I try new style

Me big man. Three jobs. Many words. Many commas. Few dollars. Make tired. Want blog. Need rest. Compromise: posts spare now. No think. No talk about self. No talk right. Easy words. Like caveman.

This make me mad. What Clinton do for me? Nothing. Barack jump shark. Not own man. Too savvy. No heart.

New Man Crush

Move over Brando

Dimitar Berbatov

Would put it inside of him

Here's why

I'm a pro writer now.

I have, as I've mentioned, Job Two now. I am the Campus and Federal Politics reporter for the Oregon Daily Emerald. My first two stories were published Friday. Here they are: a meeting recap and a a story about basketball.

Unexciting.

These stories are dry. They're the kind of stories that were being run when I first got the job, except worse because I was really confused at the time and because my writer's voice conflicts with the editor's voice. There's no tension, no real human interest. I want to fix that. Campus and Federal Politics are meaningless if your vision is only as wide as the boardroom. I need to talk to people who are being affected by campus politics. Then maybe people will read my stories.

Facts and falsehoods of November 6, 2008

Facts

• cold
  
• I also have a cold
• New job--two articles I wrote coming out today
• autumn is the prettiest season in Oregon

Falsehoods

• I got more than enough sleep last night
• cigarettes are good for a cold
• cigarettes are also good for a cod, which is what my hands wanted me to type

Truths and falsehoods about November 4, 2008 or "soccer seemingly trumps politics"

Facts:

• I got my absentee ballot in the mail fourteen hours before it was due.
• It would have cost me $239 to get it back to Hawaii on time.
• Now I can assign a dollar figure to how much my vote actually means to me
• That figure is $52.42.
• Not $239.
  
• So I didn't vote.
• Nevertheless, I was pretty relieved that Barack Obama was elected.

Falsehoods:

• Barack Obama will solve all or at least more than two of the nation's fundamental problems: poster child complex, national debt, negative interventionist tendencies, the imminent failure of the Social Security system, environmental negligence, corporate power, technocratic identity, the popularity of The Eagles.
• This call at the end of a game between two teams I don't even like was excellent and not so terrible that it ruined an otherwise excellent day.
  

Facts and Falsehoods about November 3, 2008

Falsehoods first this time

• I am voting tomorrow
• I don't want to vote tomorrow
  
• This isn't the most important election since 1968, so it doesn't matter that I can't vote
• Whatever I did with the whole mailing my absentee ballot application thing, it sure worked

Facts

• Voting is the most important thing you can possibly do next to actually running for office
• Which means that I have not met the most important responsibility I have ever had
• That's pretty much it.

Facts and falsehoods about Halloween weekend

Facts

• I visited Corvallis, Ore.
• Corvallis, Ore., is a nice town
• But, I wouldn't want to live there
• I partied with the second worst person in all of Oregon
  
• (after Bill Sizemore)
• Is Bill Sizemore Shaun Sizemore's uncle?
• ??
• The truck stop in Coburg, Ore., is one of my favorite places
• There, you can buy a gun
• Or a sword
• They also have restrooms
• and phones at every table
• They love the Ducks
• I love the Ducks less
• A party with free beer = Christina's toilet getting plugged
• Nobody knows who Tom Joad is
• My favorite experience: stumbling to Mike and Glen's house at three in the morning dead drunk while listening to "Pyramid Song" by Radiohead and smoking a Marb. 27. It was a misty, spooky night and it felt like the apocalypse. It turned out that the soccer match I was going there to watch was a rerun. I didn't leave their couch until two the next afternoon.
  

Falsehoods

• The homeless have their own cigarettes
• I did a lot of coursework
• Spending eleven hours straight on a friend's couch is good for your back.
• I'm happy with the way my life is going
• Those three guys who got hospitalized weren't starting anything
• That sounds ominous, don't it.
  

Things I am excited about

Here is a list of things I am excited about:



Well, they're pretty much all in that poster...

Facts and falsehoods about October 27, 2008

Facts:

• I have to conduct an interview in t-minus 47 minutes.
• I do not have the energy to conduct an interview
• I do not speak Spanish
• I am the only member of the Espresso Roma Eugene team who does not speak Spanish
• This is a communication problem
• I miss my pens
  

Falsehoods:

• I should like to live the rest of my life in the manner in which I have lived the last four days
• My house is very clean
• Beer pong, hooray
  

Facts and Falsehoods about 10-22-2008 or "the cool side of finding out you've always been deformed"

Facts about yesterday

• it is evidently abnormal when, in a normal standing position, the direction your feet point in is 45 degrees outward from the direction your knees point in.
• It is also evidently abnormal when, in a normal standing position, your knees do not touch.
• This had never occurred to me.
• Therefore, I have deformed legs
• Therefore, I have to spend the rest of my life icing my knees for twenty minutes each night, performing special stretches, and wearing orthopedic inserts in my shoes.
• Therefore, I was a little bit bummed
• But at the same time, it explains a lot.

Falsehoods about yesterday

• Cold
• Shorts would have been a bad choice
• South Park is still funny
• South Park has been consistently funny for the last eight years
• My roommates hate South Park and would not watch the same new episode twice in a day
• Life is better now that my iPod headphones are broken
• People who already have their own cigarettes are the last people to ask you for one
  

Truths and falsehoods about October 21, 2008

True facts about today:
+My boss seemed genuinely afraid that I would hate Mexicans. Strangely, he also seemed genuinely afraid I was an illegal immigrant.
+My editor was really certain he loved Cookin' With Coolio, which I told him about. He was somewhat less certain about what article I should write.
+This song is very underrated.
+This soccer team is very overrated. Especially this man.
+As a Polish American, Scottish American, and Catholic American (sorta), that hurt to say.
+I can already tell I'll hate my new job.
+That's a good thing.
+Shorts were a bad choice.

Falsehoods about today:
+My roommates are awake.
+My roommates have left their rooms.
+The mail has come.
+I don't need another cigarette.
+I'm pretty glad my writing partner Jake is in Spain so I don't have to see his bizarrely hairy nose around here, especially on his birthday.

New job, or "Dishwashing AGAIN???"

I'm just about to leave my house to get trained at my new job. I vowed once never to wash dishes again. When I went back to Eugene, I would get a desk job in one of the campus offices, where I could spend 99.9% of my time studying. But it turns out most of those were already taken by the time I returned, so I was left with this. Now every Thursday through Sunday from one to eight, I'll be working the machine at Espresso Roma.

Autobiography, or "The great struggle for things to say"

Recently, I wrote a cover letter for an essay I was submitting to a magazine. The writers guidelines asked that cover letters contain biographical information. Here is what I sent:

I was raised in Hawai'i by a mother who loves cats and wine and a father who loves big, impressive lies and surfing. They named me after a typewriter and soon were divorced. Now, I am an undergraduate student at the University of Oregon currently finishing a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and learning to pay bills on time. A collection of essays I have written is online at my blog, graphicaccountsofdateswithyourmother.blogspot.com, although that is probably the least important of the biographical details I have included.

Thoughts?

How should I dress for Halloween?

My Halloween costumes have always been bizarre, since I have a lush imagination and little awareness of of the approach of Halloween. Usually, what happens is that I wake up on the morning of the thirtieth and go about my business as normal until some alarming sign reminds me what day it is. Then I scramble to improvise. Once I walked through the University of Oregon campus picking fliers off the ground and taping them to myself: The Human Bulletin Board. Another time I cut air holes in a trash bag and put it over my head, securing it to my neck with a belt: recent suicide. But probably my favorite is one that I came up with in tenth grade, when I had to improvise a costume with five minutes to go before school. The result: an impressionist vision of a highway patrolman, pictured below (I'm the one in the white shirt).


So to answer the question in the title: I'm trying not to think about it.

Alaska>Hawaii

There are many, often overlooked reasons why Alaska is better than Hawaii. So, I will now present three, lets say, "different," points on why Alaska is better than Hawaii. Prepare to be convinced.

Fishing

Can you catch an Alaskan King Salmon in Hawaii? No.

Alaska 1 - Hawaii 0


Indigenous Peoples: Or, Eskimos vs. "The Others"

Considering Eskimos (to my knowledge) do not hold the people of Alaska hostage, nor do they have a central spectral/Ethereal leader named Jacob, there is only one logical choice here.*

Alaska 2 - Hawaii 0


Size

Lets just be honest Hawaii. You do not have a case of micro-penis,** Alaska is just hung like, Alaska.

Alaska 3 - Hawaii 0

Bonus Round!

Whichever state can correctly submit to me by August of this year the correct amount of annual rainfall(in.) in New Hampshire will be awarded 3 points.

I am eagerly waiting for your responses...






*According to Lost

**Actual medical condition. Seriously.

New York Times buys into cynicism

I was disturbed by the tone of a recent New York Times article about the reaction to Barack Obama's move to the center. In it, the Times' William Yardley implies that progressives, liberals and lefties acting sore about the move are blind to the necessity of this kind of political positioning and, one way or the other, they're just wing-nuts anyway. I guess that's fair, but what disturbs me about it is that it freely categorizes the change in Obama's rhetoric as a "move to the center," rather than a rearrangement of the candidate's presentation of his positions. "Lighten up on the guy," Times columnist Bob Blanchard is quoted as saying, "We want to win."

When did that kind of cynicism become excusable? Maybe politics is about saying whatever you can to win, but that does not by any means make doing so acceptable, much less laudable. It is dishonesty. Either Obama and his campaign were misleading people about who he was before, or they are misleading people now. Or maybe he is neither person, and they have been misleading us all along. Or perhaps he has undergone a sudden, incredibly convenient change of heart, which is probably even more sinister.

One way or the other, it's difficult to be sure anymore of who Barack Obama, or any candidate, actually is, and what he actually believes in. To me, that is a disturbing environment.

As an aside, I laughed when I saw Nate Gulley quoted in the article. At the University of Oregon last year, he was the most notorious person on campus, prone to accusing other white members of the student council of racism and using school funds for trips to Hawai'i. It was doubly gratifying to see him not making too much sense.

My advice to college students

This is for a project my friend is doing. Wow, putting it that way makes me look real unprofessional.

Real Advice from Real College Students

1. Be adventuresome. When you were in grade school, you were forced to follow your parents' rules. Once you are out of school and working in a real job, you will be forced to follow rules imposed by the harsh realities of employment and complete independence. In between are your college years, when you have nearly limitless free time and nobody really expects anything of you. So enjoy it. You can pretty much do anything within your physically and financial capabilities, no matter how irresponsible. Do what you want, when you want to.

2. But don't be too irresponsible. Remember, not having an immediate authority figure micromanaging your life doesn't mean your actions have no consequences. If you want to stop going to class, go ahead, but know that you won't be in college long if you do. If you want to stay up for days on end, go ahead, but accept that you will feel like shit. If you want to try exotic drugs, you might as well, but realize that the possible legal and chemical price is one you do not want to pay. Use your freedom well and college will be the time of your life, but only if you use it well.

3. Stay positive. This one goes especially for people from my home state, Hawai'i, who often struggle to adjust to a new climate and subtly but profoundly different culture. Homesickness is no excuse for not cutting it in college, even if your home is much better than the place you go to school. Every school has something you will enjoy. The key is to get to thinking of your new town as home. You'll never stop missing the sea, the sun, the unpretentiously multicultural foods, or the smiling, laid-back people of Hawai'i, or whatever makes where you come from special, but I predict that, with a positive attitude, you will find ample reason to like your new home.

4. Get off campus sometimes. To make things as easy as possible for you, your college will probably have everything could possibly need on its premises. That's helpful, but because you can get everything you need in a safe, familiar, nearby place, you are likely to start spending all of your time on campus. There's nothing wrong with that. But you may begin to see the world in terms of the handful of city blocks owned by your school and, when you see things that way, you may begin to feel like you are trapped in a big cage, like the teapot tempests of dorm life are all there is to life. When you start to feel that way, break out and explore the streets of your new hometown. The novelty, fresh air, and change of pace will make you feel much better.

5. Drink if you like, but be smart about it. Aside from the minor potential for starting a criminal record, there's nothing wrong with drinking alcohol--well, aside from the health risks, the possibility of irresponsible behavior, the dangers of addiction and the potential emotional effects. What I mean to say is that, once you have graduated, nobody will think less of you for having drank alcohol in college. Most people do it, and it can lead to great times if you know and respect your limits. Don't drink when you don't want to. Don't drink more than you want to. Don't drink when you feel like it would be a bad idea. Don't drink when you are sick. Don't drink when you are already extremely drunk. Don't drink too quickly. Maybe you shouldn't be doing other drugs in the first place, but if you do, you probably should not mix them with alcohol. All of this is common sense, and if it is not common sense to you, you shouldn't be drinking.

6. Ultimately, whatever people tell you, college is about learning. People say your time in college is the best time of your life. People say college is where you stop being a child and start being an adult. People say college is where you become the person who will live the rest of your life. All of these descriptions are accurate, but you shouldn't forget what your time in college really is beneath all of these wispy cliches: a time when you are paying staggering sums in exchange for knowledge and professional advantages. Bottom line: if you don't get the knowledge and don't get the degree, you are wasting your time and wasting a small fortune. You will be much happier years down the line if you reap the benefits of this opportunity to better yourself. Learning doesn't have to be your top priority. You don't need to spend all day and all night studying. But you need to get it done. If you remember nothing else, remember that advice as you go into college.

Alexander Tomchak
Senior, University of Oregon

Sifting.

In a college town, the end of classes vivisects the community. Connections are broken and entire social structures collapse upon themselves, only to be spontaneously rebuilt in the fall. In the meantime, those students left behind often feel themselves crushed under the weight of connections that snap instantly and fly back in their faces.

I am one of them this summer, at least for the month of June. Nearly everyone I know in Eugene is gone and the town seems dead because of it. I am disconnected--I try to reach out and touch someone, but feel myself grasping only warm, muggy air. It's easy to forget I am even part of the human race at all, to feel that even if a tree fell in the woods and I heard it, it still would go down as silent.

But reassurance appears in the strangest of places and yesterday, that was in a pair of heavy cardboard boxes stored behind my cousin's house. They contained the personal affects left by her grandmother and her parents decided to sift through them with my help.

Virginia O'Connell, who left the boxes behind when she died, is not a blood relative of mine. Her son, Ken, married my mother's first cousin, Gwyn, and their daughter lived in the house where the boxes were stored. Looking through them now was strange since she died long ago--I didn't, despite my journalistic instincts, ask Ken how long ago she had died or why we were only looking now.

But I was glad they had waited because it gave me a chance to see what was inside the boxes. Virginia was a hoarder, like nearly everyone on my mother's side of the family. She kept not just fine silver spoons and crystal bowls, but detritus as well.

At one point, we unearthed a stack of coupons for five cent discounts on laundry detergent. The profoundest thing about history is that its grandeur is not what strikes you. Its mundanity is what strikes you. I felt the dust of history staining my fingertips as I held this coupon in my hand.

I could see so clearly, despite not knowing what she looked like, Virginia O'Connell clipping it, saving it, and forgetting about it. It was so mundane, so commonplace, so unremarkable. I was struck by how different from my life hers wasn't.

And yet, I couldn't imagine a five-cent discount on anything being worth the effort these days, and I was struck by what a fundamental, but still unremarkable difference that was.

As we sifted further, I we turned up more oddities. There was a post card from 1911 with a black-and-white photo of a parade float labeled "The Coming of the White Man." There were old oatmeal boxes full of check duplicates. There were unsent pieces of business reply mail from before the advent of the ZIP Code.

There were also objects of profound value. The first thing Ken found was a box of his childhood marbles, which he displayed to me, pouring them out one-by-one into a teacup and giving me the battle history of each grizzled bead.

"This was my steely." he said, dropping an incongruously lusterless metal ball into the cup. "I won a lot of matches with this guy."

Suddenly, I didn't feel so disconnected from everything. I had started the day feeling as though I had no connection to the entire human race, as if it did not even exist for me. Now, I was looking into Ken's face and seeing him reliving so many games played and won on sidewalks and wood floors across the West of the United States, fifty-some years ago.

I suddenly felt as though the entire history of the human race, across time and distance, was something I could hold, was holding, in my bare hands a that very moment. And I dove into Virginia O'Connell's suitcase of letters with relish.

Midway through the searching, I uncovered a folded piece of card stock with a simple poem typewritten on it. I handed it to Ken, asking who wrote it.

He took it from me, began to read aloud--"How do we know he was our father?"--before stopping, realizing what it was.

He said he had written it in 1963, the year his father died.

"He was the one who carved the turkey on Thanksgiving" was one of the answers, which I have quoted inexactly. For some reason, that was the one that got me. I imagined the emptiness the O'Connells must have felt that Thanksgiving when someone else had to carve the bird.

Ken and I stood in his daughter's driveway, staring at the poem, for a good minute. I'm not a fan of homespun, or even industrially fabricated, sentimentality, but it got to me. Tears welled up inside of me.

"Ken, put that down and let's get on with sorting," said Gwyn, sitting impatiently by a pile of letters. That was nice of her. It probably saved both of us from the embarrassment of tears.

And when I went home, despite Eugene's emptiness, I didn't feel so alone anymore.

Arda Turan--it WAS a great goal.

Today, the Guardian newspaper ran an article asking why there haven't been any great goals at this year's European Championships yet. To that I would respond thus:



That's Arda Turan's matchwinner against Swtizerland. At first it seems like a speculative shot that took a lucky deflection, not a memorable goal at all, but closer inspection reveals just how great it is. Here are ten reasons why:

1. It didn't take a deflection. Deflections lead to goals. The keeper thinks a shot is easy meat and then a clumsy teammate's shin strikes the minutest of glancing blows to send it past him in the opposite direction, or his center half dives in to stop it and only succeeds in turning a benign daisy-cutter into an unstoppable pearler.

But this wasn't one of those goals. It looks like it was, but it wasn't. Not at all. Look at the replay again, find more to look at if you're still not convinced. It didn't touch any Swiss player. But it looked like it did. How does that happen?

2. He hit it across his body while moving away from the goal. You're just not supposed to do that. When they teach you how to shoot, they tell you to put your head over the ball and lean into it. They also tell you you can get a much better strike off if you move into your shot, and not away from it. Arda thumbed his nose at that advice with this goal and put himself at a considerable disadvantage--his feet had to compensate for so much more because of it. From his perspective, he was shooting more behind himself than in front.

3. There were at least two Swiss defenders, plus the goalkeeper in front of him.
To aim it past those obstacles amidst all of the other calculations he also had to make required a speed of thought mere mortals just don't posess.

4. This is the big one: the shot itself. How did he do that? If there were cannons capable of doing what Arda's shot did, then war would be an even more dangerous affair than it is. Let me explain:

5. Its power. From that angle, going in that direction, with that shot, he hit it so hard that the Swiss goalkeeper, Diego Benaglio, didn't even have time to see it, let alone react.

6. The dip it took. Any professional player can hit it that hard, but I haven't seen one do that with what looked like a lob. It was like an eagle taking off, spotting a rat inside the goal net, and then diving sharply to capture it. The ball was alive once Arda's foot hit it. I wouldn't have even known it was possible to strike a shot like that, let alone been able to execute it.

7. It dipped just as it got over Benaglio's head. This is more of an artistic point. Goals just need to end up in the net. Anything else is, as they say, gravy. And the scorer is by no means obligated to add an aesthetic touch--or even capable of doing so. But they are all the more pleasing when they have that extra bonus which this one happened to. It was almost surrealistic.

8. He ran half the field to shoot. All of that and it came at the end of a fifty-yard sprint, followed by a ten-yard cutback. I would have been too exhausted to swing my foot, let alone in such an insouciant fashion.

9. It was set against a truly farcical game. The rain that day in Basel fell in sheets and added an extra element of unpredictability to the game. Every pass along the ground was suddenly a massive risk because there were huge puddles to trap the ball and trip up players. Jerseys were soaked, muddy and torn. The Swiss took the lead in the first place because they were the first to realize they simply had to keep the ball airborne, and even then they were helped by a puddle that captured the ball just in front of the goal for Hakan Yakin to tap in. I could have scored it. Hog-tied and paraplegic.

There was no room for sublime technique. Arda had no right to be trying something that crafty and tricky. He was defying not only the Swiss team and the Swiss crowd, but nature itself.

10. Timing. It was a winning goal in the last minute. If the Turks hadn't scored it, they would have been almost out of the tournament, but Arda stepped up to try something audacious in the last minute. So add to technical ability massive, massive courage.

The Islands--don't see them live.

The worst performance I have ever seen by a live band was given by Commando. They were a Ramones cover band playing in a barely occupied coffee shop in Kaimuki, Hawaii.

That was in spite of the fact that their lead singer had stripped down to his underwear and was trying as hard as he could to start playful fights with audience members. Gargling lyrics about Chinese rocks and blitzkreig bops, he almost quizzically prodded the kids in the audience, who responded as if he were a Catholic priest asking them on a date--mightily confused, offended, terrified.

But what was most notable about Commando was that they were memorably out-of-tune. Few live bands, especially kids' punk bands, play with instruments perfectly in tune, but Commando seemed not only unaware that tuning their guitars was possible, but oblivious to the entire concept of harmony.

The vocalist droned whinily like a Ben Stein impression by Tom Delonge. Each of the guitar's strings seemed uniquely, unpleasantly surprised by the existence of the others, and together they argued with the bass like warring tomcats. The drummer didn't touch his toms, but even they sounded off-key.

There were probably twelve of us in the audience and we looked at one another with piteous glances--we wanted to tell them how horrible they sounded, not to be rude or get them off stage but just because we thought they deserved to know. I tried, but I couldn't even laugh. And I couldn't leave because that's how kids' punk rock venues work in Hawaii. So I just endured.

People say John McCain is an American hero for withstanding the Viet Cong's torture without breaking, but I consider my suffering on behalf of my friend's band, which was playing next, a comparable experience.

Many of the bands in Hawaii's local punk scene are like that.

I bring Commando up because you have to know about them to understand why I say that Islands' performance at yesterday's Eugene Bloc Party wasn't the worst I've ever seen by a band.

I don't really listen to Islands in my spare time, but I did know them beforehand as the performers of "Rough Gem," a tune with a synth line so sugary that dentists specifically warn against it. I dug it, mostly for the macho factor--any newborn kitten can look tough swigging corn-whiskey, but it takes a real man, or possibly a silverback gorilla, to lick an oversized lolly.

So I was looking forward to Islands, probably more than the band they were opening for, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. Even I make mistakes.

I had been warned. My roommate hates Islands. He saw them live in 2006 and tried to start a mosh pit. He said they told him to leave. But what did I care? Moshing? What am I, 16?

I was wrong. I knew it the second I saw lead singer Nick Thorburn live. Behind his white-rimmed stunner shades and bedecked in form-fitting white tank top, he was immobile, save his mouth parsing syllables and his hands grudgingly tugging phrases from his black Gibson.

Behind him, the rest of the band was similarly unenthusiastic. The guitarist occasionally looked up to pointedly mouth the lines, but otherwise gave very little indication he was even there. The bassist leaned against the amplifiers and plucked out his lines as if he was flipping a hamburger.

On the other side of the stage, the Chow brothers, violin- and synth-player for Islands, went about their work as if they were burying a grandfather they had never particularly liked. Behind them, only drummer Aaron Harris showed any hint of animation.

They didn't sound bad. The violins were precise and sweet, the bass was more muscular than their records would lead you to expect, the drums prompt and exuberant. The only time they stumbled was when the guitars were relied upon to carry the tune. Then the music got sloppy, abbreviated and tentative--each solo sounded as if it was just glad to be over.

The attitude of the band very much drowned out the sound. In their defense, it was the middle of the first real summer's day Eugene has had this year, so the sun was beating down on only a few very sweaty bodies, most slow-roasted the color of live lobsters. I might not have been too pleased or mobile in that environment.

But I didn't pay $25 to feel sorry for them. I began feeling accursed buyer's remorse.

Eventually, I got thirsty, so I left the stage to get a bottle of water and took a deep breath. As I walked back, I stared into the clear blue sky and started feeling better. And then I caught a few strains of some song or another Islands was playing and it sounded good. Maybe they weren't so bad after all?

But no, as soon as I got to the stage, the blase looks on the guitarists' faces drained the energy right out of me. And so I decided to stop looking at them. I turned and faced away from the stage.

It was better. Divorced from the posturing of the band, the music sounded pretty good. I had a decent time, although not decent enough to dance--that's a bit awkward when you're facing away from the sage.

In the end, I had to call my roommate and tell him he was right about them. And now it's difficult for me to listen to "Rough Gem" without picturing the prima donnas who performed it.

But at least Nick Thorburn kept his clothes on.

Just doesn't work out live


-Eleanor

Soccer--it's a sport, goddammit!

Major soccer tournaments, they say, are a majestic glue that binds, if only for a month, the palms of bitter enemies as they watch a grand and edifying dissertation in the one true universal language. This European Championships, they say, will be no different.

Bullshit, I say.

It's possible that my essential curmudgeonliness is getting the better of me. After all, I was ripped away from other enthusiasms and into the vortex of soccer by the cyclonic winds whipped up by the 2002 World Cup as a fourteen-year-old.

And I'll admit: the whole geopolitical harmony angle was what did it to me in the first place. It was all in the first result: Senegal 1, France 0. Who could help but revel in the revenge fantasies indulged by this result?

I was hooked--all the sport had to do was reel me in by proving itself watchable. And that it did not with the lyrical displays of that tournament's most accomplished teams--Brazil, Spain, Turkey--that I would later come to appreciate.

The match that opened like a gallows trapdoor the world of soccer was as far as possible from the fluency and harmony soccer tries to cultivate. It was Mexico's violent victory against Croatia in the group stage. It was hideously dramatic and, the impact of Boris Zivkovic's foot on Cuauhtemoc Blanco's testicles also broke ground on a whole new chamber in my heart.

So my love for soccer was born of the same youthful schadenfreude and bloodlust that fueled my childhood obsessions with a succession of violent cartoons, combined with my growing teenage sense that the world was a cruel and unjust place, particularly to the people of the world's Senegals.

But really, few underdogs get their day in soccer--at the World Cup, teams playing their former or current imperial overlords have won only seven games and lost 25. And the record is even less impressive when you remove from the reckoning European countries occupied during World War II and its aftermath by Germany, the Soviet Union and the United States. Then there are only three victories--Argentina over Spain in 1966 and the United States over England in 195o in addition to the Senegal result.

Instead, often, soccer inflames and re-enforces old resentments. The most extreme example is the 1969 Soccer War that broke out between El Salvador and Honduras, essentially, over the result of a World Cup qualifier between the two. But even the most recent European Championships have proven themselves not immune to violence, as the recent arrest of 157 German and Polish hooligans in Klagenfurt, Austria, proves.

And anyway, the heightened emotions associated with soccer lead to resentment. Five years ago, if you had asked an Englishman what he thought of people from Portugal, I have no idea what he would have said. But in the intervening period, Portugal have knocked England out of both the 2004 European Championships and the 2006 World Cup, both in controversial circumstances.

If you asked the same Englishman about Portugal today, he would probably spit out something bitter about playacting and cheating and question the masculinity of Portuguese players like Ronaldo Aveiro and Deco Souza.

Even the seemingly positive and uplifting in soccer often comes to ill purpose. Brazil's 1970 World Cup team is rightly considered the greatest ever to take the field. Its players' names are almost always accompanied by unavoidable saliva as they roll off any soccer fan's tongue--Pele, Rivellino, Tostao, Gerson, Jairzinho, Carlos Alberto. They were charismatic and beautiful to watch, and they played fair.

But their tremendous legacy was tragically politicized, co-opted by the brutal Medici regime in a desperate and successful bid for legitimacy.

So I don't want to hear anymore of this psuedo-profound nonsense about soccer as a unifier or some sort of mystical karmic force.

When an exuberant twinkle of Ronaldinho Moreira's toes leaves a criss-crossed opponent flattened, when a casual swing of Michael Ballack's right foot inexplicably causes the ball to materialize on the chest of a teammate seventy yards away, when a cunning yet imperceptible step to the right by Ruud van Nistelrooy somehow sets him gloriously free of a marker to flick the receive the ball businesslike and flick it into a corner of the goal, that is where you'll find the true worth of soccer.

The rest, I'm afraid, is just the bamboozling of the World Cup's advertisers.

A Glimpse

Sorry, I know its been far too long since we have last chatted. In my defense, I have been very busy writing my dissertation. I am not allowed to tell you exactly what my dissertation "dissertates," but i will give you a passage from it. In the brief passage below, I am discussing the film Crash. Enjoy!

"Indeed police forces are a unique example of the above. For instance, there are many credible resources that depict police officers in a negative light. In 2005 a curious thing happened. Over the history of cinema, never has a documentary won an Oscar for best picture. However, 2005 stands out among all the other years at the Academy Awards, because Crash, a documentary about race relations, won best picture of the year. In this documentary, the camera follows police officer Matt Dillon while he is on duty in the L.A.P.D. What ensues is shocking footage of brutal racism and molestation of a young woman with African American heritage. Later on, when Dillon seems to figure out that he is being filmed, he stages a fierce auto accident, and pulls the very same young woman from the burning wreckage...Sometime later, we also see the D.B. motif, when, this time caught by a different camera crew, Dillon appears to try to fight Owen Wilson. Thankfully, Wilson later said, 'I feel bad for this person. I mean, after that documentary he had to move away from L.A. or someone would have shot him,' and didn't press charges...Matt Dillon somehow manages to make Pol Pot look like MLK..."

Hope you enjoyed! I will be releasing more passages from my dissertation in weeks to come. Up next, a passage from chapter 16.
"Diego Rivera is known for his murals, paintings, and frescos. But recently uncovered primary documents found by me uncover a darker form of art practiced by the great painter: Abortion."



J.A.

Hiaasen golfing?

Osama bin Laden waving sparklers on the Fourth of July. Adolf Hitler reciting the Torah. Martin Luther King, Jr., burning a cross.

These things are so crassly out of character that they would only really show up in the most grotesque kind of political cartoon--and maybe not even there because they're so unrealistic that they wouldn't even be funny or pertinent. They don't even bear thinking about.

With them, I would have put Carl Hiaasen being a devoted golfer. Hiaasen is the Florida-based author of pulpy, humorous about, among other things, lovable ecoterrorists.

But Hiaasen has written a new book that turns my world upside down. It's called "The Downhill Lie: A Hacker’s Return to a Ruinous Sport” and, from New York Times reporter Charles McGrath's rather perplexing article on it, I gather that it is a playful, jargon-laced tribute to the author's love of the sport of St. Andrew's.

I'm confused. I swear, although I can't back it up (I don't own a copy and the library's is borrowed until August), that Hiaasen's "Sick Puppy" contains a passage damning the environmental consequences of golf courses.

I'm not an environmental scientist, but I'm pretty sure that golf courses threaten Hiaasen's beloved Everglades--even more so after ten seconds' googling.

Hiaasen only addresses the contradiction between golf and the environment with this weak observation: “The great irony is that golf courses are becoming the last bit of wildlife refuge we have. I saw a bobcat on a golf course once, and I don’t know that there’s anyplace else you could do that now.”

Of course, I'm willing to give Hiaasen the benefit of the doubt. It's possible, given the "Ruinous Sport" part of his latest title, that he addresses this conflict in his new book. I think this conflict is probably instead down to the Times story's author.

I didn't need to go to Houghton Mifflin's profile on McGrath to guess that he was a regular contributor to Golf Digest. The story on Hiaasen is plagued by jargon-laden banal passages like: "He suffers, it’s true, from occasional, unpredictable bouts of the ailment golfers dare not name: the shanks. But he has a not-bad-looking swing with a nice finish, and he hits the ball a long way."

As someone who doesn't play golf, I have no idea what that means.

McGrath does suggest that some of the slimy, environmentally negligent villains of Hiaasen's novels might like the golf course he plays at, but that seems to be more a commentary on the social, rather than environmental issues related to golf, and he dismisses that before he can even get into it anyway.

Whether because he is simply too much of a golf writer to see the essential contradiction in Carl Hiaasen's playing golf or because he is too much of a powder puff to wade into a turgid, ambiguous question like that one, McGrath is missing the point.

If he ever writes something good, I might just drop a tip with the CIA to start looking for Osama in the fireworks aisle of their local supermarket in midsummer.

Eagles hit Eleanor where it hurts.

Though I've already stated it, it bears repeating: I hate the Eagles.

I won't waste my time qualifying that hatred with intensives. I won't even waste it composing a grammatically cogent case for hating the band. I'll merely slice my head open and spill some of the adjectives therein into this post.

Corporate. Slimy. Self-satisfied. Bland. Disingenuous. Corporate again.

When Bob Dylan drew all that flak for switching to electronic instruments, it was because people thought he'd turn into the Eagles. Kurt Cobain shot himself because of the Eagles.

Whatever is wrong with Michael Jackson, the Eagles caused it.

So recently, when I found out that I liked two songs related to the Eagles, it hurt.

It started in a godforsaken lobby some months ago, not at the dentist's office, but certainly something more banal, but with larger windows. Since they had no interesting magazines, I was resting my eyes in some article in ESPN and tapping my foot absentmindedly to the beat coming from the television.

It was your typical 1980s pop workout, but there was something interesting and mournful in it. Danceable 1980s pop is trendy these days with the skinny-pants set, so I didn't feel self-conscious admitting I liked it. Then the video ended with a hammer blow to my heart.

"Boys of Summer," Don Henley.



Ouch.

But that wasn't too demoralizing. After all, it actually gave me some pleasure to think of this purported earthy cowboy genius shoehorning himself into a pastel suit and strutting to a synth beat amidst billowing beachside curtains in Southern California. That all neutralized the Eagles element. I was safe.

The next one was far more painful. In my childhood, I read and reread the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series by Douglas Adams. I was not just a fan, I was a worshiper.

Young Christians are taught to wonder what Jesus would do. I took to wondering what Douglas Adams would say if he were in my position. The literal-minded, understated, Adamsian irony I hard-wired into my brain is a fundamental part of my personality to this day. If I had not, at twelve, read his books, I would be a radically different person.

I also loved the videos my father showed me of the BBC miniseries of the books. And so, at one point a couple of days ago, I tried to find out who had done the theme song. I found the pop culture phenomenon I loved most dearly in bed with the one I hated most ardently.

The Eagles, "Journey of the Sorcerer."



And it was the Eagles at their most Eagles-like, a useless but hubristic exercise that combined sexless precision and faux-sincere countrification. A rinky dink neoclassical composition on space-age synth and banjo. Just the type of thing the Eagles would do.

And I couldn't deny I liked it. I did. I do. When I hear it, aside from the confused feelings it conjures now that I know who made it, it reminds me of the time I first read the series. I am transported back to the sunny Saturdays I spent curled around that hulking blue volume on my bed. I think of the tiny holes that termites left in its pages. I can't be angry.

Of course, conflicted feelings are all the more reason to restate: I hate the Eagles.

-Eleanor

Manchester United 1-0 Barcelona: Underrated Park covers for Ronaldo

Everyone expected it: Manchester United's startlingly effective right winger was instrumental to their defeat of Barcelona in Tuesday's European Cup game. After being criticized for is lack of end product in his initial games for the club, he has worked hard and made that a part of his game. He is an integral part of the team.

Except that the right winger everyone expected to sparkle was Cristiano Ronaldo. The one who actually did was lesser-sung South Korean Park Ji-sung.

On Park's signing from Holland's PSV Eindhoven, the move was cynically viewed by fans as an effort to sell shirts in Korea. Park's effort could not be questioned--Park has unquenchable reserves of bubbling energy--but he was, said one fan page, "Not good enough for Manchester United's side."

The fans were wrong.

On Wednesday, Park once again ran all 90 minutes. But there was also a quality about his performance and he was the only Manchester United player who produced consistent, threatening crosses, two extra-accurate efforts in particular dangerous for the home side.

Park is the opposite of Ronaldo in terms of style. The Portuguese is all flash and his end-product comes in the form of goals. Park is unglamorous and utilitarian--though he is an offensive player, he also provides the defense with the kind of herculean contribution Ronaldo doesn't bother to put in.

Park is also the best crosser his team has. And I think that's the product of his insatiable work-ethic. When Park gets the ball, he hits the byline and whips it in, with uncanny accuracy, to the head or foot of a teammate. He's singleminded, persistent. Winning teams need players like that.

And it's grossly unfair to say he was signed to shift shirts. I won't attempt to deny the possibility that his transfer increased the number of Red Devils shirts sold in Seoul.

But there's also something racist about those accusations, which are raised every time an Asian player moves to a European club. They never seem to be associated with players from outside Asia, even though I think they should be.

I would propose, for instance, that Manchester United only keep utility man John O'Shea around to maintain their following in Ireland. From what I have seen, O'Shea is by far the worst professional footballer they actually put on the field, clumsy and prone to losing his man, lacking in aggression.

But the club needs some reminder of the days when Roy Keane, the former Ireland captain, converted so many residents of the Emerald Isle to their cause.

These days, United's coach, Sir Alex Ferguson, is so loath to play O'Shea that he puts midfielders like Owen Hargreaves out of position at right-back to avoid putting the Irishman on the field. Park, by contrast, has started the two most important European games of the club's season so far, and performed well in both.

This season, Manchester United have not lost any game in which Park has played. The Korean is not spectacular, not necessarily a crowd-pleaser, but he is effective. His work-rate is inspirational to his teammates.

And in two games against Barcelona, Park has played well, while the club's more well-known, flashier players have not.

Especially Cristiano Ronaldo. It's good for his club that he has a reliable guy like Park to uphold the name of Manchester United right-wingers.

Derby 2-6 Arsenal: Earnshaw's exuberance exposes embarrassing inequality

You there was naked joy in Rob Earnshaw's face as he celebrated scoring for Derby County against Arsenal in today's English Premiership soccer match. He ran towards the crowd, front-flipping through the air before launching into a stiff-legged dance probably picked up from a Morris Day video.

His team was losing.

The eventual result was 2-6 in favor of visiting Arsenal, and it was pretty apparent which team had been at the bottom of the league table since day one and which had been in first place most of the season. And the London-based away team was even more dominant than the scoreline suggests.

The Premiership is the most lucrative, well-publicized league in the world, but it is also the most polarized. Every team is fantastically rich, but the four largest teams, of which Arsenal is one, make the rest look like serfs.

Admittedly, this year's vintage of Derby County is by far the worst team ever to play in this league. The disparity in talent between these two teams is such that Derby's ability to score even one goal, let alone two, is a shock.

Add to that the frustrating season Earnshaw has had and you can probably excuse his joy. Derby paid more to sign him than they ever have for any player and he has not justified the outlay.

The team's results have been so bad that the club learned it would be demoted to the second tier of English soccer in March, two months before the end of the season. They have only won one game this season. Their best players left for teams in the second tier midway through the season. They just aren't trying anymore.

But a league that includes a team of Arsenal's talent and one of Derby's cluelessness cannot be healthy.

The Londoners, known for playing attractive soccer, were allowed to be at their aesthetic best, despite starting with five reserve team players. They produced sweeping passing moves involving curled through balls, surging runs across half the field, deft back-heeled touches and inch-perfect thirty-yard high passes that Derby's defenders seemed disinclined to deal with.

It was a dizzying hurricane of skill that none of Derby's starting players seemed even remotely capable of withstanding, let alone reproducing. The goals included three for Togolese superstar Emmanuel Adebayor, who didn't even play in the first half, and one each for the raw teenager Theo Walcott, half-injured Robin van Persie, and Danish forward Nicklas Bendtner, who has endured a terrible season. Each was a mark of glaring shame on the home team, whose fans started leaving well before the final whistle.

It was all the more embarrassing because Arsenal's is not a great team. Derby even drew level in the first half, defender Jay McEveley pouncing on negligent Arsenal marking in the penalty area off a corner kick. But they didn't believe in themselves, just as they have not all season. They are depressingly mediocre and will not be missed--only American midfielder Benny Feilhaber, a second-half substitute, even seemed capable of passing the ball.

But the Premiership will see more teams whose players are so inadequate that they celebrate exuberantly even when they are losing. Unless something is done, but I don't know what that would be.


Earnshaw did this

Excuse me sir, there's a dick on my maturity: A review of "Forgetting Sarah Marshall."

"Forgetting Sarah Marshall" begins with a dick.

It's the main character's penis, awkwardly exposed to viewers and costars alike. The penis never really leaves, even if it is not on camera for most of the "Sarah Marshall's" 11o minutes.

Like the films of its producer, Judd Apatow ("Superbad," "Knocked Up"), then, it is a film whose emphasis is on the male libido. But what's notable about the presence of the penis is the near-complete absence of female nudity to balance it out.

This curious lack of female objectification illustrates a novel and refreshing aspect of "Sarah Marshall," written by its star, Jason Segel, and directed by Nicholas Stoller: It has three-dimensional, likable, understandable female characters.

That's an even greater achievement when you consider that this is a bitter, seemingly semi-autobiographical breakup comedy. It concerns the attempts of Segel's Peter Bretter to get over the titular Sarah (Kristin Bell), the star of a television series for which he writes music. These take him to Hawai'i, ironically to the resort where she, unbeknownst to him, is also staying with her new boyfriend (Russell Brand).

But Sarah and Mila Kunis' Rachel, the hotel employee who becomes Peter's new love interest, are not the idealized sex objects of Apatow's films. They have histories, anxieties, and understandable motivations. Both hold their own in terms of humor as well.

"Sarah Marshall" manages to somehow create a film-world in which we don't have to dislike characters. It does this by using the very element that makes it comic--crossed wires.

As in Apatow's films, the laughs here are produced when characters react to their environment in ways neither the audience nor their costars expect. Here, that is the source of the complications--the characters don't understand one another well enough to avoid offending one another. The fact that the way they do this is often comical is what creates "Sarah Marshall's" success.

Of course, there is also the penis. The humor here is often lowbrow and sexual. In fact, the sex-based comedy of "Sarah Marshall" is well beyond Apatow's efforts in terms of graphicness and frankness, especially when Brand's Aldous Snow is involved.

But unlike Apatow's films, sex is merely one of the film-making tools, rather than the focus of the entire film. For Apatow, maturity is something people attain as a side-effect of the pursuit of the ideal sex life. Here, maturity is the destination and sex is merely an important, prevalent part of the journey.

And so, oddly, the sexual ribaldry is the disguise maturity and realism are wrapped in to fool viewers. That is the real secret to "Sarah Marshall's" success.

That and dicks.



His dick is in this movie.

Obama turns self-serving allusion into crystalizing moment

Midway through his speech at McArthur Court, Barack Obama was describing the speech with which he announced his candidacy for president, saying, "and as I stood there, on the steps of the Illinois State House--the same place where Abraham Lincoln announced his candidacy--"

He was cut off by the loud, manly cheers of a solitary wag in the second tier of the arena, which brought from the crowd some mild, polite laughter and left the Democratic contender briefly bewildered. But his confusion lasted only a split second before he his face curled into a wry smile and he turned to face the man.

"Yes," he chuckled, "yes, that's right. Let's hear it for Abraham Lincoln."

That got the loudest cheer of the night and the widest smile from the Illinois senator.

Obama's address was precisely an hour long, lasting from 9:06 to 10:06, and it did not, by one second, outstay its welcome. With almost mathematical precision it covered every inch of the Obama platform, never for a second spilling over the edge. There was nuance to it--Obama did not point out a similarity (they're both from Illinois!) to the most respected man in American history by mistake--but overall, it was more Brutus than Marc Anthony, a summary of the stances Obama holds rather than an attempt to get anyone in the audience to take them up. Judging by the response he got from an overwhelmingly sympathetic crowd, that would have been a waste of time.

Nobody ought to have been impressed by the candidate's rhetoric because it was essentially the same information probably available at his website, in his pamphlets and, most importantly, likely identical to the speeches he'd given in Salem and Portland earlier in the day.

What were impressive were the moments when he put down the obligatory load of the speech briefly and juggled the slippery balls thrown at him by the audience. These instances were infrequent, and he wisely elected to dodge the promptings of the rambling woman seated behind him in the second tier, but they showed a man of quick reactions, wit, and realism.

For instance, when "I love you" hurdled loudly in his direction from several angles, he merely nodded and flippantly replied, "Yes, yes, I love you too," using the same tone of voice one applies to an overeager dog, measured but patronizing, and above all ironical. Is it any wonder that this man is the candidate of choice among younger voters? You would never expect Hillary Clinton or John McCain to indulge in sarcasm.

My father, back when he was a curmudgeonly Obama skeptic rather than a dogmatic Obama supporter, expressed wariness at this facet of the candidate's personality. He said, "I'm scared that MTV is deciding the presidency." There's reason in this, since George Bush was elected largely because, between him and Al Gore or John Kerry, most people in 2000 or 2004 knew who they'd rather share a round of beers with.

But there's also sense in picking a candidate self-aware enough to generate charisma. One of my professors called this the "Broken Windows Theory"--if the windows are broken, you wonder what else is missing. The evidence from Mac Court suggests that, with Barack Obama, the answer is not too much.

-Eleanor

This is the third in a series of articles about Barack Obama's recent visit to Eugene.

Your mother lost her mental virginity to Danny De Vito

So, of the films I mentioned, I feel competent to review the following:

The Condemned: An acceptable media commentary in the form of a "The Greatest Game"-style scenario. The upshot: the way things are going, we'll kill people for entertainment soon. I saw it a long time ago and was struck by the folly of putting two non-actors like Stone Cold Austin and Vinnie Jones in the starring roles. Okay island sets. Best Actor nominee: Rick Hoffman, the only one who gives a performance as a human character.

Idiocracy: Lauded, a little, for its ballsy use of well-known brands without their consent. You could say it is a biting social commentary about the way our society is going, since it depicts a future in which everyone is a complete idiot. You could also say it is not terribly smart or compelling. You could also point out the fact that Luke Wilson and Maya Rudolph have so little chemistry that Mike Judge appears to have despaired of even having them come into physical contact. Or that it's just not too funny. Best Actor nominee: Scarface is not an actor, he is a third-rate rapper, but he's reasonably funny here.

Melinda and Melinda: A Woody Allen-directed meditation on the difference between tragedy and comedy. It's essentially two different movies. The tragedy reminded me of Match Point, the comedy of Hollywood Ending, those being the only other Woody Allen films I can remember seeing. Thing about it was, the acting was almost uniformly awful. Chiwetel Ejiofor was the only one in the entire thing with believable delivery. I liked the concept though. It was rarely laugh-out-loud funny, but often amusing and Will Ferrell's performance got better when he was allowed to improvise. Best Actor nominee: Chiwetel Ejiofor is an excellent actor and definitely the pick from a bad bunch.

National Lampoon's Pledge This!: The worst movie I have ever seen. They just gave up on making it halfway through the script, or that's what it felt like. The ending, though, somehow managed to let the entire production down. In the end, even its star, Paris Hilton, refused to attend the premier. Best actor nominee: Kerri Kenney didn't give a believable performance, but she was the only one who came across as though she had heard of "wit."

National Lampoon's Pucked: After seeing Pledge This!, I was pleasantly surprised by Pucked. It was still terrible, but the acting was decent and the plot was stupid but cogent. Also relatively smut-free for something under the National Lampoon banner. Best actor nominee: Bon Jovi was actually not terrible and managed to be charismatic.

Oh in Ohio: A film about a woman's quest for the orgasm. It didn't work for me because Paul Rudd was far more charismatic than Parker Posey, the actress who played the main character. She came across as insincere, but it was a difficult role. Somewhat off, which probably accounts for its lack of success and acclaim. Best actor nominee: Danny De Vito can be amazingly likable and he was in Oh as the man who finally gives Posey's Priscilla what she's looking for.

As an added bonus:

Southland Tales: is a jumbled mess of a film, too complex and slippery to give a viewer any hope of unraveling it, not helped by the fact that the entire first half the movie can only be explained if you've read the three graphic novels that have been published alongside it (and maybe not even then). It is weirdly ambiguous and tediously long and not helped by the music video for "All these Things that I've Done" by the Killers featuring Justin Timberlake. A "smart" film made by stupid people. The Rock gives an especially pungent performance, although my friend Edwin thinks it may have been intentionally bad. Best actor nominee: Amy Poehler is an excellent improviser and, under such an oppressively terrible script, driving an improvisational wedge in is the best anyone can do.

Barack Obama part 2

This is the second article in a four-part series about Barack Obama's recent visit to Eugene.

After four hours spent waiting in line, my carcass finally passed through the entrance to McArthur Court. Security was what you'd call tight, but it seemed to me that, if there was any serious threat of attack, these town hall meetings would be very dangerous for candidates. I'm sure that the Secret Service got the schematic of Mac Court beforehand and that they were reasonably familiar with it, but anyone who attends Oregon Ducks Basketball games would probably be even more so and perfectly capable of using that knowledge to his advantage, were he interested in sneaking in a gun and shooting Barack Obama.

As it is, though, the Secret Service on the ground seems unaware of this. At one point, my friend Lars took out his camera and photographed the assembled ambulances and fire engines and one Secret Service member in a white shirt and a black bulletproof vest trudged up to him and said, non-negotiably "You're not allowed to take pictures of any of us." Lars, ever non-confrontational, did not ask "why?" but I would have liked to how a photograph of this particular guard, with his long, difficult Polish last name beginning with "T" would jeopardize either Obama or him.

We were then ushered through the airport-esque metal detectors. They differed from the airport inasmuch as they were not accompanied by X-ray machines and administered at a furious pace. Again, an impressive brouhaha, but anyone with sense and timing could have snuck a gun or grenade in amidst the confusion--in a hidden pocket in a backpack, for instance. Lars was detained as they confiscated his laser pointer, though.

I think the purpose of big-time-Charlies at the gate, impressive checkpoint apparati, symbolic confiscations and the like is to reassure people that the candidate is well-protected. And some of the people in there probably cared quite a bit.

As Lars' laser pointer was being confiscated, we lost him in the crowd and the rest of us made our way up to our seats. Oregon is said to have one of the most intimidating atmospheres in college sports and, in this case, I think a great deal has to do with the intimacy and personality of eighty-year-old Mac Court. Of course, like any venue of that age, it is unsafe. One misplaced cigarette would probably kill thousands. But it is also an affecting throwback, especially in the cheap seats, a hundred feet above the creaky maple floor.

I feel compelled to disclose something that probably colored my entire perception of this event from this point forward: I was sitting in maybe the worst seat in the house. I was parallel with the stage that Obama was supposed to be standing on and there was a guy in front of me blocking my view. If I got out of my seat and leaned as far forward as I could, then I could see him. The people to my right and left at least had a better angle on him. I was in the back row. My seat was also uncomfortable. I took to admiring the inside of the arena and the size of the crowd.

The opening speakers were forgettable and patronizing, except for former Gen. Tony McPeak. The two local Obama organizers spoke to us like schoolchildren, as did US Rep. Earl Blumenauer. Gen. McPeak at least gave us some convincing reasons to vote for Obama--he's intelligent, steady, and has integrity. But, overall, none of these people deserved remarking upon.

The crowd was far more interesting. Handicapped spectators sat directly behind the stage in the closest seats. The three tiers were occupied by people like me who had waited in line. I had no idea how the people in the mass of students standing on the floor had gotten those positions, but, looking over the edge of a man-made cliff at the stage with my acrophobia, I envied them. As you do, I spend a good deal of time identifying people I knew among them: Michaela Cordova, Huy Nguyen, Cims Gillespie: that means you.

As Obama's 9p.m. speech grew nearer, volunteers began to hand out signs. In the tier behind where the Senator would station his head, manufactured "Change" signs in red and blue were handed out to his right, and "homemade" ones made of marker and construction paper to his left. The audience directly behind him received one "Change" sign each. A man with cerebral palsy repeatedly asked for one of these as a souvenir and the volunteer distributing them repeatedly denied him before muscling her way past him and out of the arena holding the leftovers, presumably to use when the campaign rolled into Medford the next day. God knows she probably couldn't spare even one.

I began to wish I had signed up to volunteer, more out of the suspicion that it would look good on my resume and impress people than out of any kind of political conviction. Also, I would have gotten a free shirt.

Through the speakers pumped the kind of banal pop music puree you would, I guess, expect from a political rally: country, pop-alternative, "Celebrate" and other disco and funk hits, oldies, a bit of hip-hop, Natasha Bedingfield. Some of the more enthusiastic atendees on the floor and in the lower tiers began to dance to them. The subwoofers, even a hundred feet below, sent an apocalyptic rumbling through the upper tiers, which I guess was the bassline to Earth, Wind & Fire's "Shining Star."

Your mother and I watched some terrible movies together

Observation 1: It's Spring Break and I don't have a job.

Observation 2: I have nothing to do for the rest of the month and almost none of my friends are in town.

Observation 3: My roommate has a massive stack of bad movies he got for free that aren't doing anything.

Conclusion: I will watch all of the movies and review each on this blog.

Here is a list:
The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (2003, starring Pierre Richard)
Animal 2 (2007, starring Ving Rhames)
Attack Force (2006, starring Steven Segal)
Bandidas (2006, starring Penelope Cruz)
Big Nothing (2006, starring David Schwimmer)
The Breed (2005, starring Michelle Rodriguez)
Cherry Crush (2007, starring Julie Gonzalo)
Color of the Cross (2006, starring Jean Claude Lemarre)
The Condemned (2007, starring Stone Cold Steve Austin)
The Contractor (2007, starring Wesley Snipes)
Death of a President (2006)
Delta Farce (2006, starring Larry the Cable Guy)
The Detonator (2006, starring Wesley Snipes)
DOA: Dead or Alive (2006, starring Jamie Pressly)
Even Money (2005, starring Forrest Whittaker)
The Ex (2007, starring Zach Braff)
Half Past Dead 2 (2007, starring Bill Goldberg)
I am David (2003, starring Jim Caviezel)
Idiocracy (2006, starring Luke Wilson)
Kickin' it Old School (2007, starring Jamie Kennedy)
Kovak Box (2006, starring Timothy Hutton)
Melinda and Melinda (2005, starring Radha Mitchell)
Mrs. Henderson (2006, starring Dame Judy Dench)
National Lampoon's Pledge This! (2004, starring Paris Hilton)
National Lampoon's Pucked (2006, starring John Bon Jovi)
Oh in Ohio (2006, starring Parker Posey)
Recon 2020 (2006, starring Anderson Bradshaw)
Red Line (2007, starring Nathan Phillips)
Rigoletto (2005, starring Giuseppe Verdi)
Ringu (2003, starring Nanako Matsushima)
Roaring Dragon, Bluffing Tiger (2003, starring Anthony Wong)
The Searchers (1956, starring John Wayne)
Second in Command (2006, starring Jean Claude Van Damme)
Shadow Man (2006, starring Steven Segal)
Standing Still (2007, starring James van der Beek)
The TV Set (2007, starring David Duchovny)
Until Death (2007, starring Jean Claude van Damme)
The White Countess (2005, starring Ralph Fiennes)
Who Made the Potatoe Salad (2006, starring Jaleel White)
Winter Passing (2006, starring Will Ferrell)
You Kill Me (2007, starring Ben Kingsley)


That's 41 movies over the next seven days. I don't believe I can do it, I will say that right now. I have already seen, in preliminary research and the like, both National Lampoons, Ringu, Idiocracy, and The Condemned, which means I have 36 movies to see. That's roughly five a day. I'll try my best. I'll probably die.

Your mother's presidential campaign was a disaster.

Yesterday, I went to a Barack Obama rally. Over the next few days, I will write on that experience. This is Part 1 of a four-part series

Obama's decision to speak in Eugene, Oregon, surprised me. Surely, he had no chance of losing in a town where smoking a joint in the middle of downtown is unlikely to draw a sidelong glance. This suspicion was confirmed for me when, nine hours before Obama's rally was scheduled to begin, I walked past the basketball arena on the University of Oregon campus that would host it and saw two long lines stretching out of the entrance.

At roughly 3:30 p.m., I joined one of those lines with a couple of friends, perhaps a quarter mile of sidewalk away from the entrance. Considering that Obama was showing up at nine, it was likely that almost everyone there, except perhaps for the four guys waving signs with John McCain's name on them a hundred feet in front of me (you never know in this town, though, and I am an idiot), was pretty sure he was voting for Barack Obama. And we weren't even sure we would get in.

MacArthur Court, Oregon's creaking basketball venue, seats 9,000 people and I would have believed anyone who had told me that many or more had gotten there before me. Considering how few people vote in primaries, 9,000 is almost enough to render a visit to a state of Oregon's size redundant for Obama. That doesn't even take into account the people who got there after 3:30, of which there were many, many thousands. So I was even more mystified as to the reasons for the Illinois Senator's visit.

No matter what's at the end of them, waiting in long lines is grim, especially with an overactive, paranoid imagination like mine. The people who moved past me to get to the back of the line seemed to be picturing themselves killing me and taking my place. I could feel hatred emanating from the family behind me and it intensified my own hatred for the screeching high school kids in front of me. I visualized a future in which, just as I was about to enter the arena, someone threw me aside and muscled his way in and started a riot. I was teargassed, brought before a court, and sentenced to jail to spend the rest of my life with my guilt about somehow ruining Obama's change.

My own paranoia aside, though, there was also a hint in the air that something special might be about to happen in Mac Court. It wasn't the muscular, heart-swelling feeling you can probably read about in books on Robert Kennedy or Martin Luther King, Jr. Certainly it was not as strong as the collective buzz at an Oregon Ducks sporting event. But I did have, or think I had, the sense that everyone felt they might be part of some big, historical change for the better.

That feeling was somewhat undercut by the hippie screaming "BY BEING PART OF THE SYSTEM YOU'VE ALREADY LOST" as he hurtled down 15th Avenue on his bicycle and the man walking around the block with an orange sign that read "9/11 was an inside job." As he passed, I said, "probably not, man," to which his only response was to chuckle and smile even more smugly.

As the line started to move, people started coming up to us to demand our attention. A seriously jaded-sounding Hillary Clinton supporter halfheartedly tried to shift some pins onto us. A pungent man asked us to sign a petition to end the war in Iraq that was the object, some time later, of derision for the loud, mannish woman who cut in back of us. Obama volunteers prowled back-and-forth registering voters. One of my friends registered several times. Then there were the men loudly selling Obama merchandise. One peddler had a rack of banal buttons, among whom the "Obama for American Idol" pin stood out for its inanity.

Panic swept the line as we passed the Rec. Center. We were told that coins and backpacks were not allowed, so I scampered into the gym to purchase a bag of Skittles from the snack machine with my friend's change. My friend put my backpack, with the great works of literature I had assembled to read this break, in her locker. I won't see it until the end of spring break.

As we reached the end of Fifteenth Avenue on campus to turn the corner onto University, upon which Mac Court has its address, the imposing, navy blue figure of the Eugene Metro Bomb Squad's paddywagon silhouetted itself against the setting sun. Attached was a safe detonation chamber on wheels, looking like a squat, light blue cement mixer with gleaming silver handles. As a couple of elderly women turned the corner and descended Fifteenth holding aloft a rainbow-striped flag emblazoned with the word "PEACE," I wondered at how many storied missions this bomb unit must have seen in this city.

At one point, as the line finally moved far enough to put me in sight of the entrance, a young boy, probably an eighth or ninth grader, passed us in line. "The candidates suck! Vote for me!" he was yelling. Spying a likely signpost, he grabbed onto it and began to hang off of it. His spindly, bruised legs stood aloft and behind them, people were lined up all along the sidewalk in thick ranks that curved around the block and out of sight.

Sometimes I talked to your mother about stupid bullshit.

It doesn't just seem crass to say that this blog attempts to keep things high-minded, it is crass. We don't. We're not intelligent (If we were, I would not be posting my first blog in a couple of weeks on exam weekend or writing complete sentences between parentheses). We are not enlightened or spiritually uplifted. We are blatantly crass, boorish idiots. But at least we haven't descended to artistic criticism...yet.

Or have we?

I will today. This surely spells the end of our golden age of originality, but I think we'll try to keep it a.) to one review a week, b.) amusing, and c.) brief (I am an idiot). Did you see what I did in that last sentence (I am an idiot)? No, not the aside in parentheses, the comma between "amusing" and "and" (I am an idiot). That's what's called an "oxford comma," and that's also the title of a track off New York band Vampire Weekend's self-titled debut album (I am an idiot). I imagine I look like a shameless tool for picking that one to review, since it's (I think) all the rage in the "blogosphere," but the record has a quality to it that I like--unambitiousness (I am an idiot). What I like about it is that it is limited, either by design or by dint of trying to be too damn cute (I am an idiot). The songs are superbly crafted musically and their lyrics are extremely clever, but both are quite easily conquered, and therefore the record is a tool of meaning rather than an agent of meaning (I am an idiot).

"Oxford Comma" is a typical, if superb, example (I am extremely stupid). It exemplifies Vampire Weekend's particular timbre--consciously African-sounding pop accented by melodies and vocals you would expect to find in the score for a vaguely sappy old film set in Paris (I am extremely stupid). And lyrically, it is also typical--consciously clever and glaringly subtle (I am extremely stupid). There is a craft and graft aplenty in the business of making it seem as if these meticulous melodies are off-the-cuff and this intricate wordplay seem to arise from casuality (I am extremely stupid). And yet, it's all the more likable for this unforgivable smugness (I am extremely stupid). I mean, Vampire Weekend are essentially the Michael Bolton look-alike that Matt Damon's character asks about apples in Good Will Hunting, smug, well-read Ivy League brats who thinks they are God's gift (I am extremely stupid). But they're smug, Ivy League assholes who said to themselves, hey, if we try, we can make a smart, nice-sounding record, and that's what they did (I am extremely stupid).

The one exception to that overriding rule, sonically, is "A-Punk," the third track and noticeably anomalous in that it is played at the overcaffeinated tempo seemingly demanded by the modern big indie single ("Rough Gem," "Dashboard," "+81") (I am an idiot). It is also the only song on the record with inscrutable vocals (I am an idiot). Not coincidentally, this is the song the band played when they went on David Letterman (I am an idiot). I guess that makes them transparent again--they're gunning for a wider audience (I am an idiot). It'll sell C.D.s, but we shouldn't begrudge it that (I am an idiot). It's not like it's shifting a bad product, after all (I am an idiot).


Vampire Weekend is this guy.

Your mom loves Neil Young. It was a source of friction.

The best president we ever had was William Henry Harrison. This will be a short post.

I Fathered You with a Fictional Character. Your Move, Darth I-Thought-I-Was-Clever.

I am sorry we got into this argument, but it is true. Between harassing J.K., coming to terms with Pumas, and warding off phantom skeleton daemons, I did pursue your mother. In fact, I hit it. Twice.

However, what the previous paragraph does not do is help explain who your mother is/was. It all started when...

I still remember the day. The candles were lit on the cake, and a gentle breeze caressed my chin. I had made my wish--no I won't tell you--and then I closed my eyes and blew out the candles. When I opened my eyes again, I saw her. She had just gotten off the u-haul and was preparing to start the move into her new, beautiful brown house. She had brown eyes. The color of muddy-water drizzled with puke and seasoned with feces. Actually, her eyes were a major turn off. I never let her look at me. But her body was perfect, full of curves and crevices I wanted to delve deeply into to mine for the purest Mithril! She turned and looked at me (I soon informed her never to do so again) and I quivered. We clearly were destined to be together--besides the puke-brown eyes. For fucks sake women, get some contacts! Anyway, we survived through famine and bountiful harvests, through sunrises and moonsets (TM E & J 2008), and through the most epic bout of collective diarrhea I have ever witnessed. How I cherished her wholly--except the eyes--until the Pumas came. I still lament her to this day. She was perfect for me, although she was twice, if not thrice, my age at our first meeting.

I'll never forget my 10th birthday...









-J.A.

Your mom was slightly hotter than a border collie

The other day, I was thinking back to the days when your mother and I used to stroll hand-in-hand through the gardens of Westchester, PA. I don't know how we got there, since neither of us has ever lived east of the Mississippi River, let alone in Pennsylvania, but it was rapturous. Until the pumas appeared. I don't know how they got there either, since they definitely do not inhabit anywhere near Westchester. But after the tragedy, I was not inclined to ask questions. I wasn't inclined to much of anything.

It's been difficult to think about pumas the same way since. It's strange--I always thought of myself as a rational person, not someone prone to fly off the handle. Why should I blame the pumas for killing my lover? After all, that's what pumas are made for--ruining your day. Every muscle from their snouts to their tails is tailored to the purpose of making people miserable. Wouldn't it be wrong to let such an efficient and beautiful machine go to waste? No, I should not blame the pumas. I should feel sorry for them. I'm sure seeing the woman I love ripped untimely from my arms and devoured with evident glee by hungry mountain lions before my eyes as I stood helpless hurt them far more than it did me.

And yet I am weak. I should respect and honor pumas' function. But I don't. I can't get past the turning of my viscera and see the event for what it really was--a harmless accident of the jungle. My brother is stronger than I. He spend all of one day in March looking forward to enjoying a delicious spumoni at the end of the day. He worked hard in the mines with that confection in mind, licking his lips even as the sinews in his back and arms strained against the bowels of the earth to craft the fuel that drives our industry. Without this green, pink and brown vision, who is to say he could have made it through? And yet, when he gets home, he finds his roommate, a puma, sitting at the table, whiskers dripping with school cafeteria green ooze. The puma had devoured the pistachio out of the spumoni. Everyone knows that pistachio makes or breaks a spumoni.

But my brother accepted this as a fact of life. He moved on. All I had to do was withstand the death of my beloved and I didn't--I am weak, I am sorry. So to try and make it up to pumas, I've given them the win in this week's "Who's hotter?" against Johnny Depp.


-eleanor

Once your mother and I met Bono.

Last week I got Google advertising for this blog. Yes, I am selling out. I am a shameless whore and should probably be arrested for prostitution. In fact, this entire blog thing was just a thinly veiled attempt by me to get free lodgings via the court system. I am hoping to be arrested and tried within the week, hopefully for something that will set me up with free room and board for at least fifteen years, although I guess the point is just getting there. Then I can kill a man on the inside and get set up forever.

But anyway, until my trial, I may pass some time being fascinated by what the ad ticker on the side of the page thinks our readers will want. Harry Potter is a regular reader of this blog (he soaks up all information available about his late mother), and he may be the only one, so we can learn a lot about what he's into by looking at the side of this page.

One of them is for chocolate. Once I saw a toy dog in a store that moaned "I looooooooove chocolate" when squeezed. I have never personally met Harry Potter, as far as I know, so I can only assume that was him. To say that JK Rowling, Potter's biographer, is bad at describing her subjects is a massive understatement. Journalistically, her ethics are nothing short of scandalous. She never mentioned the fact that Harry Potter is significantly shorter than a normal person, or that he, apparently, has no bones (!!!). She did not report on his lisp or extremely poor vocabulary. And the report that he wears clothes and glasses is, on this evidence, completely false.

There are only two explanations for this: 1.) Ms. Rowling has extremely bad eyesight; 2.) she is hideously incompetent; and 3.) she is part of his "wizarding" agenda. I personally feel it's the latter. I have heard that Voldemort is a very nice man and people have told me some very disgusting things about owl-owners. And she has even bamboozled unfortunate filmmakers such as Chris Columbus and Alfie Cuaron into compromising their credibility by making biopics based on her work.

So to Ms. Rowling, I have this to say: Fuck you. Take your ethical ambiguities elsewhere and stop disparaging Voldemort's name. I wonder what other inaccuracies are built into her work. Based on this evidence, I can only assume that Dumbledore looks like this:


-eleanor

Heidi Klum: Soothsaying and a Guide to the Oscars.

Yes, it has been too long. Yes, Harry Potter did not die of a sexually transmitted disease. Again yes, the war on pollen is still going on. However, this does not mean that i won't be coming in loud or i won't be coming in clear. Oh and yes, i still get massive erections due to poor grammar skills, so lets do it.

Perhaps the biggest problem with dealing drugs is the metric system. I have no idea how much a "kilo" is. I also refuse to recognize that a meter can be used to measure distance, or quantifies as anything other than a five-letter derogatory word. The last time someone told me that the courthouse was sixty meters to my left i promptly kicked her in the face with my foot. This did not go over well considering "her" was a police officer and i was late for my meeting. To further clarify my last sentence, i must admit that my "meeting" was actually a "trial," and the reason she was using meters was because this "trial" took place in The Haag. Furthermore, this did not help my case being that i was on trial for War Crimes. I was in quite the pickle for a while, but after a heated courtroom exchange and some tricky maneuvering, i was able to get an advantage. After some clutch free-throw shooting on my part, U2 dropped the charges. The lesson to take away: Bono is a world-class musician, but a horrible defender.

So the five keys to life i would like to leave you with are...
5) Start a social movement to end all usage of the metric system
4) Dealing Drugs can lead you to meet modern day legends (Hi N.S.A. While you were data harvesting the blogosphere, you thought you caught me selling drugs. However, everything written in this is pure fabrication--i promise. So please, do not disappear me, Lost is only in season 4).
3) Just stay away from The Haag.
2) Do not become an international war criminal unless you...
1) Out rebound your opponent by 5 and make your free-throws (I'm looking at you Vinn
Baker)










-J.A.

Kid, your mom and I, when we was your age, we didn't mess around with any of this business.

Fidel Castro is stepping down. It's a bold move by him and I don't really see how he expects to stay in power doing something like that, but he's a wily fox and I wouldn't be surprised for a second if he didn't have some trick up his sleeve. It makes me think, though, because I watched the subtle, witty French film Blame it on Fidel on Sunday. It was about a girl with communists for parents and the "Fidel" in the title was definitely Castro. So I wonder--do I have the power to overthrow dictators simply by watching films with their names in the title?

I can only hypothesize that the answer is probably "no." Anyhow, I figure that it won't change all that much in Cuba, at least not right away. Fidel collapsed during a speech a couple of years ago and he's looking pretty old, so I don't think he has been all there for a while anyway. He's probably got some fairly competent people under him and probably hasn't relinquished all control of the government. We'll probably have to wait until he actually dies for any change, and with that damn Cuban health care system, there's no telling how long he'll live.

Age, though, is an underrated force in politics. Fidel Castro is old and probably too doddering to run a country, but it's worth noting that John McCain is only five years younger. I don't want to get into some big partisan debate. Yeah, I have left-leaning views on politics, but I actually believe that, if John McCain had been elected president eight years ago, he would have probably done a pretty good job--I would even go as far as to say he might have done better than Al Gore. Back then, he was a good man who trusted his own beliefs rather than toeing a party line on issues like immigration and guns. I think that he's not a bad man at all. I just think he has been coming across a bit lost lately and it may be out of senility.

Your mother is a man. No, it's not funny. The sooner you accept that, the better.

So, you might have guessed this will be a "Who is hotter?" blog. This was going to be between Jessica Alba and Jaye Davidson (promise me you won't look it up until you reach the end of this paragraph at least). Then I saw the end of The Crying Game. The shock made my genitals fall off and now I am seriously considering giving up movies. That didn't really happen. I've never seen The Crying Game. Probably because my dad spoiled the ending. But I won't. You should see it and tell me how you felt. It's a stuffy, arty sensation I will never be able to experience. Woe is me... (so please don't look it up. It will spoil it).

So instead, this one will be about Liam Neeson and Alfred Kinsey. I recently saw Kinsey and it was one of the worst films I have ever seen. But aren't the Hollywood actors who play in biopics always much sexier than the people they play? Yes. And this is no exception. There is only one exception--Anthony Hopkins in the film Nixon. Am I the only one who cannot think of dour, balding crooks opening relations with China without having a spontaneous, highly embarrassing orgasm in public?

It was November. The wind was blowing just so. We were having a lesson in my tenth grade history class about the Vietnam war, when my teacher began to say, "you know, Nixon was not that bad a president." Suddenly, I felt all the elastic in my body turn to instantly hot coal with a loud snap. I was at rapt attention. He put on a video of Nixon delivering the "Checkers Speech." The blubbery moon of his face rotated ever so slightly and caused a massive tidal undulation that traveled up and down my spine. And then, I saw him shaking hands with Chairman Mao and it was as if SuperSoaker had made a shotgun in a secret factory in my pants and decided to test it at a hideously inappropriate time. I couldn't speak to anyone in my high school ever again.

So yeah, obviously Liam Neeson

Your mother used to be an important bureaucrat. She didn't want you to know, because she thought you would think less of her.

Hello. I know it's been a while since we posted, but that was just because we thought the world wasn't ready for material as brilliant as ours. Now it's a new world. Great Britain has a new prime minister. Benazir Bhutto, always a major impediment to our writing, is now dead. Queen Elizabeth has beaten Queen Victoria for the title of England's oldest monarch. And, finally, the straw that broke the camel's back: Maine has selected its nominees for US President. So we're back.

And we're coming back with a vengeance. In what may become a recurring series for us, this first post of the new era will be dedicated to this important question: Who is hotter? This week's contenders: Madeleine Albright and Jean Reno.

What's that? Are you trying to tell me that Janet Reno would be a more apt opponent for Ms. Albright? Why? Sure, both Ms. Reno and Ms. Albright were Clinton appointees. Sure both were the first women in their positions. Sure, both are unmarried and thus ripe for the taking. Sure, they are both of the same gender and, roughly, age. But there would be no contest. Everyone knows Janet Reno is a sex goddess. She has it all: the figure of a woman half her age, a great singing voice, and a sassy wit that would have made Barbara Stanwyck look like J.R.R. Tolkein. I would not only do her, I'd marry her and let her keep her last name. We would pass her name on to the children. Five of them. Named after the Three Stooges. A man can dream.

No, Jean Reno is a far more fitting opponent for Ms. Albright. Similar square, meaty shoulders; similar birdlike mouths; similar high, nonchalant hairlines. Moroccan-born Reno fixes you in those set, beady, determined eyes and you know you're in for an ass-kicking. Ditto for Czech-born diplomat Albright and then some. The French action star has appeared alongside the likes of Steve Martin, Tom Hanks and Rob De Niro. The US diplomat has rubbed shoulders with Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and Michael Dukakis. For every fist to the face Mr. Reno administers, Ms. Albright punches right where it hurts--the breadbasket with economic sanctions.

The tie-breaker: only Ms. Albright has appeared as a sex object on Matt Groening's Futurama. When you're so on the fence about something like this, you need to turn to the only people who truly understand sexuality: cartoonists. So thanks to you, Mr. Groening. Our winner is Madeleine Albright. Next week: Mr. Rogers vs. Pope John Paul II.