Spatula Forum

Let's do the quick hits thing today, 'cause it's Friday and my stomach hurts and I want to go to eat BBQ for lunch.

ITEM! Great coverage by our news team on the wounding of three local soldiers in Iraq Wednesday. Like the death of Reagan, it's one of those moments when the newsroom pops into Mach 3 and shows what it can do. Fortunately it looks like the three guys will be OK, although the extent of their injuries isn't certain.

ITEM! So Vice President Dick Cheney told a senator to "fuck yourself" on the floor of the Senate yesterday. But as usual the right-wing apologists, who would make excuses for the Bushs if the president was found sodomizing a dead whale in the Rose Garden, will find a way to make this Kerry's fault somehow. You know, everyone uses the "F" word on occasion. It's human nature. That I have no problem with. It's the hypocrisy of the self-proclaimed moralists in the White House that bugs me. Let's use the wayback machine to go back in time a bit: (from The Washington Post) In December, Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry was quoted using the same word in describing Bush's Iraq policy as botched. The president's chief of staff reacted with indignation. "That's beneath John Kerry," Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. said. "I'm very disappointed that he would use that kind of language. I'm hoping that he's apologizing at least to himself, because that's not the John Kerry that I know." Is calling Bush's policy "fucked" worse than cussing out a U.S. Senator on the floor of the Senate? Is Cheney apologizing to himself in an undisclosed location as we speak? Pot, meet kettle.

ITEM! If you think you're having a bad day, you need to go rent 'Touching The Void, a documentary of sorts about a Peruvian climbing expedition gone horribly wrong. Falling off a mountain and breaking your leg is just the start of one rotten day. This is an amazing flick, using interviews and very effective reenactments to put you in the footsteps of climbers. Things happen in this film that if it weren't based on a true story, you'd say, "no way, man." Harrowing, gripping stuff and gorgeous scenery to boot. I dreamt I was climbing glaciers after watching this.

ITEM! Hoping to see "Fahrenheit 9/11" this weekend with some folks from work. Will post comments later on.