"Puppet wrangler? There weren't any puppets in this movie!" – Crow T. Robot
A few photographs from my Friday–which, as it turns out, wasn’t a half bad day at all. Eventually, more photographs from the Homecoming Parade (Vikings, Twister, et al.) should be uploaded to the Penn State Monty Python Society’s website. So if that’s the sort of thing you want to see, then that’s the sort of place you want to look.
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As our nation’s civil liberties continue sadly to erode, Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, the only senator to vote against the unfortunately named U.S.A. Patriot Act, is certainly a profile in courage. In a statement released on his website, Feingold says, in part:
Of course, there is no doubt that if we lived in a police state, it would be easier to catch terrorists. If we lived in a country that allowed the police to search your home at any time for any reason; if we lived in a country that allowed the government to open your mail, eavesdrop on your phone conversations, or intercept your email communications; if we lived in a country that allowed the government to hold people in jail indefinitely based on what they write or think, or based on mere suspicion that they are up to no good, then the government would no doubt discover and arrest more terrorists. But that probably would not be a country in which we would want to live. And that would not be a country for which we could, in good conscience, ask our young people to fight and die. In short, that would not be America.
Well unfortunately, that seems to be what America is becoming in the wake of September 11. Thank god there are still some dissenting voices like Feingold–people who realize that dissent, not mindless unity, is what enables democracy to work.
It’s Friday, but it’s too early yet to tell if that’s a good thing. Let’s start the day off with a couple of movie reviews because…well, because this is my weblog and I can do with it what I like. And I was amused when I read these and want to share. Of the new Jet Li movie, “The One”, Roger Ebert writes:
Apparently every time one of your other selves dies, his power is distributed among the survivors. If Yulaw kills 123 selves, he has the power of 124. Follow this logic far enough, and retirement homes would be filled with elderly geezers who have outlived their others and now have the strength of 124, meaning they can bend canes with their bare hands and produce mighty bowel movements with scornful ease.
Of the new Pixar animated film “Monsters, Inc.:
Sully looks like a cross between a gorilla and a bear. His best pal, Mike Wazowski (voice by Billy Crystal), is a green eyeball with arms and legs. Sully is brave and dedicated. Wazowski is phobic, frightened, and malingering. Together, they cover the spectrum of work traits. The sexy Celia (voice by Jennifer Tilly) has a crush on Wazowski. What she sees in him is beyond me, although if there is anyone who can figure out how to have sex with a green eyeball, that would be Jennifer Tilly. I can imagine her brassy voice: ”Blink! Blink!”
And now, other things:
Again, my weekly horoscope from The Onion:
Aries: (March 21—April 19)
Reviews will claim you have “reinvented the coming-of-age story” and “singlehandedly raised the bar for first novels,” but you don’t recall doing anything.