Sports Update

George W. Bush, looking like the former cheerleader he is. Photo from Deadspin, which appears to be from the folks who bring you Wonkette & Gawker & Defamer & other such sites.It's compare & contrast time once again. From the Baltimore Sun one has one's choice of:

Bush's first pitch: More cheers or boos?

or (a few hours earlier): Bush on the mound: More cheers than boos

The AP story doesn't decide one way or the other:

He was greeted by plenty of loud jeers, but also determined cheers, as if the fans in both camps were trying to outduel each other.

The comsymps at the LAT:

President Bush set the script into motion, delivering the ceremonial opening-day first pitch, albeit to a chorus of mostly boos.

Voice of America ("A trusted source of news and information since 1942") ignored the whole thing:

The game opened with a ceremonial first pitch thrown by President Bush. Manager Manny Acta caught the ball and says the visit by Mr. Bush made the day special.

"Sitting there in the clubhouse and seeing the President of the United States walk in. He talked to all of us. And he made everybody feel real good," Acta said.

A former Major League baseball team owner, Mr. Bush has showed interest in the construction of Nationals Park. He seemed at ease in the clubhouse, an oval dressing facility in the shape of the President's office at the White House.

The founder of Fire Megan McArdle, brad, was especially unhappy w/ the president's hogging time on the ESPN cablecast:

Motherfucker. He stayed after the commercial break. Bush is just hanging out. The President of the fucking United goddamn States is chillin with the ESPN Sunday Night Baseball crew. I'm trying to watch baseball, you assholes. Joe Morgan is bad enough. Next they'll call up Camille Paglia.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
He stayed through a second commercial break. I can't even mute it, they keep showing the shit eating twins grinning at each other in the booth.
This is proof God does not exist.

As if any more were needed.

UGH!

Just...ugh.

Stop Loss, Part Deux: Army of Rubes

You're probably aware that words like "honor," "duty," & "integrity" have been dragged through the mud & stripped of all meaning by the American military, much as their civilian counterparts in the forces of fascist repression have removed all meaning from, among others, words like "liberty" & "freedom." A particular example would be as described in an L. A. Times marketing review of the new Paramount flick Stop-Loss (Yes, we typed "marketing review." We don't know what else to call it. Look for yourself.):

the stop-loss military provision that can legally re-conscript combat veterans -- even against their wills -- creating what has been decried as a "back-door draft."

(We think there's something else of a "back-door" nature there. Ouch!) Unlike real wars, WWII for example, where enlistments or conscription were "for the duration," the "professionals" of the American armed services currently enlist for a fixed term. Just one little problem: If it is decided that a soldier or Marine is somehow better at ground pounding, baby bayoneting, or interrogating insurgents, he or she can be kept in the service by means of the "stop-loss" provision in the enlistment contract. How much honor do you think was involved in the recruiter's explanation of the enlistment papers? Even subtler, though perhaps not quite as dishonorable, is the old "you'll be able to get a really good job when you get out, 'cause the Army/Navy/Air Force/Marines will train you for something," schtick they pull on the yout'. Don't believe a word of that either. From the L. A. Times of the day after the above Stop-Loss marketing story. Bear in mind that this is the VFW talking, not the Hippie-Dippie Peacenik Association:

Daniel M. Ortiz, department service director of the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the U.S., says the military misleads young recruits into believing that a stint in the armed forces turns them into attractive job candidates. "I don't put it past our military to spin stories that soldiers will get the best training and, when they get out, they'll have the world at their feet," said Ortiz, a veteran of the first Gulf War. "It is a false promise." The transitional assistance program run by the Department of Defense is insufficient, Ortiz said. And when veterans get intimidated by the lack of job opportunities, many give up on finding civilian work and reenlist, he said. Discouraged by an unsuccessful job search, with no gas money to go to interviews or college, Fabian Serrano, 27, of Riverside County, said he was tempted to rejoin the Marines. He doubts he will ever find his ideal job as a cartoon designer, or any other worthwhile post. And with a wife, parents and younger brother to support, Serrano said he can't take a minimum-wage position and hope for a promotion later. A fellow Marine persuaded the sergeant, who served in Iraq and is now in the Reserve, to attend his first job fair. But Serrano had no resume -- only a high school diploma and nearly a decade of experience shooting cannons and working as a military policeman. "I have no good sense of direction of where to start and where to go. None of my experience transfers," he said. "There's nothing out here for me, so I might as well go back to active duty and stay there."

So assuming you weren't stop-lossed from getting out in the first place, you're screwed if you can get out, & may end up re-upping, Never forget that words like "duty," "honor," "patriotism," "integrity," & so on are w/o meaning. They are used merely to cause knee-jerk reactions in the naive & trusting (or just plain stupid) so they'll follow orders & die for this country, even though this country won't educate them or provide jobs that would give them something worth defending. Noble warriors, our ass! Suckers, every last one. An Army of Rubes, as it were.

Hopes Up (For an End to the World, That Is)

No, we've not turned into a sappy optimist. But this story put some pep in our step, hope in our heart, & our finger in our nose. Burn, baby, burn.

[T]he experiment might create globe-gobbling black holes or never-before-seen strains of matter that would destroy the planet.

Hope springs eternal. The waiting is the most difficult aspect.

Just to Be Disgusting, Or: Sex Sells

From the AP, via MSNBC.com:

Boyfriend in toilet case accused of exposure He's arrested after allegedly exposing himself to girls Updated 2:01 p.m. PT, Thurs., March 27, 2008 NESS CITY, Kansas - A man whose girlfriend sat on a toilet for so long that the seat adhered to her body has been arrested in a separate case. Kory McFarren was arrested Sunday for alleged lewd and lascivious behavior, police said. He allegedly exposed himself to a neighbor's teenage daughter and her friends. He spent the night in jail before posting bond. No charges had been filed by Thursday. The 36-year-old McFarren could not be reached for comment. He was charged last week with a misdemeanor count of mistreatment of a dependent adult. That was after his girlfriend was found stuck to the toilet in late February.

What a species we are.

Emo: "Fucking Bullshit" per Mexican TV Host

Hey, where was this intartubes crap when we were young energetic punks? Maybe we could have destroyed the world, or at least musical culture. Look at Punknews.org. (They have the Mexican emo story.) Or even SoCalList.com. We wouldn't have had to get that L. A. Weekly ink smeared all over our hands to find gigs worth attending. Still doesn't make us want to leave the house we no longer live in though.

Note to Self

The sprinklers in the park where we're sleeping go off every other night just before midnight, for about five minutes. Don't be caught again.

We Told Him to Hang On

Below: Widmark w/ The Late Great Duke in The Alamo. Not a veritable barking dog, but not one of his (or The Duke's) greatest, either. Photo added 27 March 2008 @ 1300.One of the all-time psychos (well, portrayers thereof; Robert Ryan was another) Richard Widmark, has decided not to take our birthday advice & stick around any longer, but shuffled off this mortal coil Monday. His premier screen exposure in Kiss of Death has been giving people the creeps for 61 yrs., and once he got past the psycho parts he turned out to be a fine all around actor as well. The Bedford Incidentremains a personal favorite of Just Another Blog™, & is well worth a peep in these days of madness & war-mongering. Here's the H'ywd. Reporter poop, w/ footage of the famed wheelchair scene from Kiss of Death. (Asswipes cut it before the giggle, though.)

Good job all around Richard. You won't really be missed, as we''ll always have your representations to amuse us.

Dodging the Bullets

Below: Not-Sen. Clinton & Sen. McSame. Talk about fun!(Photo: Spencer Weiner/L. A. Times)Time is short & we must e-mail the head-candler, but in all the fuss about Sen. Clinton & her time in Bosnia, we think the real question that should be asked is: "How the fuck does merely being under fire make any one a foreign policy expert?" Why does Sen. McBush's being shot down & allowing himself to be captured make him a national security expert? Why does the service of either of these two on the Senate Armed Services Committee make them anything more than pork-barrellers (or earmarkers, if you wanna get all 21st century)? By this criteria, anyone who's been shot at on an L. A. freeway should automatically be the next California Highway Patrol Commissioner.

Why is our foreign policy continually considered only in terms of bellicosity? Oh, right, highest murder rate of any developed nation, etc. Kill for Peace, or Peace Through Strength, or something.

Racist Trash

Every Tuesday is trash day somewhere; at the Los Angeles Times (& most other major metropolitan dailies) it's virtually every day, but Tuesday is toxic stupidity trash day, as the Times rolls out to the curb a can containing one Jonah Goldberg, ignoramus nonpareil. Yesterday's load, as usual, is barely worth the effort (the usual crude attempts to sweep issues of racial discrimination against non-white people under the rug) but there was one extra special note of idiocy we thought deserved mention.

Who is Janet Murguia? Oh, she's just the president of a group called the National Council of La Raza, which -- despite what they'll tell you -- means "the race."

We don't know "what they'll tell you" (& if Jonah knows he doesn't bother to tell us either) but it is the impression of Just Another Blog™ that "La Raza," in this case, refers to the fact that many or most of the people known as "Latino" or "Hispanic" in this hemisphere are, to varying degrees, descended from all three major breeding groups that compose the single "human" race, that is, the people from Asia who got here first, the Europeans who decided they should be running things & the Afrikan people who so kindly swam here under their own power & offered themselves & all their descendants for all eternity to help the Euros build things up in exchange for room & board, & maybe one of Massa's old shirts every couple of yrs. So there, Mr. Jonah Goldberg. One race, the human one, recombining here in the New World. The very "tea-colored world" that strikes fear in dedicated whitey-lovers all over. Not as much chance for advancement by nepotism in that new world, is there, Mrs. (Lucianne) Goldberg's son? The rest of the paragraph:

In fact, doesn't it seem like the majority of people begging for a "new conversation" on race are the same folks who shout "racist!" at anyone who disagrees with them?

In fact, doesn't it seem that most people who cry "Class Warfare!" when confronted w/ the facts of surplus labor, economic inequality & the shrinking of the middle-class are indeed those committing the class warfare against the classes underneath them on the economic ladder? Final Note: Fish wrapping version of the Times entitles the piece:

When haven't we talked about race?

While were one to go on-line, one would see:

A race conversation? What are you talking about? Judging by the reaction to Obama's speech, you'd think Americans had never uttered a word about race.

We're well aware that column titles are usually written by the op-ed editor at whichever paper (as columnists love to screech when called on an especially offensive title) but why/what's the diff here? Separate editors for cage-lining & web-viewing? Or...

Annals of Euphemism

From yesterday's West Coast fish-wrapper & today's East Coast cage-liner, we see that our boys & girls who've died in vain on the other side of the world (victims of, at the very least, voluntary manslaughter, at the hands of the Bush-Cheney criminal consortium) are now gloriously, poetically known as "The Fallen." NYT today: "Six of the Fallen, in Words They Sent Home" Yesterday's LAT: "Stories of the fallen" "Help, I've fallen & I can't get up! Again. Ever." Wouldn't destroying our Army & Marine Corps in a war of choice qualify as treason, or "aid & comfort to the enemy?" Aren't those impeachable offenses?

Blackwater Worldwide Keeps On Rollin'

As we aren't scared of Blackwater in the least (As if they could even find which park we're sleeping in; it changes every night.) we will refer you all to an article from Mother Jones (the magazine, not Tom's mom) as brought to our attention by lovely reader Sophia L. (Name changed for security purposes.) Looks as if BW is branching out. Remember, Mr. Prince is a hyper-religious nut-job who's convinced that Xtians are being "persecuted" anywhere there's not a Xtian theocracy, & would like to do something about it. An outfit like Greystone may well be able to function w/ virtually no legal checks on it. We doubt Barbados is going to put them out of business, even if they start shooting up any one in a Third World country who refuses to accept Jeezis as her or his personal savior.

Lies, Damned Lies & Statistics

Another bleeding-heart pinko opposed to personal responsibility who wants to steal your hard-earned money & give it all to bums weighs in w/ some "facts" & a story that attempts to tug at your heart strings. Fortunately, as a decent American, you have no heart, & this Marxist crap won't suck you in.

According to the most recent information provided by the Los Angeles Housing Service Assn. (current as of October), about 73,000 homeless people seek shelter or are on the streets on any given night in Los Angeles County. There are fewer than 13,000 shelter beds in the county, so more than 60,000 people live in the streets. Twenty-five percent are part of a homeless family, 15% are under the age of 18, and according to a study by the nonprofit group Shelter Partnership, there are from 3,000 to 4,000 homeless people older than 62 in L.A. County. When considering the causes of homelessness, the following statistics may provide some insight. Seventy-four percent of L.A.'s homeless are disabled in some way; 33% suffer severe mental illness; 35% are physically disabled; 42% struggle with addiction; and 50% are clinically depressed.

Jeez, no wonder we can't find "shelter." This article should have been headlined: "L. A. County to Homeless Low-Lifes: 'Fuck You!'" Hey Doc, a question: What, if any, is the difference between "severe mental illness" & "clinical depression?" Don't be slighting us here at Just Another Blog™. Just because the editor isn't a raving paranoid schizophrenic doesn't mean he's not totally screwed up. Not for much longer though. Here's another stat:

The Los Angeles Coalition to End Poverty and Homelessness [More accurate name for this group: Coalition to Smash Capitalism.] released a document in December that presented the results of a study of homeless mortality in the county from January 2000 through May 2007. This study presented the sobering statistic that the average age of death was 48.

Shee-yit, we're living on borrowed time already.

If a disease emerged that struck hundreds of thousands of people and killed its victims at an average age of 48, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would jump to attention and commit enormous resources to curing it. The National Institutes of Health would grant millions of dollars for research. Scientists who developed effective treatments would rightly be celebrated.

Here we must believe the doctor is being optimistic. Pollyannaish, even. Or naive.

Further First Amendment Violations

Why in the hell are both the Los Angeles & Santa Monica Public Libraries closed for Easter? They're only open from 1300-1700 anyway, why bother closing? Has the ACLU looked into this? (This of course means there'll be nothing desk-top published here until Mon. We believe our free speech rights are being curtailed.) We'd also like to complain about the God-squadders taking all of our glorious pagan/Northern European rabbit, egg & chick activity & conflating it w/ their pathetic resurrection fairy tale. It's spring, time to fuck, not to worship death, fools!!

Easter Notes From Hell

Mrs. Laura "Pickles" Bush. Are the eggs pickled too?
Mr. Pickles gave his weekly radio address today, violating the First Amendment as usual.

Easter is a holiday that beckons us homeward. This weekend is an occasion to reflect on the things that matter most in life: the love of family, the laughter of friends, and the peace that comes from being in the place you call home. Through good times and bad, these quiet mercies are sources of hope.

(Read that last sentence again. Does it have the slightest meaning, or is it just another platitude – if that – from the most platitudinous president ever?)

Funny, we thought Thanksgiving was the holiday where all America ran like lemmings to some relative or another's house to drink. Isn't Easter the holiday where throngs of drunken collegians run like lemmings to the seashore & act like George Bush used to, before he found Jeezis & (allegedly) got off the sauce? George's connection to actuality is about as tenuous as Sen. McSame's.

On Easter, we remember especially those who have given their lives for the cause of freedom. These brave individuals have lived out the words of the Gospel: "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." And our Nation's fallen heroes live on in the memory of the Nation they helped defend.

Say, kind of a fucking shame that those almost 4,000 "brave individuals" (most of whom probably died with their skivvies full of shit & piss) won't be coming back to life in another three or so days, as Bush's favorite political philosopher, Jeezis Hussein Christ, is rumored to, isn't it? Not to mention the uncounted contractors & mercenaries. Or the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis, & the millions of Iraqis who don't have "the peace that comes from being in the place you call home?" Not even an afterthought to our president. What a holy man he is. Read this if you doubt it:

Presidential Message: Easter 2008

"I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies."
John 11:25

Laura and I send greetings to all those celebrating the joyful holiday of Easter.

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ reminds people around the world of the presence of a faithful God who offers a love more powerful than death. Easter commemorates our Savior's triumph over sin, and we take joy in spending this special time with family and friends and reflecting on the many blessings that fill our lives. During this season of renewal, let us come together and give thanks to the Almighty who made us in His image and redeemed us in His love.

On this glorious day, we remember our brave men and women in uniform who are separated from their families by great distances. We pray for their safety and strength, and we honor those who gave their lives to advance peace and secure liberty across the globe.

Happy Easter. May God bless you, and may God bless our great Nation.

GEORGE W. BUSH

# # #

No Passover message yet.

There's One on Every Corner, & There's One Born Every Minute

Besides screwing people stupid enough to pay their ridiculous prices for ground beans & water w/ some flavoring added, Starbucks™ has been (no surprise here) screwing its wage-slaves. A judge in San Diego ruled yesterday that the practice of letting "shift supervisors" help themselves to the tip jars was wrong, wrong, wrong. (Remember, "supervisor" is Latin for overseer. As in plantation labor. We don't know what the fuck-tuck-tucking hell a "barista" is.)

Saying baristas were entitled to $86 million in back tips plus interest, San Diego Superior Court Judge Patricia Cowett also issued an injunction preventing Starbucks’ shift supervisors from sharing in future tips. Cowett said the practice was a violation of a state law prohibiting managers and supervisors from sharing in employee tips. Starbucks Corp. spokeswoman Valerie O’Neil said the company planned an immediate appeal, calling the ruling “fundamentally unfair and beyond all common sense and reason.”

Pardon us Val, it's, how do you say it, "against the law?" And if you don't like the law, you can always bribe some legislators to change it, fascista. Valerie went on to say:

“This case was filed by a single former barista and, despite Starbucks request, the interests of the shift supervisors were not represented in litigation.”

Then who exactly was Starbucks'™ team of legal eagles representing, assuming there was representation? Won't you even stand up for your managers?

Terry Chapko, an attorney for the baristas, said the ruling was a victory, but the case was far from over. “Starbucks should be paying their shift supervisors a supervisory wage, not compensating them through tips that legally belong to baristas,” he said.

Oh, now we get it. Starbucks™ is interested in paying its overseers & plantation managers the least possible amount it can, just as w/ its "baristas." Don't believe Valerie for a minute. Their hearts do not bleed for their management wage-slaves either. It shouldn't be hard for the urbane sophisticates who read this to locate one of their ubiquitous stores; we suggest you heave a heavy object through a Starbucks™ window tonight. A heavy object like a Starbucks™ shareholder, or an executive vice-president.

Famous Last Interview Words

From the recently late Arthur C. Clarke

who died Wednesday at age 90 and left explicit instructions that no religious ceremony accompany his death. (For good measure: In what was possibly his last interview, in BBC Focus magazine last December, he said the greatest danger humanity faced was "Organised religion polluting our minds as it pretends to deliver morality and spiritual salvation.")

No shit.

From Sen. Bab's Out-Box to Our In-Box

Dear Friend: I have joined in an effort to ensure that seniors, people with disabilities, and children who rely on Medicare and Medicaid can continue to receive care under these programs. As you may know, the Bush Administration recently proposed unprecedented cuts of nearly $200 billion to services that patients and communities rely on. Medicare alone would see funding for hospital programs cut by $135 billion. I recently joined other Senators in writing to the Senate Budget Committee, and asking that the proposed cuts in Medicare and Medicaid funding be rejected so that people who depend on these services will have assurance that they will continue to receive care. Many people who rely on Medicare and Medicaid already are facing challenges, including rising pharmaceutical and specialized care costs and physicians who may decline to take new patients. This is not the time to create new challenges by slashing the budget for these programs. You can count on me to continue working to ensure that the people who need medical services the most can receive it. Sincerely, Barbara Boxer United States Senator

Senator Babs wrote a fucking letter!! Wowie Zowie! That's really kewl. I know it'll be a big help to losers like The Editor here, who is asked "Do you have Medicare/MediCal?" by every single gov't. or private agency he has any contact w/ in his effort to find someplace inside to sleep. Really, is this what these fucking people do all day in Washington, send letters to each other? "Please don't hurt dem po' folks no mo', Sen. Brer Fox, don't cut off they funds, an' please don't throw me in the briar patch!" "Fuck you!" is a waste of three and a half perfectly good vowels & an exclamation point on crap like this. Tell you what, Senator Babs, why don't you write a fucking letter to the damned Social Security Administration & tell them to get a move on w/ their obligatory turn-down of The Editor's first application so he can hurry up & get the appeal going? That might be a service to your constituents. Or at least one of them.

I'm Sick & Tired/And I Really Have My Doubts/I've Tried & Tried/But It Never Really Works Out

Screwed again by the heartless, faceless, scatter-brained bureaucracy. And we knew better, but didn't want to tell someone how to do her job. At least she gave me bus tokens, so no hard cash was wasted on a trip to nowhere. A sad state of affairs, when the editor of this web log has a better idea of how to do something w/in the County Mental Health bureaucracy then its own wage-slaves do. Just too smart for our own good. Our problem all our life. (Here we break into song, something along the lines of: "I wish that I were stupid/as fucking dumb as you/I wish that I were stupid/then I'd be happy too." Needs a little work, but you get the idea. Or are you stupid too? We bet you just might be. Wouldn't want to be different, would you?) Anyway, we've just about had it. 54 yrs. wasted in this world of liars, thieves, murderers & cheaters, not one fucking thing to show for it, & surrounded by stupid, ignorant incompetents every step of the way. Oh, no, we have three bags of shit to show for it ("Yes sir, yes sir, three bags of shit full.") which we have to drag around w/ us everywhere we go. That's something to show. Show the world that we're dangerous homeless scum, mostly. Quiver in fear, members of the housed community! We may urinate in your fucking alley some day. That'd be the end of your world, wouldn't it? We wish that one of those bags were filled w/ something that would blow up real good; one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter, as they say, & we'd really like to free most of the world from their mortgages & SUVs & hair-styles & hideous jobs (even worse: "careers") & relatives & beliefs & everything else, especially their ugly bodies. P. S.: We were really fucking angry before we spent some of our precious Food Stamps on some food. Two new assholes would have been torn, & many more idle threats would have been made. Hope this was enough to keep you happy for a while.

Annals of Pin-Dickery

That squeaking in the corner there? No, it's not a little mouse w/ its tail in a trap, it's a conservative trying to show both his macho (Or, in Freudian terminology, "Still trying to show mother something?") & how clever, creative, & artistic he is. (W/o being thought of as a sissy though. Wonder what Klavan thought of 300?) Anyway, it's news to Andrew that David Mamet is some sort of RW type. Take a gander at The Unit ("Herr Doktor Freud, paging Herr Doktor Freud.") Mamet's paean to the boys who commit crimes for us in the name of democracy, Tuesdays @2100 Eastern & Pacific on CBS. Appears that Mamet officially came out of the conservative closet in The Village Voice last wk., & little Andy is all a-twitter.

The left has monopolized the arts for so long that some on the right have lost the knack of them. We love to denounce Hollywood and indulge in paroxysms of rage about the latest artistic insults to patriotism and God. But when it comes actually to producing mature and complex works of art -- or supporting the people who produce them -- a good conservative can be very hard to find.

You don't suppose that has anything to do w/ '"conservatives" being brain-dead receptors of conventional wisdom, authority & tradition, do you? Note, for example, the linking of "patriotism" & "God." Or his summation of Mamet's plays:

searching for remnants of heroism in the rubble of modernity through a hilarious and poetic tough-guy vernacular.

ANDREW (from offstage right, in whiny simpering voice):Oh, there aren't any heroes in this horrid modern world any more. Oh, tough-guy vernacular is just the coolest, don't you think, Bruce? Hold on for these two:

The journey 60-year-old Mamet has made from being what he calls a "brain-dead liberal" to acknowledging the genius of philosophers such as Thomas Sowell and Milton Friedman is a difficult one for an artist. We in the creative world swim in liberalism like fish in water. It's hard for us even to imagine that one might evolve and walk on dry land.

Note that Thomas Sowell is a "genius philosopher."

So now Mamet has grasped the nettle. He will come to find out just how small-minded, exclusionary and intellectually corrupt many on the left can be. Colleagues may abandon him; theater critics will contrive to ignore and attack him; his dependable audience may turn away.

If Mamet's going find "intellectual corruption" anywhere, it'll be coming from the mouth of Thomas Sowell. And wasn't the deservedly dead Milton Friedman alleged to be an economist, rather than a philosopher? That may explain the problem w/ most of his ideas. That & the fact that people like Chile's Generalissimo Pinochet are the ones most likely to carry out his "reforms." And if any one "turns away" from Mamet's art, it'll probably be because it's become propagandist shit, not because he's no longer a "brain-dead liberal." This is awfully repellent too:

Will they turn out for his plays and embrace their excellence? His is a hard language of four-letter words and scorching insights. Will rightists, despite their commitment to good behavior and values, remember that art is an examination of the world as it is, not as we would have it be?

Good behavior, huh? Wholesale murder & torture is excellent behavior, but don't say "poopie-doodie" on stage. Values, he says. They "value" everything, but know the worth of nothing, to coin a phrase. And art (although what Klavan knows of it is beyond us) as examination of the world as it is is exactly why the arts are hardly filled w/ the right wing fantasists who worship Reagan & think Cheney's "So?" is the height of clever discourse. The right wing, however, is filled w/ louts. But Klavan thinks that Mamet may still be able to get some:

He will meet women of intelligence and competence who -- mirabile dictu -- don't despise men and manliness but openly admire them.

"How 'bout belching for me again, big boy? You're such a man, not like those nancy boy artists! And your vernacular is tough as nails!! Ravish me, you brute!!" And let's take a peep at what passes for art (& manliness) in the Klavan klavern. This is straight from Andy's website:

Damnation Street They are two sworn enemies with a single obsession: a woman on the run from them both. Scott Weiss is a private detective. John Foy is a professional killer. The woman is Julie Wyant, a hooker with the face of an angel. Julie spent one night with Foy - a night of psychopathic cruelty that Foy called love. Desperate to get away from him, she vanished without a trace. And Foy wants her back. There's only one man who can find her: Weiss, the best locate operative in the business. She's begged him not to look for her, fearing he'll bring the killer in his wake. But Weiss can't stay away. Now, from a town called Paradise, through a wilderness that feels like hell, Weiss searches for Julie - and the killer follows, waiting for his chance. They are two expert hunters matching move for move - until it ends in gunfire on Damnation Street.

There's further disgusting crap in Klavan's screed, & we can't let this one pass:

Rather than the low and tiresome obsession of the left with the color of people's skins, he will find people who embrace a philosophical colorblindness.

Jeezis Hussein Christ, you fucking asshole, who was obsessed w/ the color of people's skins, & their superiority or inferiority, & how one "race" should be in charge of all other "races" for most of the history of this country? For the right to deny history, & then accuse the left of being "low and tiresome" in its efforts to bring about that "philosophical colorblindness" is as good an indication as any that Mamet is unlikely to

discover thinkers who seek historical and moral truth as if it really mattered[.]

on the right. So Klavan, you pin-dicked overcompensator, if you're man enough to live in Southern California, I cheerfully challenge you to an ass whuppin'. Show us what a hero you are. It'd be worth a few days in jail if we could keep you from writing another book or "adapting" another Japanese movie.