Mr. Samgrass to the defense: Christopher Hitchens continues the saddest descent into irrelevance since Ramsey Clark by defending Ahmad Chalabi. None of this would be happening if Rickey Ray Rector was still alive !! [link via GA Cerny]

French actress Julie Delpy is profiled in this week's LA City Beat. She is a gorgeous woman who can't act worth crap, sort of like a Gallic version of Kate Beckinsale, but she did star in two of the most unintentionally hilarious movies of the late 20th Century, "Beatrice" and "Killing Zoe". She's also identified as a "writer-director" in the article, no doubt covering herself for that time five years from now when the date on her birth certificate unofficially ends her acting career.

UPDATE: As it turns out, Mlle. Delpy may have a very interesting career ahead of her, if this script is any indication. Following in the footsteps of Orson Welles, Woody Allen, Clint Eastwood, and Jon Favreau, she is slated to write, direct and star in this film, based on the life of Countess Erzebet Bathory, a beautiful sixteenth century Hungarian noblewoman whose hobby was torturing and eviscerating the bodies of young virgins, supposedly in a desperate attempt to remain eternally beautiful (it's a true story, and I'm already kicking myself for not including her in this article).

The film's producer insists that this won't just be another horror film out of the Hammer Film genre: "Usually they've linked (Bathory) to vampirism and all sorts of nonsense. Julie has written a serious movie that tells this in both historical and political terms." One way in which the blonde auteur addresses the "historical and political" significance of the infamous Countess, who is thought to have murdered over 600 young women, is through exploring the deeply spiritual ends she was pursuing, such as the ambivalence she feels as she prays to the Virgin Mary:

"Am I doing the right thing? Perhaps the blood is not helping my skin so much. I have been having rashes of late. Probably some unclean blood. But still I feel something is missing in my life."

What woman couldn't relate? I am so there on opening night !!

If there's any validity to this story, the only question left to decide in Eagle, Colorado will be how much money the taxpayers have to fork over to Kobe Bean Bryant for his pain and suffering. Prosecutors should not be in the business of bringing criminal charges to prove a point, or to show they can.

It shouldn't surprise anyone, but the latest Field Poll has Kerry beating Bush in California by 15 points. The poll also finds that Kerry has built a 40-point lead among Latinos, while the candidates are essentially even amongst everyone else (see this post for the paramount significance of the Latino vote for Democratic candidates). Kerry not only is blowing out the President in liberal strongholds like San Francisco and LA Counties, he also a significant lead in the Republican-leaning Central Valley, and a tiny lead in Orange and San Diego Counties(!)

The person elected President by the American people speaks:

George W. Bush promised us a foreign policy with humility. Instead, he has brought us humiliation in the eyes of the world.

He promised to "restore honor and integrity to the White House." Instead, he has brought deep dishonor to our country and built a durable reputation as the most dishonest President since Richard Nixon.

Honor? He decided not to honor the Geneva Convention. Just as he would not honor the United Nations, international treaties, the opinions of our allies, the role of Congress and the courts, or what Jefferson described as "a decent respect for the opinion of mankind." He did not honor the advice, experience and judgment of our military leaders in designing his invasion of Iraq. And now he will not honor our fallen dead by attending any funerals or even by permitting photos of their flag-draped coffins.

(snip)

There was then, there is now and there would have been regardless of what Bush did, a threat of terrorism that we would have to deal with. But instead of making it better, he has made it infinitely worse. We are less safe because of his policies. He has created more anger and righteous indignation against us as Americans than any leader of our country in the 228 years of our existence as a nation -- because of his attitude of contempt for any person, institution or nation who disagrees with him.

He has exposed Americans abroad and Americans in every U.S. town and city to a greater danger of attack by terrorists because of his arrogance, willfulness, and bungling at stirring up hornet's nests that pose no threat whatsoever to us. And by then insulting the religion and culture and tradition of people in other countries. And by pursuing policies that have resulted in the deaths of thousands of innocent men, women and children, all of it done in our name.

President Bush said in his speech Monday night that the war in Iraq is "the central front in the war on terror." It's not the central front in the war on terror, but it has unfortunately become the central recruiting office for terrorists. [Dick Cheney said, "This war may last the rest of our lives.] The unpleasant truth is that President Bush's utter incompetence has made the world a far more dangerous place and dramatically increased the threat of terrorism against the United States.

--Al Gore, 5-26-2004

Solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant: Morgue records from Baghdad and three outlying provinces indicate that over 5,500 Iraqi civilians have been killed since President Bush declared major hostilities at an end last May. That figure does not include deaths from areas such as Fallujah and Najaf, nor does it encompass the vast majority of insurgent deaths, which typically do not get handled by the morgue, and it constitutes a dramatic increase from the pre-war statistics.

It is becoming quite evident that the electorate needs to send a loud and conclusive message to the people who have gotten us into this mess. Ultimately, responsibility must rest with the moron who was entrusted with supreme power in this country, but failed to exercise it with any sense of discretion or accountability. The news this week that Ahmad Chalabi, the man who was the focus of our post-war Iraqi policy, was in fact little more than a grifter in bed with the Iranian mullahcracy, is even more depressing when one realizes that the President will hold no one accountable for that fiasco, just as he has held no one accountable for Abu Ghraib, for the non-existence of WMD's, and for the inattention to planning for the post-Saddam era in Iraq.

These people must not simply be defeated in the polling booth this November; they must be thoroughly and eternally discredited. As Rome did to Carthage twenty-two centuries ago, salt must sown into the decrepit remains of neo-conservatism, so that no one from this Administration can ever obtain gainful employment in the corridors of power again. The Republican Party must be forced to purge this ideology forthwith, or face the consequences of being in the political wilderness for the next three decades.

Manchester Utd. 3, Millwall 0: Tim Howard became the first American ever to play for the winning side in the world's oldest soccer tournament, England's F.A. Cup, when he started in goal this afternoon for Man U. If I might use the logic of Quentin Tarantino, this means that all sports in the United States are a joke, since great soccer players always "get the hell out of the country" once they become stars.

Yet another high school classmate of mine does something noteworthy. Steven Brindle, then an exchange student who graduated with the rest of us in 1981, and now an historian employed by English Heritage, recently discovered a hitherto forgotten iron bridge over the Thames, encased within a rather shabby cement and brick overpass that was about to be demolished. As a result, a one-of-a-kind design by legendary engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel (well, if you are really into 19th Century English architecture, he would be legendary) was preserved, and has been transported to a new location for restoration. Or to put it another way, it would be similar to one of Shakespeare's better plays being forgotten for several centuries, only to turn up in the back of some long-deceased Oxford don's linen closet. The BBC report on Dr. Brindle and the detective work leading up to his discovery, which is fascinating in its own right, can be found here.

Sherry Palmer, requiescat in pacem....

I guess three years of mediocre ratings weren't enough to keep Alias on ABC's schedule next year. The fourth season will be deferred until January, 2005, so next week's season finale will have to tide us over for awhile.

For your amusement, the ten worst album covers of all time...numbers 5 and 6, in particular, would make a perfect X-mas purchase via E-Bay. [link via The Hamster]

From today's Kausfiles: "I guess Kerry really is writing off the South!... Hello? Do Americans want a first daughter who parades around in a dress Paris Hilton would be embarrassed to wear ? And shouldn't she have, you know, thought of that? Even if she looks good in it."

Short answer: Yes !!!!! Has Kaus completely lost his mind? Why do I have the impression that his screensaver is a fish tank or a da Vinci drawing? If seeing Alexandra Kerry for the next four years is the price we have to pay, then screw the crackers. As well as any other NASCAR-loving, Iraqi-torturing, "Left Behind"-reading, sponging-off-the-Blue-State-taxpayer-while-whining-about-federal-government-spending, Toby Keith-and-The Judds-listening redneck. If we allow some special interest or regional bloc to determine whether a Presidential candidate is allowed to have an attractive daughter, then the terrorists will have won.

What he said.

Conservative pundit Rich Lowry has some choice words for those who believe that Abu Ghraib is merely an aberration: take a look at our own prisons. [link via Cecile duBois] And Jonathan Last of the Weekly Standard writes that using the flip-flop issue against John Kerry is a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

Lots of bloggers talk about the Geneva Conventions, but no one ever links to them (and that's Conventions, plural; they encompass about a half-dozen different treaties and protocols enacted over the last 150 years, starting in 1864). Here's a good primer from two years ago on the history of international law, the development of the concept of "war crimes" and how they apply to the post-9/11 world, in Slate. Originally proposed by the International Red Cross and the Red Crescent in the mid-19th Century, and enacted by the U.S. Senate in the aftermath of the Civil War, its essence is empathatic: we treat enemy combatants in a manner we would demand that our own be treated, no matter how just our cause or how wicked our adversary. Unfortunately, the Geneva Conventions have always seemed to be adhered to only in the aftermath of war, and forgotten when the next conflict starts up. That may be an inevitable outcome of battle, but it is one that we should always keep in mind before the next war starts.

SMYTHE'S WORLD SCOOP: Apple Blythe?!?
UPDATE: At least we know where the name came from.
UPDATE [2]: Turns out I scooped the rest of the media by some ten hours on this story. I rule.

Works for me....

The Very Ugly American: Apparently the ability to craft the hackneyed conventions of chop-socky and spaghetti-western dross into cinematic gold has not gone to the lanternine head of Quentin Tarantino, or at least not in such a way so that he would feel the need to show that he actually thinks before opening his mouth. Apparently threatened by the articulate actress seated next to him on the dais, he used the occasion of a press conference at the opening of the Cannes Film Festival to slight the British film industry. To wit,

Tarantino, set on edge at a press conference by (Tilda) Swinton's cut-glass accent - she graduated from Cambridge in political sciences before making Wittgenstein with the late Derek Jarman - hit back acidly.

Why if Hollywood was such a "bad boy" monster, he wondered, did British actors "get the hell out of there" and head for Beverly Hills once they hit fame?

(snip)

Then, getting into his stride, he argued that despite all the money, direction, acting and scriptwriting that went into a film, the reality was that audiences "showed up" for one reason: to see "the stars". They paid for tickets to watch actors they knew and were comfortable with.

He said that this was why America, India and Hong Kong - and not Britain - managed to sustain a flourishing domestic film industry.

Swinton, noted for art films such as The Deep End, said that she was not especially anxious to disagree with the jury president, but the "Hollywood product" was not the only one on the cinematic map.

"I speak as someone who comes from a country, which like so many others, is experiencing the loud voice of the multiplexes, which outnumber art cinemas, ten to one. It is jolly difficult for audiences looking for another kind of cinema, and very difficult for filmmakers and critics to have the confidence to look for another kind of cinema, and have the confidence to make another cinema.

First, lets give Tarantino his props for correctly observing that three of the largest film industries in the world are in China, India, and the US, although it shouldn't surprise anyone that the three most populous countries in the world, each with different primary languages, and with long cinematic traditions, have profitable film industries. That Great Britain does not have a film industry to rival the U.S. or, for that matter, two nations with over a billion people, is not much of a shock.

Second, there is another rather obvious reason the U.K. lags behind the U.S. in filmmaking: both countries speak the same language. No matter how much of a movie geek you are, going to see a foreign language film can be disconcerting, and the barrier imposed does not provide the optimum filmgoing experience. It's one thing for America to export films to China and India, where English is spoken, if at all, as an elite language. It's another to export them to a country where the mother tongue is the same; it's much easier to draw the casual filmgoer into the multiplex if he knows he's not going to have to look at sub-titles for two hours.

The competition, therefore, isn't between Hollywood and "Bollywood" or Hong Kong; each territory is pretty much exclusive and is run as a de facto monopoly by the local studios. It's between the U.S. and any other English-speaking country, and when it comes to corporations, our economies of scale kick theirs in the ass every day of the week. At least Great Britain still generates some home-grown product (ie., "Bend It Like Beckham", "Calendar Girls", and "28 Days Later", all of which were released in the U.S. within the last year), and keeps some of their stars at home; in entertainment terms, Australia has pretty much become the San Pedro de Macoris of the American film industry, and New Zealand, South Africa and Canada, while producing plenty of talent, pretty much exist only as location shoots for American movies, as far as the "Industry" is concerned. As the corporations running the studios become larger and more multi-national, the power of this oligopoly will only increase.

So inevitably, then, British "stars" are going to go where the money is, and if they want to make the money that comes from appearing in movies, it means appearing in films made and distributed by American companies; that was as true eighty years ago as it is today. If they don't, they can always work on TV or the stage, both of which are vibrant and healthy in Great Britain, or appear in the odd British flic, and not need "get the hell out of there", to use Tarantino's unfortunate line. That choice has nothing to do with greed, any more then the recent decisions by Kevin Spacey and Gwyneth Paltrow to relocate to London in order to pursue stage careers is motivated by greed.

Swinton's point, then, is dead-on correct. The near-monopoly that Hollywood studios possess in the English-language film market is going to have consequences down the line, in the same way that American fast-food chains have, or WalMart has. Crowding out smaller businesses means limiting the options people have, and thus restricts our imagination of alternatives; the same is true in the cinema. Tarantino would be wise to show greater consideration of that point, since there is no reason that the same stranglehold can't be applied to choke off creativity in other parts of the world as well.

I have redesigned the blog, but it may be a few days until I can figure out how to return some of the links to the side. In the meantime, if you visit any of the random archive pages, the old blogroll is still listed.

The Spurs really don't have much game in the second half, do they?