Warning: yawns ahead. If you yawn, don't feel bad. I'm yawning on my end. I can't believe now that winter's almost over, I've caught a winter cold.
I know a number of people consider it spring the minute daylight savings kicks in. The official first day of spring is either March 20th or 21st. But where I live, you learn not to get excited until after Easter. There can still be a rough cold spell before Easter so I don't get excited about the arrival of spring until after Easter.
I read what Rebecca wrote tonight and I'll comment on that because I'm not sure how much of a "news brain" I have tonight. On movies, I don't just watch foreign films and documentaries. The last movie I wanted to see was Monster-In-Law (which I enjoyed). But most of the things don't seem to interest me. Kill Bill wasn't my type of movie. V is something I might see because of the look the film has. But Kill Bill struck me as a film that had a washed out look to it (except in the snow scene) and really played like a bad TV movie from the 70s. I saw that because it was an "empowerment" movie. I didn't see that in it. I saw a lot of women playing shoot-em-up and other nonsense. It was like a slasher film.
It just wasn't my type of movie. I'd hoped there would be more to it and was very disappointed. After that I wasn't keen on seeing a movie again until it was time for Jane Fonda's return to acting. I saw movies between then because I will go see things with friends and on dates, but that gives you an idea of how often I really want to see a movie.
I do see documentaries. Usually on some subject that interests me. But I'm always up for a documentary.
Miss Congeniality was not my DVD. I laughed at the film but felt like I was watching a 2 part episode of The Bionic Woman. In fact, I think I was. Only when Lindsey Wagner was competing in the beauty contest, she sang a song.
Well it's good to feel alive in the moring
To feel the sunshine warming up your face now
And I can hear the cannonball
Coming down the tracks now
And I'm so glad that I'm living in the country.
I think that's how the song went.
If I see a TV show or a movie, the song usually sticks in my head for years.
I'll talk about The Bionic Woman and then go over the news. (Yes, I'm padding this out with TV talk.) I really did enjoy that show. First of all, Jamie Sommers wasn't your standard TV hero of that time. She wasn't killing people the way Steve Austin often did on The Six Million Dollar Man. Second, she lived in a converted barn that made you think, "Converted barn? Might be the way to go." (Like most things on TV, it was stylish.) Third, Jamie had a sense of humor. Fourth, there were moments of reality.
For younger readers, Jamie was a tennis player who had an accident (parachute accident). She was thought dead because she was supposed to be dead. The character was brought on The Six Million Dollar Man just for the story of Steve loves Jamie, Jamie dies. But viewers really liked Jamie so they later brought her back and said that instead of dying, she'd gotten bionic parts. She had bionic legs (like Steve), a bionic arm (ditto) and a bionic ear. She also had no memory of key events when she came back.
If I remember right, there was a story where Jamie's body was rejecting the bionic parts. I know I remember an episode, last year of the show, I believe, where Jamie was called a "freak" by a kid. This was during some upheaval and Jamie ended up thinking the kid was right and hitting the road.
I am probably doing a poor job conveying the show to anyone who hasn't ever seen it. That can only partly be pinned on the fact that I'm sick. It's also due to the fact that it's not a show, I think anyway, that you can describe easily. It had a number of levels to it.
"Gen. Zinni: Rumsfeld Should Resign" (Democracy Now!):
Here in this country, calls for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to resign are increasing. On Sunday, Gen. Anthony Zinni, the former commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, accused Rumsfeld of committing a "series of disastrous mistakes" in Iraq.
Donald Rumsfeld looks like the sort of man who'd play a villain on The Bionic Woman. He'd have access to classified plans and be attempting to pass them on to the Fem-Bots or something.
He just has that evil look about him. So Andrew Card was sent packing last week (and replaced with Josh Bolton). Is Rumsfeld next on the clean sweep? I don't think so. I don't think the Bully Boy would fire him. Not just because he was carrying out Bully Boy's orders but also because the Bully Boy responds to pressure by digging his feet in.
With all of the screw ups that have gone on, Ronald Reagan would have already found ten fall guys. Bully Boy appears to have so much disdain for the public that he doesn't even feel the need to go through the motions to find a fall guy.
"Condoleezza Rice: U.S. Made Thousands of Mistakes in Iraq" (Democracy Now!):
Meanwhile Condoleezza Rice admitted that the United States had probably made thousands of errors in Iraq. She made the admission on Friday during a meeting in Britain. "I know that we made tactical errors, thousands of them I'm sure,"Rice said. "This could have gone that way or that could have gone that way, but when you look back in history what will be judged is did you make the right strategic decisions and if you spend all your time trying to judge this tactical issue or that tactical issue I think you miss the larger sweep."
Screw ups? Condi admitted to some and then quickly minimized them with her ahistorical lens. The "larger sweep" is that an illegal invasion was sold on lies and then an illegal occupation followed. I have no idea what history book Condi Rice thinks is going to be written but she appears to be suffering from denial if she thinks the lies are just a "tactical issue." Between her involvement in that and her poor job as head of the NSC, she will not be remembered as someone who did her job even adequately.
For history to look fondly on what the administration has done will require a lot of revisionism. Far more likely is her being remembered as The Moronic Woman. (I'm tired and sneezing, call it a theme.)
Please visit Mikey Likes It! for Mike's thoughts which, I'm sure, are more coherent than my own. Also please read C.I.'s "And the war drags on ...(Indymedia Roundup)."
