WHEN TOMORROW IS TODAY, THE BELL MAY TOLL FOR SOME. In the most recent of their many puzzling habits, NRO's Cornerites have started cheerfully citing people who mention John Miller's "Top 50 Conservative Songs" as evidence of the article's influence, even when those sources consider Miller to be utterly full of shit. Just so long as they spell the name right, one supposes.

The latest such link points us to the Financial Times, and for this I am grateful, as FT makes a few interesting points:

But it’s not such an anomaly to speak of rock and conservatism in the same breath, for as a musical form it is deeply conservative. Male-dominated, resistant to change, endlessly reproducing a narrow range of guitar chords, it lost whatever radical creative edge it had ages ago. One of the greatest rock bands, The Ramones, led by the ardent Republican supporter Johnny Ramone, understood its narrow parameters perfectly. Do the same thing again and again. Wear the same clothes. Rock may advertise itself as rebellion but in fact it values tradition and convention as much as any conservative.

That is why it has become a battleground for politicians. Witness a recent Westminster tussle: no sooner did Gordon Brown reveal in a magazine interview that The Arctic Monkeys “really wake you up in the morning” than David Cameron popped up on the radio programme Desert Island Discs to wax lyrical about The Smiths, Radiohead and REM.

Just so we know that he likes rock but not other, more delinquent forms of pop, Cameron later launched a savvy broadside against gangsta rap as glorifying violent crime. This is the to-and-fro of politics in the iPod age, with rock as the favoured musical shuttlecock. Pete Townshend had better get used to it.

I have only one real problem with this. The bit about "creative edge," obviously meant as a slur, is to me an irrelevance: "edge" is only what fans and critics ascribe to artistry, not a central fact of it. Your basic rock clod might think his favorite young idiot doing a recycled 70's riff and/or pose is edgy, because it amplifies his prior, TV-nurtured ideas of same, whereas said clod would think the genuinely adventuresome Charles Ives not edgy, because he's, like, old and in black and white.

The author is correct that rock as a form is conservative (though not nearly so much so as, say, the sonnet). We must stipulate that we use the term "conservative" here as sane people do (e.g., "At a conservative estimate I'd say you owe me ten bucks"), not in the indiscriminate and incoherent manner of culture warriors. And that sublime changes can be wrought within the most restrictive forms.

But the bit about British politicos throwing around rock names the way monkeys fling feces is best of all. I'm sure all these guys are basically spiritual heirs to the minister spoon-feeding Alex at the end of A Clockwork Orange. If rock signifiers are what the punters want, then signifiers they shall have! The strangeness, to our American ears, of hearing The Smiths used in such a way helps us to see more easily that the hipster imprimatur can be applied by anyone to anything regardless of relevance or consequence. Thus these pudgy, pasty pols apply bands like henna tattoos to their personas, in hopes of seeming more natural when strolling through the rougher electoral precincts.

That's the human comedy, folks, all the way down down to Cameron's impersonation of Mrs. Scum. Of course over time, or if overindulged, this sort of thing has a deleterious effect on the brain, which is why those of us who have grown out of it civic-mindedly try to encourage young folk to do likewise. Regrettably, an increasing number of adults refuse to abandon this childish affectation (indeed, they seem to be indulged in it by think-tanks, editors, and vanity presses). If the proportion of such retards exponentiates much further, we will find ourselves trapped in a large-scale environmental production of Wild in the Streets, only with more torture and worse music.

You may do your part by refusing to become a rhinoceros (or, if your perspective is less literary, a dumbass).

IN WHICH GEORGE CLOONEY FRAMES UP KEN LAY. James Pinkerton tries another liberal-Hollywood essay. It is not so offensive as some such. It is silly, for sure, basically twanging the old saw about social commentary closing on Saturday night, and blistered with bizarre cracks (on Tom Cruise: "And conservatives, for their part, needn't complain: Aren't gays supposed to stay in the closet?").

But Pinkerton acknowledges, first, that Hollywood is observably not turning Americans into Bolsheviks, and second, that Hollywood filmmakers try to make money. For these guys, that's an impressive acknowledgement of objective reality.

Naturally conservative critics think Pinkerton has failed to grasp the seriousness of the cultural situation. Larry Ribstein complains:

Of course Hollywood artists like business – after all, they’re in business.  But they like their own particular type of business. What they don’t like is capitalists – the folks who lord it over the artists, and force them to constrain their vision. 

And so what we get in Hollywood films is an unrelentingly dismal view of money, stock markets, and impersonal market forces...

I should think Americans might find impersonal market forces pretty dismal without any help. But no: because filmmakers "have been trained their whole professional lives to manipulate emotions," they can march sozzle-headed citizens into the jury box to "send capitalists to jail" and "levy huge punitive damages against big capitalist firms." And all because some tycoons tried to constrain their visions!

You will be relieved to hear that, despite these depradations, Ribstein is against "regulation of film content," preferring "more business education, and more awareness of filmmakers' perverse take on business." You can get a bellyful of such education at Ribstein's other blog, where he lists anti- and pro-business films: "Although Citizen Kane and the Godfather movies might be seen as the rare films that show what it takes to build a business," he sighs, "they don’t paint a pretty picture." Among his pro-capitalism picks: Do The Right Thing ("Sal’s Pizzeria feeds everybody and is an important binding force for the neighborhood").

Ribstein at least is clear on his own terms. I'm still puzzling over Professor Bainbridge's conclusion:

The problem with Pinkerton's argument is that he conflates how Hollywood portrays class and how it portrays business. Even if we enter an era of cheap high-quality film making through digital technology, the desire to strike it big evident even among the most left-leaning Hollywood types likely will continue to constrain the way films portray class issues. The same may not hold true for how Hollywood portrays capitalism and business. Filmmakers freed by technology from the need for vast amounts of startup capital may well end up making even more anti-business films than they do now.

Is he saying that, the easier it becomes to make a movie, the more poisonous anti-business films we will have? That doesn't speak well of the free market.

None of these commentators seem aware that films are anything more than propaganda for one gang of nerds or another, but what else is new?

"JESUS CHRIST!" QUIPPED THE LIEUTENANT. "WHAT IS THIS, RUSSIA?" CNN:

Three prisoners at the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have hanged themselves in what is being called a "planned event," the U.S. military has said.

They are the first confirmed deaths at the compound. Prisoners have attempted suicide in the past.

"Two Saudis and one Yemeni, each located in Camp 1, were found unresponsive and not breathing in their cells by guards," said a statement issued by Joint Task Force-Guantanamo on Saturday...

The suicides should surprise no one because the detainees believe they will be held indefinitely with no chance for justice, said Josh Colangelo-Bryan with the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents about 200 of the detainees.

"They've been told that while at Guantanamo they have no rights as human beings," he told reporters during a conference call Saturday.

Colangelo-Bryan said one of his clients told him during a visit to the facility in October 2005 that he "would simply rather die than live here with no rights."

Wait for it... wait for it...

"They are smart. They are creative. They are committed. They have no regard for human life, neither ours nor their own," [Commander of Joint Task Force-Guantanamo, Rear Admiral Harry] Harris said. "I believe this was not an act of desperation, but rather an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us"...

Asymmetrical warfare is when one side uses unorthodox or surprise tactics to attack the weak points of its stronger opponent.

Fox News announced it would refer henceforth to such suicides as "homicide suicides," to let viewers know that they were actually attacks on American self-esteem.

UPDATE. If the self-slaughterers "plannned and coordinated" their own deaths, asks Ann Althouse, "doesn't this support the government's theory that these were warriors maneuvering and not individuals despairing?"

Interesting choice of words, Counsellor! One imagines Althouse grilling the corpses about their so-called despair, and explaining to the judge that the defendants' pre-posthumous state of mind "goes to motive."

Thought balloon over a corpse's head: Well, at least now I'm getting a trial.

THEY'LL KNOW WE ARE CHRISTIANS BY OUR LOVE. Michael Berg, father of Nick Berg (whose head Zarqawi cut off), does an Imitation of Christ:

Well, my reaction is I'm sorry whenever any human being dies. Zarqawi is a human being. He has a family who are reacting just as my family reacted when Nick was killed, and I feel bad for that.

In response, the Ace of Spades does an imitation of Sgt. Slaughter:

The moral vanity of these people is disgusting. Attempting to remake themselves into Holy Angels, they instead make themselves into monsters. Does this asshole really think it's an enlightened human response to feel as bad for the death of your son's butcher as for your son's?

He thinks that attitude makes him better than other people?

I think it makes him less than human, personally.

When he dies (which he will, of course, as we all will; no death threat intended), I hope his son slaps this stupid fuck right in the face.

I don't believe in that "love your enemy as yourself" bullshit, either, but I don't get all bent out of shape when other people go for it. For one thing, unlike the shellfish provisions in the Old Testament, it has zero chance of ever catching on.

UPDATE. Comments at the Ace Theological Seminary enhance the hilarity. The money shot:

Christians are explicitly commanded to defend those who cannot defend themselves, and Christ stated quite flatly, numerous times, that on His return He would lead the armies of Heaven and slay the wicked. Berg's disgusting attitude is fundamentally un-Christian. "Not directly comparable?" It's not even in the same ballpark. Not even close.

Pick up a Bible someday, Michael. It's not the pacifist hippie screed you seem to think it is.

Boy howdy, is he right! Who can forget:

They shall beat their swords into plowshares, then hitch them plowshares to 100,000 oxen and rampage through the enemy like crap through a goose!

And:

Suffer the little children come unto me. I'll teach the little punks to kill with the edge of a rolled-up newspaper!

And:

If someone strikes you on the right cheek, smash the fucker good in the other cheek! Then, the heart punch! Do the eye gouge! Do the hammerlock! Do the hammerlock, you turkeynecks!

Though perhaps the commenter and I are mixing up our sacred texts.

TRAVEL UPDATE. I got through the tests, we'll see about results. I also did a little day-tripping while in DC. The Mall is presently overrun by school trip teens and their minders: fleets of tour buses, harried adults holding up colored signs or folders, mobs of gangly yout's in copy-heavy t-shirts and shorts. The National Museum of Natural History, which I visited, seems made for them: the exhibits and signage are simple and bold, designed for durability and easy cleaning. I took in shows about the Sikhs ("Willy Wonka!" cried one yout), early life on Earth, and Lewis & Clark, in which the signage contained many prompts for an audio tour no one seemed to be taking. I'd never thought much about Lewis & Clark before, but it's a hell of a story, right down to Lewis' pathetic and mysterious suicide. It's almost enough to make me read Thomas Pynchon, were life not so brief.

On recommendations from readers, I also took in the Phillips Collection. It was terrific, and there was hardly anyone there. After a few Target Free Nights at MOMA I had forgotten what a pleasure that can be. I sat and looked at Luncheon of the Boating Party for twenty minutes and two people got in my way, briefly. Even the newer paintings -- including a great, untitled Jake Berthot that looks like a bridge in a mist of smudges, and Howard Hodgkin's ebullient Torso, spilling over onto its frame -- pleased grumpy old me. I was compelled to attend artists who had never interested me before, like Dufy and Braque. The artists I already liked, I had all the time in the world for. Even at full fare this felt like an enormous gift.

Also on recommendation, I dined at Dukem in Adams Morgan. The Doro Wot was fine; still, I'd complain about the price (come on, it's stew poured over weird, grey bread, and six bucks is a lot for a bottle of St. George) were it not for the music. It was my first experience of eskista, so I couldn't tell you if it was good eskista or bad eskista, but I loved the sound: guy beating on a drum with sticks, guy sawing on something that looked like a zither, guy plucking at another zither-thing with a cigar-box soundboard attached, and a girl sitting calmly up front and singing in a high, plangent voice. The rhythm was a little unusual to my culturally insensitive ears (I could count the fours, couldn't quite make out the pulse), but the dance team that came out at the end got into it pretty good.

In other world news, I had the TV on while packing for home and watched the reports on Zarqawi. Much talk about a "turning point" in the War, repeated footage of the Iraqi press corps cheering. And, on the other idiot box, the Perfesser accused the press of "spinning war news to make things look worse than they are, and to hurt Bush." I haven't plowed through the blogs to see if anyone was really sad that the guy who sawed the head off Nick Berg (among many others) got what was coming to him, but it's a big wide wonderful world of opinion, so who knows. Maybe after I clicked off, George Stephanopoulos called for a moment of silence.

Well, I got politics in, now I can take a nap.

ANOTHER DAMN SERVICE INTERRUPTION. You really should go with a more reliable vendor. I am in D.C. for three more days of Von Hippel-Lindau-related testing. This time it's an MIBG scan: they shoot me up with radioactive material and watch it glow in my body over two days. Seriously, that's what they do. (Go ahead and make fun of me for it, though -- I promise not to reveal your identities!)

I am typing this at a Kinko's on K Street. (Two guys tried to bribe me as I walked over here.)

I'm staying at the Washington Plaza, a 60s monolith on Thomas Circle. The management is apparently trying to exploit its retro chic rather than its gigantism and isolation in a weird fish-nor-fowl neighborhood. Locals, please tell me if there's anything to do around here beside visit drug stores and fend off bums.

I imagine I'll get in some culture and bore you all with it at some point, but posting should be light till Thursday night.

CYBERSMART : SMART :: ROAD APPLES : APPLES. Semi-popularizer of the South Park Conservative fad, Brian C. Anderson, says video games are good for your brain. Since he's writing at OpinionJournal, he drops the kind of comments that gets right-wingers excited: Dr. Spock is (posthumously) against gaming -- gaming good! Hillary Clinton is against violent gaming -- gaming good, cut off bitch's head! And the Ol' Perfesser likes it, etc.

But even beyond the customary, specious political identification, there is plenty of just plain stupidity in here:

Video games can also exercise the brain in remarkable ways. I recently spent (too) many late-night hours working my way through X-Men: Legends II: The Rise of Apocalypse, a game I ostensibly bought for my kids. Figuring out how to deploy a particular grouping of heroes (each of whom has special powers and weaknesses); using trial and error and hunches to learn the game's rules and solve its puzzles; weighing short-term and long-term goals--the experience was mentally exhausting and, when my team finally beat the Apocalypse, exhilarating.

Anderson seems to have cribbed this notion from Malcolm "Blink" Gladwell, and my response to the knockoff is the same (though less respectful of course) that I had to the original:

It has been my experience as a remedial English tutor that even the brightest students are undertrained in, and often unaware of, the simplest analytic tools -- including grammar, sentence structure, and outlining. These are not nearly so easy to absorb as the [computer gaming] skills Gladwell values, but the fact that he can make himself clear in essay form shows that he has himself mastered them, which makes it rather disturbing to me that he seems not to care much that we make so little effort to wrench our kids away from their entertainment modules long enough to learn how to diagram a sentence or tie three supporting details to a main idea.

...If we don't teach our young citizens to think rather than merely process information, all the video-savvy in the world isn't going to save their sorry asses...

Yeah, so I'm quoting myself. Busy day. Besides, I fought the Battle of Tompkins Square Park for the likes of you! Get off my lawn!

TRY ONE OF THESE JAMAICAN CIGARS, AMBASSADOR. THEY'RE PRETTY GOOD. A "writer living in Washington D.C." explains why drinking California chardonnay is conservative: contrary to "its alleged association with affluent political liberals," California chardonnay is populist (because "influential wine critic Robert Parker" disapproves), and "sexy, muscular and swaggering," and therefore much better than "watery French swill."

Me, I drink Mumblin' Jack Malt Liquor cause it gits ya cozy.

Lest you think the article was written and submitted for publication on a bet, you can also read this authoress (Melinda Ledden Sidak) on the moral relativism of mothers who work and Bob Dole Viagra commercials, and how people who have unmarital sex should lose their jobs, if you are as big a glutton for punishment as me, which I hope none of you is.

FUCK THAT NOISE. HOW 'BOUT THEM METS? I attended the second game of yesterday's twi-night Mets-Giants doubleheader. The evening was cold and damp and as the matinee had suffered a long rain delay, by the second game the crowd was pruned down to about 5,000 die-hards. But the Mets are doing well -- even two months into the season! -- so the faithful were in good spirits.

At least they were in good spirits when they got away from the ticket window. Management decided the make-up game for Friday's rainout should be part of this already-ticketed event; those of us with Friday tickets had to trade-in for whatever slop was left. ("They oughta just open up the gates and let everybody sit wherever they want!" yelled one mook.)

So we started among the upper deck diaspora, watching the white blobs dashing around and the sheets of rain whirling laterally through the floodlight. Folks were scattered across the red seats. A few couples huddled under soaked Mets beach blankets. (There was no liquid warmth available as Shea had turned off the beer taps between games. What is this league coming to?)

Later, as standards relaxed, we went down to the mezzanine, where the population was more consensed, dry, and convivial. Barry Bonds wasn't in the lineup, but the natural wise-assedness of our tribe prompted many rounds of "Barrrr-rrry" (in the sing-song manner of the old "Darrrr-rrryl" chant, and the "Larrrr-rrry" that traditionally greets "Chipper" Jones at Shea). As we went to extra innings the "Let's Go Mets" chant turned to "Let's Go Home."

We responded to events, too. When Lance Niekro came to the plate, some oldtimer yelled, "Throw him a knuckleball!" When Jose Reyes stole second (always a pleasing sight), we serendaded him with the Jose Song (which some Nats fans claim they had first). And when the Home Run King Presumptive stepped up to pinch-hit, the uncrowd went nuts, and went nutser when Barrrr-rrry grounded out. (I didn't hear much steroid stuff. This is just the sort of treatment we give celebrity opponents. Bonds' return under abuse to his dugout was slow and upright, but he's had a lot of practice. I imagine it is less easy for Kaz Matsui, who for poor overall performance was booed reflexively whenever he shifted his weight.)

Oh, and we won! Lastings Milledge executed a lovely hook-slide to evade a tag at home in the 11th. Big cheers, loud music, and a hasty retreat to the 7 platform.

Plus I got money back on my ticket. And they brought back the Howard Beale tape ("I want you to get up right now and go to the window. Open it, and stick your head out, and yell -- LET'S GO METS!"). A good night all in all.

WHAT I SAW AT THE DEVOLUTION. Perhaps attempting to put fire in the bellies of their discouraged constituents, the Corner guys talk about how Disneyland and Scotland have gone communist.

The Scottish thread is particularly rich. "Thatcherism never really penetrated far into Scotland, despite some of her most fervent admirers being Scottish," says Iain Murray. Another guy blames his inability to make money there on Scottish prejudice against the "Yank Capitalist." Cliff May is upset that a "talented and beautiful" Scottish folk musician played a John Lennon song. (No, it wasn't "Lassie is the Nigger of the World.") Derbyshire exhumes Dr. Johnson's famous crack, indicating that patience is exhausted, and invasion is the inevitable next step.

On the other hand, there is this:

As you can imagine, I don't get much help from mainstream media in promoting my music and values...

Boy, can't we all relate! John J. Miller urges you to buy the man's tunes, and those of other "rockcon" artists who speak truth to powerlessness.

I wish them well. I'm a lot more favorably disposed toward this Top Conservative Songs thing now that it's a marketing scam that might get some musicians some play. Swindle, comrades!

WHAT DO YOU CALL JEFF GOLDSTEIN WITH A Ph.D.? (ALERT: inside baseblog)There have been some complaints about disrespectful treatment of Jeff Goldstein. In the aforelinked cases, Goldstein’s use of MLA blather (with jokes, though -- you can tell 'cuz they're in all caps) is alleged to cause his critics jealous outrage that "one of us" has turned to the dark side.

Are Goldstein’s critics really academics? I never got more than a Baccalaureate (in Fine Arts, swish swish, so I didn't have to read much), and I work for a corporation. Tbogg works for a corporation, too. Atrios is a political activist, and we all know they don’t know from semiotics. Majikthise is kinda schoolly, but I’ve had beers with her and she never once spoke of the signifier and the signified. And Jane Hamsher's a movie producer -- they are all self-made types given to ignorant spoonerisms and big cigars, and think college-professor stuff is strictly the bunk.

Maybe we just think the guy's comedy gold.

As alerted, this is all bloggity-blah, so its significance is nil. Still, you have to wonder why Goldstein's seconds are so incensed that people are making fun of some guy known for making fun (semiotic fun, mind you) of some other guys. Even the normally sane John Cole says, "they do not like his politics, so they simply want to destroy him. It is that simple."

Christ Jesu, I never dreamed we had such power! I'ma get me a cool helmet like Ian McKellen's in "X-Men" and destroy all my enemies with the unstoppable force of paste-eater jokes!

P.S. Michael Moore is fat. (Unless that was some sort of Levi-Straussian jest I am simply too unlettered to grasp.)

JESUS IS MY MANAGER, AND HE'S DOING A REALLY SHITTY JOB. Michelle Malkin is excited to hear from USA Today that the Colorado Rockies are a religious cult:

Music filled with obscenities, wildly popular with youth today and in many other clubhouses, is not played. A player will curse occasionally but usually in hushed tones. Quotes from Scripture are posted in the weight room. Chapel service is packed on Sundays. Prayer and fellowship groups each Tuesday are well-attended. It's not unusual for the front office executives to pray together.

Next time they talk to Jesus, they should ask him how to get the fuck out of fourth place in the NL West.

LATEST CONSERVENTIONAL WISDOM: Innocents Slaughtered at Haditha; Rightwing Bloggers Hardest Hit.

For perspective, see here.

The idea of a "morally irrelevant" war atrocity is new, and I hope the Perfesser and his allies get full credit for it.

UPDATE. Anyone remember when Winds of Change was the "liberal" warblog? Get a load of this.

The current post at Winds of Change at this writing is against the Jacobin Terror. Hilarious, under the circumstances.

10.0! In his review (that term being used here in its new, conservative sense -- that is, criticism of a movie he hasn't seen) of An Inconvenient Truth, Holman Jenkins goes about fatuity as if it were an Olympic event, fitting in all the high-degree-of-difficulty routines.

For example, he does a philosophical number, claiming our problem is not so much global warming as Al Gore's existential dread: "In a million years, the time it takes the earth to sneeze, the planet will likely be shorn of any conspicuous sign we were ever here, let alone careless with our CO2, dioxins, etc. Talk about an inconvenient truth."

He also scores high in my favorite conservative event, the equivalence of observable reality with rhetorical whims: "What if science showed conclusively that global warming is produced by natural forces, with all the same theorized ill effects for humanity, but that human action could forestall natural change? Or what if man-made warming were real, but offsetting the arrival of a natural ice age? Would Mr. Gore tell us meekly to submit to whatever nature metes out because it's 'natural'?" More to the point, what if this peanut butter were caviar? I would have gotten this sandwich at a substantial discount!

But Jenkins shows exceptional creativity and daring here:

A remarkable and improbable thing is that, despite presumably devoting decades of study to the subject of global warming, nothing Al Gore has learned leads him to say anything that would strike the least informed, most dogmatic "green" as politically incorrect. He doesn't discover virtues in nuclear power. He doesn't note the cost-benefit advantages of strategies that would remove CO2 from the atmosphere, rather than those that would stop its creation.

Anybody who deeply searches into any subject of popular debate inevitably comes back with views and judgments to shock the casual thinker. Mr. Gore utterly fails to vouchsafe this reliable telltale of seriousness.

You may have missed it, but Jenkins just said that Gore's conclusions cannot be right because they are not the same as Jenkins' presumptions.

I have to applaud. I would also like to take credit for appreciating Jenkins' craft despite our disagreements, but I don't really know that I disagree with him, because he hasn't asserted anything that rises to the level of argument. He just doesn't like Al Gore, and wants to say bad things about him.

Fair enough. A traditional film review wouldn't have been as interesting, probably. Previously I had put down this New Criticism to sloth and arrogrance, but maybe it's really an avant-garde movement. If so, Jenkins is a stylist to watch.

UPDATE. Those of us who are not so cutting-edge might want to settle down with the down-home, old-school fatuity of the Ole Perfesser, who refutes Gore with -- get this -- the new hand-dryer at his gym, which "makes the skin on your hands ripple like it does when you're skydiving, and within a few seconds your hands are dry." This is the end of MST (Main Stream Towels)! I can't wait to see what they have for the bidet.

NEVER GET OUT OF THE BOAT! People sometimes ask me, a semi-name in the world of electronic bile, why I take my sport with the larger, more popular jackasses of the conservative blogosphere (Reynolds, NRO, etc), seldom wandering into the deeper woods a la such intrepids as The Sadlynauts.

Those woods are very scary, my friends. For example, with just a simple click from the (unaccountably) well-regarded Dean Esmay, I became enmeshed in this:

A related subject (DEFINITELY off limits among the PC crowd) is the indication that cultural remnants of communal, tribal African culture persist in American Black culture today. American Blacks managed to survive slavery, Jim Crow and overt racial discrimination by de-emphasizing individual property rights (which were likely to be ephemeral in any case) and by depending on a sort of communal, tribal cooperation that was common to their heritage. Even today, in many black families, less prosperous family members feel entitled to a share of the wealth of those family members who are more successful.

And then there is the "bling" and "signifying" (not to mention the wanton slaughter) at the lower levels of contemporary Black ghetto culture -- hard not to notice how much this resembles the African pattern.

But to speak of such things immediately brands one as a bigot, despite the fact that CULTURE is the focus, not race.

The author's picture adds to the effect.

I can be lighthearted about this (like, if American blacks retain so much of their African heritage, how did the dashiki ever go out of fashion?), but it is astonishing, indeed dispiriting, how much outright crackpottery there is out there.

The big boys are nuts, too, but they disguise it much better, which makes uncovering their unreason something close to an intellectual exercise -- or as close as I like to get.

Also, I convinced a judge that this constitutes public service. Another 300 hours and I can take off this electronic bracelet.

A THOUSAND PARDONS, DORKS! Due to popular demand among the perpetually-aggrieved, here is a belated Memorial Day graphic:


Now let us move on.

(But not before I memorialize my favorite Freeper comment: "I remember they had a dripping bucket logo to celebrate 'water day' right when Terri Schiavo was being dehydrated.")

MOVIE NIGHT. Finally saw Walk The Line. Back when Joaquin Phoenix was announced as the Johnny Cash avatar, I spent a long night explaining to an uninterested bartender why Phoenix was a poor choice. They should have scoured up a backwoods retard to play JC, I drooled. I admired Phoenix from Quills and Gladiator, but I didn't see anything in him that could sound Cash's simplicity.

I was awful wrong. Phoenix is wonderful. He obviously worked like hell on the voice, and did right by it: he not only got the lower register, but also the aching gulf it came out of. When he did "Folsom Prison Blues" for Sam Phillips (and that was a great little performance, there, by Dallas Roberts -- he made Phillips a pedant, a prophet, and a promoter all at once, which Phillips had to have been), Phoenix seemed to be singing in slow motion, digging open with effort a hole in himself to reveal his deepest sorrow. And, drunk as I was when I expressed it in that bar, the filmmakers seem to have shared my feeling about Cash being a retard. The movie Cash can't hardly help himself: he does everything out of blind need. From the start he comes on to June as if he has no social skills whatever, and even after his desire has been purified by abstinence and discipline, when he proposes -- "Muhrry me, June!" -- it's still a raging hard-on that can't brook convention, common sense, or anything else.

There's a lot more to Johnny Cash than a love story, but the love story is great, and who doesn't like a great love story? Much as I admire Reese Witherspoon, though, I don't see this as any kind of pinnacle for her, Oscar or no. Back in her Freeway-Election period, I would have imagined Witherspoon capable of anything. Then came those stupid Legally Blond movies, and I think she's still sort of stuck on that note. Her June Carter is solid but nothing out of the ordinary. I liked her best when she first softened toward Cash -- it may have just been a gap in the writers' characterization, but when she let him into her hotel room (here the framing of the scene helps a lot), it was a welcome glimpse of mystery -- how is it that someone so forcefully pulled together lets herself slip? By and large, though, Witherspoon's June is too formulaically conflicted, according to how bad or good Johnny's coming off at the time. The newspaper headline JUNE CARTER MARRIES STOCK CAR DRIVER is more interesting than most of her performance. Witherspoon needs a quantum casting leap. But who in Hollywood will give it to her?

As for the resolution, I like it fine. It may be a family-Bible resolution, but it's still a resolution. I especially like Cash's Christian handling of his asshole father -- I was annoyed by it, but on the film's terms it made perfect sense, and those, as Charles Foster Kane once observed, are the only terms anyone understands. I understand the charge that Walk the Line is just a form of "effective ventriloquism," and that Cash's life has more riches to yield, but to me the important thing is that it is effective, and its effectiveness is earned from the start to the finish of the film. Movies can do worse, and usually do.

BACK, SORT OF. For the long weekend I absented myself from all responsibilities, including this one. I didn't look at the internet. I went to Coney Island and ate a softshell crab sandwich and drank beer. I should have stayed there. Here is all work and care and arguments with italicized strawwimmyn.

Still, here is where we are, so I will get back to it. But slowly.

LOOK AWAY, LOOK AWAY. Because of my record as a culture war correspondent, some readers have goaded me to take on John Miller's "Top 50 Conservative Songs" nonsense at National Review. But my heart isn't much in it.

Not that Miller's list isn't a comedy goldmine. I would pay good money to see John Lydon onstage at a YAF Rally, leading a rousing chorus of "Bodies" (#7). And previously my readers and I have enjoyed our own alternate con-song suggestions (e.g., "Pray I Don't Kill You Faggot" by Run Westy Run) and alternate lyrics (here're some new ones: "While ol' Neil Young talks down the southland/As he goes in and out of key/Me and my roadies will get fucked up/And drive our plane into a tree -- aaah, fuck me").

Whence then my reticence? Partly from contempt. Miller's logic is so extraordinarily sheer that it is almost beneath my dignity to poke holes in it (and I'm wearing a cardboard belt!), and it is certainly beneath yours to watch me do it. Take his statement to the New York Times --

"Any claim that rock is fundamentally revolutionary is just kind of silly," he said. "It's so mainstream that it puts them" — liberals — "in the position of saying that at no time has there ever been a rock song that expressed a sentiment that conservatives can appreciate..."

I can't be bothered to touch this "argument," anymore than I can be bothered to explain to an annoying child why he can't live on the moon or shoot rockets from his fingers.

Part of it, though, is from pure fellow-feeling. I was a lonely little boy once, and spent many sad hours on my own. The world seemed cruel, savage, and stacked against me. Being small, I had no way to fight it head-on, so in my imagination I created an alternative universe, where all the Hobbesian brutalities I suffered or witnessed obtained an explanation favorable to myself.

I'm obviously not the only person who ever experienced something like that. Neither am I the only person to have outgrown it. It marked me, sure. My naive faith in the power of reason may be part of its legacy. But I did in time come to accept something very important for all adults to accept: that the explanation that was most comforting to my vanity was not necessarily the right one.

Most of our culture-warriors have a Joe Goebbels idea of art. Some don't even know what it is at all. And some special few of them aren't even aware that they are talking about art, because they see everything for which they have any feeling as an extension of themselves. Thus they spend pages explaining why their favorite dance tunes, or comic strips, or choc-o-mut ice creams are evidence of the superiority of their world view.

They excite our pity more than our contempt, because they have obviously missed a crucial step in their development. They are, as Harry Truman once said about Joe McCarthy, not mentally complete. Were it not for the largesse of Bill Buckley, Richard Scaife, and such like, they would probably be living in institutions.

So let's leave Miller be. alicublog is a straight-up joint; we don't beat up cripples here.

I KNOW I AM, BUT WHAT ARE YOU? Lloyd Bentsen died recently, and newspaper writers naturally recalled the old Texan's most famous moment: his "Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy" response to Dan Quayle in the 1988 Vice-Presidential debates. To normal, literate people, this is understandable. Conversely, to Tim Graham, it is an outrage.

Graham, the NRO kulture kop who thinks Hollywood is trying to destroy Christianity, seems also to think that witty putdowns are a liberal plot:

Copeland tried to make this [article] more balanced by noting Ronald Reagan's debate quips against Carter and Mondale, but "there you go again" and joking about not exploiting his opponent's "youth and inexperience" were much mellower in tone than Bentsen's "babyface" slam. Soon, she returned to the "beauty" of Bentsen's quip: "We don't feel bad for victims of verbal violence if we feel in some way they deserve it." Spoken like a true Democrat.

He also thinks that, because there are few Bentsen references in the JFK library, a "liberal media 'truth squad'" should have been dispatched to fact-check Bentsen's joke. (That always works. "Well, you know, rabbis rarely go into bars, and it is even more rare for them to go in accompanied by a priest.")

My very favorite segment of Graham's hissy-fit is this:

Left unexplored: how recent Republican candidates have resisted the urge to slam liberal opponents in presidential debates in front of liberal media. It wouldn't receive the same glorious treatment.

Is that why? Maybe it's because, with or without a transmitting device in his jacket, George W. Bush isn't anyone's idea of George Sanders. "Need some wood?" is more his sort of humor: frat-house in origin, aphasic in delivery.

I can see why Graham makes up the excuse that, if ol' George chose to uncork his zingers, the Em Ess Em would wave their hands in front of the camera and yell "not funny!" It's what he would do -- in fact, it's what he just did.

Still, it's good to know that, like the Muhammed cartoon guys, members of our local chapter of the Villains, Thieves and Scoundrels Union cannot abide mockery.

IF I'M NOT MISSING SOMETHING HERE, if there is not some hidden meaning or level of irony that I have somehow overlooked, then I may just have to quit because, jaded as I am, I would never have imagined such a thing possible.

The next Orwell will have to be an absurdist.

(Thanks Atrios for the tip.)

UPDATE. Upon further review (thanks Felix) it doesn't seem so much crazy as malign. The DefendDelay folks seem to think the maker of Outfoxed and WalMart: The High Price of Low Cost let slip in the Colbert interview that his documentary has a political purpose (stop the presses). They portray this revelation as a result of Colbert's interrogratory skills ("Colbert Cracks the Story"). So it's a misrepresentation, but one that requires only selective reading and wishful thinking to believe -- not a wholesale denial of reality.

Which is not so reassuring when you think about it.

ANOTHER SAD SACK IN THE CULTURE WAR. Ol' Perfesser Reynolds writes about how society done made child-rearin' too tuff. The article clearly takes the POV that we whi -- uh, I mean Americans should get populatin' post haste. But while Dr. and Dr. Mrs. "Maw" Reynolds bravely do their part by raising a single young'un, despite the demands of tenure and podcasts, they insist that not enough clucks are having bushels o' brats "because parenting isn't prestigious in our society," as demonstrated by... the prevalence of SUVs:

People in the suburbs buy SUVs instead of minivans not because they need the four-wheel-drive capabilities, but because the SUVs lack the minivan's close association with low-prestige activities like parenting, and instead provide the aura of high-prestige activities like whitewater kayaking. Why should kayaking be more prestigious than parenting? Because parenting isn't prestigious in our society. If it were, childless people would drive minivans just to partake of the aura.

Alas, childrearing -- undone by an unfortunate aura! Like just about every scoundrel these days, the Perfesser says we must look to "culture" for solutions, then runs out the door before anyone can ask what the hell that means.

It amazes me that a person can attain adulthood in this century and civilization and continue to think that a "culture" more in keeping with his fantasies can be ordered up like National Guard troops or government cheese. Yet the Perfesser is obviously not alone in this. For further evidence -- well, just read my archives.

(The Perf's commenters are even funnier. For example, one W.B. Allen complains that when he and his wife had a third child, his fellow academics [!] treated him with "barely revealed contempt." W.B. takes heart that "the future Republicans and Libertarians out number the future liberal Democrats by a healthy margin." The populationist doom-cry can't be so urgent, I guess, if one can rejoice that in its death-throes American society will be, at least toward the end, liberal-free.)

ARTS AND LETTERS REPORT. Ross Douthat stands up for Ramesh Ponnuru's constitutional right to be reviewed by magazines that don't want to review him. This is in regard to Ponnuru's latest Regnery entry, All You Democrats Are Baby-Killing Monsters.

I challenge Douthat to read and review my buddy Howard Djeleikakik's latest, Ross Douthat Smells Like Fucked Ass. Refusal to do so means Douthat is intellectually dishonest. And no fair skimming it in Barnes & Noble.

UPDATE. Other like-livered conservatives whine like little bitches when their constitutional right to be on Google News is abridged. You don't see me complaining when Pajamas Media snubs alicublog. And they're the news aggregators of the future!

UPDATE II. Dan Riehl has been disaggregated by Google News. Worse, they responded to his repeated letters of complaint ("after my nth email with Glenn's post included") with what Riehl considers a "non-answer." (It looks like a form letter to me.) Standing on a storm-buffeted promontory and shaking his gloved fist, Riehl declares that "Google as a company will ultimately stumble, or at least need adult management one day," as the music swells. If self-delusion is the soul of comedy, this guy should have a series on NBC.

HISTORY'S GREATEST MONSTER!

"Let's play on this big piano -- Mr. Hanks sez it's okay!" Moments later the boy was sucked into a world of polygamy and free-thinking, where his only friend was a free-thinking polygamous volleyball named Wilson.

Mistah Kurtz, he nuts:

The battle is radicalizing. Big Love and The Da Vinci Code are far more direct and brazen attacks on tradition than we might have anticipated just a few years ago. Conservatives are the targets, and Hollywood is aiming and shooting repeatedly. Give credit to Tom Hanks, by the way. As producer of Big Love and star of The Da Vinci Code, he is clearly one of the captains of the not-so-secret conspiracy.

The Da Vinci Code is bullshit, but a not-so-secret conspiracy against conservatives led by Tom Hanks is the God's honest truth.

Somebody explain to Kurtz that movie stars are not appointed by the Illuminati (well, except for Steve Guttenberg), that "control of our critical cultural institutions" is won by talent and ambition, not by whining, and that the pills he keeps spitting up are for his own good.

UPDATE. Kurtz may be mollified to learn that, according to Michael Long, there is such a thing as "conservative rock songs," from which scraps and shards of culture a new civilization may be built.

Long's primary example is "Wouldn't It Be Nice" by the Beach Boys, because

...Brian Wilson and Tony Asher do not say: “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could have sex? These cultural mores have got to go!”... No, these are kids who accept that there is a place and time for everything, and that some urges are best delayed—even if we don’t see any good reason past faith to do so. They are looking forward—something rarely done anymore—to a time when what they want comports with the rules they trust, rules more important than an impulse or a wish, rules that preserve civility and order and life.

Long probably hasn't heard the latest re-issue of Pet Sounds, featuring the alternative lyrics: "Wouldn't it be nice to be on mushrooms/With lots of rum and fresh fruit juice to drink/And sit inside a sandbox, play piano/And talk about the martians with my shrink?/You know I'm scared a giant bug will eat me/I still have bruises where my old man beat me..."

UPDATE II. This is turning into one of The Corner's crazier days. Goldberg tries to conciliate the agitated Kurtz ("And, more simply, the book is by most accounts a lot of fun to read. Surely that explains some of this too"), but Kurtz won't have it: "I also think the popularity of the book says something about where we are as a culture," he insists -- which is something you could say about just any book, including The Gospel According to Peanuts, Interview with a Vampire, and The South Beach Diet. Saner minds would append to the observation the old Latin phrase, so what? Kurtz, though, ruminates darkly on "the number of folks who see themselves as unconnected to any organized religion... especially in blue cities and counties." Time perhaps for Kurtz' Destroy America to Save It plan.

The crown goes to K-Lo, though, with this (warning: if you are not aware of current trends in conservative arts criticism, this may blow your mind):

I haven't seen [Oliver Stone's] World Trade Center... I had at least one problem with the trailer... Nicolas Cage has a moustache, for instance, in the movie, to establish "working-class bona fides." But John McLoughlin, the Port Authority police sergeant who Nicolas Page plays in the movie actually has a moustache. So it doesn't strike me as too odd...

I can't believe I'm defending an Oliver Stone trailer...

And I can't believe these people are walking around loose.

HOW THEY DO. A Republican gets booed at a graduation ceremony. Gateway Pundit calls him a victim of "typical liberal rudeness," and the event evidence of "the intolerant Left today."

A Democrat gets booed at a graduation ceremony. Gateway Pundit praises the hecklers, denounces the speaker.

The posts come just a few days apart. Maybe Gateway Pundit had a really wild weekend, or a brain injury, and forgot today what he wrote on Saturday. Or maybe he doesn't give a rat's ass about logical consistency. There's a lot of that going around.

UPDATE. Gateway Pundit responds that the Democrat deserved heckling because his party "does not respect religion or the 10 Commandments." He also thinks Reason's Dave Weigel is a "Leftist," and that I am "young."

WELCOME (BACK) TO THE MACHINE. The Perfesser is displeased by news of New Orleans Mayor Nagin's reelection:

I predict substantially less support for New Orleans reconstruction. Betweeen the Louisiana delegation's absurd overreaching in demanding a huge amount of pork-laden funding, and this, they've managed to squander a lot of the sympathy that was present in in September. Louisiana's political class isn't just greedy -- it's greedy and stupid. Louisiana will pay the price. And probably complain of unfairness when it does.

It is interesting that the Perfesser portrays the voters of New Orleans as part of the "political class." Given the general American non-involvement in political decision-making, maybe they do qualify. From that point of view, voters who pull the wrong lever are as blameworthy as their politicians, and as deserving of retribution. In fact, from the Perfesser's formulation, we may further infer that the minority that did not vote to reelect Nagin -- and the rest of the state's residents, I guess -- deserve what they get, too.

Vote right or lose your Federal aid -- an intriguing new vision of political reform. It puts the Perfesser's Porkbusters enthusiasm in a whole new light.

UPDATE. The Perfesser directs us to the ravings of Vodkapundit:

Here's the deal, Louisiana. We're going to help you. We really are. You are our neighbors and our countrymen and our friends, and we love you today as much as we ever did, in spite of and in no small part thanks to all the weirdness and flaws down your way. It's hard to see it from where you are, but we're helping you now, in our slow and ponderous way. We're not going to let it end like this.

But like every deal, this one has two parts, and I'm going to state yours very bluntly: You people are going to have to get your act together...

Get it? They're like drunks! And Vodkapundit's dishing out the toughlove. Not knowing how much vodka was involved in this punditry, I can't say if VP intends to go down there with a bullhorn and a whip and implement this plan himself, or whether he expects someone else to do it, like the Federal Government, or Superman.

CODE RED. Tour the right-wing websites this morning and you will see that their minions are out in full force to denounce The Da Vinci Code. Some of them have actually seen the movie they discuss, which shows how seriously they are taking it.

Were this a sign that these normally antiaesthetic characters have suddenly taken a lively interest in the arts, it would be charming. Unfortunately it is just the same old Culture War crap that constantly provides a subtheme for alicublog. Some writers overtly accuse the film of "Catholic-bashing," but most just pretend to be real movie reviewers, cheerfully pointing out the inevitable plot holes while throwing gang signs for the One True Church.

Their endlessly-proven bad faith aside, I have no god in this fight. I haven't read the best-seller nor do I expect to see this nor any more Ron Howard movies than it has already been my misfortune to see. (I do respect the Night Shift advocates among my readership, but that's as far as I go.) So I will leave the thing alone.

But I want to run an idea by you: The Kiwanis Code. A strangely-arranged corpse found in a suburban Illinois union hall sends a world-famous corporate philanthropy consultant and the dead man's daughter to Hagerstown, MD, where a marker on Kemp Hall contains the key to the true identity of the Six Permanent Objects. I will say no more, except that our heroes will be rescued by an equally shadowy order, riding to the rescue in little cars.

UPDATE. "Recently, the Nation Film Preservation Association voted to use Howard’s films to wrap around and protect other better films."

THEN SHE PRAISED CALCIUM SUPPLEMENTS FOR WOMEN -- AND NO ONE QUESTIONED IT! Tim Graham at The Corner:

On the occasion of the final episode of NBC's Will & Grace, Katie Couric insisted, "on a serious note," that it's one of her daughter's favorite shows, and it's so important to teach tolerance of "people who are different" at a "very early age." Anyone who expected a fair and balanced anchorwoman at CBS on the hot-button social issues, shred your illusions now.

I am in some sympathy with Graham. I would have gotten up early to see him attack the proposition that it is "important to teach tolerance of 'people who are different' at a 'very early age'" on national television. I would have happily written his talking points for him, e.g., "When a child smacks around feebs and wimps, that builds competitive spirit. Hell, every week I give Jonah Goldberg a wedgie just to keep my edge."

And I'm sure Focus on the Family has a study somewhere showing that kids who call other kids fags and pummel them are happier than kids who get called fags and pummelled. Further proof of the self-destructive homosexual lifestyle!

A REFRESHING NEW P.O.V. One of the many humorous side effects of the current conservative malaise is that it spurs even the dimmer National Review writers to reach for more adventuresome ideas. Mark Krikorian, heretofore known mainly as just another argumentum ad ignorantiam type, offers an interesting take on Bush's immigration policy, of which Krikorian disapproves:

President Bush is a conviction politician and sincerely believes this, which is why he sticks to his anti-enforcement guns despite potentially catastrophic political damage. This is unlike President Clinton, who was actually better on immigration in many ways precisely because he was (is) completely amoral and willing to embrace almost any position.

Read it and weep -- with laughter! For Comrade Krikorian has proposed that Bush is just too nice a guy to do his job well. And this isn't your usual nice=wimp formulation -- it is Bush's inner goodness that makes him a miserable failure; whereas sociopaths such as Bill Clinton do better at policy because their souls are black with unrepented sin.

I hope this gets around. As our Republic tumbles into chaos and ruin, I should like to see Denny Hastert wandering the wreckage, crying "I am too childish-foolish for this world." When the next hurricane/tsunami/ice age hits, I look forward to the President's address: "Americans have a choice. We can respond quickly and efficiently to this crisis, like depraved criminals; or, we can listen to that small, still voice of conscience, and fuck this up like we fucked up everything else." And during the next Presidential campaign, Giuliani can complete his expected conversion on gays, abortion etc. by announcing that he only ran New York City with some competence because he was having marital problems, but "since coming to Jesus I couldn't run an ice cream stand in hell, so filled am I with grace."

I mean, any explanation at all would be nice, but Krikorian's has the added benefit of being hilarious.

SHORTER PEGGY NOONAN: George Bush is an elitist. Also, God's will is expressed through film critics.

UPDATE. The Crazy Jesus Lady's commenters are in fine form. One Lindsay White of Tampa, FL promises vengeance against "18 Senate Republican turn-coats" who "need to enjoy D.C. while they still can" -- I imagine Linsday stumbling around outside the Washington Convention Center, screaming "I bring not peace but a SWORD!" while fishing around in his pants -- and Ken Zwick of Ocala states that "the DaVinci Code producers are misreading America's receptiveness to blasphemy," which receptiveness presumably peaked with Oh, God! You Devil during the corrupt reign of the divorcee Reagan.

SUNRISE SERMONETTE. Lot of talk recently at The Corner about how atheists=leftists=spiritualists. (Here is the inevitable, anchoring "I know I'm full of shit but I know a guy says I'm right but anyway it's late and oh look, a cold burrito" post from Jonah Goldberg.)

The discussion, such as it is, is highly personalized: "atheism=leftism=spiritualism" would not encompass it better. It's mainly about silly people, real or imagined, doing/believing silly things, rather than a debate on the merits of any particular creeds. I don't see why they restrain themselves. Why not assert the objective superiority of eating communion wafers to putting rocks on one's back? Think what heights the dialogue might reach. It could be like the Diet of Worms, only with Buffy references, and of course snickering over "Diet of Worms."

This nonsense provides an opportunity for me to express my own religious-spirtual-spiritous belief:

There is a God, and He is not doing His job properly.

I am compiling a bill of particulars to send Him. The list is very long and not nearly finished, but I will share some of my complaints with you now.

• Negative side-effects to all the best things in life, e.g. money (inflated self-worth, false friends), sex (diseases, marriage), food (a large and ever-changing array of attributable health conditions). While we’re at it, thorns on roses and blow-cards in magazines.
  
  
• Evolution. Contentious, messy way of going about things. Will take forever to figure out, thanks to that stupid Adam & Eve red herring. I suppose You thought it was funny.
  
  
• Uncertainty. For example, I can’t tell if You’re even going to get this. Or whether it will please or displease You. Or how You will react if it displeases You. Or if you’re a retarded child like on "St. Elsewhere." If You’d let me know I could have dumbed this down, or commissioned an illustrator.

I'll let you know if I hear anything.

(NB: Capitalized masculine pronouns used for clarity of expression.)

MORE KUDOS. His archiving is shit, so before they escape living memory I must link here and here to Harry Hutton's extremely great posts on Britain's John Prescott scandal. Excerpt:

I would go further: I would say that screwing his secretary is his main achievement since taking office, and one of the things that sets him apart from monomaniacs and cyborgs like Blair, Brown and Straw. Blair would no more fuck his secretary than he would read a novel. Why? Because he’s a lunatic and a freak, with no more sense of proportion than a Saudi cleric. Brute that he is, Prescott is one of the few members of the establishment who is still recognisably earthling.

High style and good sense -- that's all I ask, and more than I deserve.

GOOD CATCH. Though it pains me to admit it, I am not alone, nor even foremost, in mapping the twists and turns of the warblogger spirochette. For example, Belle Waring has found her a doozy of a specimen:

I think all three [conservatives who have broken ranks with Bush over runanway deficit spending or his immigration policy] may be suffering some variant of PTSD, worn down by defending difficult positions at the forefront of the battle against irredentist Democrats in Congress and their fifth-column in the media.

Even making an allowance for poeticism (though further reading at the Democracy Project shows we are not dealing here with poets, to say the least), this is rich. We are accustomed to hearing Fightin' Keyboarders compare themselves to combatants, but to suggest that they suffer actual casualties in the line of duty is a new one on me. Will they be getting Purple Nurples in lieu of Purple Hearts? Should we buy PayPal poppies to ensure their care?

I also see we're back to the fifth column stuff. Just in time for the new wave of blogger civility!

MEXICAN STANDOFF. The most interesting thing about the President's speech was its conciliatory , come-let-us-reason-together passages:

America needs to conduct this debate on immigration in a reasoned and respectful tone. Feelings run deep on this issue -- and as we work it out, all of us need to keep some things in mind. We cannot build a unified country by inciting people to anger, or playing on anyone's fears, or exploiting the issue of immigration for political gain. We must always remember that real lives will be affected by our debates and decisions, and that every human being has dignity and value no matter what their citizenship papers say...

Our new immigrants are just what they have always been -- people willing to risk everything for the dream of freedom. And America remains what she has always been -- the great hope on the horizon...an open door to the future...a blessed and promised land. We honor the heritage of all who come here, no matter where they are from, because we trust in our country's genius for making us all Americans -- one Nation under God. Thank you, and good night.

Bush rarely speaks like this, because usually he benefits politically from dissension. The country has been sharply divided for practically all his tenure. Yet even when he stood on the stage of Madison Square Garden in 2004, with hundreds of thousands of demonstrators held from his throat by unprecedented security, it seems not to have occured to him to talk about binding up the wounds of his country, because he and his party were then profiting from the exacerbations of that red-blue division.

Now, of course, dissension is working within his own "base" and against him, so the President is trying to strike the mystic chords of memory. Unfortunately, his passable rhetoric comes with a gimcrack plan involving Mission: Impossible security devices (cue music as Jorge rolls under the electric eye), an increase in jail bunks, and what promises to become the National Guardsman's least favorite duty: muscleman for the Border Patrol. And no one believes it will make a damn bit of difference.

I did appreciate what I hope was some speechwriter's deliberate attempt at deadpan humor:

For many years, the government did not have enough space in our detention facilities to hold them while the legal process unfolded. So most were released back into our society and asked to return for a court date. When the date arrived, the vast majority did not show up.

Bush's comic timing was good there, too.

Wingers seem outraged that Bush did not come out brandishing a machete and crying "I'ma deport me a Mescan." Some conservatives have rushed to the President's defense; John Podhoretz finds a particularly interesting argument in favor:

This may not be the equivalent of the fence Israel is building to create a separation with the Palestinians, but it is a significant step in that direction.

Well-fed fashion models is the Israeli fad I would prefer to see us adopting, but to each his own.

GOING TO CULTURE WAR UNARMED. "I think that [John Kenneth] Galbraith, like Oliver Wendell Holmes, has benefitted excessively from having an excellent prose style." -- The Ole Perfesser.

Conservative contempt for aesthetics has officially found a new top to go over.

Maybe the Perfesser is trying to say that Galbraith's style is obfuscatory. This is unlikely, as the Perfesser clearly finds impenetrability a virtue -- he has been a tireless promoter of the windbag Steven Den Beste, whose ramblings make Tristram Shandy look like an instruction manual. Conversely, Galbraith was a genuinely skilled writer, pellucid in style and memorable in content -- two traits which surprisingly often go hand in hand.

More likely the Perfesser, like all his tribe, notices that many of his adversaries are talented and articulate, and this leads him to the conclusion that talent and articulateness are negative qualities. Well, that would explain a lot of the ass-paste that passes for sparkling prose in wingerland -- maybe it's deliberate!

SAME AS IT EVER WAS. The conservative comeback is outlined by Mark Tapscott. Heading the agenda is "Immigration reform, including building the wall and whatever other measures are required to secure our borders and disavowing any form of amnesty for the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants now in America."

Okay for the white people in border states ascared of Mescans -- who have been voting GOP forever. What else you got?

Federal spending must be brought under control, starting with an end of all earmarks...

Entitlements must be controlled. We simply cannot afford to pay the benefits promised to the Baby Boomers (of which I am one) under Social Security and Medicare...

Similarly, the current system in which government bureaucrats make the basic decisions about the nation's health care must be replaced with one that puts the power of consumer choice in the hands of health care consumers and the integrity of treatment choices in the hands of doctors....

Any of this sound familiar to you folks? Why, yes, it's the usual GOP talking points, restated in more strident and less equivocal language than usual. Apparently the old ways are the best ways, if shouted in a hoarser voice.

References to "Repeal McCain-Feingold" and "the Cornyn-Leahy Open Government Act of 2005" may be dismissed as filler. As to the threat, "if the GOP majority fails to act or merely continues to talk about it, conservatives then have an obligation to find or create a new party" -- honky, please.

Why do they bother? The return to power of Republicans in 2006 will rely strongly on gay marriage, swears on the TV, and the aggregate Democratic advertising budget. And maybe gas prices. The Dems are on a fundraising roll, but still must overcome the well-engendered perception that they are potty-mouthed Bunburyists -- no small challenge.

As for the petrol issue, Democrats don't seem able to do much with it, owing perhaps to their general reluctance (with some rare exceptions) to be accused of class warfare.

I think the GOP has a good chance in November just by playing defense. Especially if the opposition persists in running the ball up the middle.

EXIT THE PRESIDENT. (JOSIAH BARTLET’s study. He is sitting at a polished oak desk, surrounded by Presidential mementoes and bric-a-brac. He wears a royal blue bathrobe over a stained white t-shirt, and looks annoyed.)

BARTLET: (Shouting) Abby! For crying out loud, where are you?

(ABBY BARTLET runs breathlessly in.)

ABBY: I’m here, Jed! I’m here! What is it?

BARTLET: (holds up the New York Times) Abby, have you seen this intelligence? Russian troops massing at the Ukrainean border, and Secretary of State Vinick’s cocker spaniel kidnapped! And I can’t get through to the Joint Chiefs!

( JOSH holds up the receiver of a red PlaySkool phone)

ABBY: Oh thank God! I thought you were having an attack!

BARTLET: Attack? They’ve attacked? (hurls away the newspaper) I need fresh intelligence! (shouts into the PlaySkool phone) Hello? Hello? This is your President speaking, dammit! (slams receiver down) They’re trying to cut me out of the loop, Abby. Where’s Charlie?

ABBY: Jed, President Santos is taking care of everything.

BARTLET: Santos! Get him on the line!

ABBY: Why don’t you come down to breakfast, Jed? There’s cranberry pancakes.

BARTLET: Cranberry? No! Massachusetts is a lock; what we need is the Deep South. Get me biscuits and gravy! (Runs to the window, shouts) How all y’all doin’? (flashes thumbs up) Bartlet for America!

ABBY: Jed. Jed. Look at me. (takes out penlight, shines it in his eyes) Try to breathe. Listen to me, Jeb. You are no longer President of the United States.

BARTLET: I rescinded that order. Now that our little girl’s back, I think I can do the people’s business.

ABBY: Alright, Jed, if you won’t come down, you have some visitors and I’m going to bring them up.

BARTLET: What is this? A walk-through? Foreign dignitaries? That’s not on the schedule -- (consults an old copy of Entertainment Weekly) Aha! There it is! Crisis in the Ukraine! Right after "Scrubs."

ABBY: It’s your senior staff, Jed. Very important meeting.

BARTLET: Fine, get ‘em in here. We’ll sort this thing out.

(Several cast members of The West Wing shuffle into the room.)

BARTLET: (standing, majestically flipping off his half-glasses) Alright, what have you got for me?

TOBY: Mr. President… (holds up two fingers; thoughtful pause) How… (thoughtful pause) many fingers… (thoughtful pause) am I holding… (thoughtful pause, quizzical turn of head) up?

BARTLET: I’m not sure I take your meaning, Toby. Speak frankly.

JOSH: (stepping forward) Sir, the thing is… you… are not the Commander in Chief. You never were Commander in Chief. You’re Martin Sheen, an actor…

C.J.: A very fine actor.

JOSH ... and you played the President for seven wonderful years, but they’re over and it’s time to… give it up.

BARTLET: (gives a blank look; then chuckles, puts hands on hips) So that’s how it is, huh? I see. Well, you won’t catch me pulling a Nixon. I’ll go with dignity.

JOSH: It might help if you put on some pants, sir.

BARTLET: (wags finger at JOSH) That’s good. Pants. Send someone in here to pack up my things.

(HE rummages through some papers; the others look around, then silently file out, leaving ABBY with BARTLET. She goes to him.)

ABBY: Maybe you should do some theatre, Marty. When you think about it, TV’s not very fulfilling.

BARTLET: Ah, but it was, Abby.

ABBY: Stockard.

BARTLET: (smiles) Doctor Bartlet. (Puts his arm around her.) It’s a heady thing, running the country, even on TV. Hell, maybe it’s not so different from running the country for real. Who could blame me if I had a hard time letting go? (Kisses her forehead, walks to the corner, drops his robe, pulls on some Levi’s, tucks in his t-shirt; ABBY sits against the edge of the desk) I remember when I was kid, watching Jimmy Dean, thinking, "That’s what I want to do." Forty years later, I’m President of the United States. But what I really wanted was to be James Dean. (runs his fingers through his hair) Is that strange?

ABBY: No. It’s just a different kind of… power.

BARTLET: (sits by her; in a lower, less articulate voice) Yeah. It’s about being misunderstood. Down in the polls. No one on your side. That's when you got to be the decider. (points to the Times on the carpet) Lookee, there’s a piece of paper on the sidewalk. Probably blame that on me, too.

ABBY: (Uncertainly) Yeah.

BARTLET: Listen, now that this is over, I’m gonna sit down and buy you a big, thick steak.

ABBY: I don’t want a steak.

BARTLET: We’ll see about that.

ABBY: (v.o.) Sometimes I think there’s something wrong with his bean.

(Music: "Trois morceaux en forme de poire," Satie)

BUSHWICK MIX. Played a show in Bushwick tonight. A first for me: back in the day, Bushwick was for Mike Tyson, Bushwick Bill, and other criminal acts. An ensemble of our acquaintance called Demo Moe, made up of sculptors and musicians, had a forge out there then, but the rest of us stayed clear, content with Lower East Side mischief. Real estate values have since done their work in Bushwick, I'm told, and I did see white, well-appointed youngsters on bicycles and in clusters, but otherwise it was as I imagined. The envrions are still stained with graffiti, and empty lots leave the industrial buildings (some with the warm orange glow of gentrification in their windows) and residential tenements standing lonesome and forlorn in the great shadow of the Projects.

Our venue, the Wreck Room, stood near the Life Cafe -- two well-appointed embers smoldering in a dark stretch. The young folk at the Wreck Room were Friday-night giddy. They dressed well, as all young New Yorkers do, but they seemed easier and less self-conscious than the inland versions I was familiar with. The more famous semi-demimondes of New York are brightly lit stages, and those who trod them tend to notice that they have a role to play.

We did get some pressure from the short, cute singer of Hollis, which is also her stage name. She worked the crowd aggressively-friendly to get people to stay for her set. She said she had just taken a share in Queens ("In Hollis?" I asked; "No, Astoria," she said, "though that would be really cool"), having recently graduated with a double major in art history and communications, which I told her was an excellent pedigree for a rock star, her freely admitted ambition.

But I couldn't stay. Bill the drummer and I trudged up Morgan to our train, and were joined on the station bench by two young hiphopsters wearing baseball jerseys over t-shirts and white pants. They asked about the musical apparati we carried. They were more familiar with all-in-one sound producing units like the Triton Workstation, but they had a sincere interest in our old, clumsy gear. They liked music. The more voluble one, wearing a tight doo-rag and sporting a grey, metallic bottom row of front teeth, said he had a Yamaha acoustic that he played a bit. They were relaxed but polite. I asked about the neighborhood these days. "You got the white people coming in," the talkative one said, "and they got the lofts, and you got people like me. But it's cool."

Well, yes it is. They're working with a fellow called Heater. I wish them well, and Hollis well (May 27 at the Continental), and the hard-rockin Saint Bastard and all the rest of tonight's acts well. All musicians, except for those at the tippy-top, are slumdwellers in spirit or in fact. We could all use a break.

"GOD, YOU'VE MADE A POWERFUL ENEMY." Hugh Hewitt issues a warning to Tom Hanks:

Tom: Careful now. The Saturday Night Live skit was great fun, and the ""It's only a movie," works. The pull quotes from this story do not:

Hanks said objectors to The Da Vinci Code are taking the film too seriously, telling the Evening Standard: "We always knew there would be a segment of society that would not want this movie to be shown....

...It is difficult to use the "it is only a movie" argument when mixed up with "dialogue is good" and "creepy censors want to shut us down" arguments.

The almost universally liked Hanks doesn't need to get into the theological debate that Dan browns likes to fan. Stick to the obvious --it is an absurd piece of invention that makes for a fun thriller-- and all will be well...

...and if ya don't, me and my blogger buddies will write a densely-worded essay about how theatre seats chafe our fat asses.

Many nuggets of comedy gold here. First, the overblown concern over a fucking Ron Howard (syn: stupid) movie; then, the notion that Hewitt can shake the very caliphs of Hollyweird with the force of his blog, a delusion known in the business as Sidney Applebaum Syndrome.

There is also a weird poignance about conservatives who are mesermized by Hollywood. As it is the place they hate most in the world -- more even than Paris, or the human heart -- one would think they would just avoid the subject altogether, as it is obviously irredeemable (at least until Der Tag, when Roger L. Simon is named Minister of Truth) and naught but blight on the land.

Some of them can't keep their hands off, though. Witness John Podhoretz's strange column on "American Idol." I kept waiting for the metaphor, or at least the punch line, to emerge. Finally in horror I realized that John son of Podhoretz, Decrier of Kultur Filth fils, was talking about "American Idol" because he rilly liked "American Idol"; also, that the column wasn't as bad as much of the current, politicized rightwing bunk about TV and movies, because "American Idol" is such a piece of shit that it doesn't qualify as culture, and deserves to be discussed in the debased terms of politics.

It suggests a possible solution to all the conservative culture crap currently stinking up our discourse: let the Medveds and Mathewes-Greens and all other such professional misapprehenders exclusively use sub-cultural objects such as "The Apprentice" and "Herbie: Fully Loaded" as teething rings. As they are capable of seeing, or perhaps fated to see, political portents on every moving object, the specific objects to which their attentions are directed should not matter to them or us.

As the old saying goes, politics is show business for ugly people, and my new corollary is: blogging is politics and show business for the mentally retarded.

MORE CIVILITY DEBATES, PLEASE! I am even more short of time these days than usual, so I have to thank Kathryn J. Lopez for saving me some. I was actually thinking of taking a look at Ramesh Ponnuru's The Party of Death. But this excerpt, quoted by the NRO den mother, made clear to me the folly of that course:

The party of death should not be confused with a conventional political party: It has members (and opponents) within both of America's major political parties, although it is much stronger today among Democrats than Republicans. The party of death has unwitting allies, too, just as it always has. Someone who reluctantly supports euthanasia to spare the dying from further suffering surely does not intend to advance a comprehensive agenda to undermine the protection of human life. Yet that is the effect, however modest, of her support.

We are sometimes told that polite conversation avoids the topics of sex, religion, and poltics. Some would say that a book with this subject matter breaks all three rules. They might go on to worry that calling one side of the debate a "party of death" will raise the temperature still further.

We all have close friends and beloved relatives—I certainly do—who support legal abortion, or euthanasia, or both. Maybe we supported these things ourselves, once. I did. Maybe some readers still do. I hope that this book speaks to them with an honesty that does not seek to wound, but with a love that dares not refuse the truth. If the thought of belonging to a party of death disturbs them, perhaps they can be moved to leave it.

Lopez seems to think that this answers any Sullivanian charges of intolerance against Ponnuru. To her and to Ponnuru I say:

Not all stupid cunts belong to one political party. There are Republican stupid cunts and Democratic stupid cunts, though most stupid cunts, my objective investigation has shown, happen to be Republicans. Indeed, you might be a stupid cunt without thinking yourself one, merely by saying stupid, cuntlike things.

We are sometimes told that polite conversation avoids the term "stupid cunt." Such stupid cunts as think this will naturally charge me with raising the temperature of this debate, the cunts.

We all of us know personally several stupid cunts. Some of us are married to them. Some of us (including myself, I confess) have been a bit stupid and a bit of a cunt on occasion. I got over it, of course, but others persist in being stupid cunts for some reason.

I hope this blog reaches those persistently stupid cunts, and that they understand that I have no desire to wound in calling them stupid cunts, and feel nothing but deep Christian love for every stupid, cuntish one of them. And if they feel badly about me calling them stupid cunts, then they should just stop being such stupid fucking cunts.

UPDATE. This post is dedicated to Peter Cook and Dudley Moore.

I KNOW YOU ARE, BUT WHAT AM I? I see that in the blogger playground, a bully got a wedgie and his friends cried no fair.

And that's pretty much it.

SLOW TIMES AT PRATT INSTITUTE. Terry Zwigoff did very well with Daniel Clowes’ Ghost World, but has a rockier time of it with Clowes' Art School Confidential. The new movie devotes a lot of time to fleshing out a thinly-disguised Pratt Institute. The makers have a strong feel for, and opinions about, the setting, and must have found it great fun to delineate some of the types such places attract. I was encouraged by the arrival scene – there’s the barefoot neo-hippie chick! There’s the beatnik! There’s our hero, Jerome the suburban Picasso manque! – and I would have been satisfied if they just set these stereotypes bouncing off one another with some verve.

Alas, immediately the campus slacker is enlisted to describe more stereotypes, and for the most part the ‘types never get a more vivid reading. That still might have worked. There are worse cinematic failings than glibness. When ASC is fast, it’s fun. Jerome’s failed romantic encounters, and some of the desperate follies of the would-be art stars, give some easy laughs. But there’s not enough energy here to keep the balloon aloft for long.

It may be that Zwigoff and Clowes are too in love with their material. People familiar with this scene – and I have some small knowledge of it -- can sit around in a bar swapping funny horror stories about it for hours, but it’s not enough to hang a movie on unless you can convey some of the insane momentum of dream-maddened people completely devoted to their ego trips and illusions.

Zwigoff moves too slowly for that. He’s not the most high-octane sort of director anyway, but he might also have been weighted down by the grander theme of the film, which has to do with the toxic residue of failed ambition. A few scenes are fully devoted to this, and though they’re even slower than the rest of the movie, they’re much more interesting. Jerome’s visit to Professor Sandiford’s home, with a clenched wife, a scotched deal, and a pathetic monologue ending with a sexual advance, has a nice dank smell of failure about it. Better still are the scenes with Jim Broadbent as the appallingly maudit Baconian lush who becomes Jerome’s confidant, and who sets in motion Jerome’s downfall, or triumph, depending on how you look at it.

They’re good scenes, and another, better movie might have been built out of them. Or the filmmakers could have gone the other way and made American Pie: Art Camp. As it is, we have a failed campus comedy with a few stretches of splendid desolation.

UPDATE. Some morons, of course, think the movie is about politics. But I guess that type never thumps a melon without observing that conservatism made it ripe, or liberalism made it green.

WON'T SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE WHITE PEOPLE? If I only read conservative publications, I would imagine myself a very privileged honky indeed, for I would be convinced that all the rest of my people lived in white ghettos and spent their days running gauntlets of racial abuse by the Dark Ones.

But then, these are the same people who go on and on about how homosexuals may one day break bigots' fists with their noses (just the same trick the miscegnators used on Bob Jones, adds historian Stanley Kurtz).

Can't these people just enjoy the many economic, social, and governmental advantages whiteness unfairly confers? I know I do!