A quick one today, 'cause i'm very busy. Today's selection was written by the 19th century American poet Richard Watson Gilder. i thought it was kinda amusing.

A Woman's Thought

I am a woman—therefore I may not
Call to him, cry to him,
Fly to him,
Bid him delay not!

Then when he comes to me, I must sit quiet;
Still as a stone—
All silent and cold.
If my heart riot—
Crush and defy it!
Should I grow bold,
Say one dear thing to him,
All my life fling to him,
Cling to him—
What to atone
Is enough for my sinning!
This were the cost to me,
This were my winning—
That he were lost to me.

Not as a lover
At last if he part from me,
Tearing my heart from me,
Hurt beyond cure—
Calm and demure
Then must I hold me,
In myself fold me,
Lest he discover;
Showing no sign to him
By look of mine to him
What he has been to me—
How my heart turns to him,
Follows him, yearns to him,
Prays him to love me.

Pity me, lean to me,
Thou God above me!

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The Democratic Party is the party of anti-Christian hatred, their false "inclusiveness" rhetoric at the convention notwithstanding.

On July 23, Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Terry McAuliffe announced the appointment of Rev. Brenda Bartella Peterson as the Senior Advisor for Religious Outreach; she is an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

Brenda has dedicated her life to showing us all how religion and politics intersect with integrity . . . We are proud to have her join the DNC, in order to spread John Kerry's positive vision to people of all faiths."

Unfortunately, that's complete bullshit.

Catholic League president, Dr. William Donohue said:

Rev. Brenda Bartella Peterson was one of thirty-two clergy members to file an amicus curiae brief in behalf of Michael NewdowÂ’s attempt to excise the words ‘under GodÂ’ from the Pledge of Allegiance. The brief shows infinitely more concern for the sensibilities of atheists like Newdow than it does for the 90 percent of Americans who believe in God. And this is the person the Democrats want to dispatch to meet with the heads of religious organizations? Are they out of their minds? Would they hire a gay basher to reach out to homosexuals? [link omitted]

Thanks Dems. There should now be no doubt about where you stand.

Link via Bill.

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Regarding stem cell research, at the Democratic Convention, Ron Reagan said:

[I]t does not follow that the theology of a few should be allowed to forestall the health and well-being of the many. And how can we affirm life if we abandon those whose own lives are so desperately at risk?

It is a hallmark of human intelligence that we are able to make distinctions. Yes, these cells could theoretically have the potential, under very different circumstances, to develop into human beings — that potential is where their magic lies. But they are not, in and of themselves, human beings. They have no fingers and toes, no brain or spinal cord. They have no thoughts, no fears. They feel no pain. Surely we can distinguish between these undifferentiated cells multiplying in a tissue culture and a living, breathing person — parent, a spouse, a child.

But Ron, you failed to directly answer the central question. The one question that must be answered before anyone goes tinkering around in this area. The most important question of all: Is it a human life?

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The Kerry sisters are apparently all lubricated over that has-been-never-was actor Matt Ben Afflack. (Apparently, they never saw Daredevil, which can cure any starstruck Afflack worshiper of their unfortunate condition.)

The felling seems mutual, as Ben is probably seeing Benjamins in the eyes of the two ketchup queens. Or maybe he's simply all ga-ga over Alex's ta-tas. Or, perhaps most likely, he envisions himself as the next Peter Lawford or Arnold Schwarzenegger, and plans to make the leap from entertainment to the world of power politics via strategic marriage.

Here's a window into Ben Afflack's idea of wit and charm, for what it's worth:

In the new issue of Harper's Bazaar, Ben blathers that he finds the sisters 'funny,' 'smart' and 'absurdly beautiful.'

Affleck, who interviews the duo for the maggie, admires Alexandra's 'soft features, brown hair and a gentle, willowy carriage that complements her demeanor.'

As for Vanessa, he raves: 'She looks, with her flaxen hair, almost like a Nordic milkman's child.'

Gag us.

'Ben and Vanessa were in the front of the box in the external seating . . . He had his mom with him but he and Vanessa were yukking it up. They were laughing and having a good time. Very cozy. They looked like affectionate pals.

'Within 15 minutes, Alexandra waltzes in, she sees them and lunges across the partition to get in between them. She greets Ben with the big hug and kiss. This was clearly making Vanessa very uncomfortable, she would walk away and come back. It was like two junior high school girls vying for his attention. This was clearly a case of sibling rivalry.'

Via Son of Nixon.

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From NRO, a column by a Los Angeles Police officer makes the following points:

[C]ops and firefighters are inherently conservative in that they understand the importance of following society's rules. Unlike John Kerry, they don't find 'nuance' in every question that confronts them. In their daily duties they see the often-deadly consequences that result when people fail to do what society expects of them. Nearly every call to 9-1-1 is the result of someone concluding that these rules, be they the criminal laws or the fire codes, can be ignored. They did a good job of hiding it last week, but the Democrats are the party of libertinism, the price of which is well known to those who come when people call for help.

Second, cops and firefighters are, if the women in the ranks will forgive the expression, Regular Guys. They drink beer, not wine, and certainly not French wine. They played football and baseball in high school, not lacrosse. Regular Guys think Al Sharpton is a fraud and Michael Moore (who pretends to be a Regular Guy) is a fool, and they think Ted Kennedy is a criminal. Regular Guys do not blame Secret Service agents (who are Regular Guys) for knocking them down on the ski slopes, especially when those agents are there to take bullets for them. And Regular Guys relate to and prefer the company of other Regular Guys; they do not invite people like Leonardo DiCaprio and Ben Affleck to their conventions.

Even with the piles of dough they're sitting on, both George Bush and Dick Cheney still come across as Regular Guys, the kind of men you might find hanging around the fire station or the detective squad room. And with his recent suggestion to Pat Leahy on how he might spend his idle time, the vice president climbed several notches on the Regular Guy scale. John Kerry, on the other hand, owing to his valorous service in Vietnam, might have been a Regular Guy years ago, but he surrendered his membership when he came home to join the Jane Fonda crowd and brand his former comrades as war criminals. And whatever tenuous grip he may have had on Regular Guy status since then was lost when he married his current wife. Old-fashioned notions of chivalry prevent me from offering my full opinion on her here, but Regular Guys do not under any circumstances marry women like Teresa Heinz Kerry.

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1 Regular Guys donÂ’t get 3 Purple Hearts for three bandages placed over three scratches. Regular Guys have to spend weeks in a hospital before they get a Purple Heart.

Posted by: Jake at August 03, 2004 12:09 PM (h4tU8)

2 "Unlike John Kerry, they don't find 'nuance' in every question that confronts them"...I think that the kind of work people do has an immense influence on their political and philosophical beliefs. People who work with things that are "real" and inflexible--farmers, machinists, engineers--don't tend to worship nuance. This *doesn't* mean that they don't understand it. An aeronautical engineer knows well that there is no perfectly good design; that there are "shades of gray" and tradeoffs among many factors....but he also knows that at some point the tradeoffs must be resolved, decisions must be made, and metal must be cut. People who spend their entire lives in a purely verbal environment often fail to recognize this. I think the "lifestyle" factors (beer vs wine, etc) are secondary to this factor.

Posted by: David Foster at August 03, 2004 02:38 PM (XUtCY)

3 I'm a full-time fireman at a fairly large city (250k), and I'm also one of the ones that actually goes into fires. Sadly, my city is one of those liberal stains on the map, and I'd guess a full half of our dept (about 400 FFs) falls into the Kerry column. Unfortunately, of those voting for Kerry, the overwhelming majority of them are just voting lockstep. Most of them are actually conservative, just as Dunphy implies, but at the same time couldn't imagine voting for Bush. It's a sad reality that the union mentality (or lack thereof) has brainwashed these men. If these guys (and their civilian counterparts) could resolve the internal conflict of BEING conservative, but THINKING of themselves as democrats, the GOP would win by a landslide. Every time. Only fear mongering and demagoguery keeps the Kerry (or Gore, in the past) troops in line. As for me, I was a Republican long before I got this job ten years ago, and it never occurred to me to vote the IAFF party line. I even have a "Firefighters for Bush" bumper sticker on my truck. Incidentally, IAFF never inquired as to my party affiliation. Asshats. Incidentally, regular guy that I am, I can appreciate beer AND wine.

Posted by: Andy at August 03, 2004 09:01 PM (bpH79)

4 Heavens. I am certainly not a regular guy, but I think a lot of any man who is willing to marry a strong, opinionated, spunky woman like THK. In terms of a conversation partner, I'd rather be married to her than Laura Bush (based on what I can tell!)

Posted by: Hugo at August 04, 2004 08:55 AM (ntfdi)

5 "Opinionated" is good, but only when the individual has thought seriously and deeply about their opinions...otherwise, it is just blather. Opinionated human beings--male or female--are not rare at all; what is much rarer is the individual who (a)listens to others and (b)thinks seriously and self-critically about their own opinions.

Posted by: David Foster at August 04, 2004 12:44 PM (E+yz/)

6 I'm sure JK can tap into an infinite supply of patience, understanding and nuance just by thinking fondly of 500+ million dollars.

Posted by: Andy at August 05, 2004 06:54 AM (bpH79)

7 Find the whole truth: http://www.regularguysforbush.org http://www.cheesesteakveteransfortruth.org

Posted by: REgular Joe at October 15, 2004 05:58 AM (AaBEz)

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Whatever happened to Rip On Matt Iglesias Week? While doing the research for the upcoming, and feverishly anticipated feature, i discovered that he is actually very boring, despite his impressive credentials. So i lost interest in the idea.

Coming next? A string of teasers related to a blog future feature entitled: Bang On Kevin Drum Week.

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On this day, sixty one years ago, the United States Navy motor torpedo boat number 109, commanded by Lieutenant, Junior Grade John F. Kennedy, was struck and cut in half by the 1750 ton Japanese destroyer Amagiri.

The PT boat was creeping along to keep the wake and noise to a minimum in order to avoid detection. Around 0200 with Kennedy at the helm, the Japanese destroyer Amagiri traveling at 40 knots cut PT 109 in two in ten seconds. Although the Japanese destroyer had not realized that their ship had struck an enemy vessel, the damage to PT 109 was severe. At the impact, Kennedy was thrown into the cockpit where he landed on his bad back. As Amagiri steamed away, its wake doused the flames on the floating section of PT 109 to which five Americans clung: Kennedy, Thom, and three enlisted men, S1/c Raymond Albert, RM2/c John E. Maguire and QM3/c Edman Edgar Mauer. Kennedy yelled out for others in the water and heard the replies of Ross and five members of the crew, two of which were injured. GM3/c Charles A. Harris had a hurt leg and MoMM1/c Patrick Henry McMahon, the engineer was badly burned. Kennedy swam to these men as Ross and Thom helped the others, MoMM2/c William Johnston, TM2/c Ray L. Starkey, and MoMM1/c Gerald E. Zinser to the remnant of PT 109. Although they were only one hundred yards from the floating piece, in the dark it took Kennedy three hours to tow McMahon and help Harris back to the PT hulk. Unfortunately, TM2/c Andrew Jackson Kirksey and MoMM2/c Harold W. Marney were killed in the collision with Amagiri.

Because the remnant was listing badly and starting to swamp, Kennedy decided to swim for a small island barely visible (actually three miles) to the southeast. Five hours later, all eleven survivors had made it to the island after having spent a total of fifteen hours in the water. Kennedy had given McMahon a life-jacket and had towed him all three miles with the strap of the device in his teeth. After finding no food or water on the island, Kennedy concluded that he should swim the route the PT boats took through Ferguson Passage in hopes of sighting another ship. After Kennedy had no luck, Ross also made an attempt, but saw no one and returned to the island. Ross and Kennedy had spotted another slightly larger island with coconuts to eat and all the men swam there with Kennedy again towing McMahon. Now at their fourth day, Kennedy and Ross made it to Nauru Island and found several natives. Kennedy cut a message on a coconut that read '11 alive native knows posit & reef Nauru Island Kennedy.' He purportedly handed the coconut to one of the natives and said, 'Rendova, Rendova!,' indicating that the coconut should be taken to the PT base on Rendova.

Kennedy and Ross again attempted to look for boats that night with no luck. The next morning the natives returned with food and supplies, as well as a letter from the coastwatcher commander of the New Zealand camp, Lieutenant Arthur Reginald Evans. The message indicated that the natives should return with the American commander, and Kennedy complied immediately. He was greeted warmly and then taken to meet PT 157 which returned to the island and finally rescued the survivors on 8 August.

Kennedy was later awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal for his heroics in the rescue of the crew of PT 109, as well as the Purple Heart Medal for injuries sustained in the accident on the night of 1 August 1943.

For a more detailed and prosaic version of the story, here's the transcription of a 1944 article by John Hersey in the New Yorker about the events.

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Maybe i'm getting cynical watching the Scott Peterson debacle prosecution in progress, but i'm anxious to see how the Salt Lake DA fucks up this open and shut case.

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Here's some amazing war reportage from an artist embedded with the 1st Infantry Division in Baqubah, Iraq.

ThereÂ’s a huge bang; the 113 rocks and Ledlow, Cliat and Camp fall to the floor. IÂ’m afraid theyÂ’re dead. An RPG has just hit the side of our vehicle, between Cliat and Gayer, the driver. GayerÂ’s fallen too, and Theis is shouting at him through his headphones to get up. Smoke and the acrid smell of magnesium powder are everywhere.

Doc saw the RPG round fired at us by a man from behind a tree, his head covered in a black hood. Later, he says it looked like a baseball coming straight for us. Pulling himself back up, he locates the shooter in his rifle sight, peering from around the tree. Doc fires off two rounds and sees the man fall, but canÂ’t tell if heÂ’s killed him.

. . .

The RPGs are coming from our left; Ledlow has relieved Camp to defend that side. ThereÂ’s another terrifying explosion against the 113, as a grenade lands low on our left track, damaging but not disabling it. An armor piercing round, it destroys one of the plates, but somehow misses the pin, which would have cut the track and rendered us unable to move. Nevertheless, the sprocket canÂ’t engage and weÂ’ve come to a halt: Gayer canÂ’t get the vehicle to move forward. Theis tells him to reverse it and we lurch backwards.

'What the fuck are you doing?' Cliat shouts at Theis. 'You donÂ’t never go backwards in a firefight! Move this fucking thing forward! Forward!'

Thanks yet again to Sarah for finding this.

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Is it wrong to eat the rest of the mint chocolate chip ice cream left over from last week's office baby shower for breakfast?

i think not.

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And congratulations on the Wiener-stempel!

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i got the details on bat risk. It's not dangerous to touch a dead bat, but you shouldn't do it. If you see a bat in the daytime, and it's crawling on the ground, something's wrong. It probably has rabies so don't mess with it, it may bite you and then you're in trouble. You can get rabies if bat saliva gets in your eyes, nose, mouth or a wound. In other words, don't make out with the bat.

The source for this info is here, in case you're interested. i also learned that many young bats are unable to fly during summer. So it's possible that i simply saw a lost, but undiseased, young bat.

Here's the proper way to capture a bat:

What you will need:

• leatherwork gloves (put them on)


• small box or coffee can


• piece of cardboard


• tape

When the bat lands, approach it slowly, while wearing the gloves, and place the box or coffee can over it. Slide the cardboard under the container to trap the bat inside. Tape the cardboard to the container securely, and punch small holes in the cardboard, allowing the bat to breathe. Contact your health department or animal-control authority to make arrangements for rabies testing.

If you see a bat in your home and you are sure no human or pet exposure has occurred, confine the bat to a room by closing all doors and windows leading out of the room except those to the outside. The bat will probably leave soon. If not, it can be caught, as described and released outdoors away from people and pets.

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. . . Something is terribly wrong with the way we teach history in this country when Max Cleland can mispronounce the name of Crispus Attucks and yet be interrupted by applause, while the crowd sits on their hands after he invokes the name of Paul Revere in the very next sentence . . .

. . . Kerry saved a hamster? LOL, now we know why Richard Gere is supporting him . . .

. . . Kerry's daughter was allowed to broach the subject of abortion, because she represents a democratic constituency largely made up of one issue voters: single women . . .

. . . "John Kerry reporting for duty?" Puleeeeze! They're laying it on so thick. Someone should have edited that line out of there. It's way too over the top . . .

. . . Kerry's energy is way up. He's been rehearsing. He'll get good reviews for style, simply because many pundits expected a worse delivery . . .

. . . Funny, he implies that the Republicans have taken the flag away from the Democrats as a symbol of patriotism. The way i see it, the Democrats abandoned the flag as a symbol when they became the party of flag burners. This from a guy who threw his medals away . . .

. . . i can't reconcile Kerry's promise to ensure that we have the best equipped military with his vote on the eighty-seven billion. Can you? . . .

. . . Kerry says that America has never fought a war because we wanted to, only because we had to. That is patently and demonstrably false. The most obvious and notable example being the war he will never let us forget he fought in. But also Korea, WWI, The Spanish American War and The Mexican War . . .

. . . The "we are on God's side" jab is getting huge applause. It's a pretty effective rhetorical jab. And a cheap shot. The anti-Christians in the audience are lovin' it . . .

. . . Balloons and confetti. Sammy Hagar is singing "we'll get higher and higher!" Is this a subliminal way of signaling their position on legalization? . . .

. . . It's appropriate that this convention was held at Fleet Center, because if Kerry wins, it's going to feel like we just got one of these . . .

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Tonight i realized that i could really like John Edwards. Not just because he's a good speaker (not quite as polished as Clinton, but he's getting there), but because his speech tonight was worthy of a Republican. No really. Change a few details, tone down the "two Americas schtick, and i could totally imagine GWB giving the same speech.

Edwards was patriotic, he praised the sacrifices of our armed forces with sincerity, and he talked about the everyday struggles of the average American without promising a Clintonesque shitload of handouts. His solution to the problem of outsourcing sounded reasonable to me. i liked what i heard. Didn't believe him for a moment. But i liked what i heard.

Edwards' speech was most notable for what was left out. And that got me thinking. Why is everybody applauding and going crazy over him? Perhaps because he's not Bush or Cheney. Because he definitely omitted everything that today's democrat really cares about.

The word "abortion" did not appear, nor did he mention "a woman's right to choose." He never mentioned gay marriage. He never said the Iraq war was a mistake, or that it was illegal, or that we should get out. He never equated Abu Ghraib with Saddam's atrocities. In fact, the most surprising line of the night was this:

And we will have one clear unmistakable message for al Qaida and the rest of these terrorists. You cannot run. You cannot hide. And we will destroy you. [emphasis mine]

It's real interesting that Edwards would give such a patriotic pro-war speech when, as Peter Comejo pointed out on the Hogue show this morning, ninety five percent of the delegates in the audience are anti-war, think the war was a mistake and want us to get out immediately. Yet they cheered Edwards words as loudly as a bunch of Republicans would. i guess "anyone but Bush" is really all that matters to them. Edwards could have gotten up there and promised to attack France and they would have raised the roof.

Many, i would say most, die-hard modern Democrats are drawn to the party over only a handful of issues. Compassion issues are part of it, like gay marriage and affirmative action. But there's also fear and hatred issues. Fear of losing the ability to have abortions. Hatred of Christianity, traditional Judaism and the standards of behavior those faiths represent.

That's why i can't understand why Edwards would have the audacity to close his speech with the words "Thank you, God bless you and God bless the United States of America!" But i am not surprised to see that the "official" text of the speech on the John Kerry for President website omits the final eight words. The substantial "Newdow wing" of the party might have let that offensive Republican sounding line slide last night, but they certainly wouldn't want it memorialized in print forever.

Update: Don't believe me? Listen to Jonah Goldberg, he saw this coming.

This is the logic of hate. It lets convention delegates who by every measure are far to the left of the mainstream of the Democratic Party, let alone the American public, cheer a candidate who has spent the past few months holding something of a fire sale on Democratic principles. According to a New York Times survey of delegates, 9 out of 10 say they think Iraq was a mistake and 5 out of 6 say the war on terrorism and national security aren't that important; yet Kerry is surrounding himself with soldiers to the point where it wouldn't be shocking if delegates were required to wear camo fatigues. Even Ted Kennedy would be hard-pressed to play a drinking game in which players had to swig every time the words "Vietnam" or "war hero" come up in Democratic speeches.

Kerry's waxing philosophic about how life begins at conception, but the activists still wear abortion-on-demand buttons. And the delegates serve as little more than an infomercial studio audience who applaud on cue, just as they would if Ron Popeil demonstrated how his new gadget makes curly fries in just a few seconds. The point of this Potemkin unity is to seduce moderates and swing voters into believing that Kerry's their guy.

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A history lesson with the poetry this week, because i have chosen a sonnet written by a man who might not be a household name, but perhaps should be.

Not generally remembered for his poetry, the author of this week's poem was better known for his passionate devotion to the abolition of slavery. William Lloyd Garrison (1805-1879) was a firebrand and so uncompromising, he even managed to piss off Frederick Douglass. Here's a typical W. L. Garrison quote:

I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. . . . I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.

In speaking engagements and through the Liberator and other publications, Garrison advocated the immediate emancipation of all slaves. This was an unpopular view during the 1830s, even with northerners who were against slavery. What would become of all the freed slaves? Certainly they could not assimilate into American society, they thought. Garrison believed that they could assimilate. He believed that, in time, all blacks would be equal in every way to the country's white citizens. They, too, were Americans and entitled to 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.'

In the following sonnet, you get a pretty good picture of the man's intensity and righteousness.

Liberty for All

THEY tell me, Liberty! that in thy name
I may not plead for all the human race;
That some are born to bondage and disgrace,
Some to a heritage of woe and shame,
And some to power supreme, and glorious fame:
With my whole soul I spurn the doctrine base,
And, as an equal brotherhood, embrace
All people, and for all fair freedom claim!
Know this, O man! whate’er thy earthly fate—
God never made a tyrant nor a slave:
Woe, then, to those who dare to desecrate
His glorious image!—for to all He gave
Eternal rights, which none may violate;
And, by a mighty hand, the oppressed He yet shall save!

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This latest post, called "Waterparks. And the T-Shirt", referring to the abortion t-shirt, is one reason.

It was about 1997 or 1998 when I began to see the most remarkable slogans showing up on the fitted t-shirts of my female students: 'Porn Star'. 'Juicy.' 'Real American Bitch.' 'I Just Slept with your Boyfriend' (I've seen gay men where these too, but I see 'em more often on women; I've seen other verbs besides 'slept' as well.) 'Too Hot to Handle'. 'You Know you Wanna Touch.' . . . I associate all this with the banal and infuriating 'girl power' movement; largely a creation of advertisers, it sold young women a message of empowerment through shock and sexuality. . . .

What I disliked about these shirts was not so much their brazenness as their rank commercialism. Nothing genuinely radical, edgy, or dangerous is sold at Abercrombie and Fitch or Urban Outfitters . . . Newsflash, kiddies: The fact that it horrifies your parents doesn't make it any less a product of the very same corporate America in which your parents are investing. What these places sell is the cleverly marketed opportunity to outrage the older generation while simultaneously offering a superficially feminist message. The message is 'Only a bold, strong, brave young woman who doesn't care about conforming to stereotypes would wear a shirt like this. Thus if you wear this shirt, you bear witness to your fiery, indominatable, wild grrl soul.' Please. What you bear witness to, darlin', is nothing more than your own socially constructed insecurity, and any sensible person over 25 is abundantly aware of that.

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Excellent analysis of HK's speech here. She is a very weird lady, and i do not want her in the White House.

This is clearly a woman who thinks and feels that she is the one paying the bills, so she gets to call the shots. I can imagine that Sen. Kerry has had to put up with a lot of this, but has made his peace with it, considering the financial benefits.

None of the details of her marriage would be of the slightest interest to me or anyone else, if it werenÂ’t for the fact that her husband could well be the next President. A man bought and paid for, with a willful, short-tempered, somewhat angry and defensive, egotistical spouse, one who is used to getting [her] own way whenever she demands it.

. . . She is, in fact, his primary source of his livelihood. Just as we would demand to know about a candidate's job, we deserve to know about Teresa, who pays far more lavishly than any other job Kerry could hold.

DonÂ’t forget that without the loan he took out on the Beacon Hill mansion bought with HER money, his Presidential campaign would have collapsed in late 2003. It was that money alone which kept him going, until Howard Dean imploded in the early primaries. It was precisely this ability to keep campaigning when others had to quit over lack of financing which caused the Democrats to finally turn to him as candidate. You can be certain that Teresa never lets her husband forget that.

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Don Knotts had a birthday recently (July 21st), which i failed to properly commemorate on this here blog. i referenced him briefly in a short post below, and now i'm going to tell you what his greatest role was.

While a lot of people swear that The Incredible Mr. Limpet is the best Don Knotts movie, i think people who think that are all wet. Knotts excelled at the physical comedy of facial expressions. Limpet was a cartoon, so it by definition cannot be the best DK movie.

The Ghost and Mr. Chicken is a strong contender. Knotts' character is named Luther Heggs, a perfect name for a DK character. i loved the whole scene where he spends the night in the haunted house. Remember the crazy organ music? Knotts was at his shaky best.

i liked The Reluctant Astronaut just a little bit better, partly because i like space movies. This one came out in 1967, at the height of the space race. The premise is typically DK: he gets a job at NASA, tells his family and his girlfriend that he is in astronaut training, when in fact he's just a janitor, hijinks ensue, his family finds out about the charade, they're terribly disappointed, then even though he's Acrophobic, he blunders onto a spaceflight, actually becoming a reluctant astronaut , more hijinks ensue. It's predictable, but still a must see.

i also liked The Apple Dumpling Gang, where DK teams up with Tim Conway as a pair of stereotypically incompetent but loveable bank robbers.

But the funniest Don Knotts movie, in my opinion, is the often overlooked How to Frame a Figg, from 1971. Here's a couple of comments from the IMDB page:

'How to Frame a Figg is a vintage Don Knotts - frenetic, farcical comedy, and features him at the top of his form as the hysterical, cat-on-hot-tin-roof nervous, persecuted civil servant Hollis Figg.'

'If folks were really this stupid I could be the SRW - Supreme Ruler of the World. In this one Knotts plays a dimwitted bean counter for some little jerk water town run by a group of crooked simpletons only slightly brighter than he is. When things appear a bit shaky for the crooks they go for a frame-up of the patsy Figg. Plenty of laughs as Knotts does his usual bumbling, stumbling act. I especially appreciated the extension cord scene; asininity at it's highest level.'

Best Don Knotts movie: How to Frame a Figg. Go rent it tonight and let me know if you agree or disagree.

Posted by: annika at 09:36 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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i would gladly take Dean Esmay's Pledge, which is to say that, should Kerry be elected this November, partisanship should end at the "water's edge."

How many of you will have the patriotism to say, 'I disagree with many of his policy directions, I do not think he is conducting our foreign policy in the right way, but I will do my best to get behind him and support him until elections come around next time?' . . . even if he does things I disagree with in conducting foreign policy, I will say, 'I respectfully disagree with the President's directions, but I will do my best to express my dissent respectfully and hope that I am mistaken and that he has made the proper decisions after all.'

Posted by: annika at 09:12 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Has Ted Kennedy ever spoken one sentence in the last thirty years without fucking up the pronounciation of something in some way?

Has anyone ever accused him of being an idiot for doing so?

Posted by: annika at 08:26 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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