( 8:36 PM )
Inside the Actors Locker Room
All I saw was a towel dropping. The only naked body part I saw were bare feet. Yet, the incident on Monday Night Football has raised a Janet-like fervor. The prudes that Americans are, can't handle and get upset over a toweled woman in a locker room. Perhaps it's just anger that America's Team is 3-6 and have to win at least 7 straight to even be considered playoff bound.
The voters who said that "values" were the number one reason why they voted for Bush were lying. The same way people who said they were voting for Kerry or had voted for Kerry were lying. People don't like to talk to pollsters as much as they want to talk to the common stranger on the street. They'll say anything to get these people out of their face.
The FCC is now going public with their opposition, with Chairman Michael Powell going as far to say that Walt Disney (ABC's parent company) would be pleased if he were alive. I don't think Ol' Walt would be very happy to know that the actual workers of Walt Disney World, the ones that don the famous Mickey and Donald costumes, make about $10.00 an hour, while Michael Eisner is bringing home millions by the bucket full. If the Bush administration wants to start talking about what's best for America, perhaps they should start talking about the pay disparity between CEO's and the people who actually do the work.
Good chance of that and Colin Powell (Michael's father) running for Senate from NY happening. All the talk around Washington today centered on whether Colin would make a run for Senate against Hillary in 2006. OK, the ink on Powell's resignation letter is already dry, probably written months ago, but the guy has only been a lame duck for 24 hours and the media is already lining up his next job.
There are two types of people in politics. The ones with the drive and the ego to run around a district, state or country, asking people to vote for you. Then they're the others, they're still driven to public service, but are not made out for chicken dinners, town hall meetings, handshaking and managing 100's of staff. Place Powell in the latter. I'm sure if he could be appointed Senator, he would entertain the idea. But to run a campaign, especially against Hillary, especially in New York, he would have to do something the Bush administration abhors: become disloyal.
A campaign against Powell would center on one thing, getting him to say that Iraq was a mistake and Bush was wrong for taking us there. From what we've heard from Powell in the past, he has said everything but that. Of course, he had the cover of the White House to run behind when the kitchen got too hot. But the NY press corps will be relentless. Hillary is too smart of a politician to not beat this horse to death. Powell doesn't need to be Senator and the White House can't risk him lashing out against them, nor can they risk the Democrat favorite for 2008 beating one of their own.
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( 3:47 PM )
When SUV's Attack
Europeans continue to have more reasons for hating the U.S.. Bush's re-election, the escalating violence in Iraq, not to mention the all too causal coverage of Arafat's passing, and we might as well just call the whole continent a blue state.
The New York Post ran its best headline in recent years: a picture of Ms. Arafat crying under the banner: "The Arafat Lady Sings.' Post headlines are always good for a laugh but reading the accompanying article was far from a laughing matter when the Post began to insinuate that Arafat had AIDS.
This space is no fan of Arafat, the terrorist he bankrolled and controlled, nor am I a fan of the lavish lifestyle his wife leads, especially when the Palestinian people are struggling day-to-day. However, one is suppose to find peace with death and killing him all over again in the press, does nothing to improve US/Muslim relations.
US/Muslim relations isn't the only relationship this nation has shredded to bits. Our former friends in Europe are certainly not big fans of the good ol' USA. However, this time it's not the fact that we re-elected Bush or have escalated the violence in Iraq. The anger now stems from the introduction of SUV's into the small streets of Europe.
Professor Steven Stradling, professor of transportation at Napier University told the New York Times that Europeans feel SUV's are "status markers because they're big and expensive and profligate with the earth's resources. There's also a degree of anti-American feeling in Europe, and they are identified as American. They are a symbol of power without responsibility, and that's what we feel about you guys these days."
Hey Steve, no need for the sweet talk, tell us how you really feel.
Again, this space is no fan of SUV's. In fact, I really don't like cars all that much. People and the environment would be better off walking or taking public transportation. However, I'm too much of a realist to think that Times Square will be void of cars anytime soon, so we have to deal with these massive autos on our streets for decades to come. It is odd that Europe, the home of the Mini Cooper, has now gone the opposite route.
Both Bush and Kerry have said let the healing begin. Perhaps that healing feeling should find its way across the pond. If we're going to export what Americans feel is the best thing about our culture (please don't include me with this group) can't we send them: Ashlee Simpson, Paris Hilton and the Boston Red Sox?
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( 11:16 AM )
Loose Babies
Now with Arafat gone perhaps we can get some real work done around here. Hate the chime in on the side of the Bush folks, but treating Arafat like the killer he is, is one of the few things I agree with the Bush administration on. We don't need the codling o continued foreign policy another president codling the former PLO president - especially in a misguided attempt cement some legacy. Yeah, I'm talking about you Bill Clinton.
Progressives and liberals who decried the Reagan funeral for the sham that it was, should be equally up in arms about the PC coverage Arafat's illness and death has received. When more attention should have been paid toward who will next lead the PLO, and more importantly, where they will lead it to. Today, the New York Times does it's version of taking off the gloves and dives into Arafat's finances, writing that: "the secrecy and corruption surrounding the administration of the Palestinian Authority, have tainted his legacy with ordinary Palestinians and left a burden for his political heirs."
It's pretty hard to have statesman like farewell for a man known to have husbanded away billions in countless unknown bank accounts. Not burying Ghandi here people. Arafat's more like that guy at the end of the movie - who turns good right before he dies. You appreciate the effort, give a thumbs up to the change of heart, but you don't give the guy a Nobel Peace Prize.
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( 10:55 AM )
Little Things Mean A Lot
Bush taking the stage telling America that he has earned political capital and he intends to spend it. Bush overspent and over-reached the last time the country and world were in his corner. You'd think they'd keep his credit limit low after all that 9/11 political capital he spent on Saddam Hussein and gay Americans like Jim McGreevey.
As soon as the television media said the words mandate, they had every opinion poll and talking head on to debate the very word they used to describe Bush's Thursday press conference. Truth is, Bush has no clear mandate and no real direction to lead the country. Now, is not the time to worry and panic and drive away what few remaining voters still nostalgic enough to call themselves Democrats.
Why the pundits still have jobs is beyond me. You'd think that getting everything wrong about the election: the economy, the war, the bin Laden tape, the new voters, the swing voters, would be enough to see Tucker Carlson in a new line of work. No such luck.
Pundits are now screaming that Bush has read the tea leaves and it says convincingly that he should steer American down a right-wing country road. Please, people don't want a radical right agenda anymore than they want a radical left agenda. We're not likely to see drilling in the Arctic or the repeal of Roe v. Wade any sooner than we're going to see hydrogen fuel cell research and medical marijuana.
Democrats operate best under miserable conditions. More times than not, Democrats will create their own misery like crying over the confederate flag or the billions made by Halliburton. They'll identify misery yet stand by and pretend that this particular misery just emerged. Kerry cried all the time about the uninsured rate in this country, as if everyone had health insurance prior to 2000.
Three cheers this week go to the: Working Families Party. Making strides in NYC. The Party just elected district attorney in Albany County - add that on top of defeating an incumbent in the NY Assembly, electing a member of the NY City Council, organizing enough heat to get the Legislature to pass a minimum wage bill and you got a viable third party emerging from the ashes of last Tuesday.
Finally, some good news.....
Boos and hisses go to: Veronica Mars....Normally, I would touch anything on the UPN with a ten foot pole. But this show came highly recommended. After a half-hour of lame dialogue, weak characters and that whole uneasy feeling one gets from watching 25 year olds play high school students, enough was enough. Tuesday goes back into the "Leave the TV Off" column, like the rest of the week....
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( 2:58 PM )
TBA-Gate
Nearly everybody I know has been way off the grid since Tuesday's results made it clear that Bush gets four more years. Disbelief is a good word. It was almost like that scene in the Matrix, where despite hundreds of Agent Smith's, Neo still wouldn't die. Democrats came at Bush through traditional means: labor, teachers, and minorities, then fused them with dozens of "Too-Clever-for-Your-Good" dot.coms, billionaires and Bruce Springsteen. They were all armed with a mandate along the lines of "the quarterback must go down and he must go down hard."
They kept coming; one-by-one. And like swing-states for Kerry, kept falling one after another. When it was all said and done, Bush had soared away to another four years. Also like movie - that little fight season, cost millions and millions of dollars and now have left those who fought wondering what was all about.
Many people don't like the results of Tuesday's election. They shouldn't. However, the ones who don't live in this country need to shut the fuck up. As much as I appreciate the views and opinions of our friends across the pond, calling 59 million Americans dumb, as the UK Daily Mirror did on the front page this week, does nothing but breed contempt from all Americans. To paraphrase Reagan, those 59 million Bush voting Americans are a son-of-a-bitch. But they're our son-of-a-bitch.
Instead of worrying about if Hillary is running, the prospects of Virginia Governor Mark Warner, and even, I dare say, the health of Elizabeth Edwards, the Jackass Party and the interest groups that love them, really need to communicate a believable theory as to how Bush won despite exit polls and turnout data that says otherwise.
Right now, Black Box Voting (www.blackboxvoting.org) seems to be the only one serious about presenting any case to the American people. On Election Night, the non-profit blanketed the U.S. with the first in a series of public records requests, to obtain internal computer logs and other documents in 3,000 individual counties and townships. These guys are on the look out for internal audit logs, polling place results slips, modem transmission logs, and computer trouble slips. What Black Box Voting are saying to the American people is that results were tampered with and before anyone deletes the real results we, the people, need a real, hard count.
Democracy isn't free and neither are FOIA requests. And it's no surprise that Black Box Voting is looking for funds so they can keep doing their important work.
But hey, I know that's not the only idea floating out there with a theory as to how Bush won a second term. Consider this space your own person X-Files (but not those lame ones without Mulder.) Email theories, personal stories from inside the booth and anything else you've heard, saw, or read on a websites also written by the "socially misguided," to: gjoseph@2walls.com
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( 3:45 PM )
Phoning It In
Russ Smith of the New York Press fame wants Bush for President. There can be no mistaken that. Like many in the media, Smith has had to spend this election season writing what Bush was too dense enough to communicate. In his zeal to see four more years of Bush/Cheney (and with it perhaps another round of Smith family friendly tax cuts), Mugger is going as far as to taking The Paper of Record's 'Page Six' out of context.
Smith tries to be funny by wondering whether if elected would Kerry send his stepson Chris Heinz "as his representative at Yasser Arafat's funeral." Smith goes on to blast the 31-year old Mr. Heinz , saying that according to the Page Six, Heniz called Bush a "cokehead."
Really? Now that Smith has relocated to Baltimore, perhaps he's not reading Page Six as close as he did back in his Tribeca days. Or perhaps he never read Page Six at all and instead got his gossip fix eavesdropping on his fellow diners over dinner at Spartina.
As a daily 'Page Six' reader, Yours Truly remembers this item clearly. And since the Post keeps a 7-day archive on its site, it took no time to prove Smith has a different version of reality. What 'Page Six' actually quotes Heinz as saying, after he accuses the Kerry's opponents of making the race dirty, says: 'We didn't start out with negative ads calling George Bush a cokehead."
Nice try, Russ....
Speaking of 'Page Six.' The premier gossip column may not be worth reading anymore if it's getting scooped by a C-List blogger like myself. Yesterday, this space wrote that Eminem lip-synched his performance on Saturday Night Live last weekend. And in light of the Ashlee Simpson fallout, nobody seemed to care or realize, that once again the "Live" in SNL was entirely optional.
Under the headline: 'It's Not Live' Richard Johnson and Company finally catch wind of the two-day old story, writing: "Just one week after Ashlee Simpson lip-synched on the show, Eminem was found guilty of the same crime." A source (meaning anyone with one working eye) said: "The track was just a bit ahead of his lips and he put the mike down at one point but the track kept going."
Hey, better late than never....
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( 1:47 PM )
The Moment You've All Been Waiting For
Less than 24 hours until the voters finally speak and all of the respectable polls have Bush up by 1 point or more. Still within the margin of error but being ahead is being ahead. John Zogby, who has been making a living off a few accurate calls many years ago, still believes that Kerry will win, even though his polls say Bush is ahead. The 'chattering class" loves to quote Zogby but when you're in the prediction business, one day you're bound to be wrong. I'm beginning to feel that now is that time.
News out of Iowa is better for Kerry. With almost 30% of the total vote already in due to early voting, Kerry has a 8 point lead over the President. Winning places like Iowa, along with New Hampshire, New Mexico and West Virginia, make places like Florida less and less important.
Speaking of Florida, this "blogger" is on the ground in the Sunshine State and from what everyone is saying, early voting is one nightmare after another. Three hour waits at most Broward County polling places. No worries, that's just where the majority of Democrats reside. Why do I get the feeling that we'll hear a lot about people not getting to vote because the polls ended up closing with people still on line. A little advice for voters in South Florida looking for an easier route to the polls; try polling places in African-American neighborhoods. The wait is nearly not as long.
OK, I admit it. I watched 'Saturday Night Live' this weekend. Yeah, I know, I was one of a few. With all the hoopla and fuss over Ashlee Simpson (why anyone thought this girl was talented is beyond me) how come I didn't hear a post-show whisper over Eminem and his obvious lip-synching musical performance. I mean, he actually had the microphone away from his mouth while the song continued.
This is not to say that Eminem is not talented. He is, especially when compared to Ashlee Simpson, but lip-synching on live television is still lip-synching on live television. Don't we owe Slim Shady the same venom we spewed Ashlee Simpsons way. I mean, just because he held up a sign at the end of his song that read: "Vote" and didn't dance the gig, is not reason enough to let this pass.
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