“The campaign goes on…The campaign goes on strongly.” Despite a deeply unfortunate recurrence of his wife’s cancer, John Edwards announces he’s staying in the presidential hunt. A welcome decision: At the moment, I’d say it’s still a race between he and Barack Obama for my primary vote.
Month: March 2007
Branch on Clinton.
“‘I’m not calling this a biography of Clinton or a history of the administration,’ Mr. Branch said in a telephone interview from Baltimore, where he lives. ‘It is what it was like to live through it that way, sitting alone with him, talking about the presidency as he saw it, right in the moment.‘” Pulitzer-Prize winning King historian Taylor Branch announces a forthcoming book based on intimate conversations with Bill Clinton over the course of his presidency. “David Rosenthal, the publisher of Simon & Schuster, said the material ‘is wide-ranging, largely unguarded and gives tremendous insight into the thought processes and real-time concerns of a sitting president.’“
Battle Stations: Wave Four
As Season 3 winds its way down next Sunday, Sci-Fi announces that Battlestar Galactica will get a 22-episode Season 4 in 2008. Hmm…this may or may not be a good thing. At its best, such as the New Caprica arc earlier this season, BSG is really something…still, to my mind, it’s showed signs of strain lately, particularly regarding the recent events surrounding Starbuck (psycho/prophet), Baltar (pariah/prophet), and the Adamas (at each others throats again.) How many times can they reboot the characters, and still be taken seriously?
Nuclear Subpoenas?
The plot thickens: A battle over executive privilege looms as the Senate handily rejects Dubya’s attempt to evade subpoenas for Karl Rove, Harriet Miers, and other administration officials in the persecuted prosecutors dispute. “‘The only thing they would accept is if the Senate did exactly what they told them to, which would be closed-door, limited number of people, limited agenda, no oath and no transcript, so nobody knows exactly what happened,’ Leahy said. ‘So there’s really nothing to look for for a compromise, because that is not acceptable to me.’” For their part, Spineless Specter advocated a capitulation to Dubya, as per the norm, while Republican Charles Grassley supported the Senate’s use of the subpoena power.
Tony’s last Aria.
We try to get out, they keep pulling us back in: AICN Coaxial points the way to this trailer for The Sopranos‘ final season, beginning April 8 on HBO.
So long, from the Home Office.
A fond farewell to Calvert DeForest, a.k.a. Larry “Bud” Melman, 1921-2007.
The World Forgetting, by the World Forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! Each pray’r accepted, and each wish resign’d. Life imitates art as researchers hone in on drugs that will potentially erase traumatic memories. “‘This is all very preliminary,’ said Dr. Roger Pitman, a Harvard Medical School psychiatrist. ‘We’re just getting started. There is some promising preliminary data but no conclusions.‘”
You say you want a Revolution? You don’t.
Nothing’s gonna change my world…except maybe the bean-counters at the studio. Word is Julie Taymor is getting the Terry Gilliam treatment from Revolution studios — her forthcoming Beatlepalooza Across the Universe has been recut by studio executive Joe Roth without her knowledge, and Taymor may drop her name off the movie. Whatever Taymor put on film, I have to assume it’s more interesting than anything Roth — he of Christmas with the Kranks — could come up with.
Salon of the Cave Bear.
“The implication of these careful cultural signifiers: The caveman has grasped not just literacy and reason but also the affectations of the modern hipster aesthete. (That knowingly antiquated racket might easily have been stolen from a Wes Anderson set.)” Old friend Seth Stevenson ruminates on the proposed Geico caveman TV show for Slate.
Gone-zales?
Fitz’s revenge? Broiling considerably while I was on my annual March Madness vacation, the case of the persecuted prosecutors now looks, at the very least, like it may result in Alberto Gonzales’ downfall (despite Dubya’s continued huzzahs), what with new e-mail trails coming to light, more congressional subpoenas on the way, and Dubya consigliere Karl Rove tied ever closer to the scandal. Congressional oversight is a beast, eh, guys?