The Domestic Spying Scandal

Okay, here's the first of several long overdue updates to this blog. Firstly, I want to talk about politics. There's a million differentr angles to take lately, what with the country in a political jam unheard of since the early 70's and Nixon, but I want to mostly focus on the wiretapping scandal. I'm sure you've heard that the Bush White House has been using the NSA to tap US citizens without a court order. I just want to explain why this is so wrong and corrupt on it's face.

The US Government relies upon separation of powers. The brilliance of this structure is that no one branch of government can become too powerful and dictatorial. To that end, mindful of what the Nixon Whie House did in the 70's (use the FBI to spy on political enemies), Congress in 1978 made it illegal to wiretap americans without a court order. This ensures some oversight on activities that can easily be misused (that is to say, used against the public's interest, a la Nixon).
Bush and his team were well aware of this. That's why, for the past few years, when defending the Patriot Act, he's been saying that any wiretapping needs a court order. Stop and think about that for a second. He made those statements while knowing full well he was authorizing wiretaps without a court order. In other words (repeat after me) he was Lying to the American People.

When the New York Times, as a courtesy, let Bush know it was going to reveal this, Bush summoned the publisher and editor to the oval office (this is true) and pleaded with them to kill the story. They refused, having heard Bush's 'this is a National Security issue' defence once too often. This was on last Friday. So then the Bush team, obviously panicked, brainstormed and came up with a new strategy. Call these proceedures vital to National Security and imply that the NY Times is a traitorous rag for printing the story.

Now, a lot of people, a sizeable minority anyway, will buy that story. Why? Because they want to believe it. They've backed W all the way and to change horses now would cause their brains to melt. But for a majority of Americans, these arguments are getting old. They see the reality - you made an unlawful power grab and got caught. Bush can dress it up however he likes, but this is the law, and he broke it. And if, as he says, the law wasn't responsive enough, then he needed to change the law.

So he's in trouble. If there was a democratic-controlled congress, there would probably be articles of impeachment brought, but that won't happen with the toadies running congress now. So that means the trouble will mostly be of a political kind. I believe that several old-school politicians and judges will speak out against this, realizing the constitutional precedent it sets, and being not quite so comfortable with a potential Democratic president acting the same way. This will further erode W's standing and hurt the GOP come election day 2006.

And now a closing thought: They impeached Clinton for lying about his personal sex life, but They'll give Bush a pass for lying abut WMD, Al Qaeda links to Iraq, and spying on US citizens. Doesn't seem quite fair, does it?

Why Chris Martin sucks ass and Jackie Green Freaking Rules

I can’t for the life of me figure out why Coldplay are absolutely huge and Jackie Green is almost obscure. Over the summer, I got into several debates about how much I think Coldplay suck. These discussions were a lot of fun, but I really mean it – I mean, they suck. Initially, I thought it was because they were just so wussy, especially Chris Martin, but that’s not fair to great wussy talents out there, like Prince. The truth is, they’re not only wussy, they’re wussy and mediocre. They talk about how they want to be the biggest rock group in the world and they don’t have a single tune that’s great. They have a couple of ok tunes, but when you want to be the heir apparent to U2 and Pearl Jam and The Police and, saints preserve us, The Beatles, ok just ain’t gonna cut it. From the outside, it doesn’t look like their popularity is based on great art – it looks like it’s based on fashion. That’s not to say that every fashionable band sucks – often fashion and talent intersect, and wonderful things happen. It just hasn’t happened with Coldplay. To me, they make Oasis look good, and Oasis aren’t very good at all.

It’s a funny thing – people want there to be a great, talented, huge, popular rock band out there. And if there isn’t one, they will nominate the next best thing – enter Coldplay. Trust me when I say that when the Real Thing emerges – a band with style, talent, charisma, and songwriting ability – people will look back at the early 21st century and go, ‘we were into them?’

Jackie Green, on the other hand, is for real. How do I judge if an artist is for real? Gooseflesh. When I listen to Jackie Green, the hairs stand up on my arms. My hair follicles involuntarily applaud. Unlike Chris Martin, Jackie Green knows how to write a song. Unlike Chris Martin, Jackie Green knows how to deliver a song. Unlike Chris Martin, Jackie Green doesn’t constantly say in interviews that he wants to be the biggest act in the world. And unlike Chris Martin, Jackie Green will be remembered because he’s for real. He doesn’t sing songs about vague concepts that could really be about anything (..and we were all….yellow…). He sings about real stuff and real people with real hearts. He plays guitars, pianos, organs, and a bitchin harmonica. He's a Beatlemaniac who sometimes covers the entire 'Abbey Road' album in concert. Well.

Did I mention he’s only 23 years old?

I have no doubt that eventually talent will win out, and that Jackie will be huge, because a talent like his can only stay in shadow for so long. Pick up his new album, ‘Sweet Somewhere Bound’ and tell me I'm wrong. I dare you. I double dog dare you.

Sin City

This is a prime example of a movie thats not for everyone. It's an extremely faithful adaptation of a hyperviolent black and white comic book about criminals, hookers and corrupt cops. Of course, I loved it. It's a wild ride. But again, its not for everyone. However violent you think this movie might be, adjust your expectations higher. When a movie contains not one, not two, but three on screen castrations, one of which is performed by someones BARE HANDS, you know you're in a whole new world of violence. Trust me - this movie will be the new poster boy for 'everything thats wrong with Hollywood'. Again, I thought it was great.

Let me attempt to explain why I liked it so much. First, its based on some pretty intense source material. Now, either you are going to translate it to the screen faithfully, which means violently, or not. If not, don't bother naking the movie. I mean, the whole point of the comics was that the only way to bring even a glimmer of justice to Sin City was through some far-out violence. The criminals are bad, the cops are sometimes worse, and evil politicians pull all the strings. So, whatever criticism you want to level at the movie, its a faithful adaptation.

As to the violence itself, its definitely intense, but its comic book violence. I mean, people get hit by machine gun fire and keep walking. People get hit in the head with sledgehammers and wake up an hour later none the worse for wear. As far as realism goes, this is somewhere near Looney Tunes on the accuracy scale.

The stories themselves are great. They are designed to make you care about the characters, believe it or not. I mean, here's Bruce Willis' story: as the only straight cop in town, he stops a child molester from raping and killing his latest victim, an 11 year old girl. Unfortunately, the rapist is the son of a powerful senator who frames Bruce Willis for the crimes. Bruce goes to jail, his wife leaves him, and the only thing that keeps him sane in jail are the letters he gets from the little girl he saved, who remembers him as she grows up and promises to always remember him. Then, one day, the letters stop coming, and Bruce has to find out why. If she's forgotten him, fine....but if the senator's son has captured her for revenge...well...that aint right. Now come on! Don't you want to know what happens next? That's a good story! So don't listen to people who say that Sin City is just a collection of nasty, violent acts with no story. the stories are good. If they weren't, the movie wouldn't stand on its own feet.

The actors nail the tone, as well, which is tricky. At least three-quarters of the movie has narration, which is hard to pull off. Willis and Mickey Rourke nail it, play it perfectly straight. The photography is awesome, too - virtuoso stuff. I hope they make another one of these. So - two thumbs up for Sin City. But, if you're at all squeamish, you should probably give it a pass.

Next: why I won't be crying any tears for Pope John Paul II.

Happy to be Lost

"Hopefully, now that Lost is returning from its extended break, we'll finally see some answers" That's a remark I've seen posted online a lot in the past few days, and I couldn't disagree with it more. The last thing I want is for Lost to answer its mysteries. Let me explain my reasoning.

Firstly, the whole point of Lost is that we don't know what's going on. The title refers as much to us as it does the castaways - we're the ones who are frickin' Lost. If we found out what was going on, there wouldn't be a show anymore. This is what makes the thing such a 'water cooler show' - we want to know whats with the polar bears, Claire's baby, and those darned creepy numbers. Let alone Ethan.

Secondly, there's no explanation to mysteries of the show that could satisfy me. I mean, it's too big. Right now, I imagine it has something to do with old US military research, the end of the world, and weird magic stuff. The whole situation is so intricate and connected and strange, it's almost impossible to coherently explain it, especially the numbers part of it. But if the show explained it all, I'd be disapointed.

Finally, the people who make this show know this as much as I do - everytime they kinda-sorta answer one mystery, they replace it with an even bigger one. This kind of storytelling plate spinning can only last so long - eventually they'll have to explain it, in which case interest will wane, or the amount of compounding mysteries will simply collapse under its own weight - but I think we've got a couple of good seasons before that happens. In other words, don't call me on Wednesday night.

In Easter news, I spent a lot of time watching basketball this weekend, which was fine with me. The PSP is now winging its way to New Zealand. Well, let me clarify - it's on a plane. The PSP can't fly: That's on the feature list for the PSP 2.

While we're talking about the PSP, I should note that I ended up buying the thing at Target, on the advice of my lovely wife. She predicted that Target was the store least likely to be overrun by the army of dorkness. As usual, she predicted right.

PSP Follies

Okay, something a little lighter today. Lets talk about the PSP, the new portable video gaming device that I will be getting up at 6AM Thursday morning to purchase, even though I have no real desire to ever play it. Now, I understand, this begs a number of questions, chief among them, 'why?'.

Well, I'm not buying this device for myself. No, I'm buying it for Tom, the son of my oldest friend in the world, Tony. Tony lives in New Zealand. You see, video game devices have different release dates in different parts of the world. There's your Japanese release date. There's your North American release date. There's your European release date. And there's your Oceania release date. After that, there's the Burkina Faso release date, but by the time the PSP gets to Burkina Faso there'll be a democrat back in the White House. In this case, the PSP gets to Oceania seveal months after it gets here, so I have been enlisted, as it were. There were phone calls and wire transfers and everything. I'll be hitting the road at about 6.10 and driving to Circuit City, which I have carefully selected as the store least likely to be overrun by hysterical gamegeeks. In a situation like this, going to Best Buy is suicide, and the old geezers at Target probably won't get the devices on the shelves for three days.

So, what gives? Why is there so much buzz about a portable game-playing device? Well, there's two main reasons. Firstly, they're cool. Come on! I mean, if you're an eight year old with the ability to play Metal Gear Acid in the backseat on a car ride to Waukesha (or Wellington, in Tom's case), thats pretty cool. Me, I'm not as attracted to that because if I play games, I wanna play games at home. If I'm in a car bound for Waukesha, I'm probably driving that car, so it's best my distractions get limited to the stereo. Secondly, this isn't just a video game machine. it's also a music player, a wireless communicator, it shows movies on itty bitty discs, and does your homework. Okay, it doesn't really do your homework. I made that up. But the itty bitty disc thing - straight up. This is a powerful, multi-purpose device in a very small package. And it plays games like the dickens.

This thing is gonna be a phenomenon. I've always thought that as a member of generation X, I was the ground zero audience for video games. I was there at the start. I got blisters playing Space Invaders. I stole milk money to play arcade games of Defender. I remember thinking the original Doom had incredible graphics. This new generation, however, doesn't really care about that stuff. They take incredible graphics more or less for granted. They just want it made more convenient. Pretty soon there will be a device the size of a penny that projects hyperspatial illusions straight into your eyeballs. I'm sure I'll be there to buy it for Tom on opening day, too. The postage will be quite reasonable.

Schiavo Redux

Here are some interesting commentaries on the Sciavo case you may not have seen -

From Salon News:

As Republicans plotted congressional intervention last week to extend the life of Terri Schiavo, a Texas woman named Wanda Hudson watched her 6-month-old baby die in her arms after doctors removed the breathing tube that kept him alive. Hudson didn't want the tube removed, but the baby's doctors decided for her. A judge signed off on the decision under the Texas futile care law -- a provision first signed into law in 1999 by then-Gov. George W. Bush.

Under the 1999 law, doctors in Texas, with the support of a hospital ethics committee, can overrule the wishes of family members and terminate life-support measures if they believe further care would be futile. Bush signed the bill after interested parties, including antiabortion activists, agreed on compromise language that required hospitals to give families 10 days' notice before terminating care and to help families find an alternative treatment facility that would continue care instead.
That process worked last week for the family of Spiro Nikolouzos, a retired electrical engineer who was critically injured in a car accident 10 years ago and has been in a persistent vegetative state since at least 2001. The Houston Chronicle reports that a lawyer for Nikolouzos' family was able to delay the termination of care by a Houston hospital just long enough for the family to find a nursing home in San Antonio that would take him in.
Wanda Hudson didn't have that option. According to the Chronicle, Texas Children's Hospital said it contacted 40 facilities with newborn intensive care units, but not one of them would accept Hudson's baby. He died last Tuesday, just minutes after doctors removed his breathing tube. So far as we can tell, neither the White House nor any member of Congress made any effort to intervene in the case.

From Right-wing (!) radio commentator Neil Boortz:

"The congress of the United States worked into the early hours of this morning for one reason; to serve the interests of the so-called pro-life movement. This isn't about Terri Schiavo. It's about abortion. The anti-abortion movement saw an opportunity to take Terri's tragedy and turn it into a spectacular pageant in support of life. Quality of life means nothing to these people ... only the fact that some sort of life is present. Please ... keep them away from me if I should ever suffer a tragedy like that which befell Terri Schiavo. The Republicans in Washington have essentially taken Terri Schiavo hostage -- a hostage designed to please their anti-abortion constituency."

From Alan Wolfe:

Emotion is a poor basis for making moral decisions for a second reason; it is cheap, while reason is dear. Nothing is easier to offer than sympathy at a distance. Those rushing to Terri's "side" have no conscience with which to struggle, no doubts to be resolved, no principles to violate. They need not even be consistent, which is why they can urge respect for Terri's life while ignoring all the deaths their cuts in Medicaid will cause. Emotional appeals surround us. No politician will earn a profile in courage by wallowing in them.

From the Rev John Paris, professor of Bioethics:

This issue is not new. Every court, every jurisdiction that has heard it, agrees. So you'd think this issue would have ended. I thought it ended when we took it to the Supreme Court, and won, in 1990. But I hadn't anticipated the power of the Christian right. They elected him [George Bush]. And now he dances.

The Schiavo Case

Okay, I'm back. Im caffeine free. And I'm ready to rock. Expect 4 updates this week, to make up for my shameful indolence of the past month. Today, Im here to talk about persistent vegetative states. That's right: Terri Schiavo. This is one of those media perfect storms, like little Elian Gonzalez, where whole armies of the populace become very concerned and angry about one particular person. And as usual, the Republican army is the stupid army. I'm not going to rehash the case like all the newspapers - if you are alive and vaguely aware in the US today, you know the particulars of this case. Here's why the Republicans are being stupid.

First and foremost it comes down to the fact that spousal rights trump parental rights. Think about that. If anything happens to me, I want my lovely wife making the important decisions, not my Mom and Dad. My lovely wife is the one who's closest to me. That makes sense, and, wouldn't you know, its reflected in the law. So the doctors tell Mr Schiavo that his wife is, essentially, an awareness - free vegetable. Do you know what she would have wanted? Mr Schiavo says yeah, we once talked about this. She wanted to have the machines turned off. Fine. Lets do it. Same thing happens in hundreds of cases around the country every week.

However. Ms. Schiavo's Mom and Dad challenge this, saying that Terri can respond to them and is aware.
Hmm. First off, who cares? It's not their decision, according to the law. It's her husbands decision. Second off, these are the LAST people we should listen to about this matter. The best coma doctors in the world looked at this woman, in the presence of her family (who kept saying she would only respond in THEIR presence) and determined that she's a vegetable. She SEEMS to sometimes have consciousness becuase her brainstem is still operational, but thats the only part of her brain thats operational. Now, if you ask me who do I trust - a bunch of pro-life activists and an obviously irrational Mom and dad or the best doctors in the world, I'll take option 2.
Now, stupid people look at the videotape of Terri Schiavo smiling and tracking a balloon with her eyes and go, 'she's alive in there!' Wrong. Do you really think these experts want to kill her? If there was any chance of her 'coming back' they would be all over it.

So, now we have the matter of 'due process.' Terri's parents have taken this case to 19 different judges in 15 years to try to convince them that they are right. Every single one of them has ruled against them. And so now republican congressmen and women have entered the fray, on the basis that she hasn't had due process. Are you kidding me? 19 different judges is plenty freaking due process. So what's going on?

Listen to me. The republicans in congress know that they have screwed a lot of the poor people that voted for them since the election. These strawmunching religious morons need something so they know the republicans are on their side. They cant take down abortion yet so this is an excellent sideshow. It's a win/win for them. If Schiavo dies, they can say they tried to save her. If she lives on in her vegetative state, they can say they won a victory for the voiceless (translation - like the unborn).

Democrats face a lose/lose. If Schiavo dies, they are the murderers that allowed this to happen. If she lives on, then their ineffectiveness is underlined, plus everyone knows they WANTED the woman to die. That doesn't look good in a campaign ad.
Unfortunately, once again, religious zealots are trying to interfere with personal choices. The fact that they may prevail makes me very nervous about the direction this countrys heading in.

Mercs Just Wanna Have Fun

Time for a videogame entry. I've been playing two videogames lately, World of Warcraft and Mercenaries. World of Warcraft can wait for another entry, because I'm sure I'll be playing it for a while. Mercenaries is just plain fun, which is surprising to me, because its a lot like Grand Theft Auto. As I've written before, Grand Theft Auto is a 'kitchen sink' type of game, like the Sims (though diehard Sims players would be horrified at the comparison). You have an environment and a plethora of options for your playable character, and the player makes his decisions and watches the fun. Whereas the Sims is enjoyably inventive and endlessly amusing, though, Grand Theft Auto becomes less and less impressive the more you play it. At first its like, 'I can drive! I can shoot! I can steal!' Then it becomes more apparent that its a mediocre driving game welded to a suub-par shooter connected to a shoddy control/aiming system. In a way, its impressive that it can do all these things at all, but in another way, its less than the sum of its parts. Mercenaries, on the other hand, which could be described as 'Grand Theft Auto in a War Zone' , is far superior. The driving parts are solid, the combat is fun in and of itself, and the destruction is so darned FUN that it puts the game that inspired it into the shade. Here's the deal: some crazed psycho has taken over North Korea and is threatening to nuke Japan, so the US, China, and South Korea invade. In the ensuing mess, you operate as a free agent, doing tasks for each of the invading armies (and also the Russian mafia), playing each of them against the other as you attempt to find the evil North Korean bad dudes. Okay, so its not Kafka. What it is, though, is fun. It enables you to apprach so many missions from different angles in the sandbox it provides that it becomes more than the sum of its parts. Here's an example. The South Koreans wanted me to capture/kill a North Korean nuclear scientist who was hiding in a far-flung village. I tracked him to a particular building and my first approach was through the front door. Unfortunately, the scientist had 20 bad guys guarding him, and they shot me up within an inch of my life. My next apprach was sneakier. I stole a nearby helicopter and landed it on the roof of the building, and started blasting my way into the scientists lair from the top down. this didn't work either, as the scientist had laid a booby trap in the penthouse. For my 3rd attempt I abandoned all finesse and planted C4 around the building. When I hit the switch the entire building exploded, vaporizing the scientist. Now, I lost half of my reward for killing the target, but man, it sure was a pretty explosion. The entire game is like that. You can play it as creatively as you like, and the game won't break. Plus, the explosions rock. After a hard day at the office, that sounds like the perfect game.

Now, Mercenaries isn't an 'important' game like The Sims or World of Warcraft or Half Life 2. It doesn't appeal to non-gamers and it doesn't really innovate -it just perfects the innovations of those games that have come before it. But its not trying to reinvent the wheel. It's just trying to have some fun. And at that it succeeds perfectly.

The Oscars...how they’ll go.

I saw Million Dollar Baby the other night and firmly believe that it should win best picture. However, I’m pretty sure that The Aviator will win it. Why do I think that? Two reasons. Firstly, Martin Scorcese is probably the greatest American Director to NOT have an Oscar (apart from Orson Welles). The fact he doesn’t have one is an embarrassment to the Academy, even though, by all accounts, The Aviator is far from his best film. The Oscars have always been partly about make-up calls. The examples are endless. Russell Crowe loses for The Insider, which he thoroughly deserved, and wins the next year for…Gladiator. Now, I love Gladiator, and I think Russell Crowe was great in it, but the best actor of the year? No way. Or how about Denzel Washington? He loses for The Hurricane, and wins… for Training Day. Again, he was good in Training Day, but not THAT good. So yeah, the Academy will honor The Aviator to make up for ignoring Taxi Driver and Goodfellas. Unless they split Best Picture and Best Director, and give Marty the Best Director nod. An outside shot, but possible.

The second reason they’ll stay away from Million Dollar Baby is because of controversy. I’m not gonna spoil the movie (as many have), but suffice to say that Clint Eastwood’s character does something that many people find deeply immoral. Now, whether or not it IS deeply immoral I’m not getting into here, but that really isn’t the point. Enough people are ‘outraged’ to make it a little risky to honor. Which is a real shame, because it’s a phenomenal movie.

Best Actor will almost certainly go to Jamie Foxx, who apparently is great in Ray. I haven’t seen it but I have to problem with that. Best Actress I would love to see go to Hilary Swank, but I doubt it will, because of the aforementioned controversy, and also because of a makeup call for Annette Bening, who lost to Swank when she was nominated for American Beauty.

The screenplay awards are wide open. I’m rooting for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Animated Feature should hopefully go to The Incredibles, which I think is far superior to Shreck 2.

Visual Effects should be a lock for Spider Man 2. Art direction will probably go to The Aviator.

The whole show should be interesting because Chris Rock is hosting this year and IU have a feeling he’s going to want to shock people a little bit. We shall see.

Gladwell Returns

If you're reading this, as soon as you're done, turn off the computer, go to your car, drive to the nearest bookstore, and purchase 'Blink' by Malcolm Gladwell. This is an utterly fabulous book by someone who knows how to write. If the name Malcolm Gladwell rings a bell, it's because he wrote the Tipping Point, which has become an oft-used phrase in the early 21st century. Gladwell is a staff writer for the New Yorker who finds fascinating insights in the most unlikely places - the behavior of shoe retailers, or the multiple ways mayonaisse can be rated, for example - that manage to illuminate the way things work in a real and profound way. 'Blink' is probably not as profound as 'The Tipping Point', but its every bit as fascinating.

'Blink' is about the dangers of thinking too much. It's about the unconscious faculties our minds have for making brilliant deductions out of very small samples of evidence. It's also about how that process can be corrupted. I decided that if I was going to write about this book, I wouldn't give away any of its knockout anecdotes. And I won't. But I do want to say that I love the fact that decisiveness is celebrated in the book, probably because I like to think of myself as decisive. One of my favorite points from this book is that the more information you accrue, the less likely you are to make an accurate judgement, and if that sounds like balderdash to you, then you will love the book. It's a trip. Some of the best parts of it concern what happened when 4 white NY police fired 41 shots into an innocent black man one night in 1999. And if you think the explanationto that is just 'racism' that's just because I subconsciously primed you to think that way by by choice of words. The angle Gladwell takes is frequently surprising and often challenging. I don't know if the book even has a 'point', but regardless, its the most interesting thing I've read in months.

Stuff that's gonna rule in 2005

Ok, after reading my previous post I have officialy scared myself. So very cynical! What happened to the cheerful, upbeat, happy-go-lucky Moondog? Well, the easy answer is, George W. Bush happened, but heck, that's no reason to wallow in despair. So what if we're all terrified riders in a careening shopping cart bouncing around the lip of a volcano? Does that mean we can't have a little fun? I believe that we can, and indeed, probably should. Why? Why should we have fun in the face of impending globo-political disaster? To answer this question, I must tell an old zen story from about 2000 BC.

Seems a zen holy man was being hunted by ignorant villagers and bandits who believed he was a witch. They chased him out of town and, to escape them, he cut off the road and began climbing a cliff. Unfortunately, they had a tracker and soon, the holy man was halfway up the cliff with bandits climbing up after him. To make matters worse, he looked up and saw 12 more bandits at the top of the cliff, climbing down to get him. He shifted his grip on a rock and suddenly an angry bird started pecking at his fingers. At this point the zen master spied a wild stawberry growing out of the cliffside. He smiled, and with his one free hand, picked it and popped it into his mouth, and enjoyed it.

That's the story.

Now, there are zillions of interpretations about what that story means (as with any zen tale), but what I take from it is, if you're in the shit, and you've done what you can, and the shit is still rising, then hell...eat yourself a strawberry. For me, pop culture is my strawberry. Movies, tv, books, video games, and so forth. If I'm stuck halfway up the cliff, then damn, I'm gonna play some Half-Life 2.

Good pop culture due this year:

Movies: King Kong. Do you really think Peter Jackson is gonna ruin his follow up to Lord of the Rings? Neither do I. Can't wait. I think Domino, a movie scripted by Richard Kelly, the Donnie Darko guy, is also going to be great. Apart from that, i'm looking forward to Star Wars and the new Paul Thomas Anderson movie. Then, of course, theres the new Spielberg War of the Worlds with Tom Cruise which should kick booty. War of the Worlds, man. That's good stuff.

Books: I'm eagerly awaiting A Feast for Crows, the new George R.R. Martin fantasy tale. It comes out July 19. I also want to Read Jonathan Strange and Doctor Morrell. There's a memoir being written by Colin Powell which should be pretty fascinating.

TV: 24 starts this Sunday, and I'm anticipating Jack Bauer kicking all kinds of ass. Lost is the best thing on TV, and I'm REALLY looking forward to Hurly's backstory. I think the fat man has all kinds of interesting secrets.

Videogames: Jade Empire is a role playing game set in ancient China (perhaps it has zen priests) which is supposed to be absolutely fabulous. Apart from that, I'm waiting for the Xbox 2 announcement in march. That thing is going to rock.

Music - there's a new Lyle Lovett cd due out this year, and a new Aimee Mann as well. Can't wait.

Well, that's what comes to mind on january 5th. I'm sure that by May 1st, there will be all kinds of new things on the list. We shall see. For now, it's Tuesday and there's a new episode of Lost. Pass the strawberries.

Well as 2004 slinks out of the door and 2005 adjusts it's tie and checks its breath, here are some predictions, in no particular order. New Years prognostications are one of life's guilty pleasures, along with New Year's resolutions and New Years embarrasing memories of having drunk too much the night before.

Firstly, and not all that surprisingly, reality tv will continue its ongoing search to find ever-lower gutters to lay down in.There are some great reality shows and some merely good ones, but most are absolutely excerable. Have you seen the promos for 'Who's your Daddy?' where some adopted girl gets confronted by a bunch of imposters pretending to be her Dad, and has to pick which one really is, for a prize? In england Channel Four is getting ready to show 'Dust to Dust', where someone bequesths their (and I swear I'm not making this up)dead body to the show and they put it outside in the wild, then film it every week as it decomposes. Yep, this is entertainment in the 21st century. The answer to the question, 'are there any limits to the lengths some people will debase and humilate themselves to be on tv?' is a resounding No. There's stuff coming that will make us feel even more like the Roman Empire in Decline than we already do.

Okay, my next prediction is that there will be a natural disaster of biblical proportions, of asian tsunami proportions,in the United States. As I alluded in my last entry, you can only poop on mother nature for so long before she poops back,and we're heading for a poop-o-rama of unprecedented size. The only thing more predictable than this is the outcry from the news media right after, along the lines of 'who knew about this beforehand?', to which the answer is, all of us did.

Next - the situation in Iraq will get worse in unknown but horribly spectacular ways. Listen up - in 1967, smart people (you know, like us) knew that Vietnam was an unwinnable quagmire that was going to claim the lives of thousands who didn't need to die. But there was no way they could have predicted the specific ways in which the situation would unravel. There were still EIGHT YEARS ahead of the Tet Offensive, My Lai, The Pentagon Papers, and the fall of Saigon. It took that long for the average mainstream american to say "hmm, this might not have been such a good idea."In fact, even up to nixon's resignation in 1974, a majority of americans supported the war in Vietnam. Feeling depressed yet? Because this war has got plenty of play in it yet. Financially, it's costing us hundreds of Billions of Dollars, money that could have been earmarked to save social security or actually improve homeland security. In terms of lives lost there's no price tag. Just a lot of pain.

In brighter news, I predict that the aforementioned news media will rediscover it's teeth and become more aggressive in its pursuit of the Bush administration. Partly this is a function of the traditional change in dynamic for 2nd term presidents - critics realize they can outlast the current occupant of the White House and look more closely at his mistakes - but also its because many in the mainstream-but-still-honorable media feel stung that they were conned into essentially endorsing a war based on utter bullshit. The New York Times, for example, which relied on inner pentagon sources for their series of
stories about WMD in Iraq, now feels so betrayed by the administration that there's a palpable vibe of payback-is--coming emanating from the Gray Lady. I expect a huge scandal to break under the Bush administration, in classic 2nd term fashion. Don't expect the mainstream media to soft pedal this one. We may finally see some worthy successors to Woodward and Bernstein emerge.

Man, this has been a depressing post. Next: my upbeat tips for best movies of 05.