Chased by a floating hatchet

Here's a hilarious article about Clark and Moore.

Ok, so its not really funny. More ironic. But its entertaining, at least.

There's an altar in the valley to things in themselves as they are

P.J. O'Rourke 'looks much too closely at the current crop of stump speeches' in the Jan/Feb Atlantic Monthly:

- on Kerry (who gets more than a fair share of that looking): "More common than lies are vague generalities, in which candidates sometimes tangle themselves by Brer Rabbit means. 'We cannot talk vague generalities,' John Kerry says, immediately after saying, 'We don't have to choose between jobs and the environment. Protecting the environment is jobs-- the high-value-added jobs of the future.'"

- on Bush: "Mainstream Democratic candidates don't advocate spending--just investing... George Bush, however, thinks that people should make their own bad investments. 'The best and fairest way,' he says, 'to make sure Americans have... money is not to tax it away.' He's going to give us money by not taking it. The other candidates do not point out that this sounds like a protection racket. They favor tax cuts too."

- on Kerry again: "And around and around, it could be argued... One might say of all the candidates that 'false rhetoric becomes a substitute for meeting the reality of our challenges.' But Kerry, who actually does say that, provides the best examples: 'They talk about heroes in New York City... But let me remind those Republicans of something: every single one of those firefigthers, every single one of those police officers, every single one of those emergency medical personnel... were members of organized labor.'"

- and on Bush again: "Bush proposes 'a new approach to helping unemployed Americans through Personal Re-employment Accounts,' saying that 'Americans who face the greatest difficulties in finding work will receive up to three thousand dollars to use in their job search... If the job is obtained quickly... the worker will be able to keep the cash as a Re-employment Bonus.' Job-hopping from KFC to Wendy's on a weekly basis, you could make $156,000 a year."

And I would like to include his words of 'wisdom' on Edwards, Dean, Lieberman, ex-candidate Mosley Braun, Sharpton, and Clark... but you'll have to buy the magazine if you want to see those.

Bazooka tooth

Nick Kristof's articles from Cambodia (for the New York Times) are quite thought-provoking. The first (from January 14) is on sweatshops, while the second (from January 17) is on the slave trade. I'd recommend reading Brooks, too, but then, I'd always recommend reading Brooks.

When I get a job, I am getting the New York Times delivered to my door. That's how I'll know I've made it, when I can afford to have them send that beacon of journalistic quality (and I think that, despite some recent problems, its undisputable that the Times still sets the standard for daily journalism in America, if not the world) to my front stoop (here in suburban paradise) every day. When I can afford to have some poor newspaper deliveryman drive all the way from Atlanta with my copy of the freshly printed Times at four a.m. so that I can read it from six-fifteen to seven over a bagel. That's having it made. (And we all know how important having it made is.)

Punk rock died when the first kid said "Punk's not dead"

So, nearly a year after we invaded Iraq, I've made up my mind as to whether doing so was justified or not (not that my doing so really matters or anything, but I couldn't help it). Here's the article that finalizes it for me, from Slate.

Also, this opinion column from Egypt, on the French attempt to ban religious symbols from their schools, is moderately interesting. At least the Imam of Al-Azhar is consistent...

The sky is low and gray like a japanese table, and my horse's legs look like four brown shotguns

I dun moved to Athens now. All I need is a job and I'll be able to afford rent. I moved in with these two guys I don't know, Ben and Jake. They seem like nice guys. They're brothers, one studies geography buts taking this semester off to work here and go surfing in Costa Rica and the other's a piano/Spanish double major. I'm living in their mom's room (she moved to Birmingham last year) in a little suburban paradise; its too wierd to sleep in someone's mom's bed, so I stripped the sheets off and sleep in my sleeping bag on top of the bed.

I watched La Jetee, the French film that inspired 12 Monkeys (which I keep calling 28 Monkeys because of 28 Days Later). Its really good, probably better than 12 Monkeys (and more coherent), but there's a stretch of about six minutes in the middle where you can't read any of the subtitles because the subtitles are in white and the movie's black and white and the images are really bright, at least at the bottom of the screen where the subtitles are. That's a pretty big deal since the movie is only 28 minutes long. Still, its a fine film, and I think I understand 12 Monkeys better now, too -- La Jetee fills in a lot of the gaps that 12 Monkeys didn't bother to.

I think that "I Remember Me" by the Silver Jews is the saddest song I've ever heard.

It should have come with whipped cream and cherry on top

I know most people round here are a bit more excited about the college bowls, but I personally don't think there's anything better in sports than the English FA cup. For instance, this morning, Telford, a conference side, dropped Crewe Alexandria, a division one team, out with a convincing 2-0 win. To put that in a bit of perspective, its sort of like the Chattanooga Lookouts knocked the Atlanta Braves out of a nationwide competition which is intended to crown the best team in the nation, March-Madness style, but featuring every professional team in the country and, through qualifiers, every amateur side, too. For me, it was a decent day in the FA cup, as one of the teams I follow, Cardiff City, was knocked out 1-0, while the other, Everton, won 3-1.

America has its own version of the FA Cup, the U.S. Open Cup, which has been around since 1914, when the Brooklyn Celtics lost to Brooklyn F.C. Lately, its been all MLS teams, though, as only Rochester (an A-League team, the division right below MLS) has won the Open Cup since MLS started back in 96 or whenever it was.

Back in the 10's, 20's, and 30's, soccer in America was all about the poor kids, not the whining kiddies and soccer mommies who dominate it now... oh well, I think I'm over it now. Some rich history there, though... the Bethlehem Steel, Fall Rivers S.C. in the earlier years, the Cosmos (featuring Pele) in the seventies, the U.S. team, composed entirely of semi-professionals and college players that beat England, then the world's greatest team, 1-0 in the 1950 World Cup (a story that's being made into a movie now), Paul Caliguri's (I think) shot that landed the U.S. back in the World Cup in 1990 for the first time since 1950... mmmmm. The history is just as great (personally, I find it greater, but I'm aware that that's just my perverse bias, particularly against baseball) as any other sport in America. I love it.

Or how about Billy Gonsalves, the greatest American soccer player of all time, winner of eight U.S. Open Cups (including six in a row), who many said was, at the time, the greatest player in the world (including the manager of Glasgow Celtic, Scotland's biggest club, one of the top ten in the world).