… Yet Again: “Bush critics and veteran intel operatives alike were amazed when CIA Director Porter Goss, in a speech at the Ronald Reagan Library last week, apparently said he found his job overwhelming. The embarrassing report only reinforced the belief among some intel professionals that Goss’s tenure has been troubled. The controversy erupted after the Associated Press quoted Goss as saying, ‘The jobs that I’m being asked to do, the five hats that I wear, are too much for this mortal… I’m a little amazed at the workload.’ Goss also reportedly said there was such ‘ambiguity’ in the intel-reform bill that he didn’t know what his official relationship was supposed to be with John Negroponte, the newly named director of National Intelligence.” (Newsweek/MSNBC)
Day: March 6, 2005
Now Back on Screen: The Big Bang Bangs
“There are not many stories you can do about the west that are any good,’ the director Howard Hawks once said in his shrewd and cranky old age. ‘The western is the simplest form of drama – a gun, death …’ Film Forum is putting this view of the genre to the test — calling Hawks’s hypothesis out into the street — in a series boldly titled Essential Westerns 1924-1962, which began on Friday and runs through March 31: that’s 37 simple gun/death dramas. It’s a long, dusty trail, crowded with trigger-happy young gunslingers, crusty codgers, nervous homesteaders, lily-livered townfolk, slick gamblers, greedy cattle barons, mean varmints of every description, and, of course, men who do what a man’s gotta do (and the women who love them). ” (New York Times )
Critic Terrence Rafferty says you can actually get the drift by seeing only a few of these. As a film buff who loved westerns in my youth, a couple of Rafferty’s four ‘essentials’ are surprising choices. I hadn’t even remembered My Darling Clementine, John Ford’s take on the OK Corral mythos. The series’ definition of Westerns seems to stretch the boundaries of the genre, including some films I have loved but never considered Westerns even though they take place in the West, for instance Bad Day at Black Rock. There is even a sense in which Treasure of the Sierra Madre isn’t really a Western in a classical sense. But, hey, let’s not quibble over semantics, let’s just go out and see ’em.
Shit Happens?
That’s essentially what Atrios said about the shooting of the Italians, shit happens in a war zone. Chalk it up to chaos. Readers comment here. The point he should have made: this is another graphic illustration of what happens when our little chimp of a president lies and overwhelmed little boys armed to the hilt end up in a warzone without a point to it, where they are beleaguered 24-7 and their twitchy trigger fingers will go off at the first sign of a speeding car bearing down on them. Although I hope this helps open people’s eyes (for instance, Berlusconi’s) about the quagmire, it is also a damnable shame that this is getting more attention than the myriad of similar incidents in which it is not white Europeans but Iraqis who are killed and wounded every week.
On the other hand, maybe this is even more insidious than it is being made out to be, and has been orchestrated by the same people who brought you Abu Ghraib, the coldblooded executions of Saddam Hussein’s sons, and hundreds of other war crimes they have lied about.
Bill O’Reilly is at it again
“You’d think Bill O’Reilly and his goons would have learned something after the disaster of a lawsuit against Al Franken. But no, the company that syndicates O’Reilly’s column, is trying to bully a weblog into removing links to an O’Reilly column, under the guise of copyright violation. That’s right: Creators Syndicate has sent a cease and desist letter to Newshounds for merely linking to this column.
According to Lawrence Lessig, these threats have no basis in the law, thanks to a Ticketmaster ruling concluding that Hypertext Linking does not violate Copyright.
Inspired by this brouhaha, we were going to suggest that bloggers out there to find an O’Reilly column you really, really hate and link to it. But apparently Creators Synidicate has been so successful in keeping O’Reilly’s past columns offline (they’re available only to paid subscribers from O’Reilly’s website) that we can’t find many. So here’s the offending link again. Enjoy.”
I am posting this to join the ranks of those responding to the suggestion to link to O’Reilly in defiance.
What’s Special About This Number?
Defying Experts, Insurers Join Medicare Drug Plan
“The new Medicare drug benefit passed a major milestone in recent weeks as a substantial number of big insurance companies said they would offer prescription drug coverage to Medicare beneficiaries next year, defying the predictions of many industry experts.
…Companies gave several reasons for moving aggressively to stake out positions in the Medicare market. They see a business opportunity, with the aging of the population. They say that heavy federal subsidies will minimize the financial risks, and they do not want to cede the market to their competitors. Moreover, some companies, having lobbied for the law, said they felt an obligation to help make it work.” (New York Times )
The Most Expensive Album Never Made
And who is even interested? Why is The Times covering buffoon Axl Rose??
Now Back on Screen: The Big Bang Bangs
“There are not many stories you can do about the west that are any good,’ the director Howard Hawks once said in his shrewd and cranky old age. ‘The western is the simplest form of drama – a gun, death …’ Film Forum is putting this view of the genre to the test — calling Hawks’s hypothesis out into the street — in a series boldly titled Essential Westerns 1924-1962, which began on Friday and runs through March 31: that’s 37 simple gun/death dramas. It’s a long, dusty trail, crowded with trigger-happy young gunslingers, crusty codgers, nervous homesteaders, lily-livered townfolk, slick gamblers, greedy cattle barons, mean varmints of every description, and, of course, men who do what a man’s gotta do (and the women who love them). ” (New York Times )
Critic Terrence Rafferty says you can actually get the drift by seeing only a few of these. As a film buff who loved westerns in my youth, a couple of Rafferty’s four ‘essentials’ are surprising choices. I hadn’t even remembered My Darling Clementine, John Ford’s take on the OK Corral mythos. The series’ definition of Westerns seems to stretch the boundaries of the genre, including some films I have loved but never considered Westerns even though they take place in the West, for instance Bad Day at Black Rock. There is even a sense in which Treasure of the Sierra Madre isn’t really a Western in a classical sense. But, hey, let’s not quibble over semantics, let’s just go out and see ’em.
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