TUESDAY POLITICS

Too cool for school. My favorite magazine (and the only one I subscribe to), Vanity Fair, has today broken the story that W. Mark Felt, former #2 man at the FBI, has admitted he was “Deep Throat,” the unidentified source used by Woodward and Bernstein (or Redford and Hoffman if that’s in your memory bank) to help uncover the Watergate scandal that led to President Richard Nixon’s resignation. Remember the scene (in All the President’s Men) that takes place between Redford and “deep throat” (Hal Holbrook) in the shadows of the parking structure? The script says:

WOODWARD: John Mitchell resigned as head of CREEP to spend more time with his family. That doesn’t exactly have the ring of truth. (DEEP THROAT nods) Howard Hunt’s been found–there was talk that his lawyer had 25 thousand in cash in a paper bag.
DEEP THROAT: Follow the money. Always follow the money.

Felt, a 91-year-old retiree living in California, kept the secret even from his family until 2002, when he confided to a friend that he had been Woodward’s source, the magazine said. “I’m the guy they used to call Deep Throat,” he told lawyer John D. O’Connor, the author of the Vanity Fair article, the magazine said in a press release. So far this morning, Woodward isn’t talking, but it’s obviously going to be the sexy news du jour and probably at least the week to come. W. Mark Felt is so private you can hardly Google any images of him but I bet he’ll have a lot less private life for the next few weeks as the media does its level best to cross the boundaries he’s kept in place all these years. I heard someone say on TV that they never did find out what the Watergate burglars were looking for. Only after Watergate though was the Freedom of Information Act really cemented so that Americans could find out just what the FBI has on them, among other things. For a little history of that click here. I guess this story has a tad more political relevance than the Michael Jackson trial, so I won’t mind watching how it unfolds. Maybe I’ll even watch the movie again.

Deep Thought: “You might think that the favorite plant of the porcupine is the cactus, but it’s thinking like that that has almost ruined this country.”
Today I am grateful for: The endangered filibuster
Guess the Movie: “This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.” Answer: The Matrix, 1999. Winner: thenarrator.
Ex-FBI Official Says He’s ‘Deep Throat’
Magazine quotes him as saying he was ‘doing his duty’
W. Mark Felt, who retired from the FBI after rising to its second most senior position, has identified himself as the “Deep Throat” source quoted by The Washington Post to break the Watergate scandal that led to President Nixon’s resignation, Vanity Fair magazine said Tuesday. (Rest of article here.)
End of Day: 8:40 pm
+ = Had a bunch of yardwork done today.
- = It cost bucks of course.

MONDAY BOOK

The 100th Monkey
A story about social change.

By Ken Keyes Jr. (1921-95)

On Memorial Day, as fallen soldiers are being remembered I was trying to think about remembering peace instead of war. I remembered the story of the 100th Monkey as related in 1981 by Ken Keyes Jr. who said this in his foreword: “This phenomenon shows that when enough of us are aware of something, all of us become aware of it. That concept confirmed my own intuitive trust in the basic tenet of my work — that the appreciation and love we have for ourselves and others creates an expanding energy field that becomes a growing power in the world. This radical new support gives me the counterbalance of hope to offset the doomsday story of nuclear destruction. There is no need to feel helpless or get paralyzed by hopelessness. We know we have the power to make changes if we can join together and raise our voices in unison.” Here is that story:

The Japanese monkey, Macaca Fuscata, had been observed in the wild for a period of over 30 years.

But there is a point at which if only one more person tunes-in to a new awareness, a field is strengthened so that this awareness is picked up by almost everyone!

Keyes has allowed his book to be shared without copyright and you can read the rest of it here. Peace out.
(Per tearsign‘s comment, a little technical debunking.)

Deep Thought: “Too bad you can’t buy a voodoo globe so that you could make the earth spin real fast and freak everybody out.”
Today I am grateful for: That this is the first moment of the rest of my life
Guess the Movie: “Spring, 1877. This marks the longest I’ve stayed in one place since I left the farm at 17. There is so much here I will never understand. I’ve never been a church going man, and what I’ve seen on the field of battle has led me to question God’s purpose. But there is indeed something spiritual in this place. And though it may forever be obscure to me, I cannot but be aware of its power. I do know that it is here that I’ve known my first untroubled sleep in many years.” Answer: The Last Samurai, 2003. Winner: tearsign.
They Also Serve Who Stand for Peace
by Barb Guy
On Memorial Day, we honor people who have gone to perilous places with a strong commitment in their hearts. They risk danger and their own death because they feel passionate about a cause. (Rest of article here.)
End of Day: Too tired to check out.

Saturday Photo

Elizabeth and Ida Tengle, Hale County Alabama (Summer, 1936)
Photographer – Walker Evans, 1903-1975

I will tell you, in all detail, of
where I am; of what I perceive.
Everything that is is holy. –James Agee

Years ago I came upon the book, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, by James Agee with photographs by Walker Evans and was amazed at the concept they had managed. In 1936, they were both young men (Agee 27, Evans 33) when they were sent by Fortune magazine into rural Alabama to document the lives of tenant farmers. FDR had just been elected for a second term and his New Deal was looking at the poverty in the nation’s farming population, resulting in the forming of the Farm Security Administration. Evans and Agee concentrated their attention on three sharecropper families – Agee wrote exquisite prose descriptions of their lives and their environment while Evans recorded them in black and white reality. It would be another five years before it was published, as Fortune magazine backed out. In 1965 Evans left Fortune , where he had been a staff photographer for twenty years, to become a professor of photography and graphic design at Yale University. He remained in the position until 1974, a year before his death. Here are more of his photos from the book and here is a quote from Agee:

It is late in a summer night, in a room of a house set deep and solitary in the country; all in this house save myself are sleeping; I sit at a table, facing a partition wall; and I am looking at a lighted coal-oil lamp which stands on the table close to the wall, and just beyond the sleeping of my relaxed left hand; with my right hand I am from time to time writing, with a soft pencil, into a school-child’s composition book; but just now, I am entirely focused on the lamp, and light.

Deep Thought: “Too bad you can’t just grab a tree by the very tip-top and bend it clear over the ground and then let her fly, because I bet you’d be amazed at all the stuff that comes flying out.”
Today I am grateful for: The palm of my hand
Guess the Movie: “Hello, this is Mr. Foreman. If you give my daughter an alcoholic beverage or a joint, I will hunt you down and neuter you.” Answer: In Good Company, 2004. Winner: mjh.
Rice Interrupted by Enactment of Abu Ghraib Abuse
SAN FRANCISCO – Demonstrators interrupted a speech by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Friday by recreating an image of the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal in which a hooded prisoner stood with his arms outstretched attached to electric wires. (Rest of article here.)
End of Day: 8:30 pm
+ = Heat dropped to the lovely 70′s today.
- = Feeling tempted to be paranoid.

THURSDAY WHATEVER

Meanwhile, back in the Land of Good News, a whole lot of whoopee is being reported by national public radio (the only media that cares) from a mountain out east of San Francisco where the “holy grail” of extinct flowers was discovered by UC Berkeley graduate student, Michael Park. The Mount Diablo buckwheat has been lost for 70 years and thought gone forever because grasses were introduced to its habitat that bullied it out. First reported in 1862, there are only seven historical records of the plant. But on May 10, young Mr. Park hiked out to a remote section of Mt Diablo State Park that was donated by Save Mount Diablo and found 20 of the tiny pink-flowered plants in full bloom. When the folks he took out to see it walked right by, he said (I kid you not), “They couldn’t grok that the thing could be so small and dainty.” Well, they’re having to keep the exact location private so tourists won’t rush out and trample it. Internationally-renowned botanists are saying things like, “If it had really been lost, it would have been gone forever, and a unique part of our heritage vanished permanently.” The buckwheat is important because it is the only presumed extinct plant restricted to the East Bay and one of only three plants endemic to the mountain, that is, found there and nowhere else. Of course they’re going to gather some seeds and keep them in reserve there in Berkeley, home of radical causes, so the species won’t decline further. Michael Park is having a heck of a good first year in graduate school. The hoopla over the find has interfered with his field studies at a critical time of year, but he says he’s trying to enjoy it. Remember that old spiritual that says, “ain’t gonna study war no more?” It makes me feel good just for a minute that Somebody is studying the Mount Diablo buckwheat today. Who knows how much longer it and us are going to be around?

Deep Thought: “As the light changed from red to green to yellow and back to red again, I sat there thinking about life. Was it nothing more than a bunch of honking and yelling? Sometimes it seemed that way.”
Today I am grateful for: Pacifism
Guess the Movie: “I play, coach stays. He goes, I go.” Answer: Hoosiers, 1986. Winner: tearsign.
Next Dem Battlefront: Iraq
by Arianna Huffington
Now that the Democrats have won the battle over the nuclear option (or, atleast, come away with a tie), they need to turn their attention to what it’s going to take to become more than a minority party that wins a battle every now and then. They have been surprisingly successful at battling Bush’s domestic agenda, but if they’re going to broaden their appeal they firsthave to broaden their battlefronts to include Iraq. (Rest of article here.)
End of Day: 9:19 pm
+ = Tub to vet and back home.
- = Cost me over $200.

WEDNESDAY MOVIE

Word Wars

This is kind of a Spellbound for grown-ups – well, diabolically obsessed, emotionally freaked-out grown-ups. If anyone has a serious Scrabble player in the family, they’ll know the type – kind of a rainman-gone-wild personality. If your Scrabble player is a kid, pray they go to college and become a brain surgeon or something else useful. In any case, they have an elite, these word warriors who grow up and enter contests like the Nationals where they can win $25,000 as a grand prize. For this film and this contest, the elite are four delightful men – defending champ, Joe Edley (on right in photo) who does tai chi to prepare and memorizes the dictionary while driving his car; Matt Graham (separate photo), a stand-up comic who uses “natural drugs” for concentration; Marlon Hill (photo center), who swears a lot and feels the English language has stripped him of his African identity; and G.I. Joel Sherman (photo left) who is so named because he imbibes so much Maalox for his alarming case of gastrointestinal reflux. I won’t EVEN give away who finally wins. It’s a very trekkie kind of world, the Scrabble-for-prizes-world, and it’s pointed out that there are purists who just play in the park and disdain the hunt for the big bucks. So break out the popcorn and your pencil and paper, you just might learn a word or two if you can stop that hysterical laughing. I’d love to see a film where these four guys get locked in a room with Bobby Fischer for a week – oops, different game.

Deep Thought: “As the evening sky faded from a salmon color to a sort of flint gray, I thought back to the salmon I caught that morning, and how gray he was, and how I named him Flint.”
Today I am grateful for: Standing ovations
Guess the Movie: “ A-B-C. A-Always, B-Be, C-Closing. Always be closing, always be closing.” Answer: Glengarry Glen Ross, 1992. Winner: tearsign.
Bad Deal on Judges
by John Nichols
As the showdown on the so-called “nuclear option” approached, polls showed that the American people opposed scheming on the part of Senate GOP leaders to eliminate judicial filibusters by an overwhelming 2-to-1 margin.
Even among grassroots Republicans, there was broad discomfort with the idea of creating a tyranny-of-the-majority scenario in which the minority party in the Senate would no longer be consulted regarding lifetime appointments to the federal courts. (Rest of article here.)
End of Day: 8:59 pm
+ = They’re skateboarding on my street again.
- = It’s going to pass 90F tomorrow here in PDX.

MONDAY BOOK

Fortunate Son
by James Hatfield

Actually, thanks to Netflix my supplier of awesome DVD’s-by-mail, this is also about the 2002 documentary Horns and Halos that tells the story of the attempt to publish the book, Fortunate Son, a biography of George W. Bush that offers an incisive look at Bush’s questionable military history, disastrous business ventures, and the issues surrounding the 2000 presidential election – but is especially noted for alleging Bush’s arrest for cocaine possession in 1972 and expunging of his record by family connections. The film is shot during the presidential campaign and by this time, the book has been recalled by St. Martin’s Press because its author, James Hatfield, has been discovered to be an ex-con. This is where Sander Hicks, young, charismatic, mohawk-coifed owner of Soft Skull Press, steps in. Operating out of a basement in the building where he is also the super in the Lower East Side of NYC, Hicks hooks up with Hatfield to make a run at publishing the book again. Jim Hatfield was really just a minor league biographer, but when he took on this powerful subject matter, it was like he brought all the Forces of Evil upon himself. The film really doesn’t go into the subject matter of the book much at all. It’s about a four-day period when Hatfield and Hicks are trying to pitch the book. Battling lawyers, the media, and bankruptcy, they try for one last splash at the huge Book Expo of America. Hatfield feels called upon to reveal his source for the cocaine story, who (amazingly) is Karl Rove, and all hell breaks loose. In the end, the whole fiasco of fighting the powers-that-be literally kills him. On July 18, 2001, Jim Hatfield was found dead of a drug overdose in a hotel room in Arkansas. He left notes for his family and friends that listed alcohol, financial problems and “Fortunate Son” as reasons for killing himself. Today Sander Hicks has a new publishing company, VoxPop, and is about to publish, “The Big Wedding: 9/11, The Whistleblowers, and the Cover-Up.” Read about it here. Here’s to controversy!

Deep Thought: “Sometimes, when I drive across the desert in the middle of the night, with no other cars around, I start imagining: What if there were no civilization out there? No cities, no factories, no people? And then I think: No people or factories? Then who made t his car? And this highway? And I get so confused I have to stick my head out the window into the driving rain – unless there’s lightning, because I could get struck on the head by a bolt.”
Today I am grateful for: Orange – the color and the fruit
Guess the Movie: “Don’t call me son. I’m a lawyer and an officer in the United States Navy. And you’re under arrest, you son of a bitch.” Answer: A Few Good Men, 1992. Winner: thenarrator.
Insurgency is on the March
by Steve Chapman
“We feel right now that we have, as I mentioned, broken the back of the insurgency.”
- Marine Lt. Gen. John Sattler, Nov. 18, 2004, after the U.S.-led offensive against Fallujah
Could it be that we’ve misclassified the insurgency in Iraq – that it’s an invertebrate, able to absorb bone-crushing blows because it has no bones to crush? It seems to be more like a dandelion, which, when smashed, only spreads more seeds. Seven months after U.S. forces leveled the enemy stronghold, the insurgents are causing as much trouble as ever. (Rest of article here.)
End of Day: 8:48 pm
+ = At last a lovely weather day.
- = Did I hear a rumor of a filibuster cave?

PEOPLE WHO KNOCK ME OUT
(See sidebar for others)

Malcolm X

Eighty years ago almost to the day, in Omaha, Nebraska of all places, Malcolm Little was born to a Baptist preacher father who, by the time Malcolm was 6 years old, was murdered by a white supremacist group. When he was 14, his mother was declared legally insane and committed to a mental hospital. Malcolm dropped out of high school and began to drift, eventually making his way to Harlem in New York where he became known as Detroit Red. He was arrested at 20 and sent to prison for carrying firearms. In prison he began to study the teachings of the Nation of Islam, a militant sect that said black Americans should reclaim their Muslim heritage. When he got out of prison at age 27 he went directly to meet with Elijah Muhammad (the leader of NOI) in Chicago. It was then that he changed his name to Malcolm “X”, a custom among Nation of Islam followers who considered their family names to have originated with white slaveholders. He returned to Boston and became a Minister of an NOI temple. He opened more temples, began to deliver inspirational speeches and became the #2 man in the Nation of Islam. In 1958, when he was 32, he married his wife, Betty, and they eventually had six daughters. There began to be tension within the Nation of Islam leadership. Malcolm felt there was jealousy of his role. In April 1964, he made his famous “ballot or the bullet” speech (click here for its entirety) ending like this:

No, if you never see me another time in your life, if I die in the morning, I’ll die saying one thing: the ballot or the bullet, the ballot or the bullet.

The black nationalists aren’t going to wait. Lyndon B. Johnson is the head of the Democratic Party. If he’s for civil rights, let him go into the Senate next week and declare himself. Let him go in there right now and declare himself. Let him go in there and denounce the Southern branch of his party. Let him go in there right now and take a moral stand — right now, not later. Tell him, don’t wait until election time. If he waits too long, brothers and sisters, he will be responsible for letting a condition develop in this country which will create a climate that will bring seeds up out of the ground with vegetation on the end of them looking like something these people never dreamed of. In 1964, it’s the ballot or the bullet.

He had just converted to Islam and now left for Africa to make the customary pilgrimage to Mecca. In June he returned to the US with a new name, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz. He and his family began to receive death threats. On February 21, 1965 in Manhattan’s Audubon Ballroom, as he was delivering a speech, he was assassinated by a member of the Nation of Islam. He was just 40 years old. On the other side of the country, in San Francisco, I was carrying my first child, it was midway through the Vietnam war era, it would be another 3 years before Martin Luther King would die, and I was busy with my own survival. They were always being held up as examples of two opposite ways to effect change – Malcolm and Martin – and they both died “by the sword.” Today the world seems increasingly violent, the car bombs haven’t reached my city yet but it’s just a matter of time. It makes a peaceful person angry. I wrote my senator this week about the torture of prisoners and said:

I wish to go on record as being horrified at the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo and other military prisons in Iraq, which is continually denied by our press but which many of us Americans know to be true because of our deep distrust of our government today and the stories that keep emerging from other sources. I would like to know what is being done about the use of torture as a way to obtain information. Is there any attempt being made in the Senate to protest this activity? I have voted for you personally for years and hope you can tell me something is being done. Thank you.

The ballot or the bullet…which is it going to be?

Deep Thought: “If you define cowardice as running away at the first sign of danger, screaming and tripping and begging for mercy, then yes, Mr. Brave Man, I guess I am a coward.”
Today I am grateful for: The open sea
Guess the Movie: “In a law firm you may want to re-think your wardrobe a little.” “Well as long as I have one ass instead of two I’ll wear what I like if that’s all right with you? You might want to re-think those ties.” Answer: Erin Brockovich, 2000. Winner: thenarrator.
Afghan Prisoners Were ‘Tortured to Death’ by American Guards
by Justin Huggler
Shocking and detailed accounts have emerged of how two Afghan prisoners were tortured to death by American interrogators and prison guards at Bagram air base, outside Kabul. (Rest of article here.)
End of Day: 9:19 pm
+ = Got in and out of Toys R Us today without spending millions of dollars.
- = My neighbor is really pissed at me and I don’t have a clue why.

FRIDAY FIVE

Appetizer
Approximately how many hours per day do you spend watching television?
On work days probably 1.5 of actual watching. I have the news on in the morning when I’m getting ready for work but I just listen as I move around the house. On non-work days probably 3 hours altogether, but a lot of it is videos/DVD’s. I tend to change channels during commercial breaks and since there are so MANY of them that means I hardly ever stay on one channel for long. I still have PTSD from 9/11, so I probably have TV on the cable news channels more than anything else. Don’t watch any series shows (or any other programs) faithfully each week. Will stop at talk shows depending on who’s being talked to.
Soup
Which colors decorate your kitchen?
Green/pink/yellow shades. They weren’t chosen by me but by the former owner who was a victorian kind of person I think. Interior decoration is not my talent but I wish I was wealthy so I could afford to pay someone for it.
Salad
Name 2 brand names you buy on a regular basis, and what do you like about them?
Old Navy and Gap clothes for my granddaughter at the secondhand store because she likes the brands. Emeraude cologne – my favorite since my teens when my only mother-in-law ever wore it and I thought she was the classiest person I knew at the time. Plus I just still like the scent.
Main Course
What is your biggest fear?
That I or any member of my family will suffer physically, mentally, or spiritually any more than we can handle.
Dessert
If you could wake up tomorrow and find yourself in another location, where would you want to be?
By the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea….

Deep Thought: “Maybe in order to understand mankind, we have to look at the word itself: “Mankind.” Basically, it’s made up of two separate words – “mank” and “ind”. What do these words mean? It’s a mystery, and that’s why so is mankind.”
Today I am grateful for: Open secrets
Guess the Movie: “I’m gonna do my kind of dancin’ with a great partner, who’s not only a terrific dancer; somebody who’s taught me that there are people willing to stand up for other people no matter what it costs them; somebody who’s taught me about the kind of person I wanna be.” Answer: Dirty Dancing, 1987. Winner: Silverthorn.
Newsweek Was Right
by Ari Berman
The Bush Administration’s aggressive response to a Newsweek story alleging that US interrogators at Guantanamo Bay flushed the Koran down the toilet in front of Islamic detainees displays the height of hypocrisy. After Newsweek clumsily issued an apology, followed by a retraction, White House spokesman Scott McClellan called on the magazine to “help repair the damage that has been done, particularly in the region,” by explaining “what happened and why they got it wrong.” Maybe the Bush Administration should do the same, by opening up its secret facilities for inspection to the Red Cross and other third-party observers. We are printing below a letter from reader Calgacus–a pseudonym for a researcher in the national security field for the past twenty years–that shows how the desecration of the Koran became standard US interrogation practice.
“Contrary to White House spin, the allegations of religious desecration at Guantanamo such as those described by Newsweek on 9 May 2005 are common among ex-prisoners and have been widely reported outside the United States. Several former detainees at the Guantanamo and Bagram airbase prisons have reported instances of their handlers sitting or standing on the Koran, throwing or kicking it in toilets, and urinating on it. (Rest of story here.)
End of Day: 9:45 pm
+ = Drove a friend to the doctor this morning – made me feel useful.
- = Need to write to my senator about Guantanamo.

THURSDAY WHATEVER

I was reading a little item this morning about a Japanese study that proved that living near “greenspace” of some sort (park, back yard, houseplants) actually lengthened life. In a large urban area myself, I’m thankful to have a small backyard and a tree-lined suburban street to my name. Lately though I’ve realized that each year keeping up that yard is getting harder as my body gets creakier and my endurance winds immeasurably down. And that made me think about stress. I had pulled a page out of a Readers Digest to look for a free stress test it mentioned online, so I took it this morning. (Click here for the test.) I scored 244, which was “moderate” and “well within normal limits,” and the results said such stress carries a 30% risk for mild illness in the coming year. It’s a classic test, I noticed, that has been used for years and is based on life change events mainly. Fact is, my life has been pretty stable for some time – no big relationship dramas, no big career moves, no major illness, no huge family crises. The main issue, I guess, for me is that I’m heading into the end zone of my life now and having to look at getting squared away in both a practical and spiritual sense. There just comes a time when you have to Get Down To It if you see the train coming. It’s not a comfy fit yet, but I’m working on it. In the meantime, here’s a site for what to do about stress. The stresses in your life may all be little ones, but they sure can add up some days, and they sure do have a way of pulling the rug out from under a healthy life. Right now, I’m about to head out to my stressful workplace but I can hear birds chirping outside as they wake up in my greenspace and I know all is well.

Deep Thought: “I don’t think God put me on this planet to judge others. I think he put me on this planet to gather specimens and take them back to my home planet.”
Today I am grateful for: Muscles
Guess the Movie: “I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure.” Answer: Chariots of Fire, 1981. Winner: Silverthorn.
Climate Change: US Grassroots Revolt
Editorial
It would be easy to think that America doesn’t doesn’t give a fig for the rest of the world’s concerns about global warming. President Bush has ignored his own scientists and kept the US out of the Kyoto treaty, and last week his chief climate negotiator, Harlan Watson, seemed to dash Tony Blair’s hopes of a breakthrough at the G8 summit in July when he provocatively said that he saw no reason to take any speedy action. The ice caps may be melting and 19 of America’s warmest years on record may have occurred since 1980, but the country responsible for a quarter of the world’s greenhouse-gas emissions regrettably sees no reason to act. Wrong. (Rest of article here.)
End of Day: 9:25 pm
+ = Did a recovery service visit to a local detox tonight – very spiritual.
- = It’s been raining so much the ground is like mud and it’s mid May what’s the heck?!

WEDNESDAY MOVIE

In Good Company

Doing a 180 from the subject of the movie I reviewed last week, this is a sweet, harmless, feel-good PG-13 (but rated PG in other countries) film with attractive actors in engaging roles. Saw it first out at the cinema and watched it again on DVD this week with my visiting daughter. Interesting trivia is that the studio apparently wanted someone from the cast of “That ‘70’s Show” for the role of Carter and originally gave it to Ashton Kutcher, who then dropped out. Topher Grace had to audition four times to convince the producer he was right for the part. The name Topher, by the way, is from his real name, Christopher, which he didn’t like because people called him Chris. Who knew? I’m a great fan of That ‘70’s Show, and I think Topher Grace is charming and a promising actor, and this film is clever and entertaining and definitely worth seeing, but what I really like is that Dennis Quaid is still getting good parts in spite of aging (which is a major part of the plot of the movie – aging). Remember him in his first film, Breaking Away? Now there was a fabulous tale, an Indiana summer joy ride. Topher Grace is just about the same age now that Quaid was then. Time marches on, doesn’t it sports fans?

Deep Thought: “I think a good novel would be where a bunch of men on a ship are looking for a whale. They look and look, but you know what? They never find him. And you know why they never find him? It doesn’t say. The book leaves it up to you, the reader, to decide. Then, at the very end, there’s a page you can lick and it tastes like Kool-Aid.”
Today I am grateful for: The word moose being both singular and plural
Guess the Movie: “What happened mother? Why did we all run?” “Man was in the forest.” Answer: Bambi, 1942. Winner: Silverthorn.
‘Star Wars’ Raises Questions on US Policy
by David Germain
Without Michael Moore and “Fahrenheit 9/11″ at the Cannes Film Festival this time, it was left to George Lucas and “Star Wars” to pique European ire over the state of world relations and the United States’ role in it.
Lucas’ themes of democracy on the skids and a ruler preaching war to preserve the peace predate “Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith” by almost 30 years. Yet viewers Sunday — and Lucas himself — noted similarities between the final chapter of his sci-fi saga and our own troubled times. (Rest of article here.)
End of Day: 8:40 pm
+ = The exterminator showed back up after all and did some more getting rid of mice work.
- = I hate having to kill Anything.