The Goat

I'm in my second play in the last 17 years. Hey, it's looking like a trend.

It's a production of Edward Albee's The Goat. It's about Martin - about a 50 year old successful architect who has an ongoing carnal relationship with... yep... a goat. He's secret is discovered and man... the family fun that ensues.

No... I do not play the goat, okay. I play Ross, Martin's best friend and publisist.

The rest of the cast is very, very good. If Kim Grimaldi (the actress who plays Martin's wife Steevie) is half as good as her readthrough... we'll, she's going to blow peoples socks off. The role is a powerhouse (the awesome Mercedes Ruehl played Stevie on Broadway) and Kim seems more than up for the task.

Tom Geraty is playing Martin. He's definitely a pro - using his rehersal time to work, not impress. He's got a lot goin' on, but he's working with it, being careful and exploratory in rehersal. Dean Krouch plays Billy - the happy couple's 18 year old son - and is also very good.

Much fun so far and much work to do.

John Kerry - C3PO?

We need a protocol droid president because... well... I guess so he can talk with Kofi.

Hey Oprah - Where's My Gross Up?

Another lesson in unintended consequences. Think Ms Winfrey will get the take home message about the income tax?

Nah...

Snippets

Looks like Burkett was wooed for certain "documents" by Joe Lockhart:

CONTROVERSIAL TEXAS RANCHER SAYS LOCKHART WANTED DOCUMENTS // The source of a disputed CBSNEWS report claimed Thursday that Kerry adviser Joe Lockhart tried to "convince me as to why I should give them the documents." Texas Army National Guard Lt. Col. Bill Burkett tells the FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM that he has suffered four seizures since being identified as CBS' source and dogged by the media... Developing...

I haven't felt this giddy since I was a high school kid and the Washington Post was nailing Nixon!


You'll be shocked to hear this one - Rekha Basu thinks that beauty pageants are bad, bad, bad.

So the Young Women's Resource Center has decided it's fight-back time. It's holding what it calls the Anti-Pageant.

On Oct. 22 at Drake University's Morehouse Ballroom you can hear community leaders talk about their personal journeys to love their bodies, imperfections and all. [My God... I'd rather drink molten lead. Ed.] Among the 20 local women who've been invited to share are Lt. Gov. Sally Pederson, first lady Christie Vilsack, KCCI-TV news anchor Jeannette Trompeter, Kitty Weston-Knauer, the principal of Scavo High School, and a few columnists at this newspaper. It's from 7 to 8:30 p.m., and it's free.

They'll talk about resisting the bombardment of ad images and the lure of fad diets. The underlying message, says organizer Joy Esposito: "I get to be the judge of my body."

Yeah... you get to be the judge... unless Rekha gets her way and the "gov'mint" gets to tax fattening food like they do cigarettes.

Oh... and the Register Editorial board stays on it's Kerry-booster monotone, serving as an echo chamber for the the big boy liberal rags. It begins thus:

For a long time, the spin on the news from Iraq was that the American public wasn't getting the full story, that reports dwelling on the daily bombings, ambushes and killing masked all the good things happening.

Now it appears that, if anything, the picture Americans got from Iraq was too rosy. The situation on the ground increasingly looks to be far worse than previously believed.

Well... at least the ground where New York Times hacks and stringers are spinning news to chaos to influence the election.

Finally, the same REB is sniffing for more state revenues from the tobacco companies.

What were the Justice Department lawyers smoking that they thought the tobacco-subsidizing, tax-reaping, afraid-to-ban-cigarettes government has any moral standing to complain about the behavior of the tobacco companies?

Emphasis mine. The US Government should ban cigarettes???

I know what you REB moonbats are smoking.

Quelle Surprise, Non? - You Win by Fighting Back

The Belmont Club has a short piece on how the Israelies have beaten back the Intefada. How...? By taking out the perpitrators and building a wall to keep them out of Israel.

The most remarkable thing about Israel's campaign against the Intifada was not it's adoption of new warfighting concepts, like Europe's Human Security Doctrine, but its reversion to the oldest method of all: winning by fighting back. Social historians in the future, should we ever attain it, may endlessly wonder how it was possible for Western European and liberal American intellectuals to forget 5,000 years of military experience in favor of the slogans, some composed facetiously, of the Peace Movement of the 1960s.

It's really mind blowing to think of how accepted the simplistic, pacifist numbskullery of the 60's became common wisdom with the baby boomers.

Well... 9/11 was the last straw for this baby boomer.

Kerry's Real Weakness

Oh my God no!!! They have a nefarious plan to bring back the draft!!!

Who are they? Well... that's not important now! Come on kids, EVERYBODY SING!!!

Well, it's one two three
What are we fightin' for?
Don't ask me I don't give a damn...

You know why Kerry is crashing in the polls? Because he's basing his campaign on his own emotion and juvenile angst from 35 years old.

H/T (and link theft credit...) - Instapundit

Update: What he said...

Update Numero Dos: Meaty, bleaty goodness from Lileks on the topic. It's at the bottom and worth the wait.

Unintended consequences of Women's Rights

Okay, I'm bound to get in trouble for that heading. But there HAVE been negative, unexpected results from women leaving home and hearth and making their way into "a man's world".

Here's an article - written by a woman - that explores the topic. Money quote:

It is male aggression that built civilizations and furthered the
sciences, not women sitting around forming cooperatives and sharing
childcare.

Wow.

Now settle down, I'm not suggesting that we repeal the 19th Amendment. I just think it's a good idea that we be allowed to talk about sex differences and their impact on society... without demonizing the half of the population that's male.

Now... go read the rest. H/T - Kim duToit

Bias and Incompetence

The Register addresses Ra^thergate. The piece starts off pretty well, then tails off into equivocations, excuses and downright denial regarding obvious liberal bias in the mainstream media.

First, credit where credit is due:

The seasoned professionals at CBS were taken in by documents that amateur Internet bloggers [heh... ed] almost immediately spotted as questionable.

Then the spinning.

Republicans will charge that CBS has a liberal bias that made it too eager to accept the documents. The more probable explanation is that, in the fiercely competitive news business, CBS ran with the story before the documents showed up on some other network

Very probably and very tangentially true that competition played a role. But if the major media outlets are such competitive sleuths in a dog-eat-dog market, why weren't they all over the much more substantiated inconsistencies in John Kerry's Viet Nam service? Why aren't they dogging the Kerry campaign for full disclosure of his medical records?

Anyone who is intellectually honest knows why.

The underlying issue is how well modern journalism is serving the public in providing courageous, independent sources of information and opinion.

Wow, looks like they stumbled onto something here. I couldn't agree more. But don't hold your breath waiting for anything resembling this at the Register.

Everyone talks about media bias, but Tim Rutten, writing for the Los Angeles Times, [fount of independent, non-partisan journalism ed] suggested that the real story might not be about bias, but about incompetence. That's something the profession really needs to think about.

Man, if that ain't ironic...

Bill Leonard: Please Stay Retired... Okay?

News Flash!!! The "survival of the planet" is at stake. If you don't vote for John Kerry, we're doomed!!!

At least that's what Bill Leonard shouts from the Register's Anti-Bush pulpit with the fervor of a revival tent preacher.

Here's a sample of Mr. Leonard's lunacy:

* Someday - after the last tree has been cut from the last acre of
wilderness to feed the insatiable greed of the loggers, and after the mudslides
from the clear-cut mountains have destroyed the last trout streams.

* Someday - after Yellowstone has become a barren ground for off-road vehicles,
and all the national parks have been sold off (for peanuts) to the mining
interests.

* Someday - after tax-supported agricultural programs have
replaced the last family farms with factory farms whose stench has made outdoor
Iowa a health hazard.

Jeez Bill, you're kind of a raving moonbat.

He then goes on with some Malthsusian hogwash:

One of the most crucial elements in the desperate battle to save the world's resources is population control, an obvious imperative in a world that every day posts a net gain of 220,000 souls, a huge share of them born into hunger and hopelessness.

Hey Bill, you may want to read this. You're still back in the late '60s, my man. Paul R. Ehrlich was as dead wrong as he could be. The famines of the 1970s never happened. It's okay... calm down boyo.

I know you don't want to hear this Bill, but the best population control is affluence. The the road to affluence is globalization and free markets. Sorry.

The capper of it all is when Bill gives us an ecological history lesson:

The ultimate example is North Africa, once part of the Mediterranean's "Fertile Crescent." Centuries ago, heedless residents so abused their lush surroundings that the garden became the Sahara Desert - incapable of recovery because the destruction changed the entire subclimate

Uh... no Bill. The Sahara desert is not now nor ever has been part of the "Fertile Crescent". The Fertile Crescent is in Asia Minor... mostly Iraq to be exact.

Go back to your retirement Bill. You're very upset and I think it's time for your medication... or at least a stiff scotch. Here's some reading for you so you can chill a bit. It's really not so bad these days... unless you're a strident Kerry supporter.

When you have some time, you may also want to brush up on your history, general science and geography... before you write another guest column.

NY Times Asks the Candidates:

How Would They End the War?

Huh...? Am I missing something...?

There is only one rational answer to this question: "By winning." It's all about the how. Mr. Bush, you could be more forthright about this right now. You've got the lead because of your stance on the War on Terror.

Show your resolve. Tell the American people what you're going to do. They'll support you.

See you in November Falluja.

Basu - Let Multiculturalism Ring!

She's at it again - remaking Iowa in the UN's image.

I laughed out loud at her first one-sentence paragraph:

Congressman Steve King has become a full-scale embarrassment to
Iowa.

Now, I'm certainly not a big Steve King backer, but really Rekha - I thought you had that you had filled that position filled.

Rekha is concerned because Representative King has the audacity to shine a spotlight on her agenda.

Iowans are familiar with this ethnocentric, immigrant-baiting rhetoric from the western Iowa congressman. Earlier this year, he wrote to constituents, "words like diversity and multiculturalism are being used by those that want to erase the world's borders, create one currency and water down American values and democracy."

I take issue with Mr. King on many of his views. However, on this one... I'm afraid he's right. One of primary strengths as a country comes from diverse backgrounds melding into a common culture.

Multiculralism - and it's bastard stepchild "identity politics" - will be this country's undoing. You want live in the Balkans... stay this crazy quilt course.

As Teddy Roosevelt said almost 100 years ago:

We have room for but one language here and that is the English language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans of American nationality and not as dwellers of a polyglot boarding house.

Amen.

You know... it's almost as if Rekha wants the common culture in this country to evaporate into the UN "polyglot boarding house". Nah... that certainly could not be true.