jaceonline

My Thoughts Exactly

2007-07-12T19:09:00.000-06:00

An article in the Guardian explains exactly why I'm not optimistic about the new Simpsons movie (my Springfieldian doppelganger below notwithstanding):

Once, it was the greatest show on TV. Every episode was brimming with imagination, excitement and some of the sharpest one-liners to come out of America for decades. But above all it was smart: The Simpsons knew how to parry crudity with intelligence blow for blow. Bart's big-haired nemesis Sideshow Bob stepping on a rake nine times would be followed up with a surreal two-minute performance of HMS Pinafore.

...

Then it all changed. A new guard took over and ripped up the rules. Veterans of the show with pedigrees on venerated US comedy institutions like Saturday Night Live and The Tonight Show - Jon Vitti, George Meyer, John Schwartzwelder - either departed or went part-time. In came writers who had cut their teeth on sappy teen comedies like Blossom and unsophisticated knockabouts like Beavis and Butt-Head. A looser, lazier sensibility took hold, given free rein by new executive producer Mike Scully. And the show became stupid.

...

The show went on to jettison all interest in pretending to have earthy, avuncular roots: the warm, good-natured centre that, when you scraped away the multi-layered jokes and cerebral grandstanding, had been there from day one was obliterated. No longer did we see the family bonding, caring for each other, showing emotion. Instead, it was anything goes.

Springfield Style

2007-07-07T20:49:00.000-06:00

Hey, look! It's me if I was a character on The Simpsons!

Bush Commutes Convict's Sentence without Getting Some Kind of Payment in Return; Clinton Outraged

2007-07-05T21:33:00.000-06:00

"He's unfairly driving down prices!" the randy former president was heard to say. "How will Hillary raise any money with this administration setting this as a precedent? Now all our scumbag friends will expect the same treatment. Why, it took three Columbian drug lord pardons just to keep my private jet supplied with microwaveable popcorn for a year." Clinton then crammed an entire piece of peanut butter cheesecake in his mouth and started humping the leg of a nearby grand piano.

Dennis Miller Pulls No Punches

2007-06-11T17:25:00.000-06:00

In case you haven't seen it, see it.

Memorial Day Video

2007-05-27T17:25:00.000-06:00

In celebration of Memorial Day, here's your minimum daily requirement of Patton:

One of Us

2007-05-21T19:11:00.000-06:00

James Lileks has his first experience with Chick-fil-A:

I’ve never quite had this experience before. On one side of the brain, total pleasure. On the other side of the brain, a simultaneous desire to become a franchisee. It was the most delicious piece of fast-food I’d ever had, and I say that knowing well that 67% of my email headers tomorrow will read "Chick-Fil-A" and everyone will agree. No, I didn’t have the waffle fries. A man has to have something to live for.

Welcome to the club, James. But what's amazing to me is that a worldly, well-traveled newspaper guy like him could only just now be having his first Chick-fil-A. As much as you may know, there are still worlds beyond you.

No Mercy

2007-04-29T21:51:00.000-06:00

When the military learns that taking prisoners only leads to hassle, bad publicity, and lawsuits, how do they respond? Well, like this, for starters:

Caught in the middle of the Helmand river, the fleeing Taliban were paddling their boat back to shore for dear life.

...

As the boat reached the shore, Captain Larry Staley tilted the nose of the lead Apache gunship downwards into a dive. One of the men turned to face the helicopter and sank to his knees. Capt Staley's gunner pressed the trigger and the man disappeared in a cloud of smoke and dust.

By the time the gunships had finished, 21 minutes later, military officials say 14 Taliban were confirmed dead, including one of their key commanders in Helmand.

The mission is typical of a new, aggressive, approach adopted by American forces in southern Afghanistan...

Aircrews say they have been told to show no mercy, but to press home their advantage until all their targets have been destroyed.

It's hard to file habeus corpus when the corpus is just a cloud of dust.

Midnight Cowboy Talks Sense

2007-04-27T07:56:00.000-06:00

It's sad that we have reached the point where it's shocking just to hear someone talking common sense. But that's what happened to me when I saw Jon Voight talking about the war on terror. I've never thought he was exceptionally crazy (except maybe when he took that role in Baby Geniuses 2), but still, as a Hollywood type, you don't expect his thoughts to bear any relation to reality. I was pleasantly surprised, and I need all of that I can get.

Please note, I don't think this means Jon Voight is anywhere close to being conservative, even by Hollywood standards. But like I always say, I don't need you to be conservative, I just need you to be reasonable.

The Template

2007-04-18T22:10:00.000-06:00

In the wake of the attack at Virginia Tech, conservative commentaters are commentating about how the mainstream press is covering events using it's standard template. But what is that template, exactly? Through hard work and derring-do, jaceonline spies have managed to obtain The Mainstream Media Tragic Event Template(tm), which we share with you below.

Steps to Take In Case of Tragic Event (i.e., someone is dead where they aren't supposed to be dead)

Question: Who is the victim?

-- If victim is a criminal who was shot by a law-abiding gun owner, ignore story completely. Run feature story about Jennifer Anniston's boobs.
-- If victim is from an approved minority group, begin preparations for Movie of the Week. If victim is woman, call Mary Louise Parker; if gay, call Rob Lowe.
-- If unsure, send every available reporter for wall-to-wall coverage; hope to turn up somebody who is part Mexican on his mother's side. Also gay.

Question: What is the cause of the tragedy?

-- Natural disaster: Blame Bush.
-- Terrorist attack: Blame Bush.
-- Lone wacko: Send every available reporter for wall-to-wall coverage; hope to find something you can blame on Bush. Also gun nuts.

Question: Who is the perpetrator?

-- If name sounds foreign, suppress it for as long as possible, especially if "Mohammed" is anywhere in there.
-- If perpetrator looks ethnic in any way, take no pictures of him. Publish no pictures that already exist, unless they show him handing out flowers in a nursing home on Mother's Day.
-- If perpetrator is definitely a white male, try to reposition a satelite so you can take pictures of him from orbit 24 hours a day.

Question: What weapon did the perpetrator use?

-- If a gun, JACKPOT! We have so much anti-gun stuff we can't wait to print!
-- If a bomb, print the anti-gun stuff anyway.
-- If a knife, rock, or ax handle, move story to "Wacky News" section.

Question: What was the perpetrator's motivation?

-- If a Republican is in the White House, explore the possibility that the attack was an understandable response to the corrosive social environment created by racist, oppressive govenment policies that further enrich the wealthiest one percent and leave the rest of us wallowing in fear and despair.
-- If a Democrat is in the White House, just say that Rush Limbaugh probably told him to do it.

Judges Matter

2007-04-18T11:33:00.000-06:00

The Supreme Court upheld the partial-birth abortion ban. There's going to be a lot of commentary, but there's only one thing I'm dying to know: What does Harriet Myers think about the decision?

Someone Else! Someone Else!

2007-04-14T16:05:00.000-06:00

The Weekly Standard has an interesting profile of Fred Thompson.

According to an adviser to one of the leading candidates, the rationale for a Thompson run is best illustrated--as so many things are--by The Simpsons. In one episode, Homer Simpson's civic-minded neighbor Ned Flanders tells a large crowd of fellow Springfield citizens that they must choose someone to lead an anticrime campaign in the town.

"Who should lead the group?"

"You," shouts a man from the crowd. The entire mob begins to chant.

"Flanders! Flanders! Flanders!"

When Flanders humbly begins to explain that he doesn't have much experience in such matters, Moe the Bartender cuts him off.

"Someone else!"

The crowd joins in.

"Someone else! Someone else! Someone else!"

One obvious advantage Fred Thompson has is that he's someone else.

To be honest with you, I'm a little tingly about the prospect of a Thompson candidacy. But I'm concerned that my tingles are caused by the fact that he is just someone else. Thompson is famous, but we don't really know that much about him. When that happens, we tend to fill in the blanks with what we hope is true. But I haven't seen anything that's scared me off yet, and that's more than I can say about any of the other Republican candidates. We'll see.

The Real Battleground

2007-04-12T14:43:00.000-06:00

Jason Whitlock comments on the Imus hoo-ha and hits the nail on the head:

I don’t listen or watch Imus’ show regularly. Has he at any point glorified selling crack cocaine to black women? Has he celebrated black men shooting each other randomly? Has he suggested in any way that it’s cool to be a baby-daddy rather than a husband and a parent? Does he tell his listeners that they’re suckers for pursuing education and that they’re selling out their race if they do?

When Imus does any of that, call me and I’ll get upset. Until then, he is what he is — a washed-up shock jock who is very easy to ignore when you’re not looking to be made a victim.

No. We all know where the real battleground is. We know that the gangsta rappers and their followers in the athletic world have far bigger platforms to negatively define us than some old white man with a bad radio show. There’s no money and lots of danger in that battle, so Jesse and Al are going to sit it out.

"WMDs Found"

2007-04-09T09:07:00.000-06:00

Stanley Kurtz makes an excellent point about the threat coming from Iran:

In the debate to come over Iran’s nuclear capacity, there will be constant references to our intelligence failure in Iraq. The dispute will be about exactly how close Iran is to a bomb. But let no one forget that Iran is already at a point that would easily have justified the overthrow of Saddam.

Who Wants to Drive Through the Cactus Patch?

2007-04-09T07:48:00.000-06:00

I stumbled across the the Wikipedia entry for the Simpsons episode "Cape Feare," which explains, among other things, the legendary rake sequence. Thank you, Internet!

Lovely, Angry Lady Lumps

2007-04-04T22:04:00.000-06:00

Here's Alanis Morissette's version of "My Humps." Never before have I been so haunted by the question, "What you gonna do with all that junk?"

Baby Steps

2007-03-30T08:42:00.000-06:00

It's been a discouraging time for conservatives lately, what with Western civilization collapsing around our ears and all. But if you look closely enough, you can always find a reason for hope. And Jonah Goldberg has found one, in a recent court decision supporting Second Amendment rights:

No, the real victory is that liberals are starting to accept the fact that the constitution has a meaning separate and distinct from what the most pliant liberal judge wants it to mean. Therefore, writes Wittes, "perhaps it’s time for gun-control supporters to come to grips with the fact that the (Second Amendment) actually means something ... For which reason, I hereby advance a modest proposal: Let’s repeal the damn thing." Wittes isn’t alone. A number of left-wing commentators have picked up the idea as well.

Personally, I would oppose repeal, and I have problems with many liberal arguments against the Second Amendment. But that liberals are willing to play by the rules is an enormous, monumental victory that transcends the particulars of the gun-control debate.

Lilekism of the Day

2007-03-29T07:04:00.000-06:00

Coincidentally enough, from James Lileks, commenting on the possibility of Condi Rice running for vice president:

I no longer think it’ll be Rice, since there’s so much disenchantment over her State performance; she sank up to her waist in Peace Process quicksand, and the only reason she hasn’t sunk to her neck is because she’s standing on the shoulders of those who have been swallowed whole before. Besides, people are just sick of the Bush team in general. Then again, I’m starting to think that you could put Godzilla in charge of State, and in two months he’d be four feet tall, breathing perfume, and proposing a Tokyo-reconstruction loan program and a six-point program for getting Mothra to sit down with Gamera.

300

2007-03-14T22:23:00.000-06:00

Is the success of the sword-and-sandal action flick 300 a sign that America is regaining it's martial spirit? David Kahane thinks so:

...the dirty little secret is, we used to write these movies all the time. Impossible odds. Quixotic causes. Death before surrender. Real all-American stuff, in which our heroes stood up for God and country and defending Princess Leia and getting back home to see their wives and children, with their shields or on them.

...

But then came psychiatrists and psychologists and Ritalin and global warming and racism and sexism and homophobia and the enlightened among us said the hell with John Wayne and Gary Cooper. Hollywood became one big Agatha Christie novel in the last chapter — you know, the one where the survivors of the homicidal maniac gather in the drawing room and realize: The killer must be one of us!

And then came September 11th and that was that. But now, I’m beginning to wonder.

Beginning to wonder if a $70-million opening weekend for a picture that was tracking at $40 million will get somebody’s attention. Beginning to wonder if a movie that has no stars, the look and feel of a video game, and the moral code of the U.S.M.C. might have something to say, even to audiences in New York and L.A.

As much as anything, the release of Star Wars in 1977 helped to usher in the Reagan Era, and put the dark, doomed malaise of the Nixon/Carter years behind us. It showed us a world with clear lines between good and evil where good was triumphant, and we all said, "Hey, I'd like to see that in this world."

Since Star Wars was a once-in-a-lifetime cultural phenomenon and I'm still on the same lifetime, I doubt that we'll see the same kind of thing from 300 (and I really doubt it'll be followed by another Reagan). But if people are going to see it, I hope that at least means we're still comfortable with good guys beating bad guys.

Richard Jeni

2007-03-12T22:02:00.000-06:00

Holy crap, Richard Jeni shot himself:

Police found Jeni inside a West Hollywood home Saturday, after responding to a 9:50 a.m. emergency call. The caller, a woman whom officials did not identify, told the operator, "My boyfriend shot himself in the face," Los Angeles police said.

Jeni, whose real name was Richard John Colangelo, died less than an hour later at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. The Los Angeles coroner's office said an autopsy is pending. Jeni's website lists his age as 45, four years younger than coroner's documents show.

That's a shame; he was a funny, funny guy.

And this made me think of Dennis Wolfberg, another great comedian we lost too soon (though in his case it was due to natural causes). Let's enjoy some of his YouTube immortality too.

News Flash - Gov't Provides Poor Service. Also, Water Wet, Ice Cold

2007-03-08T22:30:00.000-06:00

Reason Magazine points out the lesson that we should -- but won't -- learn from the Walter Reed Army Hospital mess: If you let the government run the health care system, that's what it will look like.

Don'tVote.org

2007-03-08T22:24:00.000-06:00

There are a lot of important decisions to be made on election day. It's a big responsibility. But if you're lucky, maybe you're not smart enough to bother with it. Take the test and find out.

Coulter and Rhetoric

2007-03-06T23:48:00.000-06:00

Finally, a reaction to the Ann Coulter hoo-hah that's not an overreaction. Jeff Goldstein uses lots of big words that I may not understand, but I think we're basically on the same page:

Let me put this bluntly: having now seen the comments in context (including Coulter’s earlier commments in the same speech that staked a claim, from a conservative legal perspective, as pro-gay), I not only don't feel the need NOT to condemn Coulter, but I support what she said in principle.

I just think her execution was sub par. There were less loaded terms she might have chosen, but that doesn’t make her remark homophobic—nor is there any need, given the context, to distance oneself from them (unless, of course, one wishes to see certain words completely stricken from the lexicon—a gambit that never works, as the intent behind them is, like oil, fungible).

In the past, I've criticized this kind of policing of words on any number of occasions, from efforts to demonize "illegal alien" to "oriental" to the PC nonsense that is working its way through textbooks.

There is, not to put too fine a point on it, something remarkably arrogant about homosexual advocates (and their active and tacit defenders) thinking it is their "right" to take ownership of a word that has, with usage, taken on different valences.

And the answer to them should be, "no, you can't have it 'back,' because it was never really 'yours' to begin with."

A lot of people on the right felt the need to strongly denounce Coulter because they were afraid her words would be used as a bludgeon against the rest of us. They're right, of course, but I don't think that's a good enough reason to give her the whole torch-and-pitchfork treatment.

Nowadays, Politician X can't say "I like sunshine" without his opponents blast-faxing a press release that says, "Politician X doesn't care about the millions of hard-working Americans on the night shift!" So, the political landscape is lousy with people who avoid saying anything that might possibly be construed as offensive, by anyone, in this or any conceivable parallel universe.

Ann Coulter (quite intentionally) flies in the face of that mindset. I don't care how offensive people think she is; she is some welcome seasoning in a bland political gruel.

Comming Soon: Hamsters That Look Like Himmler

2007-03-05T21:49:00.000-06:00

Proving once again that everything is on the internet, here's Cats That Look Like Hitler. Even the ones that don't look like Hitler still kind of remind me of him.

Fun Read of The Day (Besides The Rest of jaceonline, I Mean)

2007-03-05T09:06:00.000-06:00

James Lileks goes off on a design professor with a bad case of utopian liberalitis. Enjoy!

This Just In: Sun Causes Warming

2007-03-04T22:20:00.000-06:00

A scientist theorizes that maybe--just maybe--warming of the earth is caused by the sun. And National Geographic takes this fruitcake seriously.