American Athens

My father insists on calling my stepmother’s favorite country music artist by his relationship to other people. He’s known, for instance, as Faith Hill’s Husband or Tug McGraw’s Boy. I’m talking about Tim McGraw here, and it’s possible that my father will soon have a new name for him: Bill Frist’s Successor.
McGraw is considering entering […]

Billy: Peeing your pants is the coolest!
Old Lady: If peeing your pants is cool, consider me Miles Davis.
Billy: That’s the grossest thing I’ve ever heard.

I’m going to be out of the office this afternoon, but that’s no reason for me not to give you some of the Friday fun that you’ll, hopefully, come to expect. […]

I thought it fitting to have my first post be a year in review of of film. So here goes:
Best films of the year:
Me You and Everyone We Know: Written, Directed and Featuring Miranda July.
When I heard that performance artist July was set to make her first feature film, I assumed it would be an […]

Good Lord, if there’s any of Christ’s soldiers that I consistently salute, it’s old “Gen. J.C. Christian.” He’s reviewed right-wing, self-hating-woman Kate O’Beirne’s new tract Women Who Make the World Worse: and How Their Radical Feminist Assault Is Ruining Our Schools, Families, Military and Sports at Amazon. Behold, the Glory of the the Lord is […]

Yes, we all love baseball. Yes, we all love the Red Sox. We love them. The promise of opening day is the only thing that keeps me alive from January to March. I’d love to craft some lengthy post on the comings and goings of their personnel (on and off the field) and the consequent […]

… doesn’t really do it justice. Alito seemed appalled at the line of questioning. I’m still not defending him, but I can’t figure out what Graham was trying to do.
GRAHAM: For those who are watching who are not lawyers, generally speaking, in all of the wars that we’ve been involved in we don’t let the […]

Lindsey Graham (R-SC). The esteemed gentleman from the Palmetto State is either torpedoing his own SCOTUS nominee or falling on the grenade to make said nominee look more liberal than should be expected. Alito looks downright uncomfortable with Graham’s insistence that there should be no judicial recourse for enemy combatants, either US citizens or foreign […]

Now, the Republicans are never going to find a Majority Leader that I’m comfortable with or that I like, mostly because I don’t want them to have a Majority Leader at all. Of course, Tom Delay is one of the worst people ever, let alone what kind of politician he is. His troubles (i.e., his […]

Really, I’m not certain what to make of this, but … information wants to be free, so here you go:
The “deciding specific issues” approach to judicial decisionmaking has been associated with the Justice that Alito would replace, Sandra Day O’Connor. O’Connor is known for writing very narrow opinions that resolve little more than the […]

Day 1 of the Alito Hearings in … Haiku, from Hotline, via Kos.
My favorites, one R and one D:

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX)
Religious freedom
Rather than pornography
Cherish the former.

Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE)
You’re Conservative
“We Can Pretend That’s Not True”
But, Judge, Bro, it is.

There are three reasons we’ll be grilling you extra tough:
1. Your judicial opinions make you seem like a wingnut.
2. Sandra Day O’Connor was no wingnut.
3. Everyone who likes you is a wingnut.
Mr. Alito, are you a wingnut?

I had an awfully long post about a couple articles in the Globe this morning, but my computer froze and so it is lost to time. Suffice it to say:
1. Boston’s homicide rate is not as bad as Baltimore or D.C., yet not as good as Austin, Portland or Seattle.
2. The defense should not have […]

Andrew: Would you like a ride home?
Sam: Fine. But I’m not getting in that sidecar.

Andrew: Why not?

Sam: Sidecars are for bitches.
Really, the Governator and his son are fine.

Son of a bitch …
Trivia for White Wilderness (1958):
“This picture was filmed in Alberta, Canada, which is not a native habitat for lemmings. They were imported from Manitoba for use in the film, and were purchased from Inuit children by the filmmakers. The Arctic rodents were placed on a snow-covered turntable and filmed from various […]

At Blue Mass Group, FrankSkeffington has a diary that pretty much sums up the doings in the imbroglio over medical records inwhich Reilly entangled himself. The Worcester DA, John Conte, basically cleared everything up, shifting blame (and apparently, rightly so) onto the Northborough Police Chief Mark Leahy.
Finally Conte to the rescue (or for today at […]

Yay! The sun is shining, there’s great college basketball on, NFL playoffs start in a couple hours, The Female Companion has the day off and, to top it all off, Tom Delay is relinquishing his Majority Leader status. Every once in a while, the world spins at just the right speed.
Better yet, he’s adamant about […]

Ron: “Look, the most glorious rainbow ever.”
Veronica: “Do me on it!.”
Happy Friday, and as a reward: THE ULTIMATE SHOWDOWN OF ULTIMATE DESTINY, from Ezra Klein. And as Ezra said: Screw those SNL kids, this is the best thing ever on the internets. I will second that e-motion.

That, my internaut friends, is a pun. What makes it a pun, you ask? The disgraced, bribe-taking, influence-peddling former Republican Rep. from California is no fox, you think. Ah, but you think wrong, in this case. Time magazine tells us just show shifty the old man was (or at least how willing to cooperate):
Sources familiar […]

I have very, incredibly little to add to this eloquent, moving and, above all, substantive post by ReddHedd from firedoglake. To make you click through, here’s a portion:
We have lost our way in this country in terms of values. I don’t mean in the wingy sort of way in which values are usually discussed, […]

Reilly, as quoted by Brian McGrory in this morning’s Globe:

Reilly added, ”The law is very clear on this, that autopsy records are not public records. Did I try to protect the family’s privacy? Yes, I did. But in a criminal investigation, it’s clearly relevant”
[…]
”Those girls made a tragic mistake that night, and they paid for […]