DA VINCI DECODED: IT REEKS

Abysmal Book carefully translated into Abysmal Film

Schadenfreude. Big time. Oh Yeah.

The verdict is in and the patient is DOA. As Peggy Noonan puts it: "There is a God." She goes on:

Or, as a sophisticated Christian pointed out yesterday, there is an Evil One, and this may be proof he was an uncredited co-producer. The devil loves the common, the stale. He can't use beauty; it undermines him. "Banality is his calling card."

Watching Peggy Noonan speak in person can be sort of like fighting one's way out from deep within one of those incredibly doughy and sticky-sweet "Cinnabon" concoctions. But man, can she write.

She TOTALLY NAILS IT on two hot-poker issues today: immigration reform and the cinematic Da Vinci Code. My favourite line on Topic 1 is a summation of the current Bush Administration Syndrome-- something its enemies might have wrongly accused it of years ago, but which appears to be genuinely manifesting itself in the "lame duck" years.

Noonan believes the administration is "lost in some geopolitical-globalist abstract-athon" -- YESSSSS! ZOWIE! -- She goes on:

... that has left them puffed with the rightness of their superior knowledge, sure in their membership in a higher brotherhood, and looking down on the low concerns of normal Americans living in America.

Ooch, ouch. Yes.

On Topic 2, Peggy nails the bigger context too.

I do not understand the thinking of a studio that would make, for the amusement of a nation 85% to 90% of whose people identify themselves as Christian, a major movie aimed at attacking the central tenets of that faith, and insulting as poor fools its gulled adherents. Why would Tom Hanks lend his prestige to such a film? Why would Ron Howard? They're both already rich and relevant... They've been given so much by their country and era, such rich rewards and adulation throughout their long careers. This was no way to say thanks.

I don't really understand why we live in an age in which we feel compelled to spoof the beliefs of the followers of the great religions. Why are we doing that? [money quote-- ed.] Why does Hollywood consider this progressive as opposed to primitive, like a pre-Columbian tribe attacking the tribe next door for worshiping the wrong spirits?

As we shall see in the coming weeks, Hollywood will prefer that we worship at the altar of the prophet AlGore and his Sacred Book [Film] of Global Eco-Disaster Nostrums. It will be taken much more seriously than The DVC, though I expect they both bought their factoids at the same "Global-Conspiracies-Are-Us" franchise outlet.

Read it all. In a peculiar way, both Noonan's topics of the day are related to the eternal drawing power of Gnosticism. Hmmmm. There-- I've given some mediocre grad student a thesis-- free, gratis, and worth every penny it cost.

Nota Bene: this is no time to relax. Don't forget to join the "Other-cott" -- take all the kids, all your neighbour's kids, a few dozen of your closest friends, and all your sisters, cousins, and aunts this weekend to see Over the Hedge. Drive its well-deserved ticket-sale numbers up, and leave The DVC eating its dust.

DA VINCI CODE COUNTDOWN:
SECRET OPUS DEI DRAGON RITUALS OBSERVED!!!

At an exclusive private club in a fashionable Toronto neighbourhood, hundreds of adherents or supporters of the local membership of (ba-ba-ba-BA-AHM!) OPUS DEI gathered for an annual communal meal in honor of one of the successful works of "The Work." The colour red was everywhere in evidence, and between courses the assembly was "whipped" into excitement by these strange performing creatures.














Actually, this was the entertainment portion-- ably provided by the WuShu Kung Fu Club-- of the annual fund-raising gala dinner in support of the Hawthorn School for Girls.



Yes, it was Saturday night, named for that pagan deity Saturn (the god of Euro-looking Sedans with Respectable Gas Mileage), but it was nevertheless a pretty typical private school fund-raiser, this time on a "Far Eastern" theme, full of parents, teachers, administrators, board members, friends, and students working together to beef up the budget of an independent school-- one where, as it happens, I taught part-time and, later, volunteered over a period of four or five years in the late 1990's.

And no, I never did join-- didn't get recruited, pressured, intimidated, seduced, or, in the end, dismissed. I think Opus Dei does wonderful work in the world, and they have my blessing, but I feel no call to sign up for anything. Everybody's happy with that. We remain on friendly terms and they receive our family's support-- and I spent a bunch of money at the silent auction.


See all the weird people? See the zealous cruelty in their eyes? See all the fanatical monks inflicting masochistic suffering upon themselves? (Well, the dessert wasn't too good, but the Teriyaki chicken was superb.)

Hawthorn School (the name is a dead giveaway, by the way, if you know "how these things work") is one of the Works of our local Opus Dei community. Though not officially called a Catholic school (not because they want to hide it, but because the Archdiocese asserts a monopoly over the use of that designation, and Opus Dei people are notoriously OBEDIENT AND RESPECTFUL of the authority of the local Ordinary, as Catholic Bishops are called).

Hawthorn is Catholic in ethos and atmosphere in every respect. However, its operating principles are articulated through a vocabulary which is applicable and relevant to all persons of good will-- that is, its traditional Catholic vision is expressed in terms of The Virtues. This is an approach which fits comfortably within the Natural Law tradition embraced by the most revered Catholic philosophers (Augustine, Aquinas, and all their homies, right down to Pope John Paul the Great), while it allows the school staff to offer academic values, leadership, and moral guidance that appeal to many parents regardless of cultural background.

The students at Hawthorn are predominantly Catholic, but the school has also served Protestant, Jewish, Sikh, Muslim, and Jehovah's Witness students. The non-Catholics are not compelled to take the religion classes (but many do, quite successfully), and their separate traditions are respected: Jehovah's Witnesses are not required to sing the National Anthem or observe popular holidays (like Mother's Day); Muslim girls are given the library for prayer at lunchtime during Ramadan, and all other students are instructed not to eat break-time snacks in front of them, since they must go hungry until evening.

Why would these non-Catholic parents want to put their daughters (or sons, at Northmount Boys School) into an unapologetically Catholic learning envorinment? Because they know that the school will demand that its staff and students learn and live universal standards of Virtue-- standards which are either absent from or actively undermined by most public educational institutions.

Somewhere in the information package given to parents and enquirers is the phrase "Hawthorn School is operated under the Opus Dei Prelature of the Catholic Church," or words to that effect. Until recently, that might be as much as any non-Opus Dei person would ever know about the Prelature's role in the school, unless they were curious enough to check it out elsewhere or specifically ask a staff member. And, absent another single detail about what the words "Opus Dei" mean, parents could happily see their child through twelve years of solid education at Hawthorn without it mattering one whit.

What they would see would be a well-run, utterly joyful, small and personal school, built from the ground up by a group of parents who began in a church basement, now overseeing a well-appointed suburban campus [don't think red-brick-and-ivy-- it's a brilliantly converted steel-sided warehouse]-- a school with well-prepared, highly-motivated students who go on to successful higher education and careers, and who take with them into the world a sense of confidence built the old-fashioned way-- out of decency, compassion, modesty, and self-respect-- rather than the newer model built on aggressive self-esteem and indignant entitlement.

I hadn't been to a Hawthorn Gala in several years, due to other May-time engagements. One thing was different this year though, and I expect it's a difference that is rippling through Opus Dei communities around the world (that's for the total worldwide membership of just over 85,000-- for comparison's sake, that's about half the total enrollment at the nine University of California campuses-- Oooooooh! Ver-r-ry Sca-a-a-ry!).

The difference was that I heard the words "Opus Dei" spoken more times in that dining room Saturday night than I had heard it spoken in all the years of my association with the school (which began in 1994) combined-- that includes teaching two days a week, spending hours directing or assisting with theatrical productions, plus a ten-day trip to Rome (during which I shared a room with a "Numerary"-- together all day, every day, and guess what? At no time was she ever visibly bleeding from her corporal mortifications, even in white slacks!!!!).

On the whole I am of the belief that nothing good whatsoever can come of the existence of The Da Vinci Code, in either book or film form. Everything about the book is a lie, including (as Mary McCarthy said of Lillian Hellman) the words "and" and "the"-- but most especially the critical opinion that it is a good, or even readable book at all, when it is, in fact, a literary disaster. [For an abbreviated account of the book's many offenses, religious and literary, and one suggested "non-response", read and take The Da Vinci Code Pledge for Thin-skinned Christians.]

But if there is one bright spot on the horizon it is that Opus Dei has been forced out of the closet and into the light of day. (Maybe they'll stop giving their schools and other residences names that sound like boring suburban housing developments: Hawthorn, Northmount, Riverside, Mapleglen, Shady Oaks-- I made up those last three, but that's the usual model.) They have chosen to be as positive as they can about the unwanted attention being brought to them-- the "when you're handed a lemon, make lemonade" strategy. That is quite literal-- it is in exactly those terms that the Prelature expressed its planned response to the film's libels.

It is, of course, entirely too mild a response to what can only be called a "blood libel" against both Opus Dei and the Catholic Church as a whole, but it is, unfortunately, the only one which has a prayer of succeeding. The legitimate response-- lawsuits, mass demonstrations, book-burnings, Church sanctions for any Catholic promoting the story or downplaying its significance-- all would be perfectly justified, and utterly pointless, even counter-productive.
[There's been a pretty good educational counterpoint campaign going on for a couple of years now. Excellent de-bunking and fact-finding conducted here, here, here, here, and here, just for starters.]

There was one possible, Church-wide action that could have been taken, and wasn't, which is that the Pope could have written a brief and pointed denunciation of the book and the film, naming some of the widely available materials which thoroughly debunk its falsehoods, and decreed that this be read from every Catholic pulpit in the world the week before the film opened. He would probably have been ignored in some places, but he could have tried, and I'm sorry he didn't. Beyond that, though, the Opus Dei strategy is a superior one for reaching the people who will not be sitting in Catholic pews on any given Sunday. It has been an informative exercise for the wider world, and a healthy change of attitude for the Prelature itself. In that respect, it's a good thing-- but so good as to be worth the damage this film will do? No. Never.

In some respects Dan Brown is the least of the villains in this piece, poor schmuck, since he was just floating along with all the thousands of other paperback writers, flotsam on a greasy sea of mediocrity, moderately successful but too unimportant to rate even the investment of a good editor. I think both he and his publishers were unprepared for the success of his fourth little novel, a success grounded in nothing more than the public and critical appetite for anti-Catholicism. Brown had unwittingly concocted the winning recipe for a gumbo of the public's most deeply held prejudices (Arthur Scheslinger had it right on this subject), and publishing history was made. (The only thing "historical" about the whole mess....) Dan Brown is also a dolt-- that's always a mitigating factor in assigning responsibility.

Ron Howard, on the other hand, is a genuinely creative and talented artist, and, more importantly, there is nothing "unwitting" about what he has tapped into in hopes of making a success of his film-- he has been warned, by the outrage expressed at the book, which compounded with the announcement and progress of the film. Howard heard all there was to hear about how offensive this story is to all Christians and other believers, and at some point he decided that they and their woundedness did not matter. He looked at the project, eyes wide open, assessing with a better mind than that of the book's author the meaning of what he was doing, and went ahead with it anyway. (Apparently he's equally unfazed about insulting people's intelligence too-- the movie trailer reveals that he has repeated Brown's fundamental factual error by calling The Last Supper a "fresco" -- it's not. It remains to be seen whether Howard has repeated the rest of Brown's historical sloppiness.)

Screenwriter, former nun, and excellent Catholic apologist Barbara Nicolosi watched Howard doing publicity for the film on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and felt she was observing a man who has suddenly become acutely aware that he has sold out God for money. He was a giddily babbling nervous wreck. Nicolosi thinks Opie's basically still a good guy-- and he's done a very bad thing. She thinks he now knows it, but he has no excuse for having taken so long to realize it, now that it's too late to stop it.

If the spiritual awakening of Opie is a result of the filming of The Da Vinci Code, it's a helluva a price to pay for one guy's enlightenment (the price being the soul-threatening deception of tens of millions). A good thing, but too dearly bought.

I have in earlier posts, on different subjects, used the onslaught of the Orcs at Helm's Deep, so perfectly realized on the screen in Peter Jackson's film of Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, as the consummate image of the power of lies. The Orcs are not the jihadists, or the KKK, or the Wiccans, or the Communists, or the French (!), or the Democrats (or even the Republicans)-- the Orcs are the lies.

They sweep onto the field and mow down all and everything in their path-- ugly, merciless, nearly omnipotent. Worse, they seduce or enslave all who are fool enough to consider entertaining them-- they are the impossible, imperious, immovable houseguest. Open your door to one and it will occupy your mind, and won't leave until it has rubbished it top to bottom. And it has an army of friends.

There are plenty of books, films, public spectacles of comedy, song, or spoken word where one little dig, or a couple of nasty shots, have cordially invited a lie or two about Christian belief in among an appreciative assembly. With the film version of The Da Vinci Code, Ron Howard has made a conscious decision to "loose the Orcs." It will have large consequences. They will be overwhelmingly bad. They will be answered for, in or out of time.

Barbara Nicolosi is one of the most prominent identifiable Catholics in Hollywood, and has therefore been inundated with requests to opine on the film as its release date approaches. She's sick of it, and doesn't want to say much of anything. She is urging all concerned people to do the one thing that will make an impression on the insulated, impervious, and impious community that has deliberately hyped the thing out of control: GO TO ANOTHER MOVIE-- DRIVE THE DVC INTO LOW OPENING NUMBERS by concentrating attendance on the kind of film audiences have shown that they prefer, given their choice. It's called an "OTHERCOTT" -- fill the seats in every theatre showing OVER THE HEDGE, another promising animated kids' film, a pleasure for the whole family, and the genre that ACTUALLY MAKES THE MOST MONEY FOR HOLLYWOOD PRODUCERS. Help these boneheads GET THE PICTURE. TURN BACK THE ORCS.

In the final days of publicity rounds in the U.S., both Ron Howard and Tom Hanks have been doing their best to dismiss the significance of The Da Vinci Code by saying it's "just a movie." Says Howard, "...it is a work of fiction. It's not meant to offend, it's not theology." Hanks went even further: "The story we tell is loaded with all sorts of hooey and fun kind of scavenger-hunt-type nonsense... If you are going to take any sort of movie at face value, particularly a huge-budget motion picture like this, you'd be making a very big mistake... It's a damn good story and a lot of fun... all it is, is dialogue. That never hurts." ("Dialogue" never hurts-- remember where you heard that the next time somebody gets prosecuted, or murdered, for "hate speech.")

All of this is, obviously, a desperate attempt to reduce the heat suddenly (belatedly) being turned up on the coming Orc-fest. It is also a day late and an apology short, and is patently insincere-- after all, check out the movie posters. Are we supposed to believe that Ron Howard had no say in the graphic mantra above the title, "SEEK THE TRUTH"? Please.

So just remember, for anyone who decides to shell out their bucks and see The Da Vinci Code: the revered leading actor has told you what to do.

SEEK THE CRAP.
SEEK THE LIES.
SEEK THE NONSENSE.
SEEK THE HOOEY.

CUE THE ORCS.

ME -- LEGAL IMMIGRANT

As they say in Canada, ARE YOU LANDED?

My father was raised in northern Minnesota, and thus had as much awareness as any American might of his northern neighbor, Canada. (right: High Falls of Pigeon River, U.S./Canadian border -- hat-tip Bryan Hansel)

So even in the temperate climate of Portland, Oregon, where I grew up, my father’s northern sensibilities were instrumental in cultivating in his kids (female though we were) a passion for ice hockey, honorably fed for over a decade by the Portland Buckaroos. They were Canadians one and all, from such exotic places as Saskatoon and Sault Ste. Marie and T’ronno.

As a result we shared even more in the ordinary Pacific Northwesterner’s interest in crossing the border and visiting British Columbia, where we camped and toured several times. We felt every Oregonian’s easy affinity for a country, a landscape, and a people who seemed much like our own—less “foreign” to us, perhaps, than people from Texas or Massachusetts.

That being my experience, it wasn’t a difficult decision to opt for the University of Victoria, on beautiful Vancouver Island in 1971. During the spring of my senior year there, in 1974, Canada instituted an amnesty plan to regularize the immigration status of various types of residents. The publicity for the program seemed to me to be aimed at American draft dodgers and others with legal problems, so I ignored it and missed the application deadline-- only to discover too late that a lot of foreign students like myself had taken advantage of it to acquire Landed Immigrant status, and the benefits (especially work permits) that went with it.

By the time I had decided to stick around after graduation and accept a job offer, Landed Immigrant status had become much more difficult to obtain. I ended up staying in town as a visitor, working for no pay, and leaving the country to undergo an interview at the Canadian consulate in Seattle – [“Parlez-vous français?” I was asked without warning, mid-conversation—an absurd question to almost any Canadian west of Wa-Wa, Ontario] – and later exiting once again to, enter properly when my papers finally came through.

I planned to stay for a few years before returning Stateside— even bought a one-way airline ticket back home once, which I ended up selling to someone else. But in 1980 I married a Canadian and have lived here ever since. Nationality was not a particularly big deal in my mind when I went north the first time, and I was fairly indifferent to the idea of becoming a Canadian citizen. I have periodically flirted with it over the years, especially back when I still thought it might be nifty to promise allegiance to the Queen. But between the ongoing follies of Her Majesty’s pathetic offspring, and the picture of increasingly unchecked anti-Americanism among many Canadians, especially those in high government office, I have never been less interested in signing on to the electoral rolls than I am at this present moment.

I have great Canadian friends, and a small, close community I would be reluctant to part from. I’ve always cheered for Canadian Olympians (and for their Olympic TV coverage, which is consistently superior to the smarmy American stuff). NHL hockey’s not what it used to be, but I’ve been to the Gardens and Forum, and still watch the play-offs (LEAFS SUCK – GO HABS). I am never reluctant to sing the National Anthem in both official languages—been doing that since I was about 8. Still, I’m an alien in a foreign land. And although now having a Canadian husband and children probably protects me from certain punitive measures, I have never believed that, were I to run afoul of Canadian law, I should be above deportation to my country of citizenship.

When the joints were being passed around at the university house parties, I would have fully expected to get the boot if we got busted. (As if anybody would care! It was B.C.!) I’ve attended a demonstration or two in my time—had I ever been detained for any reason, I would understand if my residential status were to affect the legal consequences of my actions. If I failed to pay my taxes or to declare my purchases at the border, if I scammed old ladies out of their pensions and the government out of its benefits, should Canada choose to draw a distinction between the penalties for citizens and those for foreigners like me, that has always seemed reasonable to me. I’m not a Canadian citizen, nor likely to be.

As it happens, in the past 40 years Canada has modeled itself so closely on continental Europe that its own indifference to citizenship concerns leaves me and my fellow Landed Immigrants pretty safe. It’s hard to imagine what anyone would have to do to actually get deported from here. (Deportation orders do get issued, but enforcement is ridiculously lax.) Yet I have never taken for granted any right to be treated like those who have signed on for Queen and country. I’ve made a conscious choice not to, and my status is no more than what it is. On the other hand, I did stand in line, and went to the trouble of obtaining that status properly, legally. This does accord me a certain prescribed set of rights and privileges.

That’s a status I share with the people who came before me: my Irish ancestors who entered the United States (some via Canada) in the 1850’s, as did the Bavarian farmers of Minnesota, or my Greek grandfather whose name is on the Immigrant Wall of Honor on Ellis Island, where he entered, a boy of ten all alone, in about 1905. I entered Canada on a well-maintained, gleaming white car ferry that docks in the downtown harbor in front of the old-world-glamorous chateau-style Empress Hotel, amid banks of flowers and shops peddling tea and tartans. I didn't share my ancestors' experience of stinking steerage and sea-sickness and button-hooks under the eye-lids. But we all waited our turn, and jumped through the hoops required of us.

I have always thought Canada's official bilingualism was the stuff of a foolish delusion, but they tested my French before admitting me, and that was their right. Should I ever seek citizenship, it will be expected that I'll have a grasp of Canadian history and be able to sing the anthem (no sweat on either scale), and if my 32 years of residence without citizenship were to give anyone pause, that's their right too. Love of an adopted country is important, but it is first and best expressed in respect for its laws, and humility in the face of its gracious welcome.

The spectacle of thousands of Mexican flags waving above bullying avowals that "Tomorrow We Vote" told a tale that could not be obscured by mist of sympathetic reportage. People who have worked hard, paid taxes, and kept out of trouble have not done the United States a kindness, nor have they "earned" a reward-- they have exploited the country's administrative incompetence for their own self-interest. Not a mortal sin -- maybe -- but not, by any stretch, a virtue.
It's a situation that must be dealt with, with justice (which may not be easy to define) but without guilt-laden hand-wringing and bathos. We used to be made of stronger stuff than that-- and we looked to our immigrants to follow our lead.

ONWARD!
Why don't we start by checking to see if the guys picking grapes in
Nancy Pelosi's non-union California vineyards have any genuine ID.

SPORTSBLAST:
Curling isn't the only ice sport where things get swept

LES HABITANTS WIN TWO,
GET FLATTENED IN FOUR

SIGH.

JON STEWART LIED -- STEPHEN COLBERT DIED!!!

On last night's "Daily Show" Jon Stewart's lead fake news items included a report about the graduation ceremonies of a battalion of Iraqi soldiers, 1000 Sunnis strong, who, upon learning that they were to be assigned to protect a Shia area, immediately began a full-tilt rebellion, hollering and stripping off their uniforms. The appropriate film footage was provided, first showing the men marching somewhat clumsily on parade, and then mid-riot-- with the clear implication that these were the same people, and their two behaviors were separated by mere minutes. [In the era of Michael Moore-style editing, one is wise not to trust one's lying eyes on these matters.]

I have been unable to verify from any other source that this event ever occurred, which is not to say that Stewart's show pretends to be a reliable source of true news. However, he normally doesn't have to stretch facts too far to find his fuel for mockery-- it's all about context.

And it's the context of his fake report that really irritated me. He juxtaposed the set-up piece about the troop rebellion with what he characterized as the sole available item of good news from Iraq: that there are plans for a water-park tourist attraction in Baghdad.

This he treated as if it were evidence of both insanity and stupidity. Yes indeed, what can one do but ridicule the very idea that anyone in Iraq is hopeful for the future, looking to transform their besieged surroundings into a place that will one day reflect the past greatness of this historic city, or at the very least to inject into its present insecurity some belief in the possibility of normalcy.

The truth is that even during the much-ballyhooed "shock and awe" of March 2003, Baghdad was a city where lights were on and traffic flowed day and night-- we saw it on CNN's stationary camera which remained after their reporters got evicted. And to this day, in most of the city commerce goes on at a great rate-- people eat in cafés, and purchase cars and electrical appliances (including once-forbidden communications technology) in unprecedented numbers.

Furthermore, those of us who believe in keeping an eye on reality instead of comforting ourselves with our set fantasies, have followed the periodic reports of Iraqi plans for the eventual return of tourism-- courageous and entrepreneurial Iraqis (yes-- you know-- those crazy brown A-rabs who live over there near that continent place) have been busy drawing up plans for hotels and civic improvements which they truly believe will be achievable sooner rather than later. And good for them. I suspect they will persevere, with or without Jon Stewart's approval. They have faith in their people. Jon Stewart craves acceptance from his.

So I'm prepared to buy that the "Daily Show" rebellion footage had its genesis in some episode of truth. But the context-- that nothing good ever happens, or ever will, in the vast pile of rubble that is Iraq-- falls into the category of malicious and manipulative LIE. It is a lie about, primarily, the day-to-day, person-to-person small victories being ground out by the American/coalition military in the field and their Iraqi allies. Stewart can do his thing and have great shows without resorting to insulting and condescending to these people. I wish he would. When he's on his game there's nobody better.

Stephen Colbert's game is of a different kind than Stewart's. I watched his opening show with great anticipation, but was disappointed. His usual schtick didn't seem sustainable for a full half-hour. But he found his groove, and mostly he's completely hilarious.

However, he got up in front of President Bush and the assembled Washington press corps, and DIED. Now, I don't envy anybody who had to follow the Bush-and-doppelganger (impersonator Steve Bridges) duo



who had completely disarmed what can only be described as a substantially hostile audience pretending to be civil for one night. But Colbert just misfired, and I think he would have done so with this material whether the President had upstaged him or not. Some of it is funny, but a lot of it just goes thud and lies there.



There was an overall real mean-spiritedness about the routine (even towards the press), which was a mistake, and is not typical of what he does on his television show. Worst of the night: the bit about keeping generals from retiring began on the taste borderline, and then crossed over into what can only be called shameful calumny with the closer: "If you're strong enough to go on one of those pundit shows, you can stand on a bank of computers and order men into battle." That one was truly disgusting.

He seemed to be falling in and out of his O'Reilly parody persona, when consistency as one or the other would have served him better. Mostly he just went on too long on a given theme-- like Bush's approval rating, for instance: again, borderline at best, and then he floggged it to death. It didn't help that the President(s) had pre-empted a lot of his jokes (and done them better). He paused and stared at his notes several times, as if jettisoning material that no longer looked promising-- at these times he seemed in danger of breaking into a Nixonian sweat.

A few of the bits were just too obscure, like the line on Scott McLellan, who was said to have retired because he "really felt like he needed to spend more time with Andrew Card's children." What was that about? Presumably McLellan doesn't have any children-- whether by choice or by fate, is that proper fodder for comedy? If it's a sterility problem, was the cruelty of the joke worth a laugh? Shades of Al Franken's "jokes" about Newt Gingrich's adolescent daughter and various people's ex-wives, back in '96.

The Colbert-as-press-secretary video was pretty good, and ended up, perhaps unintentionally, being a rather unflattering snapshot of some of the more prominent members of the White House press corps. Maybe that's why the reaction to it was tame-- or maybe the whole appearance had just gone on too long, with too many seconds of dead air.

It's not that the room was hostile to Colbert-- they erupted into laughter at the truly funny stuff. But the funny stuff was rare, and the mean parts were really mean, especially the slam at the generals-- that kind of thing can rob the routine of its oxygen.

In the cold light of day, Colbert's laugh-challenged performance has gone unmentioned by the media who couldn't bring themselves to gloss it up, and lauded beyond measure by those whose partisanship impairs their ability to discern what they're seeing. Some of the more myopic commentators have praised him for his courage. Daniel at Bloggledygook pours cold water all over that:

... it has become tiresome to hear talk of courage in this case, as if Colbert is in some fear for his life, but chose to stand against the fascist state and mock the president and media. Rubbish. The easiest place in the world to be snarky is Washington D.C. The Capitol virtually runs on snark. I pointed out that courage would be exemplified by an Iraqi mocking Saddam (when still in office) where speaking against the government carried very real danger.

The other point that begs to be made is that the shrieking about police states, etc. demonstrates just how humorless much of Colbert's audience is. There is less comedy being made than the fiction that Colbert and Jon Stewart "speak" for some voiceless mass. In the age of the ubiquitous opinion, screaming at the top of one's lungs that one's speech is being stolen is absurd and in itself, the best form of satire practiced today.

Collective IQ of Bush Administration Doubles Overnight!
TONY SNOW HIRED AS PRESS SECRETARY

Collective IQ of Universe Set to Multiply to the Tenth Power!
I'M HAVING A GRANDCHILD

WHAT’S REALLY IMPORTANT [and I mean it this time] (Part 2):
L’CHAIM – TO LIFE!

Backgrounder:
On the weekend of April 21 this set of Marine parents (me and the spousal unit) decided to attend the first annual conference sponsored by Marineparents.com, held in Houston, Texas.

We had absolutely no idea what to expect—what kind of cross-section of the American military family we would meet there. The experience and the people were impressive, tremendously informative, and deeply sobering.

The highest-profile (and busiest) speaker of the weekend was Colonel Bryan McCoy, whose 3rd Battalion of the 4th Marine Regiment pushed into Baghdad on April 7, 2003, and helped the locals topple Saddam’s statue in Firdos Square on April 9th. They also saw fierce fighting (and took numerous losses) in the first battle for Fallujah in 2004. He’s a tough, intelligent, commanding man, the sort whose troops would walk through burning coals and broken glass for him—something he would never ask of them unless he had first done it himself.

At the other extreme of the assembled Marine community was Chelsea B--, a very young mother of two whose husband is serving his second tour of Iraq. She would seem perfectly at home doing her nails with her high school girlfriends listening to Britney Spears and cooing over Orlando Bloom. Instead she manages a Marine wives’ internet message board with over 300 participants, helping them manage their affairs and keep their wits collected while their husbands patrol dusty streets in over 100º heat, ignoring their 60 lbs. of gear as their eyes dart in every direction.

In the middle ground was Steve S--, wearing full dress blues and shuffling tipsily with the aid of his mother’s arms and a four-foot staff. When he sits his right arm shakes uncontrollably, fingers pounding against his knee. Amid the brown hair on the right side of his head is a massive s-curve of scar tissue, hiding the shattered source of all that nerve damage.

Among those standing for Steve when he was introduced by his commanding officer, Col. McCoy, were the Gold Star Parents for whom we had all previously stood in tribute: the Norwoods, who had sat with Laura Bush in the congressional gallery during the 2005 State of the Union Address and were spontaneously hugged by an Iraqi woman with a voter’s purple finger (Byron Norwood, age 25, died in Fallujah in November 2004); the Starrs, whose son’s private final letter telling of his pride in the help he knew he was giving to Iraqis longing for freedom, became famous when it was selectively quoted by the New York Times so as to appear jaded and despairing (Cpl. Jeff Starr, age 22, died near Ar Ramadi in May 2005—); the Franks, who turned their grief into action by starting the Heart of a Marine Foundation to give moral and material support to military families in need (Phillip Frank, age 20, died in April 2004 near Fallujah). There were others.

“Gung ho” is usually a derogatory term used to describe those who plough into a project with mindless enthusiasm. Our time with these Marine parents taught us, among other things, that it is clearly possible combine being gung-ho with being wise, wary, compassionate, and realistic. Having been heavily dosed with realism at every turn, we nevertheless emerged from the encounter with even greater respect for the life our son has chosen, and the sense that there is much we can do for him and his new wife, and ourselves, to take us through the perils that may lie ahead.

Or should I say, “him, his wife, and his child.” Barely have we had a chance to digest the sights and experiences afforded to us as Marine parents, before we are informed as of today that we are to be (Marine) grandparents, come this December. I am not sure which part of this scenario I find more implausible—my son the Star Wars/ Lord of the Rings geek being a father, or me the perpetually goofy failed beatnik being a grandparent. But such we are. In the space of 14 months our immediate family will have seen three weddings and two babies—doomsday demographics be damned! We’re holding up our end, by God!

Let the baby madness begin! (VISA card now officially smokin'.)

Lesser news:
INSIDE THE BELTWAY
President Bush has announced what was no longer surprise news-- that he has replaced Defensive Doughboy Scott McLellan with FOX news and radio pundit Tony Snow to be his press secretary.

OOO-RAH.

AT LAST somebody there will have some idea of how the job is done. Kudos to the Snow-man. Lots and lots of stuff has gone horribly wrong under the Bush administration, but the relentless, exasperating, needless, suicidal inability and UNWILLINGNESS to communicate with a predominantly well-disposed American public has been by far its most egregious failing.

It's a desperately sad -- pathetic, really -- comment on this administration that, in a time of a shootin' war overseas and an ideological sectarian war within the walls of the United States Capitol, the mere replacement of a press spokesman can take on such profound importance. But this move addresses (and, we hope, dresses) the most festering wound in the Republican body politic. One waggish blog commenter proposed a White House press briefing room reality show, where Tony gets to decide whether to entertain a question from Helen Thomas or just "bitch slap" her on general principles. I think his first duty ought to be to bitch-slap the President into treating us like adults.

BARELY NOTICED: IRAQ FORMS UNITY GOVERNMENT

Democrats lose yet another stick for beating the bushes.

Mum's the word. If this gets out there is a risk people will start thinking that
(a) something good could be happening over there-- CAN'T HAVE THAT!
(b) brown-skinned foreign people might actually be capable of democratic self-rule, and our interest in making sacrifices to help them might be justified.

There are those who say that Republicans are spiralling into oblivion as they head towards the fall election.

Why am I sitting here feeling kind of sorry for the left? I'll deal with that later.

For now I'll just enjoy being in the grip of the warm-fuzzies, what with the stork on the horizon.

WHAT'S REALLY IMPORTANT
FOX TV's PRISON BREAK is back on the air, after an inexplicable hiatus of several months, which has nevertheless failed to dim the fans' interest in the show. It continues to be preposterous in so many respects, but who cares? It's a new idea, about something other than doctors, lawyers, and cops. The cast is a great group of "types" (though they are perhaps becoming a bit too cuddly as they become the Great Escape team).

It's fun to keep watching Stacy Keach turn up in new avatars-- I've been a fan of his since he was a grad student doing Shakespeare in 1963, and have enjoyed his journey from Bad Bob the Albino to Barrabas to Frank James to Mike Hammer to Ken Titus (one of my all-time favorites), and now finally to "the Pope" of Fox River Penitentiary. (Lots of forgettable crap in between, but what actor hasn't done that?)

Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) is once again up to what I am begiinning to understand are his old tricks, immediately following PRISON BREAK. Our household has quite suddenly decided to become addicted to 24, and are in the process of catching up with DVD's of the first season while trying to follow the latest instalments. Again, it's all preposterous, but well put together and a new twist on cliff-hanging.


COUNTDOWN TO CALUMNY -- The Da Vinci Code (no I'm not linking, thank you very much) opens in one month
It will probably be an entertaining film, since Ron Howard actually has talent in inverse proportion to that so absent in the bland-faced, wide-eyed fake-o literato Dan Brown.

I hate to contribute my thirteen Canuckbucks (or whatever will be the new "blockbuster" price of admission) to this ignoble effort, but I suppose I'll have to do a consumer's test on it, in the public interest of course. I had vowed never to pay the ticket price for Michael Moore's lie-fest, Fahrenheit 911 (deadly serious, highly recommended critique found here, from the Ethics and Public Policy Center in D.C.), and had planned to theatre-hop at the cineplex and see it for free. Instead I ended up buying a previously viewed DVD so cheap that Moore couldn't possibly have made enough for a Mars bar out of it-- in fact, as a re-sale item, I expect he got nothing. Ah-- feels so good.

So I'll probably see the Da Vinci Fraud, perhaps de-frauding my way into it (I've never done that before-- it's unethical of course!-- but on a 1-to-10 scale of unethical acts it has to rate about a 2 when the film project itself rates at least a 12, and the book is up in the four-score-and-seven neighborhood.)

I am one of the least "thin-skinned Christians" I know, but I've taken the pledge [The Da Vinci Code Pledge for Thin-Skinned Christians] about this book/film, and have to see the business through. Salman Rushdie has apparently pronounced the Dan Brown book "a book so bad it makes bad books look good." Amen to that, as it were. Now we have to see if Ron Howard can make a silk burse out of a sow's ear. (heh-- a little church humor there)

POLITICS: IT WAS 2006 WHEN I WENT TO BED...
But I woke up and it was January 2005-- the date when a more politically astute President would have conducted a very normal, post-election "shuffle" (as they call it in the Parliamentary tradition) and pumped some new blood into his cabinet and administrative staff. The announcements over the past week or two of some personnel changes in the Bush administration are LONG overdue, and this cabinet shuffle now risks looking like the proverbial re-arrangement of the deck chairs on the Titanic. It needn't be, but he's cut it awfully close.

FOR ONCE THE ARMCHAIR GENERALS ARE ACTUAL GENERALS
As one who has been advocating the replacement of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld since December of 2003, I'd like to welcome the Snippity Six-- the list of carping American generals now calling for Rumsfeld's blood-- aboard this particular Ship of State, now that it's listing badly and limping into port with chunks of ice on its deck.

It's too little (by which I mean small and petty) too late, gentlemen. Replacing Rumsfeld now would be suicidal for the current administration both at home and abroad, would cripple the effectiveness and security of our military in the field, and wouldn't bring back a single dead kid who shouldn't have been so vulnerable to cross-border jihadists and re-grouping insurgents.

As military careerists go, what the hell are you people thinking? and how did you get into positions of authority in the armed forces? Oh yeah-- there was that 12-year hiatus in sanity, when the elder (and wimpier) Bush and the flabby anti-military Clinton were in charge, and morons like Wesley (engage the enemy from 30,000 feet-- don't fire till you see the whites of their embassy roofs) Clark, or jittery dudes like Anthony Zinni (self-admitted screw-up responsible for the USS Cole bombing) were earning their stars.

Once upon a time soldiers who couldn't carry out their commanders' orders used to run on their swords-- today they can just resign, and should do so, silently, if they cannot in conscience obey their superiors. The danger to our troops posed by this plainly orchestrated revolt of the six generals is not so very far removed from a "fragging" incident-- where the rank and file turn on their officers and kill them. Fragging is traditionally a desperate measure taken to preserve troops from some pointless suicide mission ordered by an inexperienced or unfit officer. But we should recall that during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq there was a premeditated fragging multiple murder of officers by a Muslim-convert soldier with divided loyalties. So ideological fragging has its precedents too, as does fragging by envious or tetchy malcontents.

The editorial at OpinionJournal.com makes one of the more important points about the generals and their hastily-enthusiastic allies in the media:

The anti-Rumsfeld generals have a right to their opinion. But there's a reason the Founders provided for civilian control of the military, and a danger in military men using their presumed authority to push elected Administrations around. As for Democrats and their media allies, we can only admire their sudden new deference to the senior U.S. officer corps, which follows their strange new respect for the "intelligence community" they also once despised. U.S. military recruiters might not be welcome on Ivy League campuses, but they're heroes when they trash the Bush Administration.

'Nuff said.

Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit has compiled a Rumsfeld-o-rama to discuss the situation -- typical of the good right-wing blogs, this is a place to chew on a variety of genuinely thoughtful and differing opinions on the subject. You won't find this kind of stuff too often on the left, nor will you find anyone on the left admitting that the right is the truly big-tent movement in politics. (There is one small stirring on the left, aiming to break out of the lunatic fringe's stranglehold on liberal public discourse-- if you can call the obscenity-laced blog-based spewings of Bush Derangement Syndrome "discourse" -- and we welcome and congratulate the founders of the Euston Manifesto site. But I digress.)

Having personally fumed and smoldered with frustration for about a year, I spent much of the 2004 election season sending (unanswered) emails to Mary Matalin, Mark Wallace, Ed Gillespie, Peggy Noonan, and whoever else I could think of involved in the Republican campaign, expressing, among other things, the vital need for the President to inform the nation in very specific terms about the genuine acocmplishments in Iraq, as well as the equally vital need to promise a cabinet shake-up upon re-election. If I may quote myself, I wrote to one of those people:

I don’t think it would hurt the President to hint that this [cabinet shuffle] is a possibility, the advantage to which is that it points toward dealing with the biggest liability of the current administration: like it or not, it’s Rumsfeld. He is partially a liability based on public perceptions, some of which may not be entirely fair. But in my opinion he has been a genuine liability in the prosecution of the war, and nothing – NOTHING – that anyone, including the President himself, could tell me would convince me otherwise.

He [Rumsfeld] has very identifiable theories about managing the military-- I stand with those...who think his theories are dead wrong—“dead” in the most literal and lethal sense: I believe they have cost us hundreds of unnecessary deaths among the under-trained reservists who occupied the most dangerous territory in Iraq between May 2003 and March 2004... I can also tell you, with all sincerity, that I would mark a ballot which said “Bush/Cheney but not Rumsfeld” with much more enthusiasm than the one which will read just “Bush/Cheney”—and I am not alone in this.

Obviously nobody took my advice (fools!), and Bush won by a fraction of the margin he should have, over an incompetent and repugnant (even to his fellow-Democrats) opponent.

Bush got on the "inform the people" bandwagon too late to undo the damage among a public brutally deceived by the mainstream press, and he still persists in ignoring his most powerful defense: the millions of captured Iraqi documents finally being circulated and translated. (Documents which clearly show, among other things, the active links between Iraq and Al Qaeda, and Saddam's pre-9/11 plans for sending suicide bombers to the United States-- baffling! Nor has Bush seen fit to shine the glare of attention on the Oil-for-Food scam, the yellowcake lies of Joseph Wilson, and the treachery of our UN Security council "allies" every step of the way throughout his administration. Sometimes he seems almost as suicidal as the sweet-faced young bombers.)

As for the Rumsfeld problem, it is far too late to undo that at all. Much would be lost, and nothing would be gained-- at least Bush is apparently not THAT suicidal.

THE ULTIMATE WEDGIE FOR SCOTT MCLELLAN
I suspect Bush is dealing with the McLellan problem without having read my advice, but better late than never on that one. The pudgy press prefect (whom I have previously pounded on here), has been unspeakably horrible at his job from the moment he stepped nervously up to the podium, and will soon be mercifully gone. I guess the grown-ups finally got home and the babysitter had to take away his toys and send him to bed. Good riddance. I'd feel sorry for him if I thought he had any idea how humiliating both his performance and his exit have been, but I just don't think he gets it.

The footnote to all this is that Evil Genius Karl Rove has been re-assigned to what he does best, or better anyway, that is, working on elections. He had been a chief domestic policy advisor, and as I've said many a time, this is proof enough that he's no genius-- for years now Bush has been the recipient of some of the worst advice in the history of advice (and that's from the people he actually listens to). And Rove can't really be evil because evil tends to be clever, and he's not. Anyway, he got displaced from his policy portfolio, and that can only be to the good.

LATEST BUZZ FROM HOLLYWOOD:
ACTOR MARTIN SHEEN GOES TO COLLEGE

According to the Washington Times, actor Martin Sheen is trading his TV role as U.S. president on The West Wing for that of a real-life college student. An Irish citizen through his mother, Sheen plans to attend the National University of Ireland in Galway, to study English literature, philosophy and theology with special interest in oceanography. the BBC reports that Sheen, 65, has several honorary degrees but has been quoted as lamenting his lack of a "proper" education. (He flunked out of the University of Dayton, purposely, he claims, so he could become an actor against the wishes of his father. Others say he never got in at all-- who knows. Or cares?)

A long-time political activist (read: left-wing Hollywood moonbat gum-flapper-- but not the worst by any means), Sheen has been approached recently about running for elected office. He wisely declined, stating "I'm just not qualified. You're mistaking celebrity for credibility." (Brilliantly put, I must admit. I'm thinking of embroidering it on a small throw pillow.)

Apropos of which, Kathryn Jean Lopez relays this from one of her readers on National Review Online-- The Corner

THE SENATE GETS NO RESPECT!
From a reader, reacting to Martin Sheen saying he's not qualified:

Your point is well taken, but I think Sheen is quite wrong that he is unqualified for the Senate. Besides an exaggerated sense of self-importance and a tolerance for making cameo appearances at committee meetings, what are the qualifications for the U.S. Senate again?

Martin Sheen is the father of actor Charlie Sheen, the hobbyist structural engineer who has decreed the collapse of the World Trade Center towers on September 11 to have been the result of a conspiracy-based controlled demolition. Martin Sheen should give his son Charlie Sheen a good Irish boot upside the head.

The three most important factors in your REAL ESTATE decision:
"LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION!"

Will it be Diwaniyeh (Iraq) or Dinuba (California)?







Historian Victor Davis Hanson does an unscientific analysis of his recent experiences at home and away, coming to the conclusion that security is a challenge everywhere, and on any given day California can feel like a war zone. Hanson wonders how Californians would feel if their dark side were publicized daily in a way comparable to mainstream reporting on Iraq. The statistics would be a little daunting if

...the world awoke each morning to be told that once again there were six more murders, 27 rapes, 38 arsons, 180 robberies, and 360 instances of assault in California — yesterday, today, tomorrow, and every day... Another $20 million spent today on housing our criminals... Another $100 million borrowed today — $3 billion more in red ink to pile up by month’s end!

And on and on and on. [California: Golden State or hellhole? Film at 11:00.....]

Hanson recently returned to California from a brief sojourn in the Sunni Triangle. Things had not been so peaceful in his absence:

While I was gone, a drug-addicted criminal with a long list of convictions broke into our kitchen at 4 a.m., was surprised by my wife and daughter, and fled with our credit cards, cash, keys, and cell phones.

Sometimes I wonder who really was safer that week.

I'm not picking on Dinuba, by the way -- it just pairs up euphoniously with the Iraqi reference. (However it does have a violent crime rate 25% higher than the national average, and property crime is about 35% higher. Ahem.)

IRAQ LIBERATION DAY -- APRIL 9

The Blogosphere is celebrating, as presumably are many Iraqis, quietly -- the major Iraqi blogs haven't weighed in yet, except at "Free Iraqi," which has changed its address to reflect the new perspective [now found at http://afreeiraqi.blogspot.com] and has maintained its motto, in place since December 24, 2004: "I was not living before the 9th of April and now I am, so let me speak!"



This is my favourite 2003 memory image from other posts of recent days (hat-tip: Winds of Change) because it's all about the future.

Michael Yon is back in Iraq ("speaking the truth to power!", as the saying goes!) and sends word of his new 'net initiative "Frontline Forum -- real soldiers with real stories"-- a forum for military people on the ground in the big sandbox, to tell first-hand about what they see and what they know the Mainstream/Drive-byMedia aren't interested in.

The April 9 entry, from Army Sergeant Tim Boggs (now on his second Iraq deployment) recounts his unit's relationship with a refugee family [refugees from an abusive marriage, not from war] made up of a mother and three children, who camped near, and eventually inside of, their base in sunny Umm Qasr -- 140 degrees and no shade. Sgt. Boggs ends with this observation:

My hope for Iraq lies in the next generation. Through the efforts of some amazing soldiers, I believe a seed has been planted that will one day bloom into a mass of young children raised on knowing the kindness and gentleness of American soldiers. When that time comes I believe we will finally enjoy the fruits of our labor in the Middle East.

If there are any parallels to be drawn between the Vietnam and Iraq wars (and there are a few-- only a few), Sgt. Boggs may have hit on the most important one. The American left, and their political confrères abroad, are still living Vietnam because it suits them to be immersed in American failure and self-loathing-- they live in the past, even as the Vietnamese people (the vast majority of whom were born after the war) live for the future. Knock yourselves out, Deaniacs and Kossacks-- you probably won't be able to get the Vietnamese to hate America as much as you do, and you're not likely to get most Iraqis to do so either. History will tell.