“It just outrages me that someone who got five deferments during Vietnam and said he had ‘other priorities’ at that time would say that…When I hear this coming from Dick Cheney, who was a coward, who would not serve during the Vietnam War, it makes my blood boil…He’ll be tough, but he’ll be tough with someone else’s kid’s blood.” Iowa Senator Tom Harkin lashes out at Cheney for the “sensitive war” bit he was banging into the ground last week. I don’t much care for the notion that not serving in Vietnam makes anybody a coward…but, then again, the veep had this coming. He should’ve known better than to push the tough guy thing so hard. After all, he’s a war profiteer, not a warrior.
Gangs of New York.
Various media outlets preview the protests in store for the GOP convention in two weeks. I basically agree with those who think that the protests will have to be very clever to have anything but a negative effect for the Kerry team. Shrill, violent, and generally idiotic forms of protest will only play right into the hands of the GOP, who are practically begging to have the distinction made between their flag-waving, 9/11-tombrobbing soiree in the Garden and the radical unwashed masses just outside. And given how lazy and bored the national newsmedia acted in Boston, I’d expect that the Talking Heads will be actively seeking out the craziest loons they can muster just so they can turn them into the story. We’re treading on delicate ground here, fellow lefty New Yorkers…let’s not screw this up.
Missing Manhattan.
“It’s easier to leave than to be left behind…” The boys in Athens (REM, not Michael Phelps) release “Leaving New York”, the first single from Around the Sun, on BBC Radio. (Mirror/Mirror 2.) All in all, I’d say it’s growing on me. One part “Parakeet,” one part “Wrong Child,” maybe a dash of “E-Bow the Letter,” it’s definitely REM jingly-jangly without being as self-consciously imitative as “Imitation of Life,” the first single on the last album. And it’s got a very catchy chorus, particularly when Stipe also comes with the backing vocals (must’ve been Mike Mills’ off day.) At any rate, the rest of the album is listed here. Update: Bowing to the inevitable, the official site is now streaming the full song, if all the previous links go down.
Bamboozled.
“I don’t know about you, but when I hear a statement meant to inflame gratuitous resentment of white people, I prefer that it come from a black person. A white man who puts on blackface to call John Kerry’s wife a fraudulent African-American is committing so many kinds of bad faith that I scarcely know where to start.” Slate‘s Tim Noah delves into a new anti-Teresa ad running on black radio stations. Between this and Swift Veterans, it’s becoming clear that there’s no level below which the GOP will not sink this time ’round.
A Good man, and thorough.
“The Coens turned down requests to be interviewed about the cult of ‘The Big Lebowski,’ which is frankly infuriating: I did not watch my buddies die facedown in the muck to be blown off by too-cool, insular, press-shunning elitists.” Via All About George, David Edelstein checks in on The Dude, in anticipation of this weekend’s Lebowskifest. Edelstein, you are entering a world of pain.
What would Jesus do?
Apparently, evangelicals are still waiting by the phone for their GOP convention invites. “‘People who are not part of the religious right might be alienated if they put too many conservatives as the public face of the party,’ said Merle Black, a political scientist at Emory University in Atlanta.” You think?
Law will tear us apart.
There’s talk about that Jude Law will play Ian Curtis of Joy Division in a forthcoming biopic. That’s pretty good casting (better, for example, than Ashton Kutcher as Flash Gordon), although after 24 Hour Party People I’m not sure a Curtis biopic is really necessary (but cast Paul Bettany as Bernard Sumner and we’ll be getting somewhere.) Also in the Jude department, the trailer for Mike Nichols’s Closer is now online, and it looks pretty solid, if you can buy that anyone would actually leave Natalie Portman for Julia Roberts.
Good heavens!
Trouble is brewing again in Grover’s Mill…With the Munich Olympics project and the third Mission Impossible both hitting snags, Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise are now looking to remake The War of the Worlds. I’d wish they’d kept it a period piece, but this should still be more fun than MI:3.
Wally World East.
Wally Szczerbiak for Kurt Thomas? I’m not sure that makes much sense…the Knicks are already rife with guards, even assuming Allan Houston is out again for awhile. We need more Bigs.
Sexy Beast?
Word is Ray Winstone, of Sexy Beast and late of King Arthur, will be voicing Mr. Beaver in The Chronicles of Narnia. Yeah, I can dig it.