Heir to the La Follettes.

“There’s got to be more to life than explaining Senate procedures to angry constituents or begging Blue Dogs to do what they ought to do by rote.” After forty fighting years in the House, David Obey — formidable Wisconsin progressive, master of both legislative arcana and the harmonica, and powerful Chair of the Appropriations Committee — announces his retirement at the end of this term.

Obey’s exactly the type of guy you want in Congress — he’s got his priorities straight and was never afraid to fight for them — and he will be missed. “He pondered retirement before, but stayed on because he was angry at what he saw as the ‘arrogance’ of the second President Bush. ‘I was determined to outlast him,’ he said.“

Update: Chairman Obey’s full official statement is definitely worth a read. “I am, frankly, weary of having to beg on a daily basis that both parties recognize that we do no favor for the country if we neglect to make the long-term investments in education, science, health, and energy that are necessary to modernize our economy…I do not want to be in a position as Chairman of the Appropriations Committee of producing and defending lowest common denominator legislation that is inadequate to that task and, given the mood of the country, that is what I would have to do if I stayed.

I am also increasingly weary of having to deal with a press which has become increasingly focused on trivia, driven at least in part by the financial collapse of the news industry and the need, with the 24-hour news cycle, to fill the air waves with hot air. I say that regretfully because I regard what is happening to the news profession as nothing short of a national catastrophe which I know pains many quality journalists as much as it pains me. Both our professions have been coarsened in recent years and the nation is the loser for it.“

I See Dead People.

I haven’t been keeping up on this lately, but casting has been filling out for Frank Darabont’s adaptation of Robert Kirkman’s zombie-epic The Walking Dead, starting this October on AMC. Joining the shamble are Andrew Lincoln (as Rick Grimes), Sarah Wayne Callies (Lori), Jon Bernthal (Shane), Jeffrey DeMunn (likely Dale), Steven Yuen (Glenn) and, the most recognizable face, Laurie Holden — nee X-Files‘ Maria Covarrubias — as Andrea.

In very related news, please do keep in mind that May is Zombie Awareness Month. “Supporters of Zombie Awareness Month wear a gray ribbon to signify the undead shadows that lurk behind our modern light of day. From May 1 through May 31, Zombie Research Society Members and friends take this small step to acknowledge the coming danger.” Awareness!

Los Suns and La Machete.

“‘I think it’s fantastic,’ Nash said…’I think the law is very misguided. I think it’s, unfortunately, to the detriment of our society and our civil liberties. I think it’s very important for us to stand up for things we believe in. As a team and as an organization, we have a lot of love and support for all of our fans. The league is very multicultural. We have players from all over the world, and our Latino community here is very strong and important to us.“

In honor of Cinco de Mayo and in protest of Arizona’s straight-up ignorant new ethnic profiling law, the Phoenix Suns will don their “Los Suns” jerseys tonight. “Spurs coach Gregg Popovich is on board, and the team even tried to get their ‘Los Spurs’ jerseys, though it was too late to do so. When asked for approval to wear the jerseys, the NBA “was all for it,” said Suns general manager Steve Kerr.“

“This is Machete, with a special Cinco de Mayo message…TO ARIZONA.” If the Arizona GOP won’t heed the carrot of the Suns’ inclusive orange unis, perhaps they’ll fear the sharpened stick of a ticked-off Danny Trejo, in the new holiday trailer for Robert Rodriguez’s full-length version of Machete, also with Jeff Fahey, Michelle Rodriguez, Robert DeNiro, Lindsey Lohan, Jessica Alba, Don Johnson, Cheech Marin, and Steven Seagall. I know I was just badmouthing this project in my review of The Losers, but I have to concede, it still makes for a pretty fun trailer. (Extra points for DeNiro channeling his inner JD Hayworth therein.)

The Power of their Source? The Crystal.

“Set hundreds of years after the events of the first movie when the world has once again fallen into darkness, Power of the Dark Crystal follows the adventures of a mysterious girl made of fire who, together with a Gelfling outcast, steals a shard of the legendary Crystal in an attempt to reignite the dying sun that exists at the center of the planet.”

Once more, they will replenish themselves…(omg this is the best). First announced in 2005, the much-anticipated Power of the Dark Crystal is finally out of development hell with a brand-new pair of directors, the Spierig brothers, recently of Daybreakers. I’m all for it. Hey Tron and Clash of the Titans are back in 2010, so why the heck not? Let’s complete the trifecta…in 3D.

Update: The Spierigs speak: “To be honest, the first film is, when I was young, pretty scary stuff. This will certainly have scary elements to it. It’s not a horror film by any means, its just got a really solid mythology and solid idea.“

Hugo Gets a Crimson Cranium.

As rumored for awhile now, Hugo Weaving — a.k.a. Agent Smith, Elrond, and V — will add even further to his fanboy cachet by suiting up as the Red Skull for Joe Johnston’s Captain America: The First Avenger. (Not altogether surprising: Weaving just showed up in Johnston’s botched Wolfman.) He joins Chris Evans as the Cap’n, Sebastian Stans as Bucky, and Hayley Atwell (late of Cassandra’s Dream) as Steve Rogers’ love interest, Peggy Carter.

Update: It looks like the character of Howard Stark — Tony’s dad — is also involved, although he probably won’t be as Roger Sterling-ish.

Update 2: The Cap’n’s rogues gallery expands as Toby Jones signs to play Arnim Zola, “a Nazi scientist who used his horrific experiments to allow himself to unnaturally extend his life, ultimately leading to his consciousness being permanently stuck in a robotic body. Type-casting!”

A Glutton for (Mutant) Punishment.

“Vaughn’s involvement had been on and off, with negotiations resuming yesterday thanks to the involvement of producer Bryan Singer. Another factor had been Fox’s desire of wanting to have a finished film for next summer, making the search for a director who can deliver a quality film a priority.“

Hmm…strange. Elsewhere in comic-to-film news, Layer Cake, Stardust, and Kick-Ass helmer Matthew Vaughn — who memorably left X3 before it became a Ratner hack job — is now back with the mutants for X-Men: First Class, i.e. the Professor X & Magneto backstory. I’d kinda soured on the X-franchise after the last two Fox ventures — never even saw Wolverine — but Vaughn instantly makes this interesting again.

Never Let Me Down Again.

Following in the footsteps of Depeche Mode and Ian Curtises both real and fake, master assassin George Clooney looks weary and conflicted in a sumptuously-shot Europe in the new trailer for Anton Corbijn’s The American, also with Bruce Altman, Thekla Reuten, Paolo Bonacelli and Violante Placido. I’m in.

His Kingdom for a Horse.

“In 1914, Joey, a beautiful bay-red foal with a distinctive cross on his nose, is sold to the army and thrust into the midst of the war on the Western Front. With his officer, he charges toward the enemy, witnessing the horror of the battles in France. But even in the desolation of the trenches, Joey’s courage touches the soldiers around him and he is able to find warmth and hope. But his heart aches for Albert, the farmer’s son he left behind. Will he ever see his true master again?“

Uh…ok. What’s wrong with the Lincoln biopic again? With Tintin in heavy post-production, Steven Spielberg announces his next film will be the WWI equine epic War Horse, based on the 1982 novel by Michael Morpurgo. Guess it must be an amazing novel.

Whither the Darkness?

“If DAMA’s signal were due to dark matter, Xenon 100 would have seen dozens of events — unless the properties of dark matter are very different than expected, says Lang. ‘If DAMA really does see dark matter, it has to be something very, very exotic, something much different from what we expect, so it’s getting a bit unlikely.‘” A new study casts doubt on apparent discoveries of dark matter particles by the DAMA experiment. Back to MOND, then?

Life in the Great American City.

“In her 1961 book The Death and Life of Great American Cities, self-taught urban scholar and activist Jane Jacobs observed that sidewalks and their users are ‘active participants in the drama of civilization versus barbarism’ (by “barbarism,” she meant crime) and that a continuously busy sidewalk is a safe sidewalk, because those who have business there — ‘the natural proprietors of the street’ — provide ‘eyes upon the street.’ Jacobs, who died in 2006, would not have been surprised to learn that it was two street vendors who first notified police of the suspicious Nissan Pathfinder parked on West 45th Street just off Broadway.“

In surveying the recent foiled Times Square car-bomb attempt, Slate‘s Fred Kaplan makes the case for the prescience of Jane Jacobs, and explains why Dick Cheney is, yet again, wrong. (Kaplan also makes a case for security cameras which I’m less sanguine about — but, hey, two out of three ain’t bad.)

Speaking of the Times Square situation, Twitter wag pourmecoffee had some arch responses to the near-disaster: “Somebody saw something in Times Square. If Cheney were still around, he’d torture entire Lion King cast for answers,” and “When we catch this Times Square guy, I assume he will be too scary to try in New York.” Ah, Twitter.