From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...
As you've no doubt noticed by their purchase of twenty billion banner ads, Sunday night HBO starts airing a seven-part miniseries provocatively titled: John F***ing Adams. Based on David McCullough's best-selling book, John Adams: Now a Major HBO Miniseries, the production shines a 100 million-dollar spotlight on our grumpiest founding father. The Hollywood Reporter says it's worth a look:
The miniseries is as courageous in its way as Adams was in his. "John Adams" is downright bold in its insistence on authenticity. ... Paul Giamatti is brilliant as Adams. He is fearless in his portrayal, confident that the character's all-consuming sacrifices for his fledgling nation will more than compensate for his numerous character flaws. Laura Linney, with charm and determination, shows why Abigail was so important to her husband and, indirectly, to the birth of the nation.
[T]his handsome miniseries is praiseworthy on many levels---as history, as entertainment and as a way to bring to life for new generations a sense of the sacrifice and heroism needed to establish the U.S. It also is a badly needed reminder that television is capable of so much more than it delivers most of the time, that it can be a rich and rewarding experience.
The older I get (I turn 16 in August), the more I marvel at the intestinal fortitude it took for Adams and his band of rebels to break away from England, form a new country, and steer it in the right direction during those wobbly first years. I'm not sure I could imagine many of our leaders today taking those kinds of risks, and that is to their great shame.
Adams and the other Founding Fathers did the hard part---they put their necks on the line. As Ben Franklin said: "We must hang together or assuredly we shall all hang separately." Had things gone even a bit differently, today we might be speaking with British accents and reading about the "failed colonial rebellion" in history books. Even worse, kidney pudding would still be a regular staple on the dinner table. For this alone, Adams deserves our thanks. (But tsk tsk for signing the Alien and Sedition Acts, you cur!)
As a special bonus, following Sunday's broadcast HBO will host a forum with Geraldine Ferraro, who will explain that John Adams was only able to get to this point because he was "lucky enough to be rotund."
Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Friday, March 14, 2008
Note: You got your peanut butter in my chocolate. It tastes great but I'm still suing you.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til St. Patrick's Day: 3
Days 'til Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the $5,500 Per Hour Prostitutes: 69
Percent of votes in the Senate that John McCain has missed in the past year: 57%
Percent Barack Obama has missed: 40%
Percent Hillary Clinton has missed: 27%
(Source: AP via The Week)
Percent of the average 65+ year-old American's income that comes from Social Security: 40%
(Source: USA Today)
Number of Flight 4557 passengers stranded on the tarmac for 90 minutes on March 10 when Key West International Airport ran out of jet fuel and had to wait for a tanker truck to arrive from Port Everglades: 78
(Source: Key West Citizen)
And from the Department of Hopeless Security:
Days the color-coded federal terror alert system has been in place: 2,194
Days spent at terror alert level Blue or Green: 0
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Puppy Pic of the Day: I just love happy endings, don't you?
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CHEERS to the thrill of victory. Democrats in the House, who are apparently far more concerned with protecting Americans than the Republican country clubbers with their spray-on tans, today passed a surveillance bill that will keep us safe without compromising our civil liberties. President Bush---whom one can now reasonably suspect of growing up in a secret Islamic Madrassa run by al Qaeda---will veto the measure, thus compromising all that we hold dear by exposing our tender homeland's underbelly to the terrorists' blade!!! Goddam, I love it when the shoe's on the other foot.
CHEERS to the great disappearing pundit act. Woo hoo! Well, it only took several years of sucky ratings and thoughtless comments for MSNBC to finally give Tucker Carlson the boot. He'll be replaced Monday by NBC White House correspondent David Gregory, who recently performed as a backup dancer for Karl Rove. Thanks, but I'll stick to my normal 6-7pm routine of stabbing myself in the neck with pencils. It hurts less.
P.S. John Gibson's TV show on Fox News has also been cancelled, which means he'll be spending more time around the house. Our sympathies to the missus.
JEERS to big bid'ness. So here's what I think happened over the last 24 hours (and Bonddad has confirmed this): Bear Stearns had gobs of money lying around their offices, but they forgot to tell the new cleaning crew that they should just vacuum around it. And then...Vooooop! Money gone! So JPMorgan Chase and the gub'ment sent over several semi-loads of cash to replace the vacuumed cash and everything is okay!!! Yaaay!!!! Unless Bear Stearns doesn’t come up with its own replacement cash in 28 days, in which case its managers will start swan-diving out of their office windows. Personally I blame David Oreck---his vacuums leave nothing behind.
CHEERS to "Senator No." When I was growing up in Ohio, life seemed pretty good, in part because my senators were John Glenn and Howard Metzenbaum. I never realized what a champion of the little guy the latter was until I read that he died this week at 90. But reporter Bob Franken did:
He was at his most irritating while fighting the lonely battles for labor, for consumers, against special interests, against deregulation. A wealthy man himself, he was, nevertheless, the champion of the powerless against the powerful. ...
There are few of his ilk left. They've been replaced by sloganeering nihilists, who have mastered the art of marketing in a media world that is run by the same wealthy people who have a strong interest in the status quo. They would probably find a Senator Metzenbaum intolerable.
Stick a fork in the old adage that only the good die young.
JEERS to the Two-Year-Old-in-Chief. Oh, hey, news flash: George W. Bush is still a whiny, lying dick. (Gotta love that first amendment!) But as Atrios says, Congress has absolutely no reason to give him a pot to piss in anymore...on FISA or anything else:
Bush is so unpopular that beating him on anything is almost by definition popular. They could shoot down Bush's proposal for free ice cream day and it'd probably be popular as long as the headlines said something like "Democrats beat Bush."
And Pissypants's teevee tantrums get completely drowned out by all the campaign coverage. He can't have much influence on the narrative anymore. So just keep beating him.
The Secret Service would like to add: Figuratively...so drop the crowbars, please.
CHEERS to the greatest geek in Geekdom. Happy 129th birthday to Albert Einstein. You have the floor, sir...
"He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice."
"Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism---how passionately I hate them!"
"In order to be an immaculate member of a flock of sheep, one must above all be a sheep oneself."
I see you're familiar with the Republican Party.
JEERS to same quagmire, different day. The Iraqis have had five years to figure out how to "stand up as we stand down." As a little test, we recently pulled one single U.S. soldier---Cpl. Marvin Hammerstoll---out of the country. Let's see how that worked out, shall we?
Militants have staged a deadly wave of attacks in Baghdad two weeks after the U.S. military began pulling out the first combat brigade from last year's troop buildup. The uptick in violence has raised questions about whether recent progress on security in the capital could be reversed as more U.S. troops are scheduled to depart.
Don’t get too comfy in your backyard hammock, Marv. They're warming up the C-130 now.
JEERS to fears coming true. One year ago I wrote the following in C&J, and last Monday it became reality:
What keeps me awake at night is the probability that, right now, a prominent Democrat is doing---or scheming to do---something dishonest, unethical and/or illegal that will cause a scandal that the right-wingers will tear into like Dennis Hastert with a box of Oreos. Whoever you are, stop it.
I know it was you, Spitzer. You broke my haht. [Smooooooch!] You broke my haht!
CHEERS to "Q." No, not James Bond's gadget guy, silly. Quincy Jones turns 75 today. Our favorite Q-tune is his junky-tonk theme for Sanford and Son (available on iTunes). But for sheer mojo, no iPod should be devoid of Soul Bossa Nova. Groovy, baby!
CHEERS to days that rhyme with Friday. Today is 3/14---aka Pi Day!
Pi Day is a special day in the lives of many a nerd. Just like normal people celebrate Valentine's Day or National Pancake Day, nerds around the world will gather and join hands in the shape whose ratio of its circumference to its diameter is the most revered mathematical constant in the known universe.
Naturally YouTube abounds with pi videos. I always got Cs and Ds in math, so I'll stick with regular pie, thanks. Apple. With 3.141592653 scoops of vanilla ice cream.
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One Year Ago in C&J: March 14, 2007...
CHEERS to General Peter Pace. Great news! The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff compared homosexuality to adultery on Monday. That's a big improvement from other muckety mucks who would've also compared it to bestiality, pedophilia, kleptomania, necrophilia, alcoholism, infomercial-watching and hammer toes. Progress! Your free subscription to The Advocate is in the mail, General.
WHATEVER to groundhog day: Iraq edition. In 2004 Americans said we should get out of Iraq by 2005. In 2005 we said we should get out by 2006. In 2006 we said we should get out by 2007. And now---surprise!---it's 2007 and we insist on leaving by 2008. Same poll next year?
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And just one more...
[Skip this if you have delicate sensibilities that are easily offended, or if you've always thought of me as a choirboy and don't want that image destroyed in less than five seconds.]
CHEERS to Olbermann's worst nightmare. Regular C&J readers know that my favorite nighttime hangout in Key West is the Duval Street bar called "Kwest." It hits the trifecta of vacation-time goodness: booze, my favorite video games (Monster Madness and Tri-Towers), and lovely young laddies---(Ha, my spellchecker just tried to automatically change it to "ladies." Silly hetero laptop)---who remove most of their clothes and dance on platforms while the patrons fill their G-strings with dollars. Mildly titillating, yes, but hardly anything out of Eliot Spitzer's play book. Most of 'em are bored, clueless, straight, gorilla-sized muscleboys looking to make an easy buck. "Gay for pay" as the saying goes, and not my type.
But there are also a few cuties there. Last week we met one who not only had looks and the gay gene, but he was an absolute political junkie. We sat at the bar talking for the longest time about the candidates, the primaries, the economy, global warming, world events, Cuba, and media bias. This guy had some lights on upstairs.
Then we went back to the private lap dance booth to explore the issues further, and that's when I asked him if he watches Countdown. His eyes got all wide and he said, "Yeah! Keith's the best!" And the next thing the patrons in the bar heard was two voices shouting in unison from behind the curtain: "WORST...PERSON...IN THE WORLD!!!!" I think it pretty much killed the lap dance traffic for the rest of the night.
We weren't kicked out, exactly, but we were told to tone down the intellectuality---it was making the customers uneasy. Especially Senator Craig.
And that's what I did on my winter vacation. The End.
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Oh, and tomorrow's the Ides of March. If your name rhymes with Bulius Baesar, watch yer back. Otherwise have a great weekend. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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