The pumpkin pies are out of the oven, the roasting hens are in the refrigerator awaiting the trip down home, the home-canned green beans are packed and ready to go. Hope everyone has a great holiday.
Just briefly:
--has this been the best November ever, or what? Bush, elected. Arafat, dead. Dead in France, yet. Rather, "retired" with extreme prejudice. And I'm going to add in the Powell resignation, Condi Rice's reassignment to State, and Porter Goss starting the ass-kicking housecleaning in the CIA as big dollops of sweet whipped cream on top.
--the flap over the marine capping the wounded terrorist: the Jacksonian in me can't believe we're even discussing this as a possible Bad Thing. I don't see the point of fighting with our hands tied. In the interest of forestalling potential idiocy: no, the Geneva convention doesn't apply.
--the murder of Theo Van Gogh: Bridget Johnson makes a good point in the WSJ, namely that the Hollywood left, which claims to feel the chill wind of oppression every time a red-stater doesn't buy a Dixie Chicks album, has been strangely silent on the actual brutal butchery of a filmmaker by an Islamic fanatic for expressing his views on the treatment of women under Islam. Being shot, butchered like an animal, and used as a mumblypeg board--that's what fanatical Islam has in store for the decadent forces of Hollywood, and that means you, Sean Penn, no matter how nuancy you may think you are.
--Oliver Stone is about to take it in the shorts, and I can't freakin' wait to see "Alexander". Casting Colin Farrell was bad enough; dying him blond and giving him that 80s Miles-and-Miles-O-Keefe 'do bespeaks a miscalculation on an epic scale. Angela and I will be at the Friday matinee somewhere in Louisville, cackling with evil glee and hurling Dots at the screen. (Just for Bern: "Let us pass; my people are jugglers." Yeah, that's exactly what I'm expecting.)
