me is how many variations of this image pop up when Googling "confederate Santa," not to mention the specificity of the details. Turns out Mssr. Claus is a Colonel in the CSA, fully entitled to all the privileges and responsibilites that implies. (Who knows, perhaps his North Pole plantation wasn't sizeable enough to rate a General's commission.)

Kris Kringle: Another uniter, not a divider.

READIN' IS TOUGH. TOUGH WORK.

I've joked with friends that one of the underlying, sub rosa themes of this past election is perhaps best exemplified by the tagline from one of Fox's quality reality TV programs, the gist of which apparently involves taking Ivy league MBAs and shooting water balloons at them ("We're sticking it to the smarties!") Happily, my brethren in the news media are finally getting with the program:

In an effort to win new readers, Downie said Post reporters will be required to write shorter stories. The paper's design and copy editors will be given more authority to make room for more photographs and graphics.

I'm going to resist the facile comparison to USA Today. Lest we forget, the much-maligned McPaper has actually started running longer stories. They've also shown a willingness to take risks, something the WP appears to have gotten a bit leery of, most notably during the run-up to Gulf War Deux (by burying stories with cautiously worded headlines like "Excuse Us For Saying This, But Administration WMD Intelligence Might Be A Teensy Bit Off. Or We Could Be Wrong" on page A95). And there are good ways and bad ways of trying to make a publication more engaging. At one point in the early 90s, the picture-to-word pendulum at Time Magazine swung so far away from literacy as to run a cover story headlined "EVIL: Does it exist?" that weighed in at about 1,800 words. Which works out to about a half-word for each year people have been pondering this question.

And the Post, of course, is one of the best newspapers in the country, so I'm sure they'll find an intelligent way of doing this. But the next time they decide to run a story about an all-you-can-eat steak joint on page A1, they'll have to find a way to do it in less than 3,000 words.

HEAL THE WORLD

HEAL THE WORLD

So, even before the election, I tried mightily to bring people together. But now, in this deeply divided country, is there any force strong enough to bring the coastal elites and the heartland value-types together?

I boldly say yes.





Forgive me if I get a bit emotional here.

BOO!

BOO!


Okay, so this maybe this isn't as scary as the previous photo. But imagine these guys up past their bedtime, on a sugar high...

AT LONG LAST, THE OCTOBER SURPRISE



I think I've finally found the author of this letter to the editor. Nice to see she had a change of heart.

(image shamelessly appropriated from Wonkette.)

NEIGHBORHOOD BLUES

I don't live in a blue state. I don't even live in a blue county. However, according to this helpful electoral map the folks at the Washington Post put together, I do live in a tiny island of blue, surrounded by a vertiable ocean of compassionate conservatism, with maybe an archipelago of libertarianism scattered somewhere along the I-95 corridor, but let's not go overboard with the nautical metaphors. (Overboard? Get it?)

But I digress. This would be all fine and good, if I lived in some sort of commune, what with all the attendant perks like free love and readily accessible compost piles. Instead, I wind up having to read real estate ads like this and watch the SWAT team make its appointed rounds.

A MINOR MILESTONE

I once had a coworker who invited as many people as could fit into his car to see the odometer roll over at 100,000 miles. In much the same spirit, I'm happy to report this humble Web site has broken the 10,000 visit mark. Now, if this was 1996 or something, this would be impressive. Or, if a couple of sites of this caliber hadn't cranked up the same kinds of numbers in a matter of weeks, it might even be somewhat inspiring. As it is, I'll just celebrate it as a pathetic little milestone and get back to frenetically clicking the reload button.

KINDRED SPIRITS

One thing Blogger's been doing of late is adding that nifty blue bar at the top of the page, complete with the handy "NEXT BLOG" button. (Yes, I know there's a way of turning it off that totally p3n3z Blogger and everything, but I don't really care. Also, I'm lazy.) And besides, Blogger's parent company, Google, is well-known for its ability to generate contextual links between different sites that not only discuss similar issues, but approach them from the same worldview (like the helpful ad that once ran at the top of this page). So it's all good, as the kids like to say.

So, posted without comment, are two sites from whence some hapless person followed the NEXT BLOG button to this little dead end of the Internet. I'm sure they were thrilled. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to bulk up for my next match. And learn Taiwanese.

LOOKIT! SOMETHING SHINY!

During a whirlwind 8-hour trip to Chicago earlier this week, I was mesmerized by this giant mirrored jellybean in the city's new Millennium Park. I walked around it, gazing dumbfounded at the ever-shifting skyline behind me, and took scads of pictures. It wasn't until I saw my own reflection and started pecking at it that the security guard pulled me away.




(this space semi-intentionally left blank)

MORONS!

Ever ones to be about 36 months behind the times, we got our 6-year-old daughter a scooter for her birthday. See the red warning label affixed to the handlebars? At first, I thought it would include some lawyered-up-but-within-the-realm-of-common-sense cautions along the lines of wearing a helmet or getting involved in a land war in Asia. Silly me. No, here's exactly what it said:

WARNING: This product moves when used.

Imagine that. An object with wheels might move. I guess were the scooter to fall through some sort of vortex back to the time of the cavemen (or at least to the set of the seminal Ringo Starr movie of the same name), this might be helpful, but otherwise, I've got nothing.

If I had the common sense to go to law school like 99.5 percent of my friends, this probably wouldn't have shocked me. Of course, if I had the common sense to go to law school, I'd have better things to do with my time than worry about a warning label on my kid's scooter. Or if not, at least I'd be racking up some sweet billable hours while doing so.

I HANG MY XTREME BANDANA IN SHAME

As someone who, you know, reads the newspapers every now and then, I feel a tiny bit more guilty with every passing day for driving an XTreme SUV (but don't worry -- it's electric). Luckily, there's now an antidote for my self-loathing, and it only costs $93,000:



Knowing the Northern Virginia area, and its abundance of treacherous terrain and road hazzards (i.e., dorks on recumbent bikes and Kerry-lovers clogging the HOV lanes), I'm betting I see the first one of these roughing it in the Tysons Deux parking lot before Thanksgiving.

As I've said before, as a society we've completely blown through the line that separates ostentation and deliberate irritation. There's simply no other way of explaining this. Well, except maybe for having a place to stow your bitchin' ATV.

THAT MUST HAVE BEEN ONE HELL OF A BACHELOR PARTY

People always venture well into the realm of the absurd when they start planning their weddings -- we decided, for some reason, to inconvenience all our family and friends by not only having our wedding out of town and on a Sunday, but out of town and on the Sunday before Christmas. Having said all that, I wish I had some of what this couple was smoking:

BEN LOMOND, Calif. - The marriage of [names withheld], took place June 17, 2004, beneath the redwoods at the Quaker Center in Ben Lomond. Wizard [name withheld], brother of the groom, officiated at the double-tattoo ceremony.

The bride, dressed in her mother's ivory satin wedding gown, was escorted by dancing woodland fairies and other forest beings. The groom, resplendent in white formal attire and derby embellished with kaleidoscopic braid and feathers, was followed by frolicking elves. The couple were attended by a cast of forest deities. Ceremonies concluded in the evening with a burning of the groom's interactive sculpture, The Swirling Cosmic Mystery.

Funny, I tried the whole "swirling cosmic mystery" line back in college, and all it got me was a faceful of mace. Of course, it gets worse. Not because I can picture one of my daughters coming home after their own "double-tattoo ceremony," but because the bride -- wait for it -- is an alum of my alma mater. All of which means I probably should have spent less time at the library and more time working on my interactive sculpting.

CENSORSHIP REARS ITS UGLY HEAD

A while back, I wrote about my thrilling new hobby. And, setting all false modesty aside, I'm proud to report that in just a few short weeks, I've skyrocketed up the reviewer charts to #23,907. Watch out, grillo7 of Kenai, Alaska -- you're GOING DOWN!

Ahem. Of course, it's not all fun and games. For some unexplicable reason, the editors decided to pull my review of this decidedly presidential work. I can't imagine why:

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
A masterpiece of semiotics -- and phonics, August 20, 2004
"My Pet Goat," the story at the physical and spiritual center of this collection of stories for the emerging semiotician, is at once more and less than the sum of its parts. When the narrator talks about the goat's propensity to eat anything in sight -- hats, capes, even Diebold records -- she perfectly embodies the spirit of the proud pet owner, willing to tolerate, even brag, about their pet's foibles. Yet when the goat -- at once both the story's protagonist and antagonist -- successfully wards off a mustachioed car thief considered an imminent threat by the narrator's avuncular, somewhat secretive father figure, one is left to wonder: Do the ends justify the means? Do they ever?

I rarely delve into the realm of the personal in my reviews, but here I must make an exception. I've often found my thoughts returning to this masterwork, only to discover that it had sparked in me a thirst for knowledge that no amount of brush clearing or pretzel consumption could quench. I am a changed person, and hopefully a better one, for having read My Pet Goat.

Damn you, uptight editors, damn you!

MORE LIBERAL MEDIA SHENNANIGANS

Here's more proof I'm a member of the liberal media power elite: Yet another nuanced letter to the editor at a newspaper I used to work for, complete with this fair and balanced headline: A Vote for Kerry is a Vote for Satan.

Here's my favorite part:

John Kerry says he "believes in a higher power". I wonder who that is?

He says his parents have "passed on." I wonder where to?

Wow. When the Styx Ferryboat Veterans for Truth start running commercials, I know where they'll get their talking points.

EVERYONE NEEDS A HOBBY...

And it seems like mine has become having some fun with the user reviews on a certain bookselling site that shall remain nameless. Maybe someday this will land me a high-paying gig at the New York Review of Books, or, more likely, as a minimum-wage adjunct instructor at the Sally Struthers Correspondence School of Comparative Lit (right down the hall from the classes in gun repair.)

Of course, these reviews are purportedly vetted by editors, so there are some limits to what actually gets posted. Consider this well-reasoned, yet unjustly censored, critique of a book that's gotten a little attention of late.

Poor plotting muddles a good war yarn (3 of 5 stars)

Now, I'm as much of a fan of a good war story as the next guy -- I think
I've seen the epic "Heartbreak Ridge" at least 30 times, and I still cheer
every time the troops burst into the medical student's shower stall. But
this muddle of a book has me, quite frankly, a bit disappointed. First, I
thought the protagonists of war stories are supposed to be rugged,
salt-of-the-earth types -- tough but loveable characters like the Duke in
the "Sands of Iwo Jima", or even Ted Dansen's brief yet memorable role as a
lost army lieutennant in "Saving Private Ryan". Yet this book's main
character is portrayed as a self-serving, deceitful elistist who shows
little regard for anyone but himself. For that reason, I find it hard to
feel much empathy when he is wounded, ultimately winning three Purple
Hearts. Whoops, there goes the book's emotional core. Second, where is the
enemy in this book? To "sell" a war story to a large audience, there must be
at least some characterization of the enemy as evildoers, or otherwise
deserving of scorn. Yet the Viet Cong are really only a bit player in this
particular tale, leaving the reader wondering why various members of our own
military are throwing claims and counterclaims at each other. What's their
motivation, really? That's the kind of question that doesn't get asked in
"The Deer Hunter."

A LITTLE LIGHT READING

Here's my most recent example of the writing I actually get paid to do, which, sadly, I manage to crank out even less frequently than this infrequently updated blog. And if you don't feel like reading 4,500 well-chosen yet trenchant words on country schooling, you could always just check out the pictures. Don't cost nothin' (except for, thanks to the free but cumbersome registration on the site, a miniscule sliver of your life you could have otherwise spent here.)

I WAS YOUNG, AND I NEEDED THE MONEY

Something tells me it's time to update my ancient Monster.com search agent, which I think I signed up for two, maybe three, jobs ago, but still kicks me the occasional e-mail.



Either that, or I need to get a sex change operation and start learning Spanish. No, no, just kidding. All I can say is, good thing I'm currently pursuing far more wholesome endeavors in my writing.

MAYBE THEY'LL GREENLIGHT GHOSTBUSTERS 3...

For the first time in a decade, I shaved my beard (it took nearly that long to grow out). Before the tabloids get their hands on them, here are the actual unretouched before and after photos:

       

Mothers, lock up your daughters!

POINT-COUNTERPOINT

During this pivotal time in our nation's history, I'm thankful the Interweb net machine thingy is being used to debate such important topics as this:

Point

Counterpoint

I'll go out on a limb here and try to find some common ground. Neither mentioned the incredible contributions of the fake doctor in Burt Reynolds' fake ambulance. Now that's something we can all agree on.

Heal the world.

SOLIPISM, NOW IN HANDY PICTORAL FORMAT

I realize this where-I've-been website is blogfodder of the lowest-common-denominator variety, but given my love of exotic locales, I just couldn't help myself.



Some day, North Korea, some day!



Looking at this map, I have no earthly idea why I've been almost everywhere in Western Europe but England. On second thought, maybe this explains it.



What can I say? After you've been to Delaware, it's all downhill from there.

WILL THE REAL ESTATE BUBBLE JUST GO AHEAD AND BURST, PLEASE?

At least then, I wouldn't have to read sickening real estate writeups for nearby houses like this one:

Sunday Morning: Enjoying the Post or the NY Times over a leisurely cup of coffee, sitting in the sunroom. The butterflies are enjoying the shade garden outside, and all is right with the world. You have no worries - your all brick house is old enough to have hardwood floors on main and bedroom levels and mature landscaping with big trees, but all the renovations have already been done. Yesterday you played golf on the adjacent golf course, and this evening you're meeting friends at the Reston Town Center for dinner and an outdoor concert under the stars. Isn't this the way you've always wanted to live?

Wow, that sounds great -- never mind that the asking price is roughly one astronomical order of magnitude beyond what we paid for our own abode that's "old enough to have hardwood floors" (not to mention shiny wallpaper). Of course, our own writeup would have a few minor changes. First, instead of "enjoying the Post or the NY Times," we'd mention "the onomatopoetic classic Mr. Brown Can Moo and reruns of Spongebob Squarepants." For "leisurely cup of coffee," subsitute "hurried swig of room-temperature Diet Coke." For "butterflies," substitute "annoyingly metaphorical cicadas," and for "mature landscaping with big trees," add the phrase "which creak in the slightest breeze and lean menacingly towards your roof." Instead of talking about "the adjacent golf course," make some snide comment about our stunning lake view, and for the part about "this evening," add something about meeting friends at a swank Reston eatery for nuggets and an indoor performance by the local SWAT team.

There goes the neighborhood.

WELL, HE IS AN MD...



... so I guess Rex Morgan could legally prescribe himself some Cialis. I know I usually obsess over the not-so-subtle innuendo in another family-friendly cartoon, but honestly, I couldn't come up with any other plausible explanation for this. It's almost as creepy as the infamous Superbowl commercial where Iron Mike throws a football through a tire swing and screams as though he's having a coronary. Another one, I mean.

LITTLE BLOG ON THE PRAIRIE



This is Temple, North Dakota, not far from where I spent a good part of last week on assignment. It's heartbreakingly beautiful country, and this was an entirely abandoned town, complete with a ruined school, general store and church, hard along the railroad tracks that run from Chicago to Seattle.

Anyway, just figured I'd post a blog entry from North Dakota. Someone had to. (I would have done it while I was actually there, but my hotel's "business center" -- note the use of sarcastic quote marks -- was closed for my entire stay.)

WHAT THE CICADAS HAVE TAUGHT ME

In what appears to be its 963rd consecutive daily story about the ongoing cicada invasion here in the DC area, the Washington Post trots out a columnist to opine that the "half-blind bugs" (as my 5-year-old calls them) can teach us all Something Important about life. I couldn't read the whole thing without wanting to gouge my own eyes out, but I think it had something to do with cell phones, magnet schools and ajustable rate mortgage refinancing. Valuable lessons, indeed.

But what can we really learn? First, if you work for a major-metro daily, ask to be moved off the cicada beat before they start talking back to you. For the rest of us, consider this: Cicadas crawl out of the ground and shed their skins. Then they fly around lopsidedly like drunken congressmen, randomly bouncing off trees, walls and other inanimate objects. If you pick one up and toss it in the air, a few moments pass before it occurs to it that it might be a good idea to start flapping its wings. They're edible by just about everything even a notch above them in the food chain (including the French), so their natural defense is to sit out in the open like the delectable morsels they are. They don't bite, don't fly, don't even move much, and are pretty much the most passive sentient beings this side of Codependents Anonymous.

If it wasn't for the fact that they appear by the millions -- too many to all die in gruesome yet comically inept airborne collisions, too many to all be squashed, stepped on or eaten while on the ground -- their continued existence would prove Darwin wrong about that whole survival-of-the-fittest, or at least the survival-of-the-smartest, thing. Then again, the same could be said for the folks who post comments on this site (scroll down to the comments).

BECAUSE EVERY DAY IS NARCISSIST DAY

I'd like to think I'm a fairly enlightened parent, as these things go. So I read this excerpt from an upcoming book of edgy essays by hip, literary fathers, or something like that. I'm still laughing.

If I could be said to contour my life in those days around any image, I think it would be one I grew up with... the one featuring a guy with a raincoat slung over his shoulder, a guy on the verge of needing a haircut, with a quizzical, slightly weary, but (don't be fooled) absolutely thrilled look about him... In the first two or three years after my daughter was born, I went on trying to live that life, with the raincoat thrown over my shoulder and the weary, sexy, thrilled expression. I went on writing plays and seeing them produced and writing that first novel and seeing it published, and on weekends joining the other parents in Riverside Park, pushing my daughter on the swings and enduring the jostling, competitive chatter of the other Upper West Side parents.

Yeah, and I wander around with the same half-asleep, thrilled, and undoubtedly sexy expression as I write the random blog entry every odd week, or month, joining the other parents at the Reston(tm) Burger King, enjoying the jostling, competitive chatter of the SWAT team as it makes its appointed rounds.

But there's more.

One afternoon, after hoisting our daughter's stroller up the stairs of our walkup and entering the dim light of our cramped quarters, I just turned to my wife and said, without knowing I was going to say it, "Let's move."

I say that just about every day. So would life in the suburbs bring a new, marginally less solipisitic outlook? Or at least a haircut? Let's read on:

When my daughter turned 5 and started kindergarten, there was a particular lunchbox she insisted she had to have, and I remember now the intensity of the search for that lunchbox, which was, of course, out of stock everywhere. We drove far afield, in the beautiful late-summer dusk, to Ames and Caldor and Kmart, each of them a tall, beckoning, neon-lit tree on the branches of which the Holy Grail of that phantom lunchbox might be found hanging. Though I felt it intensely, it was still not possible for me to admit consciously that this quest had become more important to me than the quest to complete my troublesome second novel.

"Troublesome" is one word for it, I'm sure. Judging by the particularly purplish hue of his prose, I'd bet that "slush pile" is an even better choice of words.

But then again, what can you expect from a person whose worldview can be summed up by this one sentence:

But it really wasn't until I saw "Kramer vs. Kramer" that it all came together for me.

Funny. For me, it was Army of Darkness.

MORE RIGHT-THINKING IN THE HINTERLANDS

I have just one question about this letter to the editor which ran in one of my previous places of employment: Is it more sexist than racist, or more racist than sexist?

Either way, nice headline.