JOHN PAUL II DEAD: For good or ill, he was probably the most important historical figure of the last fifty years. It was he, not Gorbachev or Reagan, who was most responsible for the West's victory in the Cold War; Reagan's contributions were mainly rhetorical, and Gorbachev might not have been possible without the groundwork laid by the Pope throught Eastern Europe. But he must also bear a good deal of the responsibility for the dominancy of reactionary theological tendencies in the Church, particularly its continued support for the oppression of women and gays. There was a reason The DaVinci Code became a best-seller, and it wasn't because of the high-quality of its prose.

Alice in Crackerland: Tired of wasting your life talking to men and women who actually think for a living, in the "provincial ghettos" of the Big Apple and The City. How would you like to "overhear sophisticated lunchtime conversations about logistics management and telecom configurations," or ..."appreciate the problem-solving rigors of commercial ventures," while uncovering "...the crafts culture of stay-at-home moms." Well, then, Virginia Postrel has just the hellhole for you. [link via Alicublog]

The conventional wisdom in this town is that Jerry Buss dropped the ball, big-time, when he traded Shaq in the off-season and let Phil Jackson retire, rather than letting Kobe Bryant leave as a free agent. While Miami's emergence as the class of the Eastern Conference would seem to support that line of thinking, I think there are some problems with making Dr. Buss the scapegoat for the Lakers' downfall.

First, as anyone who saw last year's NBA Finals can attest, the Lakers were no longer a championship-caliber team before the Lakers made the trade. It was a stone-cold fluke that they even made the Finals (where have you gone, Fisher King?), and the Lakers were one miraculous Kobe Bryant trey from getting swept by the Pistons, one of the least talented champions in my lifetime. Without a draft to build on, some changes were going to be in order if the Lakers were going to do something better than remain competitive.

Second, Shaq was the obvious candidate to be moved. He is seven years older than Kobe, had a contract set to expire in another year, and he had all but disappeared in four of the five games of the NBA Finals. He was rarely in shape, often showing up for training camp morbidly obese, and then playing himself into something resembling "shape" over the course of the regular season, which usually encompassed a few weeks on the D.L. Even if he could be presumed to have two or three more seasons at the top of the league, his was clearly a stock in decline over the long haul. The salary cap meant that extending Shaq's contract and re-signing Kobe would have made it nearly impossible to sign another superstar anytime soon, which, as anyone who saw the 2003-4 NBA Finals can attest, was absolutely essential if the Lakers were going to make another title run.

So, of course, the Lakers trade their star for two younger players, neither of whom will likely start on any future Lakers champions, re-sign Kobe, and Shaq is finally motivated to get into shape before training camp, this time with a new team. The Heat have completely dominated their conference, and if they remain healthy through the playoffs, are almost a lock to make it to their first NBA Finals. The Lakers will not make the playoffs, and are now struggling to remain ahead of their Staples Center cotenants, the Clippers. Neither result could have been considered unexpected at the time the trade was announced (the biggest flop in the NBA this year isn't the Lakers, btw, it's the T-Wolves, the team with the best record in the Western Conference last year, who returned all of their stars, but have a record scarcely better than the Lakers).

But even had the Lakers held on to Shaq, managed to re-sign Kobe, and re-upped the ZenMaster for another year, it is improbable that they would be contending for another NBA title this season. Without the humiliation of being traded, I doubt Shaq would have been healthy enough to contribute the way he has to the Heat, and an injured, sub-par O'Neill would, at best, have led the Lakers to another 4 or 5 seed in the West, good enough to possibly get out of the first round, but not good enough to win the title. To Jerry Buss' credit, the Lakers aren't yet willing to settle for just being a contender.

Under current bankruptcy law, homeowners who suffer temporary setbacks, either at work or due to medical expenses, can file what is known as a Chapter 13 petition, where they can pay off the amount they've fallen behind on their mortgage over a period of time (usually between 3-5 years). It has been a remarkably successful method for some to keep their homes while rebuilding their credit, but according to this article, the new "reform" is going to sabotage Chapter 13 by giving greater priority to credit card debt, and by abolishing "cram downs", where a financially distressed debtor is allowed to reduce the amount owed on car loans to the actual depreciated value of the car, rather than the inflated (and typically usurious) amount in the original loan. The result, according to the bankruptcy judges they interviewed, will be a complete breakdown of a system that had been working quite well at enabling creditors to recover over $3 billion a year in outstanding loans.

On the other hand, foreclosure specialists are going to party like its 1999...I wonder if we're going to see something along the lines of judicial nullification when this law gets passed. Much of the proposed law, including provisions concerning the imposition of repayment plans when a debtor earns more than an arbitrary, pre-set level of income, requires a court order first, and judges maintain the discretion not to force the debtor into a repayment plan if the debtor can establish "special circumstances" that justify certain expenses. I can guarantee you that many bankruptcy judges will bend over backwards to define "special circumstances" in such a way as to permit all but the most egregious cases to remain in Chapter 7; the phrase, "special circumstances" almost begs to be given the sort of improvisation that an activist judiciary can muster.

And of course, there will be just enough pricks in the judiciary to give the term the most anally retentive definition possible; that split is exactly what will make the practice of ordinary Chapter 7 law so lucrative for specialists such as myself. The bankruptcy "reform" bill, stitched together as it was by credit card industry trolls and Federalist Society profs at non-elite law schools, with seemingly no contribution from anyone who's ever had any day-to-day experience in the trenchs, is going to become a joke the moment it goes into effect.

My sister Jen, who is currently in the Indonesian port city of Medan (150 miles NE of the epicenter), informs me that a) last night's quake was the most horrifying experience of her life, b) you could hardly tell as of this morning that a quake had struck Medan, and c) her company (Kohler) is pulling their people out of there ASAP, but not until after she's put in a few hours this afternoon interviewing some of their local reps. That, and the West is getting very preliminary casualty figures...yikes.

Reading between the lines of this poll, it would seem to me that if Mark McGwire is still receiving more than a majority of support for the Baseball Hall of Fame, after a week in which he was vilified for his refusal to rat out his former colleagues before a panel of political buffoons, he probably will capture enough support for entry when the actual vote takes place next year.

Kevin Drum has some words about the rather unusual proclivity of the President for kissing and fondling the smoothened scalps of bald men. This is a subject about which I have had plenty of first-hand experience since my fateful, alcohol-fueled decision to shave my head back in the summer of '94. When done by a woman to a man, the head squeeze carries just a hint of sexual frisson, and it's one of the true joys of follicle impairedness; when done by a man to another man, it's, well, icky and condescending.

Idiot Son Watch: In what could conceivably be the most bizarre romantic coupling in the history of man, the tabs are reporting that Oscar-winning actress Nicole Kidman was seen in the company of...our old friend, Saadi Ghaddafi.

Sorry about the lack of posts recently; over the last week I've had several day-long depositions in Orange County, followed by the four-day holiday I take from reality every year in mid-March. Nevertheless, my silence on the Terry Schiavo matter stems from a lack of anything knowledgeable to say about the legal, medical or ethical issues involved, rather than any crunch for time. The fact that Tom DeLay and the governing clique of texans believe that the power of the federal government should intervene on behalf of a specific individual doesn't mean that there isn't some legitimate federal interest in the issue of euthanasia, but don't hold your breath that any reasoned argument is going to get made in this environment.

Concerning the media circus the day before in the Capital, the rare example of bipartisan comity over the ever-important issue of steroid use in baseball during the 1990's is addressed with appropriate rage by Mr. Welch, here and here. Up until last week, I had little sympathy for the players who took illegal performance-enhancing drugs; I rather enjoyed the candor expressed by Jose Canseco on the subject, and I felt the Code of Silence on the issue tended to punish the players who had played by the rules. And what Dodger fan doesn't want to see Barry Bonds deflated, both literally and figuratively.

But the media reaction to Mark McGwire's refusal to name names before Congress stunned me. I tend to be sympathetic to any individual who takes on the full power of the governmnet, and his unwillingness to lie about his use of performance-enhancers (as several other ballplayers no doubt did last week) was manly and appropriate. When it comes to the rights of the accused, whether it be Rick Neuheisel, Jerry Tarkanian, Tanya Harding, or Pete Rose, sportswriters tend to be hard-boiled fascists, and McGwire's exercise of his constitutional rights before the House caused what can only be described as mock outrage. One would have thought that McGwire was covering up his role in ignoring warnings about Al Qaeda attacks in the U.S. before 9/11, or that he had made false claims about WMD's and Saddam's attempted purchase of yellowcake, or that he was gouging the taxpayers through the use of no-bid contracts in Iraq, or any of the other matters that the House committee that he testified before has still not used its subpoena power to investigate. Then again, if he had, the Bush Administration would probably be nominating him to lead the World Bank, or finding a Cabinet-level post for him to fill.

Social Security Privatization, R.I.P.: NY Times Columnist David Brooks gives the eulogy:

Having skimmed decades of private-account proposals, Republicans did not appreciate how unfamiliar this idea would seem to many people. They didn't appreciate how beloved Social Security is, and how much they would have to show they love it, too, before voters would trust them to reform it. In their efforts to create a risk-taking, dynamic society, they didn't appreciate how many people, including conservatives, value security and safety.

Furthermore, Republicans didn't really have a strategy to get their proposals through Congress. They seemed to think that if the president held enough town hall meetings around the country, they could somehow bulldoze the Democrats.

(snip)

But Republican leaders have never really developed the skills required for cross-party horse-trading. Today's Republicans emerged in response to the ideological politics of the 1960's and were forged in the anti-political populism of the 1994 revolution. These anti-political creatures of conviction find sticking to orthodoxy easier than the art of compromise.

(snip)

When Social Security reform was broached, the [Democratic] party leaders went to the F.D.R. Memorial, as if the glory days of the 1930's were the guideposts for the 21st century. Meanwhile, the party base has grown militant with rage. The Howard Dean hotheads declare that they hate the evil Republicans, making compromise seem like collaborating with Satan. The militants, bloggers and polemicists have waged a relentless pressure campaign on any moderates who might even be thinking of offering constructive ideas.

Well, I wouldn't put it that way, exactly, but it does do a heart good realizing the power progressives are beginning to exercise through the blogosphere (or almost as good, the power we are perceived to be exercising; it's interesting to note that while conservative bloggers are more content to pick off the occasional media figure who steps out of line, liberal bloggers are having much more influence at the policy level). For a political party that has been pretty devoid of ideas for a generation, the militancy decried by Pundit Brooks can more accurately be described as a movement becoming revitalized.

Code White: Joel Kotkin, on yesterday's mayoral primary in Los Angeles:

Hertzberg ran as the candidate of the city's middle class, tailoring his appeal largely to the San Fernando Valley, the city's most suburbanized area. He focused on issues like traffic, taxes, police protection, business growth, and dysfunctional schools--topics that are the chief concerns of middle-class homeowners. Yesterday Hertzberg won the bulk of these voters. The problem? Middle-class residents here may no longer have large enough ranks to elect one of their own to citywide office. This may have turned the famously energetic Hertzberg into the little engine that could not climb the demographic hill. Whatever the merits of the candidates in this particular election, one thing is clear: The underlying demographic factors that doomed Hertzberg's campaign spell bad news for Los Angeles, and for the American city in general.(emphasis mine)

Now, I favored Bob Hertzberg in yesterday's race, and I would have voted for him if I hadn't been in a two-and-a-half hour traffic snarl from Costa Mesa to the Valley last night. He had fresh, provocative ideas, and came within an eyelash of knocking an incumbent mayor out of the runoff (also, in the interest of full disclosure, he used to work for my father back in the day). But the inference in that piece, that "middle-class" voters in Los Angeles were unable to elect "one of their own", thanks, no doubt, to the nefarious "special interest groups" who backed Antonio Villaraigosa and James Hahn, not only shortchanges Hertzberg's appeal, but also lays out in very stark form one of the least subtle racial hooks I've read in some time. [link via LA Observed]

And, while I'm at it, it's bogus to boot. First, the voter turnout yesterday was 30% citywide, so it's safe to say that "middle class" voters were probably disproportionately more likely to vote than, lets say, voters in South Central or Panorama City. Hertzberg's problem wasn't that the "middle class" was too small to choose the mayor of Los Angeles, but that he didn't do particularly well with the significant segment of voters who wouldn't be considered "middle class" in Kotkin's analysis.

Second, although it's only a point of semantics, the notion that Bob Hertzberg can be considered one of the "middle class" is a bit of stretch. Hertzberg is a prominent attorney, and himself the son of a prominent attorney. I'm speculating, of course, having no access to any statements of personal net worth, but I'd be willing to stick my neck out a little and guess that, as a prime shaker in a boutique law firm, he probably had an annual income well into the six, maybe even seven, figures. He lives in Encino, one of the wealthiest communities on the planet, Sherman Oaks, a block away from me (me stupid!), and hardly a hub of true middle class sentiment.

Lastly, Kotkin's underlying point, that Hertzberg was the candidate of the "middle class", was belied by the exit polls. According to the city's paper of record, the frontrunner, Villaraigosa, captured 31% of voters earning between $60-100,000 (as opposed to 27% for Hahn, and 21% for Hertzberg), 32% of voters earning between $40-60,000 (vs. 23% for Hertzberg and 22% for Hahn), and 35% of voters earning between $20-40,000 (vs. 28% for Hahn and 16% for Hertzberg); those groups encompassed 64% of the electorate. Only among voters earning in the six figure and above range (26% of the electorate) did Hertzberg surpass Villaraigosa, but even there the margin wasn't that wide (37% to 28%). He also decisively won the East San Fernando Valley, where a large proportion of middle income homeowners actually live. Hertzberg remained competitive by leading in the West Valley and splitting the Westside with his rivals, two of the richest areas in town, but bombing everywhere else.

In other words, the mythical "middle class" voter Kotkin speaks of exists only in the form of a stereotype, the white suburban homeowner. Although the demographic trend he refers to may indeed be happening, whether it represents bad news for this area is another question entirely. If anything, yesterday's election may signify the development of a different type of middle class voter, the non-white Angeleno, which as a voting bloc provided Villaraigosa with the base of his support. Suffice it to say I have not heard anything that would lead me to believe that the emergence of a Latino or African-American middle class is "bad news" for Los Angeles, even if it displaces the "middle class" so near and dear to Kotkin's heart.

No matter how many "democracies" spring up from the ashes of U.S. aggression in the Middle East, it will never justify our decision to have gone to war in the first place. Period. End of story.

Why is this such a difficult concept to understand? One can applaud the emergence of free elections, opposition parties, even a respect for civil liberties, in the Middle East, and encourage the Bush Administration to live up to the President's rhetoric in his Second Inaugural, and still say "never again" to the mendacity that led us into the war in the first place, or the incompetence that followed. Anyone who has studied history knows that remarkable events often follow in the aftermath of a war, events that may not have been contemplated at the time war started, or which may have had nothing to do with the causus belli, but which are still, in the context of the development of mankind and civilization, quite positive.

For example, the following occurred, either directly or indirectly, because of World War II: the decolonization of the Third World; the end of legalized segregation in the U.S.; the emancipation of women in the U.S. and Europe; the ideological discrediting of racialist and anti-Semitic thinking; the "democratization" of higher education, thanks to the GI Bill of Rights; the establishment of the state of Israel; the emergence of the U.S. as the preeminent industrial power in the world (and with it, the end of the Great Depression); the creation of international bodies of government, such as the U.N.; the development of the computer; and the beginnings of space travel. Without the war, each of those developments would have occurred more slowly, or might not have occurred at all, at least in the way they ultimately did. And those are all good things, but it doesn't mean Hitler was justified in invading Poland, or that the bombings of Dresden or Nagasaki were morally validated.

Riviera Update: With S256, the "Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005", aka the "Loan Sharking Bill of Rights", aka the "Full-Employment Act for Bankruptcy Counsel", hours from passage by Congress, I would be remiss if I didn't point out my favorite plum in the entire law. Section 1501(a) suspends the effective date of the law for 180 days from the date of passage. Ostensibly to give the courts sufficient time to formulate new procedures and forms for the new law, this elegant little valentine will enable, shall we say, the more dedicated consumer advocates within the bankruptcy bar to advertise from now until September about the importance of filing before the new law goes into effect. Sssssssweeeeeet...just what the doctor ordered for the economy !!

This is another example of the Law of Unintended Consequences at work. Just as the movement to thwart tort actions against Big Business has led instead to the filing of more frivolous lawsuits, and our efforts to fight terrorism have led to more terrorists, so too will this grand attempt to make it harder to file bankruptcy lead instead to more bankruptcy filings. Whatever you might say about Her, God does have a wicked sense of humor.

UPDATE: Oops, my bad--according to CNN, the House isn't set to take up the Senate bill until next month. Expect to see those "Last Chance to File" ads running through the end of October.

Contrasting takes on the bankruptcy "reform" measure from the right, by Instapundit and Volokh Conspiracy. The Volokh poster links to a letter sent by the rapidly diminished "Blue Dog Democrats" (one of George Bush's greatest achievements has been the discrediting of "Luxury Box" Democrats the "Blue Dogs" symbolize, both philosophically and, more importantly, at the polls) to House Speaker Dennis Hastert, giving him their uncritical support for the Republican bill. Among the signatories: Harold Ford Jr. (a possible candidate for the U.S. Senate unless he chickens out again, and who rather ironically notes on his website, "[I]n this new century, America is confronting challenges on many fronts. Our generation has been called upon to fight terrorism, defend our homeland, and expand democracy abroad. At the same time, too many Americans do not have access to good jobs, first-rate education, or quality health care. These are urgent challenges, but there is no doubt America can meet them. We must rise to the task without passing on the burden and the debt to future generations"), Jim Cooper (whose fifth column efforts to sabotage the Clinton Health Care proposal led to the party's minority status in both houses of Congress for the past ten years), and Californians Jane Harman, Joe Baca, Ellen Tauscher and Jim Costa, whose interest in representing less affluent constituents may be tempered by the fact that the 2001 reapportionment has given them safe seats.

A vivid first-person account of the impact of onerous debt and (in this case) the life saving effect of a bankruptcy, here. And an equally telling editorial as to why the Democratic Party is such a woefully inept opposition party, thanks in no small part to the provincialism of the senior Senator from Delaware, here.

UPDATE [3/5/2005]: Bankruptcy "reform" used to be one of my favorite topics (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here), but since a number of much louder voices have started to chime in, stating basically the same thing I used to, I will avail myself of the opportunity to write about other topics near and dear to my heart, and get out of the way once I dispose of the subject one last time.

As a politically-inclined blogger, my take on the measure currently before Congress is one of revulsion. It is a law designed by credit card companies to make life more hellish for people who made the mistake of running up charges on their plastic. Since many of those charges are a result of unforeseen medical expenses, the passage of the bill will transfer wealth from the most vulnerable part of the middle and working class to Kaiser Permanente and VISA. It will do nothing to stop actual abuses of the bankruptcy system, such as the practice in some states of granting unlimited homestead exemptions, or repeat bad faith Chapter 13 filings. Its passage will lead to a flood of bankruptcies, as debtors try to take advantage of the old law before the new one goes into effect, which may in turn lead to a tipping point that sends the economy back into another recession. The fact that such a bill could be seriously proposed in the halls of Congress I can attribute only to a shared predilection for coprophilia by GOP and Delaware Senators.

As a bankruptcy lawyer, though, lets just say I have a different take. Those of you who know me are aware of this character flaw I possess. I'm weak. I crave material things. The temptation of an easy life is overwhelming to me. And if this measure passes, bankruptcy professionals such as myself will make out like bandits.

You see, the "reform act" will do several things for me. It will generate more of an excuse to jack up my rates, since I will be called on to provide more services, such as tax analysis, before I can file a case. Right now, I'm limited by convention and local rules to what I can charge a client in a Chapter 7 to between $1200 and $2000. Above that, I have to get the permission of the court, and I'd better have a good justification. If a repayment plan is mandated by the court, I can use that to charge higher rates through the plan, making myself a priority creditor.

In addition, making the bankruptcy law more cumbersome and more fraught with danger for the debtor cuts out a lot of my competition, which comes from paralegal services that currently can prepare simple bankruptcies for much less than what I charge. Here in Los Angeles, maybe 40% of all Chapter 7 bankruptcies (the most basic bankruptcy, which leads to a straight discharge of debts most of the time) are filed by paralegals, and most Chapter 13's (the bankruptcy most favored by the new law, in which a repayment plan is proposed by the debtor, usually to save a home on the eve of a foreclosure) are done by "law offices" that are mainly fronts for paralegals. The proposed law will cut out the competition for Chapter 7's, while leaving untouched the more egregious abusers of the system to perform Chapter 13's.

And lastly, this legislative gift to legalized loan sharking will create a whole new niche in my profession: credit card attorneys. Right now, the credit industry doesn't get involved in bankruptcy cases unless there is clear fraud on behalf of the debtor (such as what happens when a debtor takes a new credit card with him to Las Vegas, cashes it out at the blackjack table, and returns home to file a bankruptcy the next day). Needless to say, a law that allows credit card companies to receive priority on having its debts paid will encourage more aggressive collection activities from that front, which, of course, means more work for people like me.

So that's it, in a nutshell. If the Bankruptcy Reform Act passes, I will finally have a chance to live out some of my fantasies. A house south of Valley Vista, a muscle car, a country club membership, even sex with women: all of that can be mine, should Congress pass this measure. Sure, it will make the lives of millions of people who have suffered the misfortune of a catastrophic illness or an ill-timed job loss that much worse, but if you look at the big picture, that seems like an acceptable price to pay for my being able to play a couple rounds of golf a week at Riviera. So get off your asses, and write your Congressman. I'm depending on it.

One of the Big Feet of the blogosphere receives some friendly criticism by a liberal blogger, then gets all huffy about it. Arrogance ensues.

There is a fine line between righteous denunciations of bigotry, and plain, old-fashioned political correctness, and Abraham Foxman crossed it. There are terrible things the Nazis did besides the Holocaust that people are entitled to remember.

Their Great Leader is getting his ass kicked on Social Security, someone in his Administration was enabling a prostitute to enter the White House under the cover of being a "journalist", the opposition, rather than being demoralized after the defeat in November, is more unified than at any time in the past, so what's a wing nut going to do? Why, of course, you revive the tactics (and target) of the discredited "Swift Boat Vets", and go after the defeated candidate from last time, John Kerry.

This time, the rumor you pursue is that he's trying to cover up the fact that he was dishonarably discharged from the military, and somehow got then-President Carter to set it aside. Depending on the reason he received such a discharge, that could prove to be devastating to any future Presidential run (of course, a dishonarable discharge because he later came out against the Vietnam War would probably improve his chances, especially if Tricky Dick's fingerprints were on it).

Is there any basis to the rumor they're trying to float? HELL NO !! A dishonarable discharge would have made it very difficult for him to be approved to practice law by the State Bar of Massachusetts in the mid-70's, but there is nothing in the record to suggest that happened. Since he was a public figure in the 1970's, there would have been people in the military who (a) signed off on the discharge; (b) hated Kerry, then and now; and (c) are still alive to talk about it. But no one has come forward to level such an accusation. In short, if he had been dishonorably discharged, there would be an overwhelming circumstantial case showing that (in much the same way there was an overwhelming circumstantial case that Bush blew off his Guard duty in 1972), and you certainly wouldn't need the former Presidential candidate to sign Form 180 to prove it.

There is also another group that has an interest in smearing Kerry by innuendo: his opponents within the Democratic Party for the 2008 nomination. Because of the tiny margin of defeat last time, Kerry, not HRC, not Edwards or Obama, is the presumptive frontrunner. A comfort level exists with him among Democrats, and if he can come within 2 1/2% of knocking off an incumbent with the country at war and not in a recession, he's a safe pick, a no brainer. To change that dynamic, look for one of Hillary's handpuppets, like Harold Ickes, to begin "raising questions" about his war record (Ickes has already hinted to reporters that Kerry's slow response during the campaign to the "Unfit for Command" cadre showed that he must have had something to hide) as a way to ratchet up the public pressure to drive him out of the race.

The L.A. Times, on why the reaction to Chris Rock proved to be divisive in ways AMPAS probably didn't imagine:

So the faces were a little different, but most of the rules remained unchanged. There were stars and then there were big stars and then there was everyone else. The pre-awards parties at the Kodak Theatre were divided into levels — the higher the status, the lower the floor. Same with the seats. Same with the humor.

"Who is Jude Law?" Rock demanded a few minutes into an opening bit that drew roars from the cheap seats high in the back of the theater and raised more than a few hackles in the front rows. "Why is he in every movie I've seen for the past four years? He's in everything! Even movies he's not in, you look at the credits, he made cupcakes or something!" Hollywood likes to be kidded (Robin Williams is beloved, and where was Jack with his famous shades) but only in a kinder, gentler way.

Later, Sean Penn took the stage to tartly remind that Law is "one of our finest actors." Penn spoke for a different constituency, the insiders for whom the Oscars aren't a mere TV show (the way they are, say, for the folks at the Magic Johnson Theatres, whose raves about the movie "White Chicks" were beamed in to varied amusement) but a celebration of a serious art form.

Still later, at the after-parties, the buzz was all about whether Rock, the "outsider" host who had been hired on the promise that he might do something worth watching, such as being offensive, had merely managed to offend the wrong people.

"I thought what he said about Jude Law was unacceptable," muttered one producer after the ceremony, as he awaited his Governors Ball plate of slow-braised Kobe beef short ribs.

"You know what? Lighten the ... up! That little speech Sean Penn came up with, that's the reason people hate liberals," opined another producer, Nelson George, sitting across the room with Sean Combs (né "P. Diddy").

In my view, one of the reasons that ratings for industry shows like the Oscars have dwindled in recent years is that the self-congratulatory bullshit best symbolized by Sean Penn this year is unacceptable to a younger generation. Someone like Jude Law or Kate Beckinsale or Colin Farrell gets hyped to the stratosphere for appearing in big budget movies that no one sees or cares about, the quality of live-action movies is such that it makes absolutely no sense to go to the cineplex anymore when the same experience can be achieved for a quarter of the price on your home entertainment system, and all the really good movies tend either to be quirky independent films with B-level or no-name casts (ie., Sideways, or Lost in Translation), PIXAR cartoons, or movies directed by Clint Eastwood. So when Chris Rock cracks wise about how Jude Law somehow got to play "Alfie" in half of the movies relased last year, while Sean Penn pompously asserts that he's one of "our" greatest actors, guess who the audience at home is going to support?

Another triumph for Bush's "pro-democracy" agenda: Word out of Colorado is that the civil lawsuit against Kobe Bryant has been settled.

Perhaps the best shot at a knock-out of a GOP incumbent in the 2006 Senate elections may be in Rhode Island, where Lincoln Chafee faces a tough battle overcoming the overwhelming partisan edge the Democrats have in a state that John Kerry won by over 20% last year. So perhaps I'm being just a little paranoid when I see that the wife of a Republican actor and major campaign donor is rustling up opposition within the Democratic Party to the frontrunner in that race, James Langevin. Nice try, Karl.

Quote of the Day: "I want to thank Warner Brothers for casting me in this piece of s---."
--Halle Berry, in accepting her "Razzie" Award for Catwoman Saturday night.

Humorless Twit Watch: There is probably an interesting reason that Sean Penn came to the defense of Jude Law tonight, but not Tobey Maguire or Colin Farrell....

An interesting fact about the likely Best Picture winner (assuming it's The Aviator or Million Dollar Baby) at tonight's Oscar ceremony: it will be the first film set in Los Angeles to earn that award. It's hard to believe that with all the classic films set in the city, from Sunset Blvd. to Chinatown to The Graduate to L.A. Confidential, not once has the Academy recognized a film set in the film capitol for its top honor.

The consistently excellent (and frequent Smythe's World commenter) Prof. David Johnson has finally been getting some long overdue props from the Big Feet in the liberal blogosphere, over his "Cousin Oliver" post, so it might be appropriate to note that other posts of his are worth reading too. His take on the wasteful and morally obtuse spectacle of flyovers at big sporting events has the precision and elegance of a Matt Leinart touchdown pass.

Well, here's an interesting theory on Gannongate...we probably shouldn't be jumping ahead of ourselves on this one. Right now, the one unanswered question that keeps this scandal going is who approved Guckert's "Day Pass". While the media is still covering this story as part of the Bush Administration's efforts to create a state media, the real story is much simpler: a gay prostitute obtained entry to the White House by pretending to be a journalist. So who was/were his client(s)? Was there blackmail involved? Did he obtain inside dope (such as the stories he "broke" on the Daschle-Thune race, or on the Rathergate forgeries) from his clients? Everything else is just inside baseball for the media.

I cannot let this day go by without wishing a happy 40th birthday to a very special person, my sister Jennifer. Hope you're having fun in Paris.

Rev. Gene Scott dead: Beloved by stoners, parodied by Robin Williams, immortalized by Werner Herzog, this televangelist was a ubiquitous presence on local TV for over three decades. No hypocrite he: denunciations of abortion and conspiratorial ravings about gay cartoon characters were not his style. His sermons went off on historical tangents that would have been the envy of Umberto Eco, and perhaps his most distinctive habit was to replay, over and over, the same hymn when he was dissastified with the amount of money he was raising. "I want to know, I want to know if Jesus welcomes me there...."

Paul Krugman has another timely column, this time on the likelihood that the Bush Administration will gin up some new "terrorist threat" to take the focus off its floundering domestic programs (in this case, the D.O.A. efforts to gut Social Security):

The ultimate demonstration of Mr. Bush's true priorities was his attempt to appoint Bernard Kerik as homeland security director. Either the administration didn't bother to do even the most basic background checks, or it regarded protecting the nation from terrorists as a matter of so little importance that it didn't matter who was in charge.

My point is that Mr. Bush's critics are falling into an unnecessary trap if they focus only on domestic policies, and allow Mr. Bush to keep his undeserved reputation as someone who keeps Americans safe. National security policy should not be a refuge to which Mr. Bush can flee when his domestic agenda falls apart.

Bush's "undeserved reputation" referred to above is especially nagging. The public gives him credit for preventing another major terrorist attack on American soil in the 3-plus years since 9/11, but it wasn't as if there was anything comparable to that in the 3-plus years before 9/11. For the WTC to fall, it took years of planning, a cadre of dozens of highly motivated wackos, and an incredible string of luck, facilitated by an Administration staffed with Peter Principal rejects and white "recipients" of affirmative action, euphemistically called "neoconservatives", that were too filled with their own arrogant self-importance to pay attention to the signs in front of them.

In short, even if we had done nothing after 9/11, it is still unlikely we would have had to face a similar attack in the last three years, just as we did not face a similar attack in the six-plus years after Oklahoma City. Krugman's point, that the Administration continues to overlook obvious areas where terrorists could attack in favor of ideological boogeymen overseas, does lead to the frightening conclusion that our luck may soon run out.

Clara Alice Robinson v. Valley Presbyterian Hospital: On Friday night, Clara Robinson, a 90-year old woman, great-grandmother of six, grandmother of eight, mother of two, and widow of James C. Robinson, fell at her home in Van Nuys, fracturing her right knee cap. When the excruciating pain from her injury made sleep impossible, two of her grandchildren (Cat Ruderman and Steven Smith) called the paramedics at three in the morning. As the closest hospital to her home, Sherman Oaks Medical Center, was full, the paramedics decided to take her two miles away to Valley Presbyterian Hospital in Van Nuys. After several hours of being unattended, a doctor finally examined her, and x-rays subsequently confirmed that her knee was shattered. She was fitted with a full leg cast to her right leg, and released from the hospital Sunday night.

When I first found out that my grandmother's knee was busted, I experienced a hollow, numb feeling of dread. Even more than my parents, she is the one person from whom I always felt gave me unconditional love. For someone who is in her tenth decade, she continues to possess an alert mind and an impish disposition; she reads constantly, her TV viewing habits are impeccable (with the exception of an occasional "Matlock" episode), and her sense of humor is mordant and wry. She has suffered numerous falls in the past few years, including two broken legs and a heart attack, so any injury inflicted on her invariably sucks the wind out of my lungs.

When she told me Friday morning that she was in an incredible amount of pain, I knew this injury was especially serious. Her habit in the past has been to apologize for causing such a bother, and that she would be alright if we just got her into bed. Her tibia might be sticking out of her leg, but she would be loath to admit she needed help. So when I heard about her condition, I knew it meant trouble.

After the ambulance picked up my grandmother, I followed her to Valley Presbyterian. She was taken to the Emergency Room, where she was placed in a cot. I got there a little before 4:00 a.m., and they still had not examined her, or done anything other than attach some gadgets to her to monitor her heartbeat. Other than the Tylenol I had given her earlier, there had been no efforts taken to alleviate her pain, nor did they inquire with either myself or her as to past medical conditions, such as her pacemaker. At about 4:30 a.m., I finally dragooned a nurse, handed him my grandmother's last complete medical exam, and went home to bed. I'm still ashamed that I didn't stay longer, or cold-cock the nearest doctor.

The next morning, she was finally examined, her fractured knee confirmed, and I awaited the worst. The obvious solution, full surgery to repair the knee, was problematic, due to her age and weakened heart condition. The doctors decided the best option, or perhaps the cheapest option, was to put her leg in a cast. She obviously would not be on her feet again for a long time, but it promised to be the least invasive approach to her injury.

Yesterday, the hospital contacted us to announce my grandmother was checking out that day. Since she had seemed in poor condition when I visited her Saturday, I was surprised, to say the least. Needless to say, her house is not normally equipped with full nursing care and a wheelchair, so my family made inquiries as to whether it would be necessary for her to leave that day. The hospital answered in the affirmative: if she wasn't out by midnight, Medicare would no longer pay for her stay at the hospital. The other option offered by Medicare was for her to be placed in a convalescent home, which we immediately rejected. The hospital would, however, arrange for a wheelchair to be delivered to her residence (they refused to let us borrow one of the theirs), and we could pick her up once we got it.

We were supposed to receive the chair before six o'clock. From 5 to 8 p.m., we received several phone calls from the hospital, reminding us that Mrs. Robinson was technically not admitted there anymore, and wondering when we were going to pick her up. Each time, we told them that we were still waiting for her wheelchair, without which we would be unable to get her from the car taking her from the hospital into her house. Still, the wheelchair was not forthcoming. Finally, at about 8:30 p.m., I decided that just waiting around at the house with my aunt and uncle wasn't going to cut it, and that since my grandma perhaps could use some company, I would go down to the hospital.

Those of you who live outside Southern California might know that over the last few days, we have experienced a rainstorm of near-Biblical proportions. Last night was truly the worst of it. Beginning at 8 p.m., and continuing into the wee hours of the morning, the East Valley experienced, on average, two inches of rainfall per hour. Every half mile or so, where the streets intersected, there would be a foot-deep lake (or worse), and the intensity of the showers narrowed visibility to almost nothing. And it was cold, by SoCal standards. It was the sort of weather that might kill an old person just for being exposed to it.

For the next ninety minutes or so, I sat with my grandmother in her room, intermittantly watching "Desperate Housewives" and calling my uncle (her son-in-law) to find out the status of the wheelchair. Every so often, one of the nurses would stop by, asking, in as polite a way as possible under the circumstances, if we were ready to leave. Still, the wheelchair had not been delivered yet, so I asked someone who looked like she might be in charge if the hospital could find out what was going on. A few minutes later, she informed me that the wheelchair would definitely be delivered to our home, "tonight or tomorrow morning". I asked if, due to the late hour, the indefiniteness of the wheelchair's status, and the terrible conditions outside, we could prevail upon the hospital to "readmit" my grandmother for one more night. And again, after consulting with higher-ups at the hospital, she came back a few minutes later, repeating the mantra we had heard all day: No.

Finally, at about ten-thirty in the evening, my uncle calls to tell me that the people delivering the wheelchair were on the way, and that I might as well start the process of bringing her home. She was wheeled down to the outpatient section, and one of the nurses assisted me in the arduous process of putting a ninety-year old woman in a full leg cast into the front seat of a Mitsubishi Eclipse. The Eclipse is a nice, relatively spacious sports car, but it's not the optimal mode of transportation in this situation. For the first time in my life, I'd wished I owned an SUV.

It took about ten minutes to drive/float the two miles from hospital to home. When I got there, I discovered that the wheelchair still hadn't arrived. So my grandmother waited, in the front seat of my car, for about five minutes, while my uncle and I, not wanting to leave her alone, stood ankle-deep in water, waiting for the wheelchair. When it was finally delivered, it took another ten minutes to maneuver my grandmother out of the car, taking great pains not to twist her leg or put any undue pressure on her cast, before we were finally able to put her in the chair and wheel her to the house. It took four of us: my uncle and I, and the two caregivers who had delivered the chair, to complete the task in a driving rainstorm. It was like a scene out of King Lear.

I'm certain that many of the people reading this have had similar, or possibly even worse, encounters with hospitals (and mind you, this was a hospital, not an H.M.O.) The thing that struck me the most was how dehumanizing the entire experience was. The hospital treated my grandmother not as someone who was sick and needed care, but as a thing, a commodity, for whom it provided the absolute minimal service possible before they shipped her on her merry way. The hospital itself was immaculate, its facilities state-of-the-art, its medical practitioners top-notch, and its nurses unfailingly polite and dedicated, but all to a point. Once the patient's needs began to conflict with the bottom line, she was no longer a significant factor, so they got rid of her.

Hunter Thompson Dead: I first read him in the summer after I graduated from high school. His portrayals of Hubert Humphrey, Sonny Barger, Al Davis, and, especially, Richard Nixon resonate, even today; Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail, 1972 is as readable today as it was the day it was published. It's hard to imagine an America without him.

Kudos and major props to my homie Ronald Schmidt (also, the Godfather of my nephew) for his book, This is the City: Making Model Citizens in Los Angeles, which just received a very favorable review from the LA Times. The book, which is sort of a non-fiction version of City of Quartz, focuses on the attempt by a number of civic leaders to shape the way Angelenos came to see themselves. In spite of that rather dry description, it's actually a rather entertaining read, especially for Jack Webb fans.

With friends like these: What Kevin Drum said. Whatever validity there may be to Prof. Estrich's argument that the LA Times does not seek out the voices of women for the Op-Ed page, making a snide remark about an illness suffered by your adversary is cruel and offensive. No wonder Dukakis lost.

Actually, I don't even accept the sincerity of her underlying argument. Estrich's column isn't exactly a must-read; her attacks on Arriana Huffington's candidacy (for being a poor mom), and her puffery of Ahnolt Ziffel during the 2003 recall (especially after the Times published accurate accounts of his serial gropery), were hardly endearing to progressives or feminists. That she criticized the Times for publishing a piece by a conservative writer (Charlotte Allen) on the grounds that she possessed thin literary credentials, is hardly an argument that a blogger is going take seriously. Should the Times (and other papers) seek out feminist voices and female writers (of any political persuasion)? Absofreakinglutely. Should Kinsley succumb to a protection racket, backed by a prominent law professor, to hire her pals and cronies? Well, if he does, I think I may have just discovered a way to use this website to wet my beak....

Connecting the dots: The first story laying out the intimate connections between Karl Rove, GOPUSA/Talon News, and Jeff Gannon. Note in particular Gannon's work on a pet project of Rove's, the Thune-Daschle Senate race.

Great Daily Show last night, focusing, at long last, on the blogosphere. "Ted Hitler" gets it !! [link via Americablog]

Oddly, the MoDo column on Gannongate is more insightful, and pulls fewer punches, than the article by Mr. Grassy Knoll himself, Sid Blumenthal. Money quote:

Does the Bush team love everything military so much that even a military-stud Web site is a recommendation?

Or maybe Gannon/Guckert's willingness to shill free for the White House, even on gay issues, was endearing. One of his stories mocked John Kerry's "pro-homosexual platform" with the headline "Kerry Could Become First Gay President."

With the Bushies, if you're their friend, anything goes. If you're their critic, nothing goes. They're waging a jihad against journalists - buying them off so they'll promote administration programs, trying to put them in jail for doing their jobs and replacing them with ringers.

Frank Rich is also worth reading on the subject. All three understand why this story is perhaps a tad more important than the off-the-cuff remarks of a cable news executive: an Administration that has created a propaganda outfit, complete with its own version of state TV (FoxNews), and with pundits and bloggers willing to parrot the official line at a very affordable price, finally gets burned.

It turns out that "Talon News" didn't even exist when "Jeff Gannon" asked his first question at a White House press briefing. In other words, the news service seems to have been created to provide Mr. Guckert a front to gain access into the White House, rather than serve any legitimate journalistic purpose. For whose benefit?

A beautiful example of the Law of Unintended Consequences, from the Washington Monthly, on the issue of "tort reform":

The news coverage may be creating some unexpected consequences: Some academic researchers suspect that all the hype about the litigation crisis might actually be making Americans more litigious by giving them the erroneous impression that compensation is available through the courts for most injuries. As McCann says, "Tort reformers may have produced more frivolous claims while making legitimate claims harder to bring."

It seems WaPost media critic Howard Kurtz has done a 180 on Gannongate. I guess there's nothing like having your principal source lie to you to concentrate the mind.

Another perspective on Gannongate:

The only thing that almost surprised me about the "Jeff Gannon" story was that the White House ran the operation. But, when you think about it, it makes perfect sense. The White House has taken over the work formerly done by the intelligence agencies. While there has never been a time when the intelligence agencies and the White House and Congress all got along and worked together like good children, in the past there was at least a stated goal of using intelligence to make decisions. That's over. Decisions are now made and brazenly thrown out in public, and the intelligence flunkies better come up with the supporting evidence fast, unless they're ready for immediate retirement (at best). The current happy working environment requires the "intelligence data" to completely support predetermined White House policy, while intelligence data that doesn't meet current Bush Administration policy (Bin Laden agents preparing for a massive hijacking & air attack campaign within the United States in the fall of 2001, for example, or inept Arab flight-school students demanding to fly passenger jets when they can't manage to pilot a Cessna) is tossed aside, totally ignored, while those who bring in the inconvenient intel are removed and destroyed.

And the White House has a fantastic new weapon unknown to any American intelligence agency save for J. Edgar Hoover's FBI: There is no oversight. Nobody can get in the way. Better still, it doesn't matter if you get caught. There's no penalty for lies, obstruction, killing 1,500 Americans in Iraq, handing out billions of taxpayer dollars to your friends' companies, inventing fake New York terrorist plots to scare the hell out of voters right before the election, the widespread torturing of foreign suspects, engineering the transformation of Iraq from a beaten secular rogue state to an emboldened Islamic rogue state, the failure to prosecute a single U.S. "terrorist," or even blowing the cover of your own spies and double-agents to tip the polls for a week. Nothing is punishable. So why not plant a weirdo in the press-briefing room and call on him to make fun of whatever limp opposition remains? Send your opponents scrambling to keep up with whatever falsehoods you're currently peddling, and your people can keep on with the hard work: Sending another $100 billion straight to your donors who run the defense industry and untold billions to the boys running the "homeland security" business.

--Ken Layne

Frank Rich, on the Right's latest vendetta against a pinko Hollywood pervert:

Just when it seemed that Hollywood had turned a post-election page in the culture wars, the commissars of the right cooked up a new, if highly unlikely, grievance against "Holly-weird," as they so wittily call it. This was no easy task.

They couldn't credibly complain that "The Passion of the Christ" was snubbed by the movie industry's "elite" (translation: Jews), since it nailed three nominations, including one for makeup (translation: really big noses). That showing bested not only "Fahrenheit 9/11" but "Shrek 2," the year's top moneymaker. Nor could they resume hostilities against their perennial bogeymen Ben Affleck, Susan Sarandon, Sean Penn, Barbra Streisand and Whoopi Goldberg. All are nonplayers in this year's awards.

So what do you do? Imagine SpongeBob tendencies in the carefully sanitized J.M. Barrie of "Finding Neverland"? Attack a recently deceased American legend, Ray Charles, for demanding that his mistress get an abortion in "Ray"? No, only a counterintuitive route could work. Hence, the campaign against Clint Eastwood, a former Republican officeholder (mayor of Carmel in the late 1980s), Nixon appointee to the National Council of the Arts and action hero whose breakthrough role in the Vietnam era was as a vigilante cop, Dirty Harry, whom Pauline Kael famously called "fascist." There hasn't been a Hollywood subversive this preposterous since the then 10-year-old Shirley Temple's name surfaced at a House Un-American Activities Committee hearing in 1938.

[link via TalkLeft]

The fallback position of the Beltway press on the "Gannon" story has been that it was somehow inappropriate to "go after" his personal life (ie., his homosexuality), as if it were somehow not germane to the discussion of how a non-credentialed "reporter" using a fake name was able to gain access inside the White House. AmericaBlog, which has done some of the most aggressive reporting on the subject, has a detailed post up about some of the more unsavory aspects of Mr. Guckert's "personal life", and why it is relevant to the scandal. It's very explicit, so you've been warned....

Friday night, I attended a party at a loft next to MacArthur Park in downtown L.A. hosted by Mark Brown of Buzznet. For those of you who are new to the internets, Buzznet is front and center of the emerging "photoblog" trend, and those of you who are intrigued by the potential of sites such as this one, who own a digital camera, and who also have the same desire for self-publicity should check out that site. Also, Mr. Brown is a terrific host, whose willingness to put up with the chainsmoking of myself and a documentary crew from French television is proof he has the patience of Job.

One of the discussions I had was about one of the most remarkeable posts in the history of political blogs, one I briefly alluded to last week: this Michael Totten piece, about an afterparty attended by himself, Christopher Hitchens, and several Iraqis following a televised panel they did on the elections two weeks ago. Totten is one of the more conservative links on my blogroll, which may be an indication of how far left I've traveled. He's what used to be known as a "Jackson Democrat" (after Scoop Jackson), a hawk on foreign policy with liberal views on other issues, but unlike other bloggers who pay lip service to those principles, he walks the walk. He's a fine writer and photographer, especially concerning his frequent traveling, and the aforementioned post is one reason why he's such a terrific blogger.

Totten completely exposes himself in that post. Having said and done any number of idiotic things myself, I know how hard it can be to put myself on the line, to write something that may make me look like a fool (at least intentionally). The temptation to edit out the embarassing details is strong. Totten, on the other hand, does not come off looking all that good; for example, his recounting of the patronizing manner in which he and Mr. Hitchens announced there would be certain limitations to this "self-government" thing the Iraqis were seizing at the polls that day, and his genuine discomfort with the angry reaction his guests had at their presumption, has already been much commented on. The relentless manner of his kissing up to Hitchens, as well as his description of the way in which the odious Mr. Hitchens loses himself to the bottle, are discomforting to the reader.

But Totten is too smart not to know this, yet he still (I hope accurately) gives his readers a warts-and-all version of what happened that night. He gives a rationale for his opinions that the reader can agree or disagree with, but he doesn't hide behind a curtain of false dignity. It makes for fascinating reading, and at the end, you can't help feeling a grudging respect for the man.

A good blog should always inform the reader that it is fronted by a real, flawed human being, and Totten's post does that, in the tradition of Andrew Sullivan's infamous post about his backed-up toilet. Any blogger who does not allow his audience to see his inner assclown will remain mired in mediocrity, which is why Michael Totten has, and deserves, a large audience.

Schine Revisited: The Guckert Scandal breaks into the mainstream, here, here, here, and here. The story is important because of its connection to other White House efforts to create its own propaganda machine, separate from traditional media outlets. In this case, a pseudo-reporter was permitted to infiltrate the White House Press Corps and ask planted questions at daily briefings, and, in one case, even at a Presidential press conference.

But lets face it, the real reason this story has bite is the inference that it connects to what an earlier generation would have inelegantly called a "daisy chain". As soon as "Jeff Gannon", the reporter in question, became tied to internet sites plugging gay pornography and prostitution, the focus shifted from just another story about a fake website/blog shilling for the Bush Administration. With the revelation that classified information about the identity of a CIA agent was leaked to this clown, the story expanded geometrically.

One obvious avenue for investigation, by either the mainstream media or the blogosphere, is who in the administration greased Guckert's path, ie., who was his "Roy Cohn"? This guy was treated as a "reporter" for three years by the White House, even though they knew he was representing a website that was little more than a propaganda front for Karl Rove. So who looked the other way?

The Judds Say Farewell: Wasn't Andrew Sullivan supposed to be retiring or something?

To no one's surprise, the major obstacle to reapportionment reform in California is coming from...Tom DeLay, and the GOP rump in the state Congressional delegation. What DeLay and the crackerocracy fear isn't that the Republicans lose a seat or two in California in 2006; it's that the move to reform the drawing of legislative districts sweeps the country.

Ward Churchill Update: Academic fraud of a more traditional sort: the genocide that never was. I don't know of a civil libertarian defense to this sort of thing.

The Cole-Goldberg "debate" is becoming increasingly one-sided, as you might expect in a battle between someone who is paid to think for a living (the Professor) and someone who is paid not to think (the Pundit). Goldberg is being made to look foolish, in part because he's sparring with someone who actually knows something about the subject, rather than someone who can write well and has a lot of opinions, but also due to the Elephant in the Room in the debate over the "War" on Terrorism: the Chickenhawk issue. The question to Goldberg was simple: can someone who is of age (or who has children of age) and who backs a discretionary war, ostensibly because it is in our national interest, have his views taken seriously if he (or his children) does not volunteer to fight in said war?

Obviously, this is a different issue than the standard "chickenhawk" debate, which concerns the disproportionate number of non-veterans in the Bush Administration. There may have been any number of reasons why someone didn't choose to fight in Vietnam, but few of them are germane four decades later. The issue at stake here is whether someone younger than, lets say, thirty-five (or with a son in that agegroup), has any moral or intellectual credibility to ask other people to make sacrifices for him, if he is not also willing to make the ultimate sacrifice.

It is, as "Armed Liberal" points out, a question designed to end debate. As well it should, for the issue is one of simple hypocrisy. No one should feel so privileged in a time of war to cheerlead from the sidelines, especially when one is healthy enough to play. If you believe it is important enough for your nation to be fighting this war, why aren't you out there?

There's something morally repugnant about bloggers who have devoted more attention to the politically incorrect remarks of a college professor at Colorado or a news president at a cable network than about the death of a quarter of a million people in Asia less than two months ago.

"Angel," he said. Can I call you Angel?" Mr. Samgrass drinks Michael Totten under the table....

Cause I ain't got no dog-proof ass: Jonah Goldberg, on why he does not fight for freedom:

As for why my sorry a** isn't in the kill zone, lots of people think this is a searingly pertinent question. No answer I could give -- I'm 35 years old, my family couldn't afford the lost income, I have a baby daughter, my a** is, er, sorry, are a few -- ever seem to suffice.

The glory of Liston lives on!![link via Juan Cole]

Prediction: Pats 31, Eagles 13. Those of you who would like, shall we say, to make it a little more interesting, can participate in this little contest being sponsored by Atrios.

Obviously, the question of whether Prof. Ward Churchill should be fired due to his vicious, hateful writings about the 9/11 dead concerns academic freedom, not necessarily the First Amendment or freedom of speech. He's not being threatened with jail for his remarks, nor is the government attempting to bar him from exercising his right to vocalize his opinion. A college professor should be granted more leeway in being allowed to say what he wants without having to worry about the axe falling whenever he makes a politically incorrect statement.

But, really, I can't believe that a university should be powerless to act just because a professor has tenure. Putting aside the allegation that Churchill lied about his ethnic background (he claims to be part-Indian, an assertion that has been debunked by the tribe he claims membership in), it's hard to see why a state university, funded by the taxpayers, should have no recourse when one of their employees goes off the deep end. If a tenured professor in geology were to begin teaching his students that the earth was flat, or a paleontology professor were to advocate creationism in the classroom, or a history professor decides that his students should learn about how the Elders of Zion are plotting to eat Christian babies, the schools that are paying them clearly are not getting what they bargained for when they granted tenure in the first place.

The regents at Boulder should examine why Churchill is being paid a salary to teach at their university in the first place (it's certainly not because he has overwhelming qualifications; considering the thousands of PhD recipients who can't land teaching jobs in this country, the fact that Churchill never went beyond a Masters degree is especially grating), and act accordingly. Celebrating the slaughter of other human beings no more belongs in a school than a teacher advocating the rape of women, or the extermination of gays. That is not a matter of free speech, or of defending leftist politics: it is a matter of decency.

But rather than firing the professor, Colorado should set appropriate guidelines as to what it considers acceptable classroom conduct. The university should demand that Churchill apologize for his three-year old statements, and thereafter vigorously regulate the courses he teaches. If he refuses, he should be introduced to the rigorous virtues of the private sector. If they are unwilling to do that, the university might as well announce that it fully backs Prof. Churchill, and that his views about how the janitors and secretaries in the Twin Towers are "little Eichmanns" are shared by the college, and are consistent with what it regards as its educational mission. Poisoning the minds of students should never be considered part of "academic freedom". [link via Marc Cooper]

The man who lost the most important boxing match in history, Max Schmeling, has passed away. He was seven months short of 100.

I'm not sure what to make of this study, which indicates that more than half of all personal bankruptcies were triggered by excessive medical costs, even though most of those debtors were covered by health insurance. There tend to be a multitude of reasons why people file, most notably mortgage defaults and exorbinant credit card debt, but high medical bills are invariably a part of the problem as well.

Practicing in Los Angeles, a region that has always been ahead of the curve when it comes to bankruptcy law, my perspective may not be applicable nationwide, but I can think of an obvious explanation as to why this study came to this conclusion. There is still a great deal of embarassment when it comes to the filing of bankruptcy. Psychologically, it is perceived as an admission of failure, an acknowledgement that you can't make good on your own promises. Thus, a good many people will try to postpone the inevitable, to be done only in extremis.

Of all the reasons to give in to the temptation of having a deus ex machina, in the form of the Bankruptcy Court, wipe your slate clean, a medical debt is probably the most appealing. We can't be blamed for getting sick, in the same way that we can feel blame for losing their job or running up too much credit card debt. High medical costs are as much a given in our society as having to pay through the teeth for housing or a sports car, but it's just easier to make believe that the medical debt was an arbitrary event, as opposed to the other big ticket items we couldn't afford but purchased anyway.

While the President of Jesusland addresses the Crackerocracy in D.C. tonight, I will be honoring my status as a Californian, first and foremost, with a visit to the L.A. Press Club salon, where tonight the topic of discussion will be "21st Century Sports Journalism". Panelists include blogger Jon Weisman, sportswriter J.A. Adande, sportstalk host Steve Mason, and the moderator will be the venerable Matt Welch (pictured, twixt Sonny and Phoebe, above). First drinks start at six, the gabfest at seven.

Who loves the LA Times? Not apparently, Mickey Kaus, who writes that the greater SoCal area would be better off if it were to just disappear tomorrow. Quoth Kaus: "New journalistic organizations would form and expand to fill the void. Some of them would be good. All would be free to actually be lively and irreverent, without the dead weight of the Times bureaucracy and its historic faux-East-Coast confusion of stiff journalism with serious journalism."

In all likelihood, though, the Times' monopoly, should it ever be slain, would simply get replaced by a new monopoly, one that would inherit, in form if not in substance, the same "dead weight" bureaucracy and journalistic philosophy of its predecessor. People who wonder why Los Angeles is the way it is should always remember that the "city" of Los Angeles is only a portion of the vast mega-community of "Los Angeles", which expands as far south as San Clemente, as far north as Bakersfield, and as far east as the borders with Nevada and Arizona.

Even within Los Angeles County, there are numerous cities on the outskirts, not quite suburbs, that are quite distinct from the city of Los Angeles, cities such as Long Beach, Santa Monica, Inglewood, Compton, Pomona, Pasadena, Beverly Hills, etc., that have their own school districts and elect their own city officials, but which are still every much as part of the community of "Los Angeles" as Downtown or the Valley. Many of these satellite communities, in fact, have newspapers of their own, but none has been able to branch out and appeal beyond their locality. It's almost a cliche to note that this region is the Promised Land for immigrants from Central America and East Asia, and these groups have newspapers servicing their communities as well. The genius of the Times has been to create a touchstone, one of the few that exist locally besides the Lakers and the smog, that unites the vast community beyond the city borders.

Because of that, a local newspaper that appeals to the entire region is a necessity; the market demands it. Financially speaking, though, to have two (or more) newspapers attempting to appeal to that same broad base would be prohibitive. And it's been tried. As recently as sixteen years ago, Los Angeles was serviced by another paper, the Herald Examiner, a great newspaper published by the Hearst family. It had an awesome sports section, was gossipy and fun to read, and I still have the last edition from when it ceased publication in 1989, after years of drowning in ink as red as the blood of the Black Dahlia. There were other newspapers too, long ago, as much beloved as the HerEx (which was itself the child of a long-ago merger of two tabloids), but, in the end, none could compete with the Chandlers.

So we're pretty much stuck with the Times. Don't like its liberal politics? Too bad, you're in a Blue State, they come with the territory. Too stodgy for you? Not enough gossip? This isn't New York City, pal, and besides, what gossip column can compete with Court TV? Not enough coverage of local issues and events? Well, that's what the Press Telegram and the Daily News are for. Would LA be better off if the Times no longer existed? Maybe, but then it wouldn't be LA.

Listen, children, to a story, that was written long ago....

ESPN is reporting that Rudy Tomjanovich will step down as Lakers' head coach after tonight's game with Portland.

Jayson Blair, the Sequel: After reading this story, it becomes clear that the real scoop isn't that Iraqi kleptocrat Ahmad Chalabi is being considered for a position in the new Iraqi government, but that the New York Times has another writer who just makes shit up. Can't blame Howell Raines for this one, though....

A combination of a slow day in sports and an opportune buzz led me to see Sideways at the local AMC. Paul Giamatti was robbed; in fact, it can be argued that the principal reason it could even have been a plausible Best Film nominee was the fact that he was the star, only one year after his memorable (and also unrewarded) performance in American Splendor. Anyone who has ever taken the 101 north of Santa Barbara will appreciate the humor in this film even more.

Egads--DTP started his own blog!! I used to think he was really "Booze Buddy" from The Happiest Place on Earth, since he seemed to know a great deal about my life as a Functioning Alcoholic, until I heard he actually a had a professional degree in something. I guess he just paid very careful attention to my writing. Anyways, he's funny, if a bit off the edge politically.

Nguyen Van Chalabi: Some historical perspective on yesterday's election in Iraq.

Fact-checking, my ass !! Apparently, the Blog of the Year doesn't have much interest in correcting its mistakes. One of the common criticisms against opinion blogs is that there is no one "monitoring the monitors", but that's only half-true. There are bloggers monitoring Powerline, Hugh Hewitt, Daily Kos, et al.; the problem is that most of their readers seldom visit those blogs on account of a pre-existing disagreement in ideology. For the most part, conservatives limit themselves to the sites on the blogroll of Instapundit, while liberals are content picking from the blogroll of Atrios (from whom, natch, I obtained the above link); crossover is limited, so if a popular blog steps in it, its readers may never find out (if you want to know about the intellectual curiosity of a blogger, always check the blogroll). If a blogger doesn't see fit to correct himself, there's little anyone else can do to threaten his reputation.

UPDATE: Kevin Drum eloquently expands on the above point, but also points out that many of the more conservative boosters of the blogosphere lack, shall we say, the self-correcting mechanism that many readers of more liberal blogs take for granted: a comments section.

Can we go home now?

The early bird...I was going to comment on the Alterman-Jarvis melee over Iraqi bloggers, but this post (on Hit & Run) probably encapsulates what I wanted to say anyways, so screw it. The important thing to note is that a CIA plant in the blogosphere would probably be writing in Arabic (or Farsi), would target its audience beyond the small neocon cocoon in the U.S., and would definitely not publicly meet with President Bush.

Balls: Little Roy. Excitable Andrew....off the rails again...an enemy of the state...in the throes of AIDS-related dementia. The poor guy gets no love from either half of the political divide, but his pugnaciousness is to be respected. I guess the good thing about not possessing an indoor voice is that you not only communicate what you think, but what you feel. Sullivan may piss off everyone else in the process, but people do talk about him.

Never Mind: It's been only a week, and already President Bush is taking steps to disavow the clear language of his Inauguration speech.

Why all bloggers need an "indoor voice":

If I had been a member of the Ku Klux Klan, I would have been so ashamed of myself I would have spent the rest of my life cleaning out toilets for Third World orphanages or some such. But then I can't imagine having joined anything as wretched as the Klan, so maybe I would have ended up a self-righteous bloviator in the US Sentate. Virtually my entire adult life Robert Byrd has been in the US Senate and virtually every time I hear him speak my skin crawls, thinking of what he did. When I hear the press praise him as a great statesman, I want to throw up. Some things are just unforgiveable to me, like being a Klansman or a Concentration Camp Guard.

--Roger L. Simon

Granted, the KKK is pretty icky, and it is certainly a black mark on his biography that the senator joined the organization in the '40's, and an even blacker mark that he remained a vociferous opponent of civil rights (and an adversary of Martin Luther King) well into the 1960's. He will clearly have to answer to his Maker for those transgressions. But, please...comparing him with Ivan of Treblinka is just a bit hysterical, don't you think?

If everyone was forever judged by the political miscalculations they made in their youth, we would have a polity made up entirely of the boring and predictable, all alums of the College Democrats and the Young Republicans. To give just a couple of examples, Hugo Black was a member of the KKK before he became one of the most passionate supporters of civil rights on the Supreme Court. Harry Truman tried to join the Klan, but ultimately backed out when the group's anti-Catholicism proved too uncomfortable for a would-be machine politician from Kansas City. The neoconservative movement was largely founded by people who had belonged to one branch or another of the Communist Party in the late-30's. Numerous political figures today belonged to some offshoot or another of the SDS or SNCC in the late-60's, groups that ultimately evolved into terrorist organizations. Even more to Simon's point, Martin Niemoller and Claus von Stauffenberg were, at one time, members in good standing of the German National Socialist Party. People change.

The point isn't that we should forget the actions Senator Byrd took in the 1940's, it is that he should be judged the same way we would insist that we be judged: by his mature political conduct. So long as there isn't any evidence that Byrd took part in a lynching, or ever burned a cross in anger, he shouldn't be defined by what he did sixty years ago.

One of the best reasons to read the LA Times (well, that and T.J.), Michael Hiltzik, is preparing the definitive book on the fake Social Security crisis. The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist's columns are biting, and always fun to read. [via LA Observed]

From my mouth to God's ear: Boxer's tour de force last week has started the bandwagon moving. Boxer has always had one of the most liberal voting records in the Senate, but she was relatively quiet her first two terms, and usually overshadowed by Dianne Feinstein. Her landslide victory in November liberated her; her margin of victory (2.4 million votes) was almost as large as Bush's was in the whole country (3 million), so if anyone won't be intimidated by Republican triumphalism, or talk of a "Bush Mandate" it's the Fighting Senator from California.

Nope, I haven't seen any of the five nominated films this year. In fact, I haven't seen any of the nominated performances yet, and only one of the films nominated for writing (The Incredibles). It's too damn expensive to take myself to a matinee; I can only imagine what those of you with children and significant others have to do. Live-action movies are becoming more and more akin to radio drama in the early-50's, an archaism running on fumes, and the last time I checked, my TV works just fine.

The reaction of the blogosphere has been far more telling. So far, the big story seems to be not that Martin Scorcese will finally get his gold watch this year, or the unjust(?) snubbing of Paul Giamatti, or the long-unanticipated rematch between Hillary Swank and Annette Bening, but that Fahrenheit 9/11 didn't become the first documentary ever to be nominated for Best Film. Apparently, bloggers of the starboard persuasion live in an alternative universe, where controversial documentaries are given rubber-stamp nominations by the Academy as a matter of course. Those of you who have long memories might note that Hoop Dreams, The Thin Blue Line, and, of course, Roger and Me weren't even nominated for Best Documentary in the years they came out.

As much as they hate to admit, the fact that they could even contemplate the possibility that Michael Moore might go where Peter Davis, Barbara Kopple, and Maysles brothers couldn't is a testament to what a powerful film 9/11 was; after all, when was the last time the failure of a documentary to merit an Oscar nomination for best film was even noticed? AMPAS represents the geriatric wing of Hollywood, its membership disproportionately from the business end of moviemaking, and it is no surprise that more controversial fare gets shunned (remember Citizen Kane? Double Indemnity? High Noon?).

Moore fans, of course, have no right to complain: the animated film The Incredibles was the best thing shown in theatres last year, and it didn't get a best film nod either. But the obsession conservatives have with Mr. Moore is starting to get rather creepy.

Even if his participation in these ads didn't violate a half a dozen ethics rules, one would have hoped that simple class and decorum would have dissuaded Senator Coleman. And he represents a Blue State !!

My prodigious, beer-engorged gut tells me that Bush's Second Inaugural Address will be used by Democrats in the near-future the same way Kennedy's Address has been used, to great political effect, by Republicans.

Quote of the Week:

they introduced him as the honorable president of the united states. and with that lie begins the second term of a much needed abortion.

--Tony Pierce

Winning Hearts and Minds: I suppose there are more tasteful ways the government can spend our tax dollars...[Update: FEMA has now dropped the "Tsunami" game].

Liberals in Los Angeles need not feel isolated and beleaguered anymore. It took a year, but AirAmerica is finally going to cross the Blue Curtain, thanks to Clear Channel.

The "Barbara Boxer for President" bandwagon starts now...has there ever been any pick for Secretary of State that was so little respected, both inside and outside her own party, as Condi Rice? I guess you'd have to go back to William Jennings Bryan in 1913 to find someone so completely out of his depth, but at least the Boy Orator was picked to run the State Department during peacetime (he had also been right about our imperialist adventure in the Phillipines a decade earlier, the foreign policy debacle most analogous to the current situation).

I've been nominated for something called the "Koufax Award", in the category of Blog Most Deserving of Wider Recognition. There's no money in it, and I doubt winning will help me get laid, so check out the site hosting the Sandys, randomly browse through the sites of the other nominees, and vote for one of them.