Dubaia

"The White House has spent the past week telling us not to worry about selling our ports to the United Arab Emirates, because DHS will still have Customs agents on the scene. At last, their logic is clear: News that a port is in danger will never make it up the bureaucratic chain at DHS, so we're better off bringing in an Arab company whose transmissions we have a chance to intercept."

- Bruce Reed, "The House That Straw Built," Slate, 2/27/06

Alex Chilton/Big Star

Was just rereading this exegesis of Alex Chilton's career, with special attention given to the first three Big Star albums. For those impatient with rhapsodic, discursive, quasi-academic writing about rock and roll (cf. Greil Marcus), avoid at all costs. But otherwise, I find it useful if densely-written. This guy has listened to these records deeply, loves them deeply, and writes convincingly of what makes each of them unique and great (in pop music terms).

And of course, if you haven't heard these records and have any love at all for the records that inspired them (by the Beatles, Move, Byrds, Who, Kinks, Badfinger, Velvets) or that these records inspired (by Cheap Trick, the Raspberries, the Posies, Teenage Fanclub, the dBs, REM, the Replacements...), for God's sake check them out. You won't be disappointed.

Mark Goes To The Movies

Running Scared (dir. Wayne Kramer) A street story that's brutal, exploitive, arty, and overlong, it piles on every post-Tarantino cliche (except gratuitous pop culture references) and then some. You got your mafiosi (Italian and Russian), you got your drug dealers, you got your yuppie child pornographers. You have tweakers and crackheads, dirty cops, abused children, hookers (current and ex-) with hearts of gold and evil pimps. You have death by knife, gunshot, C4 explosives, exploding methamphetamine manufacturing chemicals, and (almost) hockey puck. You have Paul Walker as a good bad guy and (yowza!) Vera Farmiga as his ass-kicking protector/avenging-angel wife. You have maybe the most tacky promotional game in the history of Web marketing. You have two surprise almost-endings. In short, two hours of Bad Movie bliss. Mark's rating (stupid points): ????

And while we're on the subject of common ground...

James Wolcott actually pointed me to this guy, who sounds like the kind of conservative I could actually have a reasonable conversation with. Jesus, is that a relief to find. We libs tend to think the right marches in lockstep to the mindless Fox xenophobes (in cahoots with the triumphalist Xters). It's nice to see some division in the ranks; it makes it seem like some of these people actually have brains.

Some happy news on the gay equality fight? 2

Well, I'll be damned. Homophobe-in-chief James Dobson may be lightening up just a little bit.

Speaking as one who's happy to find common cause with "reality-based" social conservatives (see also: efforts to make birth control more easily available to reduce the indcidence of abortion), this seems like a welcome development. It's not full marriage equality, but it's a step in that direction. I mean, from the state's point of view, marriage is defined by the benefits that accrue to people who are "married." If you want to call the state something other than "marriage," I personally don't have a problem with that. And it sure beats hell out of those Defense of Marriage Acts (which a lot of right-wing Christian groups continue to push) that would prohibit the kinds of legal protections for gay couples that this act would offer.

(Pointed by Ezra Klein, at Tapped.)

Some happy news on the gay equality fight?

Or maybe less terrible news than I usually hear--though I'll sure feel better if Timmy's new initiative tanks this year.

Feeling safer? 9

My interest in the Rethugs' recent discovery that maybe there are a few things they can't get away with politically is tempered by having to read two articles in two days by this bozo. I ask you: is he the most content-free hack writing for a major Website? Jesus, he makes Mike Kinsley (on the other side) sound like Michael Moore. And I'll bet he collects a paycheck for this drivel.

Feeling Safer? 8

A perfect example of what I tell conservatives: it's not that liberals doubt that al-Quaeda is out to get us, it's that the bunch of jokers in power would rather turn the "war on terror" into a big, scary media spectacle to promote a police state based on a cult of personality around Great Leader than, you know, catch actual terrorists.

I'd rather concentrate on my Michael Douglas impersonation

"''I'd like to get it over with so I don't have to answer the god-damned questions [about it] anymore.''"

- Harrison Ford on plans for a fourth Indiana Jones film

You can say that again!

"In his supposedly off-the-record comments, Mr. Bush said nothing new, basically repeating themes that he often sounds in his public appearances... There was at least one flash of candor before the sound feed was cut. Advising lawmakers to hire advisers who are smarter than they are, he added, 'in my case it wasn't all that hard to find.'"

Wall Street Journal, "Washington Wire", 2/10/06

Annals of Air Transportation

"...without proper documentation"????

The abortion debate on Slate

I think this online debate between two very different pro-choicers is educational--but this last post best reflects my (old-school, "first-wave" feminist) view of the subject.