Yeesh, what a cold, miserable day. Please, never mind that I didn’t wear a coat. It’s mid-April, and I’m done with coats. A sweater was it, then, which underlined the misery, but I didn’t have to be outdoors long, and ah well — you have to go through a few of these days every spring, and Tuesday was one of them.
Tomorrow will be warmer. Winter is going.
Which seems a nice transition into the new season of “Game of Thrones.” I’m watching, yes, although this is the beginning of the long slog of the middle of “A Song of Ice and Fire.” I petered out somewhere toward the end of “A Storm of Swords,” and there’s still another doorstop of a volume before “A Dance of Dragons,” and guess what? Winter has not yet come, although it’s autumn, and the book after that one is, I believe, “The Winds of Winter,” and there’s another book beyond that, and yikes, I just don’t have time. Catching up via HBO seems the most prudent course of action. If anything, the visuals are even more arresting than last season — the budget must have gotten a boost — but I remember this passage of the story as mostly about rain and blood soaking into the mud of Westeros, along with the usual dragons and ice-zombies and the like.
And speaking of dragons, we saw “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” over the weekend, which settled any question I might have had about that series — ick. It was competently done, even beautiful in that David Fincher-esque way, but I’ve had it with perverts, rapists and fucking Sweden. Also girls on motorcycles, coffee, mysteries outlined via charts on walls and Rooney Mara. Where are the romantic comedies of yore, I ask you. I just scanned the trailers of coming attractions on the Apple movie-trailers site, and didn’t see a single thing that looked like much, and quite a bit that looked like dreck. “That’s My Boy,” in fact, might be the worst of the lot.
Back to novels for the summer, I fear.
So. Sayonara, Ricky Santorum. It’s a sign of this crazy year that he lasted this long, but there are many others. Here’s a column from the Indianapolis Star about Richard Mourdock, who is challenging Richard Lugar in the primary and just might win:
In politics, there are partisans who truly believe in and fight for their principles and policy ideas as they seek to craft solutions to big problems. And then there are people like Mourdock — unbending ideologues who believe the only acceptable outcome to any argument is a complete victory by their side. In a diverse nation, such victories are largely impossible. And, so, under this type of thinking nothing gets done.
That’s your choice, Hoosiers.
Hell, let’s look at the wind map instead. Very soothing.
Happy Wednesday. Think I might take Kate to see “Titanic 3D,” if she’s up for it. Our hearts will go on.
Prospero said on April 11, 2012 at 12:56 am
Winter is always welcome to leave. Is Ozzie Guillen such an ahole for his Castro comments? To my mind, MLB’s sucking up to Batista was pretty much worse, and the assholes that continue the Elian bullshit in the FLA gulf is pure horseshit. These assholes continue to act as if Nixon wasn’t a criminal. And like they didn’t kill JFK and back Sirhan.
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Prospero said on April 11, 2012 at 12:58 am
Also, for your MLB types, Bud Selig? Seriously? He ownns the Budweisers and thinks the All-Star game means home field in the World Series. What an inexcusable asshole. A total asshole.
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Prospero said on April 11, 2012 at 1:33 am
W wishes Barney didn’t piss on his head when the pretzel took him down. What a doofus. Will Farrell’s only moment of comedy. I think Ozzie is nuts, and the ony reason to follow the White Sox is Gordon Beckham. I believe the LA Dodgers will win the NL West this year because they have the two best pitchers and the single best position player in center field. 50 steals and 50 HRs.
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Prospero said on April 11, 2012 at 7:00 am
Lugar is that rare thing GOPers just can’t tolerate. A decent human being that didn’t have a party when Teddy Kennedy died. Makes him a RINO, I guess.
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alex said on April 11, 2012 at 8:06 am
Mike Pence is also an inflexible ideologue like Richard Mourdock and he’s more than likely going to be Indiana’s next governor. I hope the Star has the cojones to endorse his opponent this fall for exactly the same reasons cited in its endorsement of Lugar. Pence makes the current governor, Mitch Daniels, look like a flaming liberal by comparison.
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beb said on April 11, 2012 at 8:08 am
I read and loved the Lord of the Ring trilogy back when I was a teen but any more I draw the line at 500 page independent novels, let alone series that consist of an endless number of brick-like books. I find myself loving the likes of Raymond Chandler who could tell a tell of a good story in under 60,000 words.
Romantic light comedies? I think the closest we’ll come to that anymore is “The Three Stooges” movie. And while the initial reaction to the idea of a Three Stooges movie was shudder-inducing, I’m reminded of Mark Evanier’s comment, which is that this movie can’t be an embarrassment to the original stooges because they had no shame. They’d do anything the script asked for.
As a politician Lugar is about as far right as one can get. To attack him from the right was not being conservative enough is just plain lunacy.
Not to feed the troll, but fuck major league baseball, fuck Ozzie (Osborne?), and fuck anyone who thinks Cuba matters.
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brian stouder said on April 11, 2012 at 8:43 am
So, speaking of TV-serials-which-have-not-pulled-me-in*, I was watching the news the other day, and on the crawl it mentioned that a major character was going to die in the third season of…..was it Downton Abbey? (I forget).
Presumably this was under the “Entertainment News” rubric. Just sayin’.
Other then that, what Alex said! (My main hope in the May primary is that the FWCS referendum passes)
*But I will cop to The Voice, and (as always) The Amazing Race
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Prospero said on April 11, 2012 at 9:02 am
Beb, I’m with you on Raymond Chandler. If Ernest Hemingway had talent comparable to Scott Fitzgerals, it might have come out like the Phillip Marlowe books. Great movies too. The hipster pick is Dashiell Hammet, but he was not in the same universe with Raymond handler. The Voice? Brian? Say it ain’t so. Good Lord. Closest I get is Roadshow, and it’s mainly to see know-it-all aholes get told their priceless artifacts are kitsschy junk, like the Kinkade they stole from the Holiday Inn in Shreveport after losing all that cash on the Casino boat.
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Dorothy said on April 11, 2012 at 9:11 am
Prospero you started posting at 1:00 am today and you’re still here, sounding rational? Wow. Just wow. Go ahead and punch me – I’m asking for it with statements like that!
We watched “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” and “War Horse” over the weekend. I’m glad I stuck with the former, although we did pause the DVR a few times so I could clarify things, to make sure I understood. It sure was layered and nuanced and all that crap but it was well done. We have “Made in Dagenham” sitting in it’s red Netflix envelope to watch when we have time. I’ve got lots of foreign films in our queue. The best movie we’ve seen lately was “A Better Life” with the Oscar-nominated Demian Bichir.
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brian stouder said on April 11, 2012 at 9:21 am
Prospero, yes – The Voice! I look at it as a throwback show.
Whereas 40 years ago my folks would watch a variety show like Ed Sullivan or Jackie Gleason or Carol Burnett, nowadays our household tunes into The Voice, and we get elaborate stage productions and comedic interplay (amongst the celebrity judges)….anyway, that’s my theory and I’m stickin’ to it!
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Randy said on April 11, 2012 at 9:33 am
Nancy,
Thanks for the wind map. Hard to stop looking at it.
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Bitter Scribe said on April 11, 2012 at 10:02 am
Dunno who’s the bad guy in the Marlins flap. Ozzie could (and can) be a fatmouth jerk, but I’ve often thought the rabid anti-Castroites in Miami need to get over themselves.
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brian stouder said on April 11, 2012 at 10:35 am
Somehow, I think this story out of Michigan dovetails with Nancy’s recent Bridge series on “school choice” and vouchers.
http://www.indianasnewscenter.com/news/local/Michigan-Teacher-Claims-She-Was-Fired-for-Trayvon-Martin-Fundraiser-146968895.html
an excerpt:
Brooke Harris was dismissed from Pontiac Academy for Excellence after she supported students’ efforts to plan a wear-a-hoodie-to-school day. [Trayvon] Martin was wearing a hoodie Feb. 26 when he was shot to death by a neighborhood watch volunteer.
Harris’ students wanted to raise money for Martin’s family and asked the school’s administrators if they could each pay $1 to wear hoodies instead of school uniforms for a day. The 26-year-old English teacher said she approached school administrators, but that Superintendent Jacqueline Cassell said the project could not go forward. Harris said she was in the process of explaining this decision to the students when she was called for a meeting with Cassell.
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Joe Kobiela said on April 11, 2012 at 11:03 am
What do you mean no romantic comey’s. The three Stooges movie starts Friday! It cant get better than that. Wasting the day away in Falls City Nebraska.
Pilot Joe
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DellaDash said on April 11, 2012 at 11:05 am
For fans of slender hardboiled reads, check out Megan Abbott, a most excellent contemporary throwback. You’re in for a treat if you haven’t discovered her yet. Laura Lippman turned me on to Abbott in response to a question at her Memphis book-signing for ‘I’d Know You Anywhere’.
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brian stouder said on April 11, 2012 at 11:34 am
Laura Lippman turned me on to Abbott in response to a question at her Memphis book-signing
Superb!
I got to attend a Laura Lippman book signing in Carmel a few years ago, and it was wonderful.
Aside from her altogether engaging remarks and lively Q&A, she also had (if memory serves) an inexhaustible supply of chocolate-coated strawberries and other such goodies on offer. It is no exaggeration to say that it was the very best book-talk I’ve ever attended (and I’ve attended more a few!)
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Jeff Borden said on April 11, 2012 at 11:39 am
I prefer the Swedish film versions of the Stieg Larsson books.
Right now, I’m deeply enamored of Jo Nesbo, a Norwegian renaissance man who is a musician, songwriter and economist. His anti-hero is Harry Hole –yeah, an awful name– who battles his alcoholism and the vicissitudes of Norway’s politicized police departments while matching wits with killers in a series of novels. Nesbo’s deep knowledge of music informs his character, who embraces everything from punk rock to Miles Davis to Robert Earl Keane.
On the non-fiction side, I have Katherine Boo’s latest sitting in the on deck circle. Once Harry solves his latest case –all the people who spent a night in a ski cabin in the wilds of Norway are being picked off one by one– it’s on to the reality of life in Mumbai’s slums.
I don’t know why, but the older I get, the more I love good books.
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coozledad said on April 11, 2012 at 11:45 am
One day you’ll only be able to purchase copies of National Review at gun shows. They’ll be over by the Gott Mit Uns beltbuckles and totenkopf mudflaps.
http://wonkette.com/469523/another-racist-out-at-national-review-because-it-is-a-day-ending-in-y-video#more-469523
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LAMary said on April 11, 2012 at 12:01 pm
That’s My Boy looks really awful. Who pays Adam Sandler and why? His movies truly suck.
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Jeff Borden said on April 11, 2012 at 12:05 pm
It’s not just National Review. Some little shitheel at “The Daily Caller” got his 15 minutes of fame this week when he revealed that his expensive bicycle had been stolen in D.C., no doubt by a nefarious Negro, though the author did not witness the theft.
This, in turn, left our little wannabe Klansman so angry that he has turned his back on liberal guilt and will now, so to speak, call a spade a spade. His screed is not as explicit as the one penned by John Derbyshire, but it’s very, very ugly.
Is it because we have a black president that some of the most repugnantly racist shit has been getting a high profile airing recently? Is it backlash to Trayvon Martin? Or just a harmonic convergence of scared white people saying stupid shit?
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coozledad said on April 11, 2012 at 12:33 pm
Borden: It’s just more of the Republicans trying to throw as many of the plug-uglies overboard as they make the fake tack to center.
They’ll be pulling all kinds of musty doo-dads out of their their ass to try and whittle that bar of Ivory Soap into a candidate.
Romney’s got that “model for Land’s End Overstocks who could easily get caught up in the hacky-sack phenomenon” vibe.
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Prospero said on April 11, 2012 at 1:05 pm
I hate to disagree with Pilot Joe, but that Stooges movie is making me cringe expectantly. Curly Fine was a comic genius. Look at the Grouse. Moe, Larry, cheese. The one person that could have played Curly effectively died a long time ago. Sam Kinnison. The Farrelly bros are terminally sophomoric and having Sean Hayes fuck a cherry pie is not going to make him less gay. If some brothers were going to do the Stooges, would it be too much to ask for Ethan and Joel?
Cooze: More like Stepford Husband, that only gets unzipped on occasion.
Has anybody ever identified a member of the New Black Panthers other than those two guys Breitbart paid to hang around that polling place in 2008? Didn’t think so. And that was an overwhelmingly black neighborhood, and nobody was intimidated. But, you know Trayvon gained 150 lbs. of hard muscle after that photo was taken.
I’ve had five bikes stolen in the last ten years. One was a $3grand Motobecane road bike lifted when I was at a 7:30 am Mass. The rest were rehab bikes I got from the dump. I’ve become an excellent bicycle mechanic. Here on our island, there are practically no black people that aren’t bussed into the plantation daily to make beds and serve breakfast. Nope, its them Meskins that steal bikes. Actually, the bike thefts here are mainly perpetrated by luckless bastards caught at .081 on the weekend dragnets, that have to get to court, but obviously can’t drive themselves without getting in further trouble.
And the next time I hear some ahole claim that hardcore anti-Obama has nothing to do with race, I’ll be smashing some mandibles.
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Little Bird said on April 11, 2012 at 1:06 pm
Given Santorum’s stance on women’s rights, he should not be allowed to abort his campaign. He should be forced to carry it to term.
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Prospero said on April 11, 2012 at 1:15 pm
All those Tebowing born-again blowhards that run banks, Whatever you do for the least of my children…
Well put Little Bird, but I’d say he should have the full four fingers and a thumb internal exam. He loves the two-finger prostate palpation so let him get the full effect. In reality, it would have been great schadenfreude fun to see Frothy humiliated by RMoney in PA. Like I said. Dog in the manger.
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beb said on April 11, 2012 at 2:53 pm
Little Bird, you have won the thread!
Sam Kinnison was never, ever, funny. Death becomes him.
Mark Evanier makes an interesting argument that Shemp was a better Stooge than his brother Curly.
http://www.newsfromme.com/2012/04/11/a-blood-curlying-confession/
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Bitter Scribe said on April 11, 2012 at 3:17 pm
Sam Kinnison was never, ever, funny. Death becomes him.
Amen. I remember this raving, screaming (what else) routine of his about how Ethiopian refugees starving in the desert deserved to starve because they were too stupid to realize food doesn’t grow in a desert.
Hey, dumbass, they lived there because they were refugees. From a war. If the desert is the only place you can live and not get shot, that’s where you live, regardless of what grows or doesn’t grow there.
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Scout said on April 11, 2012 at 3:19 pm
I just heard that Angela Corey has decided to charge George Zimmerman for the death of Trayvon Martin. It’s about time. If Zimmerman really is innocent of a crime, then a jury will decide that. The whole trial by media was awful.
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brian stouder said on April 11, 2012 at 3:29 pm
It’s about time. If Zimmerman really is innocent of a crime, then a jury will decide that.
Absolutely agreed.
But, further to yesterday’s discussion, pity the jurors that get stuck with that circus! I’d do my duty, but I would absolutely not talk to the newsies about any of it, if I was a Floridian saddled with that trial
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Prospero said on April 11, 2012 at 4:30 pm
Zimmerman is guilty of murder. First degree. He stalked and killed a kid. You know, I just read a comment on a Zimmerman article that claimed this happened at 3 am, What is wrong with these gun nuts that makes them feel they have to legitimize this murder. ALEC is evil, and there are no two ways about it. This is the Koch Bros. Attempting to alter the Law of the Land, and gun nuts don’t see anything wrong with that. Vigilante-Get-Out-of-Jail-Free is not America.
And pardon me, but Sam Kinnison’s take on coming home to the significant other after Easter weekend was funny:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3Ma4FYR-L8
Anybody that won’t admit that’s funny might be a Moron. And seriously, a Stooges movie is a no-brainer failure from the word go. These guys were funny as the Marx Brothers. Funnier than Charlie Chaplin.
I’m not a fan of Sam Kinnison, but he got phony Christianity about right. And what did Tejas do to piss God off so badly two weeks ago? And the cop on the other end of that phone call knew Zimmerman was going to commit a murder, and told him not to. Asshole did it anyway. Cold-blooded. Zimmerman is guilty, and I heard him call the kid a f**kin c**n” on tape. It is about time to call out American racists.
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Prospero said on April 11, 2012 at 4:42 pm
Scout: I disagree. Zimmerman was never a victim of trial by media. He stalked and killed a kid he outweighed by at least a buck two eighty. That could not have presented a physical threat to his obese ass, other than that he was negroid.. He showed u[ at the cop house without a mark on him. He stalked and killed a kid because the kid was the wrong color and was wearing a hoodie. And he expected to skate because of a bizarre GOPer ALEC law. I’d like to see the ALEC perps brought to justice. I’m standing my ground if the Beaufort Co. Sherriff’s Department comes to my door. I do have an over/under Mossberg. And it ain’t a lady gun like Dickless used.
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Scout said on April 11, 2012 at 5:00 pm
Prospero… do not take my comment to mean that I think Zimmerman is innocent. I don’t. I think there is enough proof to convict him for murder, or at least I hope there still is after the way the Sanford PD screwed up the whole thing. I am merely referring to the circus that has ensued with all the wingnut outlets embracing George-the-Cop-Wannabe as their new Joe-the-Plumber idiot hero and trying to come up with 40 ways from Sunday to excuse what he did. That’s what I’m talking about.
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alex said on April 11, 2012 at 5:51 pm
Pros, you might want to rethink standing your ground. As in the Zimmerman case, it’s a law that is selectively enforced.
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Jolene said on April 11, 2012 at 6:38 pm
Pros, I can’t find the link right now, but among the errors floating around in this case is the idea that Zimmerman outweighed Martin by a hundred pounds. The video of him getting out of the police car indicated that he has a somewhat stocky build, but is not grossly overweight. He is somewhat heavier than Martin, but Martin was taller. It’s not clear who might have had the advantage in a fight, but the fact that Zimmerman was ten years older should have given him better judgment.
In any case, Zimmerman has now been charged w/ second degree murder. Just listened to the prosecutor’s press conference, and she seems extremely sharp–very capable. Am glad to see someone who seems to know what she is doing in charge.
Still, it’s important to remember that the police were ready to dismiss this case with no arrest or charges. Without all the protests, we wouldn’t have gotten this far.
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Prospero said on April 11, 2012 at 7:24 pm
Martin was 140 lbs. Zimmerman 250. I’ve been in fights, and there is no way Zimmerman’s story of being cold-cocked is remotely true. And I’d stand my ground because I’m white, so the vigilante law would be interpreted in my favor. I was robbed at gunpoint once. On an abandoned MBTA right of way in Jamaica Plain, Boston. I wear a gold ring with garnets in it that was a legacy from my dad’s parents. The thugs demanded the ring and I said it would not come off. I was telling the truth. The ring would not clear my knuckle. One of the kids stuck a nine in my face and said “Cut it off”. I said “Go ahead and start sawing, and I will kill you before you are done.” I’ve no idea where that came from. I have never backed down from a physical confrontation, but these aholes had a gun, and I had about a $grand in my pocket, from a cashed paycheck. I ended up giving them a six of Red Stripe and about $16. I have also had to stand my ground with cops.
The idea that Zimmerman was tried in the press is nonsense. He was almost not tried at all. And the demonization of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson is eminent proof that racism is alive and well in exceptional America. And the purveyors and moneybags of ALEC, those are domestic terriss.
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Suzanne said on April 11, 2012 at 9:10 pm
Jeff @ 17–“I don’t know why, but the older I get, the more I love good books.” Me too! I think it’s because as I get older, I realize there really are…”so many books, so little time.” And so many bad books that when I find one that is amazing, I’m enthralled. After watching Great Expectations, I am re-reading that because I realize how much I don’t remember the details of the story.
Little Bird @ 23. Yes. Perfect!
I again bemoan what National Review has become, but I’m sure Wm. Buckley would not be anywhere near conservative enough for today’s right.
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Prospero said on April 11, 2012 at 9:33 pm
Suzanne. Raygun would not satisfy these whackos.
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Deborah said on April 11, 2012 at 10:42 pm
We’ve been watching the older Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy with Sir Alec Guiness on DVD the lat couple of nights. Excellent.
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alex said on April 11, 2012 at 10:46 pm
Raygun’s a legend only because he was the first dog whistler (or horse’s ass whisperer, if you will). In those days the dogs were happy with bones and didn’t demand red meat.
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del said on April 11, 2012 at 11:30 pm
I was never much of a Kinnison fan but he worked it pretty well with Rodney Dangerfield in this clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fj5k6toS7i8
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Dexter said on April 11, 2012 at 11:58 pm
As all railroads led to Chicago in the golden age, apparently God has seen that all wind leads to…Casper, Wyoming? WTF, God? I was watching a couple innings on MLB Extra Innings from Coors Field in Denver…crazy intense downpours and then perfectly clear weather…then here comes the rain again.
I was under the impression the USA has mostly prevailing west -to-east wind patterns. I guess not. Thanks for the education via the wind map.
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