The rain on McCain
Another day, another moment of idiocy from the McCain campaign. It seems that McCain either doesn’t know where Spain is, or else doesn’t know who the Spanish prime minister is, or both. While being interviewed by a Spanish journalist, who clearly identified herself as Spanish, as in Spain, the country in Europe, several times, McCain kept responding to her as though she was talking about Latin America, and suggested repeatedly that the Spanish prime minister must be considered an enemy to the US unless and until he proves himself otherwise.
More here and here, with the audio here, for the benefit of my Spanish-speaking readers. Hola!
UPDATE: here is the interview in its original English.
Monsters! The Wolf Man
WHAT DOES THE PROTAGONIST WANT? Larry Talbot has come home to his ancestral manse in England after 18 years in the US. Like David Kessler in American Werewolf, much in England seems foreign, backward and mysterious to Talbot. When he finds himself turning into a werewolf, his only goal is to know: is this really happening to him or is it all in his mind? He doesn’t even get as far as wanting to find a cure for his affliction — he just wants to understand the source.
WHO IS THE MONSTER? Talbot goes on murderous rampages when he is transformed into the wolf-man, but in his daylight life he’s as gentle and guileless as Lennie from Of Mice and Men. Is he responsible for the murders he commits, or is the wolf-man some other personality altogether?
WHAT IS THE WARNING? The script clearly states that lycanthropy is a metaphor for the dual nature of all men, but a modern perspective suggests a more complex, nuanced message.
This just in
Wow, who wrote that, Karl Marx? Sean Penn? Keith Olberman?
No, it’s Wick Allison, ex-publisher of the National Review. You may read the rest of his endorsement of Obama here. If there were more conservative voices like this I might actually have some respect for them.
Today’s economic lesson
So remember kids:
Federal government spending a single dime on infrastructure, health care, national parks, wildlife protection, arts or education: EVIL SOCIALISM!
Federal government spending $85 billion to purchase badly-mismanaged insurance company: AWESOME REPUBLICAN PHILOSOPHY FTW!
Monsters! Wolfen
WHAT DOES THE PROTAGONIST WANT? Detective Dewey Wilson is charged with solving the bizarre, mysterious murder of Big Deal Guy Christopher Van DerVeer. Was it a political assassination? Was it terrorists? Was it angry Native Americans? Or was it — evil?
WHO ARE THE MONSTERS? You’d never guess it from the title, but it turns out the monsters are wolves. Or is it Americans who are the monsters?
WHAT IS THE WARNING? Wolves, Wolfen informs us, help out American cities by devouring their sick and providing a check on gentrification. We must not destroy rotting slums and build new apartment blocks — it will anger the wolves.
Campaign update
Faced with the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, one that shows no signs of miraculously getting better, John McCain yesterday nevertheless insisted "the fundamentals of our economy are strong."
(Actually, what he said was "The fundamentals are, of our economy are strong," stammering and gasping through what he knew to be a pathetic, desperate lie: watch the video and you can see the terror in his expression as he uncorks this whopper. He honestly looks like he’s worried that the collective audience is about to laugh him off stage.)
Since McCain knows he cannot possibly win on his record or his policies, his campaign has no choice but to hurl meaningless distractions and lies, commonly known as "bullshit," into the media manure-spreader. To distract voters from his current inarguable position (oh, wait, did you hear? When he said "the fundamentals of our economy" he didn’t mean things like stock trading, housing starts, inflation, food prices, real estate prices or consumer spending — he meant the proud souls of the American workers, and how DARE you suggest that he meant anything else, how DARE you suggest that the souls of the American workers are not stronger than ever!) he know he’ll have to come up with a lie so big, so outrageous, so patently untrue that it cannot help but dominate the news cycle. Let’s see, he already lied about his VP pick being a reformer, and he’s already tried to tar his opponent as a child molester, hmm, it doesn’t seem like he could push it any further than that, but —
Aha! I know, he’ll claim that he invented the Blackberry! That’s right, John McCain, who claims that he cannot use a computer, cannot send an email, cannot open a website, does not know about the internet, nevertheless invented the Blackberry. Bravo!
So, check this out. A few days ago, the National Review, a dead-end conservative rag, defends McCain’s technological impairment from those mean, mean Democrats by claiming, you know what, John McCain can’t use a Blackberry because — yes, that’s right — he was a POW. How DARE the Democrats pick on a POW for being unable to use a Blackberry, how DARE they! He can’t type with his fingers or lift a Blackberry to his ear because of the terrible, terrible wounds he received as a POW.
Oh — except that he does. All the time.
Next, we will hear that he invented the telephone — why not? He was alive back then.
UPDATE: McCain, not even kidding, now claims to have invented cell phones and wifi as well.
Monsters! The Howling
WHAT DOES THE PROTAGONIST WANT? Karen White is an LA local-news anchor. She has become embroiled in a local serial-killer story. The killer is obsessed with her for some reason and she is willing to play into his obsession in the hopes of breaking the big story. He lures her to a seedy sex shop and something happens to him, something so shocking that Karen is unable to rationally process it. The killer, a guy named Eddie, is killed by trigger-happy police before he can do whatever he was going to do to Karen. What Karen wants is to know, simply, what was the deal with Eddie?
WHO IS THE MONSTER? The deal with Eddie is that he’s a werewolf, and that he’s not actually dead.
WHAT IS THE WARNING? People, The Howling reminds us, are animals. We put on clothes, build cities and try to "explain" our behavior through science and psychology, but all that denies our true nature: we are murderous, predatory, rutting beasts.
Monsters! The Fly
WHAT DOES THE PROTAGONIST WANT? Technically, all Seth Brundle wants is to get his teleporter to work. He’s a scientist, working for the betterment of the world (and his own subsequent wealth and fame). Between the lines, however, he has a deeper, more personal agenda — he wishes to transform his essential nature. This effort pays off in spades, but not quite the way he expected it to.
WHO IS THE MONSTER? Like in American Werewolf, the monster of The Fly is the protagonist himself. Unlike the protagonist of American Werewolf, Brundle actually stops to think about what’s happening to him.
WHAT IS THE WARNING? Um, you know that whole "transformation of your essential nature" idea? Don’t do that.
A financial note
A few years back, I took a substantial chunk of money to Merrill Lynch. My previous financial guy, at Paine Webber, had wantonly discarded my money and I wanted to take great care to make sure that didn’t happen again. I was very stern and commanding in my meeting with the woman from Merrill, who was a slick, expensively-dressed, well-coiffed young blonde in designer eyewear. I wasn’t going to get taken again and I asked her many probing questions about her day-to-day duties, her business, and the market in general. She blithely dismissed all doubts I put forth and cheerfully presented mountains of evidence to show how safe my money would be at Merrill.
At one point I asked her "Well, but what happens if Merrill goes out of business?" She laughed as though I had asked "Well, what if water flows uphill?" and, all but patting me on the head, said "Todd, if Merrill goes out of business, I promise you, your money will be the least of your worries, because if Merrill goes out of business it will mean the world is ending." Merrill, she told me, was too gigantic an institution with far too much money and roots far too deep to ever be so much as tickled by the worst economic storms imaginable. To elucidate, she added "Todd, I promise you, if Merrill goes out of business it will mean that giant, flaming rocks are falling from the sky."
So, this might be a good indication of how bad things are right now.
UPDATE: Not to worry, John McCain assures us "The fundamentals of our economy are still strong." Thank goodness! And here I thought McCain was just a cynical Republican tool willing to say anything to get elected.