Nobody 686

Sunday, February 18, 2007
Nobody # 686

Nobody Asked Me But:

"We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war." - Molly Ivens, in her final column

"There is no better way to support those who have fought valiantly in Iraq than to guarantee that not one more of them dies in the service of the political miscalculation of their leaders. Not one more soldier. Not one more grave. Not one more day. Bring them home tomorrow. - Anna Quindlen, in Newsweek

Answer of the week: Don’t be ridiculous

Question: Isn’t it rational to vote for a Republican if he is the best candidate?<<<

This I believe:

The U.S. is deliberately trying to provoke a war or something just short of it with Iran. As to the difference of opinion between the White House and Thomas Freedman over the best way to handle that country, confrontation or rapprochement, I don’t know who is right. But I do know that Friedman has a better truth track record.<<<

And still on the subjects of Iran and track records, this NY Times headline caught my attention: Skeptics Doubt U.S. Evidence on Iran Action in Iraq Can you blame them? Fool me once, the president who cried wolf and all that sort of thing.<<<

Same subject – later in the week: But Bush calls it irrelevant that no solid evidence links Iranian officials to alleged weapons aid. Sorry, but I do mean disrespect. Solid evidence is irrelevant – especially in light of the WMD fiasco in Iraq? Our President is nuts.<<<

Bruin Sex

Dr. David Martorano, a former opera singer who did his psychiatric residency at UCLA, is suing his supervisor (Dr. Heather Krell,) and UCLA for sexual harassment. Several questions need to be answered. Did they have sex? (He says they did, she says they didn't) Did it cost him a promotion? (He says yes, she says no) Did he really break into operatic aria at a climatic moment? (He says yes, she says…..no, I won’t go there)

The testimony has been totally juicy, psychiatric residents attending nude jacuzzi parties at professional retreats and Martorano's alleged sexual acts in cars parked on the side of the road. The latter surprises me. I would have thought that since this is coming out of UCLA’s psychiatry department some of it would have taken place in the head.<<<

The latest Republican to declare his candidacy is former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. Much like Rudy the G., Romney has a history he is trying to make the “Right” people forget that he once favored abortion rights and gay rights.

To accomplish this he claims that he has gone through a transformation and no longer believes in sinful things – something about being struck blind while on the road to Damascus, a highway that seems overcrowded with Republicans lately.<<<

Cartoon of the week (left)

Call me Mr. Lowbrow: For Christmas Barb gave me a most wanted present – tickets to the Ahmanson Theater to see Kathleen Turner in “Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Wolf.” I saw the movie many years ago and was totally caught up in it and now a chance to see it live was exciting. We went last Sunday. When three hours and twenty minutes after it went up, the curtain finally went down, we headed for Larchmont and pizza. There we talked about the experience and decided that the pizza was great but the play merely good.

In reviews the next day, both LA papers raved about it, which led us to the conclusion that staged dramas are not for us. To me it seems a paradox. The stage is filled with real people and yet the experience is unreal, while a great film, mere digital images, comes alive.

So we both agreed that we will limit our theater attendance to musicals where unreality is the joy rather than the disappointment.<<<

Since I just wasted my precious time on a truly terrible book, “The Machiavelli Code,” perhaps I should continue my lowbrow ways and buy the new best seller by Pierre Bayard - “How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read.” That way I could fake it during cocktail parties, I attend so many, or in Nobodies.<<<

FYI: There are on average 27 novels published every day in America, and according to my wife, I buy about 20 of them.<<<

Incredibly stupid comment of the week: In the wake of the resignation of John Edward’s blogmaster, Amanda Marcotte, Brian O’Dwyer, chairman of the National Democratic Ethnic Leadership Council, had this to say - “The blogger’s continuing hostility to Catholics and other Christians, especially in the centrality of the Virgin birth, is both morally wrong and, for Senator Edwards, politically stupid.”

It is morally wrong to be hostile to a religious doctrine? I don’t think so.<<<

“To you I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition. - Woody Allen<<<

Jack Rothman, 80, a retired social psychologist at UCLA started doing comedy five years ago. He offers kindly looks at people's foibles. Here’s one of his jokes:

I was sittin' on a park bench, and this college-age guy comes over, and he's got all these spikes in his hair — red, orange, green, purple. He sits down, and after a while I say to him, 'Pardon me for staring, sonny, but one wild night years ago, I had sex with a peacock, and I'm wondering if you're my son.' "<<<

I have two words for the media about their over-the-top coverage on Anna Nichole Smith’s after-death drama: WHO CARES!!!

I have three for those people who are interested: GET A LIFE!!!<<<

To Tim Hardaway: Your mistake wasn’t in gay bashing out loud, it was in feeling that way inside.<<<

I am listening to Barack Obama’s current book, “The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream,” and find it very interesting, although somewhat general. But he gets it exactly right when he writes that empathy is the very basis of morality. More on this next week.<<<

We usually associate talking heads with Sunday morning news shows, but New Mexico gives the term new meaning. They have added talking urinal-deodorizer cakes to rest rooms across the state reminding men not to drink and drive.

I don’t know about you, but, no matter the message, I wouldn’t want a talking urinal cake anywhere near my privates.<<<

UCLA 81, Arizona 66! (left)