No-spin zone

As for the documentary's "research," a film positioning itself as a scrupulously factual "alternative" to "Fahrenheit 9/11" should not inflate Mr. Bush's early business "success" with Arbusto Energy (an outright bust for most of its investors) or the number of children he's had vaccinated in Iraq ("more than 22 million," the movie claims, in a country whose total population is 25 million).

From Frank Rich's brilliant review of "George W. Bush: Faith in the White House", a documentary that tries to be a right-wing answer to "Fahrenheit 9/11" but ends up more like "The Passion of the Bush".

This is one of the 10 best pieces of journalism I've ever read. Rich cuts through the crap beautifully and calls Dubya an idiot where it's appropriate. (Hint: everywhere)

Blind leading the blind

Al Gore offers tips to John Kerry for debating George W. Bush. Because we all know how successful Gore was in running for president against Bush.

They might not be evil, but the locals were friendlier to the conquistadores

Wal-Mart plans to open a new superstore amid fabled Aztec ruins.

We're guessing there was less bloodshed in 1946

It's incredible how omitting context can grossly distort facts. Take this gem from Tony Blair in the Observer:

Asked if the war on terrorism had really delivered a safer world, Blair suggested things were often darkest before dawn: 'There was more bloodshed in 1941 than in 1938.'

Astonishing indeed. Except for that part about the all-out, total, world war ravaging Britain in 1941. You know, the one that hadn't yet begun in 1938.

Break a treaty, break the law

Gambling and cigarettes are two vices I most definitely don't condone. Except when the purveyors of such evils have to be Native Americans. Thus I find myself at loggerheads with state attorneys general and other foes of tribal-based smoke shops, who want to crack down on the tax-free status their cigarettes enjoy, which makes them extremely attractive to smokers who buy them on reservations and through the Internet.

Tribes enjoy a decided competitive advantage by being exempt from taxation on goods like cigarettes. And that in turn makes them highly sought after by consumers of such goods, who can save upward of $30 on a carton of cigarette by buying it online instead of at their local convenience store or supermarket. Of course, this displeases the state treasuries that lose millions of dollars in sin tax revenues for their coffers, not to mention the operators of the mini-marts and grocery stores that are forced to charge steep taxes on the same cigarettes.

Of course, the reason the tribes have this unique status is that they're ostensibly sovereign nations, limiting the ability of state and federal governments to regulate their activities. While we all know that sovereignty is pretty much non-existent, or at least encroached upon whenever convenient, it's still in effect on paper. And tribes like the Seneca possess even greater latitude enshrined in treaties with the U.S. government. So from a purely legal standpoint, it would be grossly unjust and illegal to stomp on that sovereignty by levying taxes on tribal smokes the same as the Marlboros you find at the local Kwik-E-Mart.

But on a different level, there's also a sense of justice that comes from Native Americans turning handsome problems by peddling cigarettes, gambling and other vices. The transfer of cash from non-Indians seems to represent a very small and inadequate, but nonetheless important, step toward righting historical wrongs. At least, I'm not going to feel bad for the white folks who empty their pockets into tribal coffers. Not after the cholera blankets.

Hanging around

It's now been a little more than a week since I moved to Seattle. I've unpacked, gotten situated and grown lethargic as I wait for the start of classes next week.

So far things have gone pretty well. The weather has been better than I might have expected, given that it hasn't rained much at all this week and has been a good bit sunnier that I would've thought. Granted, we're really still only at or approaching the very outset of rainy season, and my tune may change dramatically come January or February, but in the meantime I'm content. I can handle temperatures that hover around 60°. It's almost perfect for me in that it's definitely not too hot and I only get sweaty when I actually work up a sweat doing something (contrast to Chicago, where you can break a sweat sitting in the shade on many a summer's day), there's no discernable humidity and it really doesn't get too chilly. Some days I might want long pants or a light jacket, but I have no qualms about donning those.

The city also seems to have a fair amount happening. Though not quite enough as "The Motorcycle Diaries" doesn't appear to be playing here yet. There are certainly some nice views of the city and the greenness of the area from my neighborhood, including some really spectacular vistas from just up the street looking out on Lake Union framed by the city skyline and Mount Rainier way in the distance. The hills would be a lot more charming if I didn't have to tackle them by foot or bike, but I imagine I'll just find myself getting in better shape for it.

And the house where I'm living is working out pretty well. The location could be a little better, or at least the surrounding terrain between the house and the university, grocery stores and other frequent destinations could at least be flatter. But at least there's a bus stop right on the corner where I can hop a bus straight to campus in 5 minutes or fewer. And the buses here are remarkably punctual. It's not miss and miss like in Chicago. Although the buses seem to run only half hour, so even with a couple of different routes that serve me, it's not quite so frequent as the CTA theoretically was. The nearest supermarket seems pricier than I'm accustomed to, and it's a bit further than I'd prefer, especially given that it's generally uphill from here.

There are definitely some quirks about the house. It's from circa 1909, and that shows at times. The shower head only comes up to about my shoulders, which makes washing my hair challenging. While there are definitely more cupboards and countertops than my old apartment, that really says nothing at all and there could easily be more of both. (But I'm used to so little that it'd be more luxury than necessity to have the extra space.) On the other hand, I have an enormous walk-in closet that runs the length of my room. I literally could fit my full-size air mattress on the floor if the need should ever arise. For the time being, I have all my shirts hanging from the 8-foot clothes bar, as well as a good bit of miscellaneous kitchen items and other goods not in use piled atop the overhead shelf. That's in addition to my cedar chest (filled with more kitchen gear), buried in the back beneath all of the empty boxes from my move. And I have a small four-shelf quasi-bookcase that's in service as towel storage, as well as two decent-sized bookcases, the built-in drawer unit and a dresser that will likely sit empty until I bring some of my formal and warm-weather clothes from home. The closet works wonders for keeping the rest of the room relatively uncluttered (or at least undercluttered).

My housemates are pretty nice as well. But I'm beginning to question how well I fit in with everyone else. I get along fine chatting with them individually or collectively, but I question whether we really have similar interests or personalities. The other three seem to be big on gatherings and parties and that sort of mingling environment, which has never been my thing. I'm more the quiet, reserved type, most at home in very small groups of people I know fairly well. And while I can appreciate and enjoy mingling with new folks and shooting the bull, it's not the sort of thing I want to do all the time. Perhaps my perception has been skewed by a lot of this sort of thing occurring this past week just by coincidence, or because people are new to the city and trying to meet other people.

We had this dinner party last night. Well, it was more like one of my housemates held it for a bunch of new people she's met, and another housemate had one of his friends over, and then my landlord and I also sat in. It was nice, though I felt a bit guilty because I didn't think I contributed much to the preparation (aside from stirring the white sauce and sauteing the zucchini for the lasagna), and I didn't help very much with the clean-up because my housemate sent me back in with everyone else instead of letting me wash dishes after the table was cleared. So I stayed there chatting for several hours until finally, around 12:30, I heard my phone ringing upstairs. It wasn't like I had a bad time, but left to my own devices I likely would've left earlier and gone off to do something else.

I don't know, I just feel like I must seem like a recluse to everyone else. Really, it's just that I don't have a lot to do this week while I wait around for classes to start, so I've defaulted to being lazy while I can. I haven't really met anyone yet, nor have I been seeking to meet anyone, save for the other grad students I met at the department orientation and barbecue yesterday. And really, those are the folks I anticipate hanging out with the most over the next few years. I know it'll happen eventually, especially once weekly happy hours begin, and by that point I'll be busy with work and classes, so I won't be quite so reclusive, or at least I'll have a damn good reason for it.

I just feel a little awkward around the house because I feel like there are certain expectations on me to be social and friendly with everyone else. And it's not like I want to be standoffish or curt, but it's not my thing to hang out with everyone all the time. At least not yet. Not until there's a certain level of friendship in place that makes me genuinely want to just hang out all the time.I just want to be me, to do my thing, to not feel compelled to do things that aren't really my cup of tea, and to have people recognize that. I'm just hoping I don't end up seeming like a misfit or self-exiled outcast for it. But I'm hoping once the newness of everything wears off for everyone that things will sort of settle into some kind of normalcy and I won't have to feel guilty or reclusive for doing what I need and want.

The rising

In an interview with Rolling Stone, Bruce Springsteen offers up some of the most insightful, eloquent and soulful glimpses into the role of artists in society and the real stakes of the upcoming election:

I think that this particular election is, at the core, a debate about the soul of the nation. I think we can move toward greater economic justice for all of our citizens, or we cannot. I think we can move toward a sane, responsible foreign policy, or we cannot. For me, these are issues that go right to the heart of the spiritual life of the nation. That is something I have written about. It cannot be abandoned and is worth fighting and fighting and fighting for.

Amen.

Department of the obvious

Yesterday as my parents and I walked back to their hotel after I gave them a short walking tour of the campus, we were stopped by a woman asking where there was a Starbucks.

Point of clarification: this occurred in Seattle. If there's one place in the world where I could spin myself wildly and blindly point in any direction and still be indicating the location of a Starbucks, this would have to be it.

Needless to say, we three were all a bit flabbergasted.

Holy security breech, Batman!

From the New York Times:

"Although there have been numerous breeches of royal security over the years, Britons seemed startled by the ease with which palace security was overrun by two men in super hero costumes carrying an extension ladder."

They blew it

ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball commentators, Jon Miller and Joe Morgan, nearly won a lot of respect from me as they discussed why Morgan refers to his segments speaking with players as conversations, rather than interviews.

Miller: You call them conversations, not interviews.

Morgan: That's right. They're just little conversations we have. For it to be an interview you have to be a journalist.

Miller: That's why Larry King is a great journalist.

[Smack forehead.]

Support the right to arm bears

Man bites dog isn't news. But dog shoots man most definitely is.

Cannibus maximus

You're former Dallas Cowboys offensive lineman Nate Newton, and you've just been busted at a traffic stop with a quantity of pot that's somewhere in the neighborhood of your playing weight. Who ya gonna call?

While driving home this afternoon, I heard a radio advertisement for a lawyer. This in and of itself is unremarkable. Local TV stations sell much of their daytime ad time to ambulance chasers. One of them, Larry H. Parker, is a local legend. (So much so that even when lawyers were no longer able to advertise the dollar amount they had gotten clients, he could still have a former client say "Larry H. Parker got me -- you know the story" and everyone knows it was $2.1 million.)

But this particular lawyer, Bruce Margolin, is in a class all by himself. Why? Because he's a defense attorney who specializes in marijuana cases. You can call him at 1-800-420-LAWS (get it!?), or visit him on the Web at 1800420LAWS.com. Quoth his site:

“From Marijuana to Murder” is the catch phrase used by Bruce M. Margolin Esq. when asked about the spectrum of law practiced by his firm.

At least life in L.A. never wants for the unusual.

Mighty schmucked

I'm not sure which part of this story offers the greatest source of amusement.

On the one hand, I find it deeply satisfying that someone has evidently offered Disney $50 million -- the same amount they paid to acquire the Ducks as an expansion franchise in 1992 -- for the team, meaning that the team hasn't had a net appreciation in value in a dozen years. That's hilarious.

But then there's the intriguing possibility of the Ducks being moved. I'm all for it. It's not quite so good as having the franchise contracted and all evidence of it obliterated from the historical record, but it's close. And even more hilarious, and not mentioned in the article, is that if the team was moved to Kansas City to play in the Anschutz group's -- as in Los Angeles Kings co-owner Phillip F. Anschutz -- new arena there, they'd be tenants of the Kings, whose president, incidentally, is the same Tim Leiweke quoted in the story. So, in effect, the Ducks would be indirectly subsidizing the Kings. Which, again, isn't as good as them forking over all their profits as royalties for completely mooching off the Kings to gain a toehold in Southern California, but it's close.

A sneak peek at the new television season

The British version of "Big Brother" has really caused a fit now, after showing disturbing scenes of a woman getting her nipple pierced without anesthesia. Pretty damn disturbing.

And while we can be sure this exact scene won't be recreated for American TV (though this would certainly be more worthy of the term "Nipplegate" than the Janet Jackson-Justin Timberlake "wardrobe malfunction" during this year's Super Bowl halftime show), it's interesting to see some of the other ideas that are sure to be ripped off for our airwaves in the time to come. Because all winning American reality TV shows are just ripoffs of European television.

But I do move to officially rechristen the genre "voyeur TV", since it's more apt a moniker for such contrived scenarios.

And while I'm at it, I also move to change the name of "Big Brother" to "Stalin", because "Man of Steel" (even if it's in Russian), is just way more forboding. Plus, there's the little matter of Stalin actually having been Big Brother.

Noooooooooooooooooooooooo!

The World Health Organization is calling on the Czech Republic to raise taxes on alcohol to make beer more expensive than soft drinks and bottled water.

Yankees suck

The Tampa Bay Devil Rays, unable to depart Tampa until early afternoon today due to Hurricane Frances, made it to New York too late to get in the first game of their scheduled doubleheader with the Yankees. The Yankees, in a characteristic display of sportsmanship, asked the commissioner's office to award them a forfeit for the game they were unable to play today.

Now, supposedly the Yanks were told that Tampa would leave either after their game Friday night or Saturday morning before Florida airports shut down. After all, the visiting Detroit Tigers left Friday night, knowing that the weekend games had already been postponed. However, the D-Rays wanted to stick around town to be with their families until the Hurricane passed.

So this makes it all the more weasly that the Yanks would try to cop out. It's not like they won't be able to make up the game as a doubleheader before one of the three remaining games in this series. But the Yankees have seen their 10.5-game lead over the Red Sox dwindle to 2.5 games, they've been struggling and they're on the verge of a colossal meltdown that will in all likelihood cause George Steinbrenner to explode. So, instead of being sporting (or showing some simple human understanding), they want the easy way out. Why play by the same rules as everyone else when you can throw your weight around? It's the Yankee way.

At least this should bring the Yanks bad karma.

Celebrity

Yesterday my cousin Kyle and I went to the Movieland Wax Museum. It was much cooler than I expected, with a nice, long walk through cinema history. (Favorite scene: A reproduction of "Doctor Zhivago". Sorry, Colleen.) However, the depiction of Britney Spears beneath a disco ball was out of place, not to mention not true to life. (Her midriff wasn't exposed.) That could've easily been omitted.

The most amusing moment of the day came before the depiction of a scene from "Cleopatra" with a wax reproduction of Elizabeth Taylor bearing a lot of cleavage. A family walked past while I was at an adjacent exhibit. The father remarked, "There's Liz Taylor, showing her boobs." His young son questioned, "Showing her boobs?" To which the father replied, "Yup. Some people get famous showing their boobs." You gotta respect him for at least being honest with the youngster. Although I'm sure he'll learn this for himself in a few years.