Frank Rich explains it all...is there some way he could be persuaded to keep his column, or at least start a blog?

Tomorrow I begin a trial at the U.S. District Court, so I will be indisposed for most of the week. If anything of interest happens, I'll share.

I'll say this for major league baseball: having a zero-tolerance policy towards gambling has its advantages. Anybody who makes a bet on any game knows that it could mean disgrace, ignominy, and the end of his career. Although I feel that the sport's treatment of Pete Rose has been a travesty, based on a ridiculously biased report drafted by someone who could give Ken Starr a pointer or two about selling a slanted investigation, at least the punishment makes sense. Bet on a game, even if it doesn't involve your team, and you're out.

Overseas, the policy is a bit different. Rather than aggressively trying to keep the sport clean, the governing bodies for soccer have a different approach: unless the player bets against his team, it's not a problem. Mainly, that policy grows out of the tolerance for legalized gambling that exists in Europe, particularly England. As with college sports in this country, it is easier to find athletes willing to fix games because the salaries aren't extravagant, and the temptation is much greater.

Perhaps the best English player of the moment, and one of the most feared strikers ever, Michael Owen, is currently having to justify having established an off-shore account for purposes of betting, including wagers on Premier League soccer. The reaction of the Football Association has been telling: as long as he keeps his bets on the ponies and on Man Utd. and Chelsea, and doesn't bet on his team, Liverpool, to lose, there's no problem. Putting aside the fact that an athlete who is dropping a small fortune to bookies is likely to be an easier target for blackmail, the whole message this sends to fans and to other players is that the sport is more willing to coddle athletes and appease gambling interests than to deal with the appearance of corruption.

So that was Ming Yao? He scores six early, two in the fourth, and another two at the end of OT, but was otherwise the Asian continent's version of Shawn Bradley (who, I should also point out, is a pretty good shotblocker). Shaq took him to school, a point soon to be forgotten in light of the Rockets' 108-104 victory Friday, and about the kindest thing you can say was that Yao did not lose his composure. Steve Francis, on the other hand, was unreal, scoring 44, including a three at the end of regulation to tie the game, faking out the refs with the elan of an Argentinian soccer player in drawing a flagrant foul in OT, and absolutely dominating the pathetic backcourt of the Lakers. While Yao's dunk with ten seconds to go in overtime got in the highlight reel, it was Francis dribbling out the shot clock, drawing the entire Laker defense to him, that enabled Yao to be so open in the first place. All in all, the best game of the regular season so far.

Well, now we know what the Republican solution to exorbitant medical costs is: blame the lawyers. Or rather, attempt to punish victims of medical quackery by proposing a law for no other reason than to slap a potential opponent in next year's election, John Edwards. Explain again, how does putting a cap on pain-and-suffering damages discourage frivolous lawsuits? I mean, if a lawsuit is frivolous, there aren't any damages to begin with; thus, there's nothing to cap. And if a jury awards a patient huge damages, then, at least according to the twelve people who heard the case, that lawsuit wasn't frivolous.

Bush's latest stunt is in the same tradition as basing the entire policy for education reform on blaming the teachers' union. In fact, passing the president's latest proposal will increase lawsuits, even if it works as advertised, since incompetent doctors are less likely to be weeded out by increasing malpractice costs. As I noted when discussing last year's bankruptcy "reform" bill, an enterprising lawyer will always know how to game the system to his advantage.

Believe it or not, there may be something to Pete Townshend's excuse for downloading kiddie porn. I was a bit bothered when his explanation was almost word-for-word identical to David Westerfield's: that he was just doing research to see what was out there. Well, as it turns out, he actually wrote a paper on the subject of how easy it was to obtain child pornography on the internet, and published it on his website. [Link via Cursor] If this controversy doesn't provoke some civil libertarian discussions about the free use of the internet, than nothing will.

For years, there was this flaky billionaire named Marvin Davis, who was always threatening to purchase either a football franchise or a film studio. Whether it was the Tampa Bay Bucs or United Artists that were up for sale, Davis' name would always be in the news, before, surprise, surprise, he would back down, and the prize would go to someone else. For a short time, he actually did own a studio. After a while, though, it became clear that he wasn't serious, so he began to be politely referred to as a "tire kicker", someone who interested in looking but wasn't really a player. Perhaps the nadir was when he let his name be linked to a move to build a football stadium next to the Inglewood Forum several years ago, when the NFL was looking to put an expansion team in LA. Just having his name tied to the project was enough to discredit what had been a serious proposal, one that was almost a done deal when Al Davis was still in town, and the league actually went back to negotiating with the Coliseum; better that, they reasoned, then to be dicked around by someone they knew was going to back down in the end.

The last ten years, Marvin Lewis has been the Marvin Davis of the NFL. Unquestionably a terrific defensive coach, his name has been on the short list of almost every vacancy in the head coaching ranks, pro or college, since 1996. After his defense in Baltimore won the Super Bowl two years ago, he was all but offered the head position in Buffalo, but had cold feet at the last second, and stayed with the Ravens. Last season, California was set to announce his hiring when he backed down, and decided instead to become an assistant coach under Steve Spurrier with Washington. He was considered for jobs at Carolina and Tampa Bay, but by then, his reputation was as someone who wanted the attention, not the job, and he got passed over both times. Only a month ago, he was offered the head position at Michigan State, but turned it down. Just when it seemed like he was about to get a reputation for being someone too gutless to be a head coach, he agreed tonight to accept the job with the worst franchise in football, the Cincinnati Bengals. It is hard to imagine a worse situation for him; he will now be a coach for a team that won't spend the money, that is notorious for incompetent drafting, and has little talent to speak of. And they went 2-14 last season. Good luck.

EJ Dionne is all wet on this analogy. John McCain fights special interests; Joe Lieberman is their supplicant.

On a whim last week, I rented the DVD of Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. I won't pretend that it's one of the greatest movies of all time, but it remains one of the few films I've seen that never gets boring. The DVD is a revelation; one of the reasons why the movie has remained so memorable was just how beautifully it was shot. Apparently, the principal reason the film was even made was to hype a candy bar that Quaker Oats was selling, which, as it turned out, disappeared almost immediately. The commentary track, which consists of the five child actors, is a gas. As you might have guessed, the alternate language tracks are also worth a few minutes of your time; one hasn't lived until you hear Julie Dawn Cole dubbed into French !!

Yesterday, the Buffalo Sabres became the second NHL team in a week, and the fourth in the last eight years, to file for bankruptcy protection. As I noted before, this represents a very disturbing trend in the sport, especially since neither Ottawa nor Buffalo are really the weak sisters of the league; the franchises in Tampa, Carolina, Phoenix and Anaheim have attendance and media problems that are at least as severe, with no hope that things are going to get better anytime soon. And of course, the labor contract expires at the end of next season, although this is one problem that can't be blamed on greedy players, who, after all, are paid far less than their counterparts in basketball and baseball.

The best case scenario may well be that only a couple of teams will fold; the worst case is that the league may well go the way of the NASL. However, I do not believe that the long-term prognosis for the sport is all that bad. Even if the league dies, or is truncated in a dramatic fashion, I would expect many of the franchises to live on. There is clearly sufficient international interest in the sport to survive even the roughest of patches, and if it came down to it, I would expect to see a stronger, and more realistic, ice hockey league exist with teams in Europe and North America.

If this is true, then I don't see why we don't enlist the help of a few expatriate Nigerian bureaucrats as well. All is fair in the war against terror. Speaking of which, Neal Pollack is back, with an expose on the evil doctor who now leads the Senate.

I'm a couple of days behind on this story, in large part because it reflects something very rarely seen in public figures: moral courage. The last part of Governor Ryan's speech against the death penalty exhibits how even the most ordinary of men can sometimes achieve greatness. It's the best piece of oratory in years. [link via Jeanne d'Arc]

Kudos to the PGA, for holding its first tournament of the year at a pitch-and-putt course on Maui. The sponsors of the Mercedes Championship may want to consider holding next year's competition on a course that could at least challenge me. Try adding a rough, or sloping the greens, or placing a bunker or two in front of the greens, or something to prevent the winner from having to shoot 31-under par.

I have to admit, I did not see the twist coming at the end of Alias last night. It's to the credit of the writers and producers of the show that almost no one else did, either; none of the spoilers published on the various fansites even mention the reversal involving Sloane and his wife. In fact, the hints I had been receiving seemed to indicate that the big surprise was going to be in the next episode, airing after the Super Bowl in two weeks. Good job !!

Gee, what a surprise--the Bush Administration is now blaming Clinton for our deteriorating situation on the Korean Peninsula. Well done; I was wondering when they would get around to following their modus operandi; after all, admitting mistakes is something no Republican President has done since Francis Gary Powers was shot down. Economy bounces from recession to stagnation to recession, after Bush enacts an ill-conceived tax cut for millionaires; blame Clinton. America is attacked by terrorists, in large part because we seem to be more concerned about Iraqi oil that Al Qaeda; blame Clinton. Enron and other companies perpetrate a fraud on American investors for ten years, then help finance the selection of Bush to the Presidency; blame Clinton.

I'm certain that Jen and Barb's drinking will be blamed on Bubba, sure enough. Of course, it would be equally unfair to say that Bush is entirely responsible for each of those problems, particularly concerning corporate fraud. Nobody, myself included, likes to dwell on screw-ups. Nevertheless, however predictable this reaction might be, the tendency not to acknowledge its errors is one of the most troubling political aspects of this Presidency. The 50-50 split within the country necessitates that Bush make a special effort to draw the other half of the country behind his policies. In the aftermath of 9-11, he did that, speaking to us as Americans, not conservatives, and the nation supported most of his proposals to fight terrorism. Now that memories of that terrible day have faded, the partisan divisions have returned. No consensus has been formed about tax policy or Iraq, but this president seems to think that the country will give him a pass if he ties it in to the "war" on terror. Or if he just blames his predecessor. It would be nice if the country had a president whose word we could trust on matters of policy, someone who could admit to, and learn from, his mistakes. Someone like, say, Clinton.

The David Broder of SoCal bloggers, Matt Welch, has returned after a lengthy hiatus (if he's the broder of LA blogs, then I guess Kevin Drum is the EJ Dionne; I guess I'd be one of the Post's lame-o sportswriters, like Tony Kornheiser)

This is inappropriate on so many levels, I wouldn't know where to begin. "Justice" Thomas is still on the Supreme Court, and there's always the off-chance that one of the companies involved in the publication of his memoirs might have an issue or two that may one day be decided by the Court. Obviously, as hard as this might be to fathom, he might write something that is false, or even defamatory; in fact, since he probably won't admit he perjured himself back in 1991, I think it's a safe bet that he will do so. As pleasing as the thought of this bum being sued in a civil action while on the Court, especially in light of what he did to the previous President, such a suit would further damage the prestige and credibility of the judicial branch. More telling is just the fact that this is so classless.

The election is still some three weeks off, but if recent polls are to be believed, Ariel Sharon may be in some serious trouble. This was supposed to be a contest that would solidify the Likud Party's position in the Knesset, while discrediting the dovish wing of the Labor Party. It's not turning out that way, though.

The Fox Network lacks courage for not picking up Joe President; it would have been a perfect lead-in for 24.

He's not in my Humor section, since most of his posts are straight political takes, but every now and then, Jesse Taylor of Pandagon channels Peggy Noonan sooooo perfectly, I pee in my pants. We're barely two weeks into the new year, and he's already clinched a '03 Koufax Award for this brilliant parody.

Today's bankruptcy filing by the Ottawa Senators, the third such filing in the past eight years, is probably a good indication that the NHL may be the first of the major sports leagues in this country to seriously retrench. As much as I love the sport, ice hockey is a terrible TV draw (for example, two of the USA matches in the last World Cup got higher ratings on ESPN than all but one of the games of last season's Stanley Cup Final, even though the hockey games were on in prime time, while the soccer games started in the wee hours of the morning). Attendance around the league is wildly inconsistent. It draws talent from such a narrow base in North America that the star players in the sport are disproportionately from Scandinavia and Eastern Europe. Yet the NHL continues to play out the fiction that it is one of the major sports leagues in America, and maintains an assortment of franchises in the Sun Belt that are prime candidates to follow the Senators, Kings, and Penguins into bankruptcy protection.

Joshua Marshall has finally given Bush's Korean policy the doctrine it deserves: Strategic Ridiculousness.

It appears blogger John Ellis has lost one pound in the past week. Wow !!

The problem with hyping the "five men from Canada" into some elite team of international fugitives comes the next time the Administration wishes for us to take a threat seriously.

Big Brother once again punishes a man for freely exercising his Second Amendment rights. Or maybe it was because Tennessee State ran a poor transition game. Whatever.

I've always been partial to athletes who were absolutely hated by the beat writers covering them. Well done, Eddie Murray, for a memorable career, and for having the dignity and grace not to stick a bat down the throats of the scumbags of the fourth estate. Especially when you were with the Mets.

This might actually be a fun two years, if liberals are so willing. Bush's economic proposals are as tone-deaf as his father's; he actually believes that the reason the country is hurting is that Wall Street has to pay taxes on dividends !! He's just renominated Owen and Pickering to the federal circuit courts, only three weeks after the resignation of Trent Lott put an ugly spotlight on the piss-poor civil rights record of modern conservatism. The Administration "policy" about handling North Korea is almost deliberately incompetent, unable to distinguish between negotiations and "appeasement"; ironically, the reemergence of the PROK likely means that even if Bush starts a war with Iraq, the intended boost to his polling numbers will be as short-lived as they were for his dad. His reelect numbers are starting to plummet. And for the first time since 9/11, the Democrats are starting to fight back. Class Warfare, indeed. To the Barricades !!!!

Memo to Giants' fans: QUIT WHINING !!! Bad calls are a part of life, so get over it. Your whole raison d'etre seems to be based on the assumption that the refs would have called pass interference, then your kicking team would have made a field goal that it had botched on two separate occasions in the previous four minutes. Well, ask yourself this: how were the Giants' robbed if they couldn't hold a 24-point second half lead? Jeez, you guys are worse than those Cardinals' fans who still moan about Don Denkinger costing them the '85 Series.

The campaign to make Mother Theresa a saint hits a roadblock, in this well-reasoned piece by Jeanne d'Arc that peels away the hype, and suggests a more-deserving candidate, Archbishop Romero.

Rough day at work. I haven't been able to shake whatever sickness I have, and feel depleted and lethargic. I took on an appearance today at a confirmation hearing for a Chapter 13 debtor, but was not given a complete file, so I had to live through the embarassment of finding out the facts of my case in open court, in front of the judge, trustee, and opposing counsel. Still, I got the plan confirmed. Then I went to work on preparing another case for trial, but had repeated arguments with the chief trial lawyer, who was second-guessing everything I was doing. Finally, I just had enough, and went home. If it were up to me, I'd just tell her to go to hell, and let her handle the case the rest of the way, but it's my principal source of income right now.

I can gripe about this Administration's policy concerning North Korea 'til the proverbial cows come home, but Joshua Marshall has provided an encyclopedic analysis of the crisis. It's the reason blogs exist.

Interesting post by labor lawyer Sam Heldman on unjudicial behaviour by a certain Ninth Circuit judge, Alex Kozinski. I'm sure many of you have received links to various opinions by a certain Texas District Court judge, Samuel B. Kent. His opinions are often hilarious, nasty and cutting, very well written, and contemptuous of the fools who appear before him in his court. He is, in my opinion, the worst person on the Federal Bench. Similarly, Kozinsky is a rabid ideologue and bigot, whose opinions are in the same tradition (btw, his wife, Marci Tiffany, was the former US Trustee for the Central District of California, a political appointee by the first Bush, and a diletante whose obnoxiousness was tempered only by her aversion to hard work. For that, all local bankruptcy lawyers should feel some debt of gratitude). He is also very funny, which, unfortunately, is not his job.

In Los Angeles County, if you don't like the judge you've been assigned, you have at least one opportunity to recuse the judge, and you may do so for any reason, however petty. Although there are supposedly standards by which a Federal judge is supposed to recuse himself, it is an exceedingly rare process, and it's entirely up to the judge to decide whether he has a financial interest that may be affected (the appeals court might ultimately have a differing view, but such oversight is worthless when the parties have limited financial resources to challenge a bad ruling). At a time when the Federal Judiciary has become another political branch, and its judges have lifetime appointments, as well as unlimited power to settle scores and impose their beliefs on the parties that appear before them, such a policy invites the sort of judicial corruption exemplified by Alex Kozinski, Manuel Real, Lawrence Silberman, Clarence Thomas, and Antonin Scalia.

If a party to a Federal suit could recuse a judge at the beginning of a lawsuit, whether it's at trial or on appeal, it might discourage a judge from abusing his power in that matter. I have the impression that most judges, at least, aren't doing it for the paycheck. They love holding court, and gaining a reputation for being a local a-hole that parties either do not want to appear before, or wish to appear before them only because their views are so predictable, is one no judge truly wants.

Vacation over. Back to work.

The cruise did not end well. The gala event of every cruise, the final day of the "snowball" Bingo tournament, was a fiasco, as the P&O policy of allowing rugrats into the gambling room backfired terribly. Dozens of elderly players (and myself) were compelled to stand at the back of the room because some jackass parents thought it would be cute to bogart the seats with their obnoxious brat children. A ship the size of the Star Princess simply does not generate vacations as enjoyable as smaller cruise ships; it's way too big, and there are too many people on board. Also, my grandmother got sick, and I came down with something resembling a flu, except I already had my flu shot; I guess it's a stillborn flu. The only good news was the surprise win last night of Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl, and the fact that four cubans entered the country successfully.

Strange day. Today we had our last stop of the trip, in Cabo San Lucas. Unlike the other ports, the ship was there for only six hours, which is almost nothing to me since half of that time I'm still asleep. By the time I was motivated enough to get out of bed and go ashore, I could do little more than walk around the city in a daze. Again, I stopped at a sports bar for a couple of hours and watched ESPN News, thereby getting all facets of the Parcells-to-America's Team story while developing a nice late morning buzz. As I was walking back to the tender that would take me back to the ship, I was accosted by a lady who wanted to sell me a doll for $5. I thought it would be nice to buy for my secretaries' kids, so I asked for two, and was able to bargain the price down to $8. Then I checked my wallet, and found out I had nothing. The expression on that woman's face; I wanted to cry.

The first day of the New Year was spent in Mazatlan, a "resort" town of about a million people that consists largely of luxury hotels and slums. I spent the day at a couple of sports bars in the "Golden Zone", a shopping area that seems largely designed to attract American tourists. One of the bars, The No Name Cafe, is apparently owned by a Chicago Cubs fan, and serves incredible shrimp dishes. And yes, they had all the games this afternoon. Cheap drinks, great food, I'm in heaven.

Ah, New Years Eve--champagne, streamers and horns, and casual sex with gorgeous young strangers in red cocktail dresses. If only....

We landed at our first port today, Puerto Vallarta. My family and I visited a small village about thirty miles north, Sayulita, and perchance visited one of the best restaurants I have ever had the privilege of eating at, Don Pedro's. If for no other reason than to eat there, this cruise has been worth it. Also, ESPN International does get occasional American football games. There's a chance it will be broadcasting the Rose Bowl sometime on Friday.

Til we meet in 2003--Happy New Year !!!

Hah !! I can blog at sea. Unfortunately, internet access costs $.50 a minute, so all I will be doing is "warm weather out here", or "boy, the Buckeyes sure did suck last night." The "sports bar" advertised in the brochure only gets ESPN International, which would be fine if I were a Formula One fan.

So, let's get some housekeeping done before I go away on my cruise. Iraq, with its laughably incompetent military, and its current lack of nuclear capability, is a threat worth going to war over, while North Korea, which held us to a draw the last time we fought them, and which is neighbored with a real democracy, is going to get appeased. All one needs to know about W's priorities can be summed up by this report on Bush's reaction, in which "a senior State Department official hinted that James Kelley, assistant secretary of state for East Asian Affairs, will probably soon go to Seoul." The Middle East gets the Marines, the Korean Peninsula gets some low-level bureaucrat. Unless Mr. Kelley possesses the powers of Magneto, I don't see the PRK quaking in its boots over that move.

Which only goes to show, if you want to be a dictator, rule a country without oil. Well, I need to pack, so unless the Star Princess has very inexpensive internet access, I probably won't be posting too much over the next week (or at least, I will be on my college football blog). Obviously, if Al Qaeda attacks the ship, or if some other unthinkable event occurs, like unemployment benefits suddenly running out during the holidays for 1 million Americans, then all bets are off. But if not, see ya in twenty-ought three.

Happy Boxing Day. Every so often I have a dream that I'm back at Reed College, where I spent my freshman year (I almost never have dreams about Berkeley, where I actually graduated). I'm always returning to school so that I can get another degree, but invariably, two things will happen: I will forget my locker combination, and I will overlook my class schedule, so that by the time I realize there was a class I never attended, I will have an hour to study for the final exam.

Well, I don't suppose this has anything to do with that, but C-SPAN plans on broadcasting a college course on the Clinton Administration at the U. of Arkansas next year. Friend and foe alike will offer guest lectures.

"Chuckles" Kelly strikes again !! Merry Christmas !!!

"White" Christmas, indeed !! Getting into the holiday spirit, the Lakers giftwrapped a victory for their hated Sactown rivals with a poor second half performance. Shaq celebrated his last night as a free man by scoring only two baskets in the final half, both in the last half minute. Bah Humbug.

For fans of pro wrestling, this is news akin to being told there is no Santa Claus.

So far, a decent X-mas. I got a subscription from my secret Santa (my brother-in-law) to The New Yorker, and one of my clients purchased some Cajun cooking supplies and a cookbook. The weather outside is typical Chamber of Commerce beautiful, with not a cloud in sight and the temperature hovering around 60^o.

Here's hoping each of you have a special day, regardless of where your spiritual beliefs tend.

Strange Fruit: Perhaps not the most appropriate thing to post on Christmas Eve, but this list presents an anecdotal history of lynching in the United States. This evil practice was the most effective method of enforcing Jim Crow; it put blacks (and other minorities) on notice that if they stepped out of line, they could not expect to receive even the most rudimentary justice. Lynch victims were what another blogger euphemistically refers to as a "synecdoch", a symbol used to stoke white fears of the savage Negro.

Sadly, we've never had anything like the "Truth Commission" in South Africa for civil rights. Dixiecrats could simply change parties, slightly moderate their rhetoric, and be reborn as Republicans. Any politician who tolerated lynching, or who fought efforts to ban the practice, should be marked by history as a traitor to American values, rather than having a Senate Office Building named after him. Alger Hiss and the Rosenbergs were better Americans than Richard Russell or James Eastland.

Truly a sad day. I saw the Clash twice in my youth, once at the Hollywood Paladium as the main act (the English Beat opened for them), and once as the lead-in for the Who at the LA Coliseum. Strummer was one of the most important figures in early-80's music, and the Clash, even more than the Sex Pistols or the Ramones, made punk rock matter in this country. Perhaps his greatest legacy is the fact that you can still play one of his albums, and hear music that is as fresh as the day it was released.

Of course, racist appeals have long been a part of our political discourse. When I was at Berkeley, the introductory U.S. history course was taught by Leon Litwack, who had won a Pulitzer Prize for his book on the black experience during Reconstruction, Been in the Storm so Long, and is still, in my opinion, one of the most eloquent public speakers I have had the privilege to hear. The theme of Prof. Litwack's course was that of racial suppression: he was a social historian, so his examples typically focused on how racism impacted ordinary people. It was a most humbling experience for someone who loved (and still loves) his country, because he didn't sugarcoat matters by painting American history as an upward movement towards "progress". Each of his lectures was a gem of storytelling. I took his class my sophomore year, and became a history major about halfway through; he offered the same course when I was a senior, and I audited almost every lecture, just to listen to him teach.

Anyway, one of his villains was Woodrow Wilson. President Wilson has become, over the years, something close to a saint, due in large part to his unsuccessful advocacy of the League of Nations, a cause for which he would die. This article focuses instead on Wilson's principle domestic legacy, one that progressives would just as soon forget: his unabashed bigotry [link via Matthew Yglesias]. It is fair to say that Wilson was the most racist of all post-Civil War Presidents: worse than Andrew Johnson, worse than Nixon, worse even than Reagan. Wilson pretty much ended the last legacies of Reconstruction, purging African-Americans from holding government offices in the South, and imposed Jim Crow in the nation's capital, an odious practice that lasted well into the century. Most famously, he praised the film Birth of a Nation, in words that have lasted to this day whenever the D.W. Griffith movie is discussed, as "history written in lightning". His deeds matched his words: although as President he was one of the first to actively promote Catholic and Jewish officeholders (including nominating Louis Brandeis to the Supreme Court), he was also a child of the Confederacy, who never outgrew the notion of white supremacy, and fought throughout his Presidency to support that end.

And he was a Democrat. In 1948, Wilson's death was as recent to Americans as the deaths of Hubert Humphrey and Harvey Milk are to us. Among progressives, Wilson was still a revered figure, and for Democrats, he was often paired with the recently deceased FDR as the greatest of all Presidents. When Strom Thurmond ran for President that year, he campaigned on a platform that was well within the mainstream of the Democratic Party of the 1910's and 1920's, and spoke words that could have (and did) come easily from the mouth of Woodrow Wilson. None of this, of course, can excuse the Dixiecrats' campaign that year, much less Trent Lott or John Ashcroft's nostalgia for the Old South. But it should force progressives to feel some measure of humility, especially when considering whether we have unexamined assumptions that may one day be found wanting.

This morning's Frank Rich column beautifully summarizes l'affaire Lott, and why it symbolizes our current political climate. For some reason, I think he might be a rather interesting blogger, if he took it up.

Next Saturday I will be embarking on the third Smythe's World Cruise, a seven day trip down the Mexican Riviera on the Star Princess. Still have a spot left !!!

Trent Lott steps down !! Advantage Blogosphere !!!

UPDATE: Bill Frist is the likely replacement. TPM focuses on how he has played the race card in past elections.

UPDATE, PART DEUX: Counterspin has an encylcopedic takedown of Dr. Frist and his coziness with the pharmaceutical industry. Get a load of that rider he snuck into the Homeland Security bill at the last second, geared to benefitting Eli Lilly in their brave efforts to defeat terrorism through the use of mercury.

Right now, only the September 2002 archive is working for this site. It appears to be a problem with the server, so some of you may like to try again later.

Finally. The first season of Alias is being released next September on DVD. I never saw the first five episodes, so there's much to the back story that I would be interested to see. For example, why is the CIA allowed to investigate a domestic entity(SD-6) that may be involved in organized crime? Wasn't that proscribed by the Church Committee? Why won't investigators use the media (or at least a reporter more reputable than Will Tippin) to bring down the Alliance, through a process of well-placed leaks, rather than two overmatched double agents? If a newspaper won't publish the story, a blogger certainly will. And considering how Sloane was so paranoid that he had Sydney's fiance murdered because he knew of the existence of SD-6, doesn't he wonder about the number of conversations she has that are bug-proof, especially in his office with her dad? Also, aren't any of the characters
(besides Jack) going to wonder about what happened to Haledki? Anna Espinoza? McKenas Cole? Oh well, the show hasn't disappointed me yet....

After tonight's atrocious performance in New Jersey, there will be some who suggest that the Lakers better start looking at the merits of getting a good lottery pick. It may take some doing to get LeBron James, but (the thinking goes) the Lakers are so far away from being a championship team that it is best that the rebuilding begin post haste. The geniuses who buy into that theory forget that Jerry West is no longer the G.M. To date, Mitch Kupchak has yet to make a move that works, and the team now surrounding Kobe and Shaq consists, in large part, of players signed or drafted by him.

This team is the defending NBA champion, have all their players healthy, and yet are perhaps the worst Lakers team since the days of Elmore Smith. To believe that things are going to get better requires one to have faith that Derek Fisher is going to suddenly find his range, that Samaki Walker is going to start playing like he cares, that Rick Fox is going to give four quarters of solid effort every night. And that Robert Horry is going to turn 25 again. And that Phil Jackson is going to lose the deer-in-the-headlights look every time his team falls behind by ten points in the first half. Yeah, I don't see that happening, either.

According to Neal Pollack, our country could save a lot of money on missile defense by just entering the NBA lottery. Great, the U.S. can battle the Lakers for that.

I can understand how someone might cringe when he realizes that posterity will hold him at least partially responsible for inflicting "In My Life" or "Revolution No. 9" on the world, which is why I don't hold Paul McCartney's attempt to switch the songwriting credit on some Beatles' songs from "Lennon-McCartney" to "McCartney-Lennon" against him. More to the point, is there any reason to pretend that they existed as a songwriting team in any real sense after, lets say, 1965? The whole fiction seems to have been designed to satisfy their greed more than anything else.

Lennon's combination of flaccid experimentation in psychedelia with treacly anthems has dated rather badly over the years; outside of "Revolution", "TBOJ&Y", "Come Together", "Rain" and "Cold Turkey", his post-1965 material is more a testament to how easy it can be to glide along for years on a reputation. He's kind of like the Arnold Palmer of rock. Arnie quit winning tournaments after the age of 40, and wasn't close to Gary Player or Lee Trevino, much less Jack Nicklaus, after about 1969. But he was great once, and moreover, had tons of charisma; even though his accomplishments really don't measure up, he still gets paired with the Golden Bear as a "rival", and was as much a symbol of his generation as John Lennon.

Over the passage of time, McCartney's songs have held up better; most of the ways the Beatles influence music today were Paul's ideas, not John's. Maybe McCartney just handled his drug use better. But Lennon died young, and he will always be remembered for what he supposedly stood for, while McCartney has spent the past twenty years producing crap as bad as anything Lennon put out in Walls and Bridges or Double Fantasy. So he complains now, and looks petty, even though if truth-in-advertising had anything to do with the music industry, one or the other (but not both) would receive sole credit for most Beatles songs.

Well, it seems Bubba was right yesterday. Another GOP senator has an interesting past...meet Conrad Burns.

TBogg presents (via TopFive.com) a selection of the least-beloved holiday stories. My favorite involves the Ewoks.

This is the legal equivalent of a war between Iraq and North Korea; one is tempted to hope for a prolonged, expensive battle in which both Condit and Dunne are bankrupted, the end result being Condit awarded one dollar in damages.

If it's the holiday season, it must be time for The Onion's annual Least Essential Albums for 2002. I might like to get the Roy Jones Jr. CD, though.

One of the hooks the "liberal media" has used to cover l'affaire Lott has been to claim that the story was pushed by conservatives and ignored by liberals. I certainly do not wish to disparage the voices of the right that have spoken out against Lott on this issue, especially Andrew Sullivan, a writer who is more often than not the focus of unremitting scorn from myself and other progressive bloggers, and whose outrage about this story has been relentless from the beginning. More relevantly, he (and to a lesser extent, Instapundit) has used the occasion to examine the dark side of conservatism, where many have used the rhetoric of small government and support for tradition as a cover for old-fashioned bigotry. Good for him; I hope that when a similar test of political character is put before me, I can pass it with as much integrity (though I doubt it).

Too bad the conventional wisdom is full of s---. Sullivan aside, most of the writing on this topic has been driven by liberal outrage. The noble Atrios was the fustest with the mostest on this issue; if you want to link to the 1948 Dixiecrat platform, or find another instance when Lott praised his Confederate forbears(such as the General referenced, above), or acted as an apologist for slavery, that's where you go, several times a day (weekends included). Almost all of the bloggers linked on this page have weighed in with their own two cents on the issue. Now that Lott is twisting slowly, slowly in the wind, they have gone on to other political targets, such as the virulent homophobia of Lott's likely replacement, Don Nickles, or the similar political associations of John Ashcroft.

On the other hand, for every conservative pundit who is calling for Lott's head, there is another who thinks the whole thing is being blown out of proportion (ie., Rush). Moreover, much of the conservative opposition to Trent Lott seems driven by personal factors, as if his mistake was one of letting the cat out of the bag, thereby embarassing the Party, not a test of political character. Well, where were they before, when Trent Lott was making numerous speeches before a white supremacist group, or extolling Strom Thurmond's '48 campaign on other occasions, or compiling one of the most regressive records on civil rights in Congress. Why didn't they express their outrage then? Lets face it: if Lott had made those same remarks two weeks ago, but did not have the previous baggage, this story would have blown over almost immediately. This is an issue now not because Trent Lott made some loose remarks paying tribute to a 100-year old man, but because of a lifetime of racist insensitivity, lived out in broad daylight. Any conservative now demanding his resignation must answer why it took so long to speak out.

With The Two Towers scheduled to debut in less than two days, here's a truly revisionist view: what if Lord Sauron was the good guy?

A worthwhile challenge for the U.N., certain to be endorsed by all who have been forced to watch Notting Hill on a trans-Pacific airplane flight.

It goes without saying, but Gore's withdrawal from the 2004 race means that a number of politicians who might have been scared off by his candidacy, or who may have held back in deference to him (besides Joe Lieberman), will now get into the race. At least, I hope that someone else is thinking about jumping in; no matter how bad the economy is, I just don't see Richard Gephardt or Tom Daschle running a competitive race against W. My hunch is that Gray Davis will reconsider his decision last week not to run, and that he will be joined by at least one other sitting governor and one ex-Cabinet member from the Clinton Administration. Of course, it also clears the deck for a Hillary Clinton campaign.

A bad political year gets worse, for the Democrats. While Al Gore had high negatives, he was still the people's choice in the last election, and he would have breezed to the nomination had he decided to run. And as the nominee, he would have been assured of a lot of votes from people who may approve of the Bush presidency, but who respect the fact that Gore won the last election but did not decide to mount a coup, figuratively or otherwise. I may decide to support Kerry, simply because all the wrong people hate him so much. If Lieberman is the nominee, I vote for Nader.

Kobe Almighty, that was a funny sketch last night on SNL, with Al Gore playing "Trent Lott". When the first GOP senator to call for him to step down is the one most likely to assume his role, I think it's safe to say his days are numbered. [link via Counterspin]

Matt Welch, who is on most days the greatest SoCal blogger (or at least on those days when Kevin Drum is not), writes an excellent article on the assortment of war criminals and liars who are finding employment in the Bush Administration, and where does he have to go to get it published...Canada !!!

For those of you baffled by recent events, Tom Tomorrow explains it all.

Sorry for the lighter than normal blogging this week, but I actually have been hard at work (you know, making a living, etc.). Sorry, but I do need to pay for my bar tabs, and this site just doesn't do it. I'll try to make it up to you next week.

Not an impressive start to the final half of the Bush presidency...his war on terrorism is floundering, his party's leader in Congress is revealed as an unreconstructed segregationist, both of his candidates lose winnable races in Louisiana over the weekend, and now his pick to "lead" the investigation into 9/11 steps down. Lord, I hope he picks Elliot Abrams to replace Kissinger...or better yet, nominates James Traficant to the Supreme Court.

Two things that I never thought I would say:

1. George Bush's speech today denouncing Trent Lott was welcome and courageous, and showed more sack than Tom Daschle has over this controversy; and

2. Andrew Sullivan's blog has been better on this issue than the New York Times (Krugman excepted).

Good Kobe, I hope Lott steps down soon, and puts an end to this nightmare. I really don't want to have to write the above more than once.

Although much has been said about the initial silence of the "liberal" news media over the Lott Affair, almost unmentioned has been the craven defense of the bigot by three who should know better: John McCain, JC Watts, and, especially, Tom Daschle. I don't know or care whether the GOP decides to maintain as its public face in the Senate an unreconstructed segregationist, since, no matter how well that party does in the old Confederacy, it won't be able to get enough support from the rest of the country to repeal anti-lynching laws or allow states to forbid inter-racial marriages. I do have problems with my party being led by castrati.

It now appears that Trent Lott's praise of the '48 Thurmond for President campaign was a common theme in his speechs going back to 1980. The criticism Lott has received from conservative quarters is somewhat laughable. After all, it is hardly reassuring to hear people say that they have no proposals to remedy past or present racial discrimination, oppose racism only when it it "targeted" at white law school applicants, do not believe that DC residents should be represented in Congress, and support efforts to suppress African-American votes in Florida, Missouri, and Louisiana through trickery and chicanery, but that they draw the line when it comes to lynching. Donnez moi un break !!!

Another blow struck in the war on "Islamofascism": Disney snubs Princess Jasmine !!!

The 2003 summer tour for the "Beatles of sports", Man. United, has been set for next July. In what has to be a monumental blow to the MSL, each of the games involve the Red Devils playing non-American teams, ensuring that fans will see third-rate performances by bench-warmers and the like. Not the sort of thing likely to grow the sport in America, or to develop a fan-base for the storied team outside of British expatriates, which is what the tour (and the marketing alliance with the New York Yankees) was originally supposed to do.

The NY Times reports ominously that of the seven major airlines that have emerged out of BK protection since 1978, only two (Continental Air and America West) survive today. Not so lucky: Braniff, Eastern Air, Pan American, World Airways and T.W.A. Together with U.S. Air, which filed last year, United is the fifth airline to file after giving millions to have an arena or stadium named after it.

Finally, a vigorous defense of Trent Lott's speech last week....

Interesting local breakdown of the Landrieu upset over the weekend. As I speculated earlier, her victory occurred because of a larger than expected turnout amongst African American voters, many of whom voted in the last hour of the election.

As much as I admire the NY Times, the paper was wrong when it appeared to censor two of its sports columnists from taking a position contrary to its editorial section on the Masters Controversy. Incidentally, neither of the columns even directly mentions the Times' editorial position. Of the two columns, the banal effort by Dave Anderson probably should have been omitted simply on quality grounds, but the paper should have been proud to publish this excellent piece by Harvey Araton.

It's not everyday that an incumbent US Senator retaining her seat would be considered an upset, but Mary Landrieu's narrow victory this evening could certainly be classified as one. Even more surprising was the Democrat's victory in the contested House race tonight, in a district that had been held by a Republican. Although neither winner could be classified as a progressive, it does indicate that Louisiana might be one of the few "red" states in play for the Democratic nominee in 2004, as well as make Ms. Landrieu one of the favorites to be picked by the nominee as Veep. Higher than expected black turnout (due perhaps to the publicity given to the odious Trent Lott's wistful recollection of the Dixiecrat Party) proved the difference. It was kinda fun watching FoxNews spin the election, the outcome of which was as much a shock to their pundits as it was to me.

Unfreaking believable...thirty points down in the second half, twenty-seven in arrears going into the fourth quarter, and the Lakers, off to their worst start in ages, playing a team with only one loss, came back and won!! The win may have less of an effect on the Lakers than the loss will have on the Mavericks, who have to view LA as possessing an aura of invincibility after last night, particularly at Staples. Dirk Nowitsky, who was nearly perfect through three quarters, disappeared in the fourth, and the rest of his team collapsed. Kobe Akbar !!!

Just a thought: since Trent Lott has pretty much shown that he is unfit to be a major political figure in the 21st Century, and since the Democrats are otherwise going to be in the minority in the Senate, why not make a deal with someone (Lincoln Chafee? John McCain?) in the other party to be Senate Majority Leader? Such a move would be the logical first step for someone like McCain to make a break with a party that doesn't seem to want him around....

Two points about the 100th birthday of Strom Thurmond:

1. He ran for President on an avowedly racist platform, and, while on the campaign hustings that year, once proclaimed "I want to tell you, ladies and gentleman, that there's not enough troops in the army to force the southern people to break down segregation and admit the Nigra race into our theaters, into our swimming pools, into our homes, and into our churches"; and
2. He is older now than the Kennedy brothers, Richard Nixon, LBJ, MLK, Joe Louis, John Wayne, Lou Gehrig, Dizzy Dean, Perry Como, Judy Garland, Red Grange, Jimmy Stewart, and Jean Harlow would be, if each of them were alive today.

Miracle of miracles: a pundit actually tackles the substance of the Daschle/Gore critique of the media, rather than making personal attacks.

One of the more enlightening aspects of the current controversy at the Augusta National Klavern is how little most of the members of the pundit class know about sports. For those of you who might be new to this dispute, please understand that the Masters is not simply a golf tournament; to many golf fans, it's the only tournament that matters. It holds the same position that Wimbledon has in tennis, as the de facto worlds championship in the sport.

It is also played on a course with a rather interesting history. The course was "designed" by Bobby Jones, a great amateur player in the early 20th century, back when that still meant something, and he and his business partner shepherded the tournament into prominence by emphasizing its exclusivity. For years, African Americans were not allowed to play in the tournament, and anyone whose face was not a lighter shade of pale (ie. Lee Trevino) was made to feel unwelcome. It has only been in the last two decades that the club has admitted non-whites as members. Thus, Tiger Woods, cablinasian golfer supreme, has attained mythic status by not only winning, but dominating the Masters.

The importance of the Masters seems to have been lost on many of the idiot commentators of the right, who seem to be blissfully unaware that there are still institutions in our society that discriminate against people. Admittedly, we're not talking about John Kerry's tonsorial budget, but it is one of the highest rated events in TV sports, the most important competition in one of the fastest growing sports on the planet. Rather than debating whether sex discrimination by private clubs should be tolerated, or whether feminist groups should be focusing on something more important, we get treated to silly discussions about whether it is appropriate for feminist leaders to write satirical articles about sterilization. Or whether the NY Times is devoting too much column space to the issue.

Case in point: the spiking of two columns in the NY Times sports section. As this writer correctly points out, the sports section of the Gray Lady does not have the prestige that the rest of the paper now has (although his version of great sportswriting is apparently Mike Lupica and Rick Reilly; if there's one thing the Times doesn't need, it's another overpaid hack deliberately misquoting Barry Bonds), and the refusal to publish two columns disagreeing with the paper's editorial position only emphasizes the fact that the paper does not view sports journalism as an important responsibility. However, I suspect that this policy is not unusual in the newspaper business, and the reason the NY Times sports section is not well thought of is the fact that it still employs stiffs like Dave Anderson (one of the columnists who got dissed by his editors, and famous among my fellow Laker fans for writing that Magic Johnson got what he deserved when he tested HIV+) and Robert Lipsyte, not that it's censoring their work.

Perhaps a better question for those people who wonder why so much controversy has been generated over the Masters is, when do you believe that sex discrimination is ever appropriate? Do you have a justification for allowing private clubs to exclude women, or Jews, or African Americans? I'm not interested in whether they have a legal right to do so; can you make a moral argument in favor of such a policy? Deal with those questions, not whether you think the NY Times is too interested in this topic.

Live, Love, Eat, Split !!

I do not want to spend much time defending John Kerry right now, since it's only been a month since his sniveling vote in favor of the Iraqi War Resolution, but the concerted attacks (see below) on his character the past few days require some response. As Al Gore pointed out last week, there is now a "fifth column" of reporters, pundits and journals of opinion, that are more interested in publishing the particular ideological line favored by the Bush Administration than in getting the truth out to the public. No one seriously doubts that this phenomenon exists, and that it will be a factor in American politics for a long time to come.

For example, anyone with a serious bullshit detector avoids the Sunday morning pundit gabfests like they were the Norwalk Virus. Invariably, there will be a two-to-one or three-to-one ideological split in favor of the right wing position among the panelists, and the liberal is usually the least articulate or charismatic member of the panel. That ratio, known as the "Kondracke Rule", is often preserved by having at least one pundit who writes or edits the New Republic(a political journal that had left-of-center leanings several decades ago, but which now tends to peddle a chickenhawkish foreign policy and an anti-black rollback of civil rights laws), and who therefore can be positioned as a "liberal" in the interests of fairness, even though his views are often indistinguishable from the panelist from the Washington Times. A more interesting and balanced political debate can be found on the NFL Today, or in the weekly scraps between Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley on TNT, than on Meet the Press or This Week.

Well, wing nuts predominated on talk radio long before Rush Limbaugh discovered anal warts could get him out of doing tours in Vietnam, and the "Kondracke Rule" is perhaps more a reflection of the establishment biases of the media's corporate sponsors than anything else. What Al Gore was referring to specifically was the manner in which clearly propagandistic (and usually false) stories now being devised in conservative organs, like the Washington Times, the Regnery Press, and Fox News, wind up being covered by conventional newspapers and broadcast networks, giving a mainstream gloss to right wing spin points.

The scandals that came to be known as "Whitewater" illustrate this phenomenon beautifully: allegations made by assorted wackos and white supremacists in Arkansas were hyped on hate radio, conservative media organs such as the now-defunct American Spectator, and on Drudge, and more mainstream outlets began to investigate. Those newspapers created the climate for the appointment of an independent counsel, who could then leak stories of his investigation to favored journalists; long before Monica Lewinsky came to symbolize fellatio, Susan Schmidt (aka "Steno Sue") of the Washington Post was the pin-up girl for sycophancy at the feet of power.

More recently, the Post's media "critic", Howard Kurtz, has become a brave "foot soldier" in this fifth column, uncritically recycling GOP spin in every column. When the GOP needed to win the Senate seat in Minnesota, he wrote a column denigrating the Paul Wellstone Memorial Service. His last few columns have attacked Tom Daschle for his warnings about the influence of hate radio (the words "anthrax letter" were strangely omitted from Kurtz' column), Al Gore for the "fifth column" interview, and, of course (surprise, surprise !!), today's hitpiece on John Kerry. And as you might expect. George W. does not need a Monica when he can get a Howie for free.

Try as I might, I can't help thinking that this trend has more to do with journalistic lethargy than any pre-existing proclivity for hard-right dogma. If the people who surround you all day have the same political and cultural values, it is not hard to start viewing outside opinions as extreme, or out of the mainstream. Familiar faces are more likely to get a pass; the fact that Andrew Sullivan and Mickey Kaus are both considered to be something of a joke by their fellow bloggers will not stop either of them from being cited as mainstream opinions, as Mr. Kurtz does today, since they have a reputation within the Beltway that pre-dates their websites. In that situation, it's no surprise that much of the mainstream media has become little more than a house organ for the GOP.

UPDATE: For a more recent commentary on the media's shilling for right-wing politicians, check this out, re: Bush's "service" in the Air National Guard during the Vietnam War.

Is there anything more embarassing than a pundit who tries to justify his dislike for a politician by saying it's because he looks funny? Well, yes, it's when a pundit gets pissed off at the same politician for spending too much on a haircut....

Interesting hatchet piece on the NY Times' ascendency as the most important newspaper in America, complete with "blind" quotes from "staffers" at the newspaper, which are probably fabricated, denouncing the trend. The bone of contention this male writer has with the paper has been its focus on Augusta National; apparently, since other journalistic outlets and pundits are down with the idea that one of the most prestigious sporting events in America takes place at an institution only slightly more progressive than a Klan rally, the fact that the Gray Lady pretends that sex discrimination is "important" reflects editor Howell Raines "lefty" worldview (yes, the writer actually uses that term). The Times also gets taken to task for pretending that there is actually a debate, in DC and elsewhere, over the Administration's policy toward Iraq, and parrots the GOP spin point (since discredited) that Henry Kissinger was not a skeptic.

Gee, you don't suppose Al Gore was right last week when he observed that there was a rightist "Fifth Column" within the free press, do you?

Leave it to Maureen Dowd to reveal the absurdity of Henry Kissinger being appointed to head the 9/11 Commission. His selection speaks volumes about the cynicism of this Administration and of the phony religiosity of W.

Why do people pretend that the Washington Times and FoxNews practice "journalism"? The notion that they are in any way equivalent to the Washington Post and CNN, both of which have a conservative lean but at least strive, on paper, to some objectivity and balance, is loopy. The day that the head of ABC News gives secret political advice to Al Gore will be the day I can hear the term "liberal media", and not laugh (btw, if you want to read a particularly bizarre defense of the "liberal mendacity=bad; conservative lying=good, check this out).

I've always been someone for whom the day after Thanksgiving was always a happier time than the holiday itself. I got the day off when I was at school, and most of the jobs I've ever held the day has either been free or a paid "holiday", when I was expected in at work but not expected to do anything other than keep my chair warm til lunchtime, when I would take off. Needless to say, it's a much better sports day; while the Friday after always has a great slate of college rivalries and showdowns, Thanksgiving is famous for having probably the weakest selection of games of all the holidays: mediocre NFL, no good college games, no hoops or hockey worth mentioning. MLK Day is much, much better.

The appeal of the evening's feast has always escaped me as well. To put it bluntly, roast turkey sucks. I am always left wondering why my mom would always enthusiastically save portions of the turkey for leftovers; why would I want to eat something that was dry as toast when it was originally served. Was keeping it in the fridge for a few days going to loosen up the meat? Safe to say, it's the only time of year I consider putting candied yams or cranberries on my dinner plate, and I have never been a big fan of mashed potatoes. Thanksgiving, bah humbug !!

So a couple of years ago, I decided to take matters into my own hands. Rather than suffer my parents' (or one of my assorted aunts') cooking in silence, I would contribute in a more positive manner to the holiday. I invented (I think) my own Thanksgiving masterpiece, Turkey Jambalaya. It took a couple of hours to prepare, but at least I knew there would be something in the feast that I knew I would eat with a certain enthusiasm, it was a way I contribute to the family, rather than being a mere parasite during the holiday, and it killed time I would have spent sitting like a blob on the sofa watching an execrable Detriot Lions game.

It's not a hard recipe. Take some sliced turkey chunks, and submerge them in cayenne pepper. Use fresh, uncooked shrimp (one of the things that takes awhile with the preparation is deveining the creatures) and either andouille or turkey sausage. I also like to add lobster pieces; they go well with the rice. The rice and spices take a little longer to prepare; the proper way to make jambalaya can be found in the appropriate cookbooks, but Zatarain's mix is a speedy if bland substitute. Add the turkey and sausage after the rice has boiled, and add the shrimp and lobster towards the end. Stir frequently, and liberally add cayenne pepper. Bay leaves are a nice touch at the end. A minute before you turn off the heat, add salt and just a little gumbo file. Let it sit for a half hour.

Always make enough for two portions: yours, and the rest of your family (just kidding). And I tell you, there is nothing like having your host (my cousin's hubby) ask you specifically to leave the leftovers with him. When someone you hardly know praises your dish, you finally get to a chance to see why it was your mom used to slave away in the kitchen on Thanksgiving: not for signs of appreciation or thanks from others, but from a sense that you contributed something to the happiness of others.

The I.O.C. is prepared to vote tomorrow on whether to eliminate three sports, baseball, softball, and the modern pentathlon, following the 2004 Olympics. Those sports would be replaced by rugby and golf(?), although the conventional wisdom is that they won't act at this time, and they will get a reprieve. Softball is only included now as a female counterpart for baseball; outside of North America and Australia, the sport doesn't exist. When baseball was added for the 1992 Olympics, the hope was that one day major leaguers would take part, and the Olympics would represent a "World Cup" for the sport. Clearly, that hasn't happened, and the hope of many baseball fans to one day see a gold medal game with Pedro Martinez squaring off against Randy Johnson will not come to fruition any time soon.

The third sport they want to dump, the modern pentathlon, was designed originally for soldiers, who make up a disproportionate number of the participants. It's an interesting hybrid of cross-country running, fencing, shooting, swimming and the steeplechase, but it is nearly impossible to televise, and regardless of what happens tomorrow, it is inevitable that it will eventually be cut. It's too bad; there should be a place in the Olympics for events that may be boring for spectators and invisible to NBC, but still require unique athletic skills; ironically, its most famous participant in the Olympics was George Patton, who finished fifth in the 1912 Stockholm Olympics after he performed poorly in the shooting phase of the competition (no wonder he couldn't hit the Luftwaffe at the beginning of Patton).

One thing not to be thankful for...Arik Sharon is now considered a "moderate". I guess when your opponent is, for all intents and purposes, a fascist, it's not hard to look like you're middle-of-the-road.

As I prepare to start my world-famous "Turkey Jambalaya", I would like to wish all of you a Happy Thanksgiving. I will share my dark thoughts on the holiday later....

Because I care about my readers, and I consider this site to be a pleasure, not a chore, I will continue blogging through the Thanksgiving weekend. Others may abandon you for their families and their turkey and their lame-ass football games involving Dallas and Detroit, but I will never leave you....

Absolutely brilliant put-down of George Will in TPM. I am always going to have this picture of Mr. Will in the back of my mind giving "backrubs to power", kind of like Sydney Bristow in last week's Alias episode.

Political Correctness Run Amok: It's not like what this person said was false, but someone's sensitivities might be hurt, so she had to go.

Yesterday's interminable brief on the topic of permalinks was originally intended to comment on this other Jim Capozzola post. Since he subsequently published something even more interesting, I put it aside, but now that most of the bloggers have opined on that issue, I would think that a better solution than simply de-perming a blog that links to LittleGreenFootballs or any other hatesite, would be to find out why people link there in the first place. Appropriate reasons for currently linking to LGF include: 1) I link to every political blog on the web that I know of, regardless of politics; 2) Charles Johnson saved my life, and permalinking LGF is the least I can do; 3) I linked there awhile back, before the Remulaks took over the site, but I will soon de-perm, as soon as someone teaches me how to use the delete key; or 4) I fervently desire to see the extermination of every Arab on the face of the planet. Any other reason puts you beyond the pale of rational political debate.

There is still one Senate race to be determined: the runoff in Louisiana between Democratic incumbent Mary Landrieu, and Republican Suzanne Terrell. As I have said before, this is a race that liberals should feel no stake in whatsoever. Landrieu voted for the Bush tax cut, the authorization to invade Iraq, and the Homeland Security Bill, she has indicated that she will not filibuster right wing judicial nominees, she doesn't appear to have too many African-American friends in her home state, and, in any event, it doesn't really make a damn bit of difference if the Democrats have 48 or 49 Senators, if one of our Senators won't come through at crunch time. This isn't Al Gore being knifed in the back by Ralph Nader, mind you. The defeat of the Zell Miller philosophy within the party has to be one of the few bright spots for Democrats in the last election, and I can't help but be amused at the irony of all those Democrats who kissed W's rear end on the tax cut and Iraq discovering, to their horror, that he couldn't care less.

This next post will probably be of interest only for the blogging-obsessives out there, people who spend way, way too much time, at work and at home, crafting their own posts and scrounging for hits, hopping from blog to blog in search of that moment's zeitgeist; nevertheless, I'm going to write this for those of you who either visit this site regularly, but no other blogs, or those who have visited here by accident, in a forlorn attempt to pursue a Google search for "Nude Hayden Christenson" references.

As many of you notice, off to the side is a list of other web sites, predominantly bloggers, that I have sorted according to a very loose categorization (Politics/Humor/Misc). Those are called permalinks, and they serve a number of functions here. I visit each site at least once a week, and in effect, those sites get free advertising here. I do not endorse everything that gets posted on those other websites, but my criteria tends to be that if I consistently like what I read, and I agree with the blogger's politics, that site gets permalinked.

If I don't agree with the politics, but I find the blogger to be interesting, informative, and respectful of the opinions of other people, well, the same thing goes; they get included. I am still naive enough to believe that the most important political activity a free people get to participate in is the dialogue, where men and women of good will can debate issues and share insights developed from different experiences, without name-calling and slurs. Right now, just a little bit more than half the people in this country disagree with most of my views; two years ago, a little bit more than half the people in this country seemed to share my opinions, for all the good that did. Of course, such a belief has not dissuaded me from occasionally shouting when I should be arguing, but hopefully I limit my choice of targets in that regard to public figures who have access to much wider media than I have, and who can defend themselves.

Another reason for setting up permalinks is convenience. Just by visiting my own site, I have ready access to a few dozen favorite links, even when I'm away from my home computer. Moreover, a few months ago, I installed a code (called "Sitemeter") on my computer that allows me to track how many visitors I get each day, and how they were referred here. Wherein I discovered that many visitors were bloggers who had discovered my website from their own version of Sitemeter, or another related program, when I (or someone else) had visited. Instant Karma !! Permalinking another blogger's website was a darned effective way of advertising this site without having to spend a dime. I could also see whether other bloggers were permalinking my site; my philosophy in that regard is to link to anyone who links to my site first, just out of common courtesy.

So what's the point, you ask? Late last week, there was a blogging conference at Yale Law School, featuring many of the rather minor celebrities of this field, including Joshua Marshall, Mickey Kaus, and Glenn Reynolds (ie. Instapundit). From what I can gather, it was a largely uneventful seminar, but I was struck by a comment that Mr. Kaus made, to the effect "that among bloggers there is a 'Darwinian self-interest in being nice to each other and maintaining a civil discourse.' He may disagree with Andrew Sullivan but he doesn't really want to piss him off; it's about links; it's about traffic; it's about -- gasp -- community." (Sullivan, for those of you who don't know, is a former New Republic editor who has a popular, but increasingly erratic, far right blog) [Link via Eschaton]

While I have no doubt that such an attitude is all-too-common, being terrified myself that if I ever publish my true opinions of Bruce Springsteen, I will lose my hallowed position on Altercation's list of permalinks, I have to ask what the hell difference it makes how much traffic I get. Is there anybody out there who thinks he or she can make money off their blog if they get more links. Who cares if you have fifty hits a day or fifty thousand? Isn't your obligation to tell the truth still the same? In any event, what are you selling to your visitors, if not your own individuality? There might come a day when someone is able to do a blog for profit, or even make a living at it, but we haven't reached that point yet, so there isn't really a point to selling out.

So having said that, why do I even care if anyone links to this site? And I do care. I visit Sitemeter every couple of hours, just to monitor who's visited. I try to time my posts for the fifty-second mark each minute, so I am more likely to be listed on the Blogger.com role of recently updated sites, a dependable source for unique visitors. It does matter to me.

Well, as it turns out, it's all about high school. The same social hierarchies that existed in high school remain with us to this day, in the blogosphere and elsewhere, as James Capozzola brilliantly points out here. One of the ways these social cliques revisit themselves on us years later is our need to be popular, and the consequent need to make others less popular, lest we lose popularity ourselves. One can see signs of this behavior in the way Al Gore is covered by the media; the former Veep is an intelligent, handsome, and decent politician, who committed the unforgivable sin of having been born into some degree of privilege and being a person of substance. Having attended an all-male prep school, I knew guys like that, people who were rich, well-connected and intelligent, possessing an ease with the opposite sex that I never had, and who were nice guys to boot. I hated people like that, since it forced me to squarely confront my own mediocrity: I realized that no matter how hard I might work, I was always going to be a step behind those people, and that they actually might deserve their success.

Hence, we get to read article after article about how Al Gore "claimed" to have discovered the Internet or the Love Canal, or how he's constantly reinventing himself, all of which is bullshit. Pundits have the same view of Gore that Nixon had of the Kennedys, that it was so unfair that the Kennedys were born into privilege, and were so beloved for their public service, while he had to fight and scrape for everything he got. Doesn't Al Gore realize how intelligent they are, how worthy they are to be popular; unlike that rich idiot, George W., who gives them nicknames and goofs off on the campaign plane, Gore speaks in complete sentences, and treats the public like adults, truly insulting behavior for a well-born politician. And so, pundits quickly realize that the best way to get ahead is not to challenge the conventional wisdom, and to not do anything that would jeopardize their popularity.

To look at one example, take the case of Christopher Hitchens, aka Mr. Samgrass, self-proclaimed English "contrarian". For years, he was a respected if controversial columnist for The Nation magazine, and penned occasional screeds for leftish papers in the U.K. No cow was too sacred, and he wrote scathing pieces about Kissinger, Mother Teresa, the Royal Family, and just about every political figure in the US and Europe. As he got older, he began writing bi-monthly pieces for Vanity Fair, the unofficial journal of nouveau riche America, and became a fixture on the Washington social scene. Once he became more of an establishment figure, his obsessions changed, and his targets became easier. During the Clinton years, he became a one-man conduit for wacko Arkansas conspiracy theories, and has the distinction of being among the few people who still believe Dolly Kyle Browning, Juanita Broderick, and Kathleen Willey. He made the execution of a mentally disabled murderer in Arkansas in 1992 a cause celebre, but has never offered even a word of condolence to that person's victims(who were killed before the convict lost his mind). He testified against one of his best friends at the Clinton impeachment trial, because of a minor difference in recollection about whether the President had referred to Ms. Lewinsky as a "stalker"(as it turns out, accurately, albeit unfairly) . He later spoke at a rally hosted by a white supremacist website, FreeRepublic.com, and became chummy with an historian who denied the Holocaust. Today, he is as sycophantic to George Bush as he was to Kenneth Starr, and in the immortal words of I.F. Stone, will never need to worry about dining alone.

And, so it goes among bloggers. Mr. Kaus' point is that it is human nature to sell out your opinions, even on a form of communication which stresses individuality, and doesn't pay any money. The fact that he may not generate income from his site (which is a part of Slate, a much larger website) has little bearing on whether he is willing to publicly disagree with one of Andrew Sullivan's rants accusing liberals of being treasonous, or (more famously in Kaus' case), refusing to criticize or de-link Ann Coulter from his website after she published a book with fabricated footnotes, and jokingly supported the bombing of the NY Times. If you want the acceptance of your peers, you keep any non-conforming opinions to yourself, and spout the conventional wisdom. I hope that I will have the strength of character to quit publishing this site rather than follow that path, but I doubt it. Please keep me honest.

Today is the 21st birthday of the Bush Twins. Happy Birthday, Barbara and Jenna !!!