Monthly Archives: January 2011

This morning, a gunman opened fire in a Tucson market and shot a number of people, including his apparent main target, Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords who was attending an event there. At the moment, news sources are scrambling to find out whatever they can find out. Several sources have said flat-out that Representative Giffords has died but at this moment, CNN, MSNBC and Fox News are reporting that she's alive and able to speak as she's heading into surgery. So some of the news reports, including a number on those channels, have obviously been wrong. Remember when the media waited for real confirmation before they declared someone was dead?

I scanned a few blogs and saw folks, acting on little or no info, trying to spin this as the responsibility of their political opponents. You wish these people would observe something like a 24-hour moratorium before they tried to exploit a tragedy of this kind but I guess that's too much to ask.

Our pal Bob Elisberg is reporting for us from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. It may look like he's reporting for The Huffington Post but he's just using their private jet, their squadron of limos and the huge expense account they give him in order to cover the show for us here at newsfromme.com. Here's Part One of his report and here's Part Two.

When I touted the Turbo Snake here the other day, I forgot to mention one of the reasons I bought the thing. Right there on the package, they had a photo of "Anthony Sullivan, Turbo Snake Host." I don't know about you but when I was a young lad, making up my mind as to what I wanted to be when I grew up, I didn't know that occupation was even on the table.

Anyway, I admire honesty in packaging so I liked that it said right under his photo, "Pitchman Approved!" In other words, Anthony recommends it.

That cinched it for me. I figure: If you can't trust a guy you never heard of who's being paid to sell a product, who can you trust?

The Congressional Budget Office is a non-partisan entity that analyzes bills and proposals and says, with pretty good accuracy it would seem, "Here's how much this one will cost us." If the CBO numbers support your argument, they're infallible and accurate and fair and not to be disbelieved one bit. If they say you're wrong, what the hell do they know? The other night on Hannity, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann debated Congressman Anthony Weiner and she actually, in the space of about 180 seconds, dismissed as ridiculous a CBO estimate that indicated she was wrong about one proposal and then cited a different one as absolute proof she was right about a different proposal. Bruce Bartlett discusses this kind of inconsistency and he adds this…

CBO's great sin, in Republican eyes, is that it's always telling them that their pet ideas are wrong: tax cuts don't automatically pay for themselves through the Laffer Curve, the Affordable Care Act didn't raise the deficit, the budget can't be balanced only by cutting domestic discretionary spending, and other heresies to Republican dogma.

He also quotes Walt Kelly, which we always enjoy around these parts. But really, is it too much to ask that politicians decide on which are the reliable sources and stick with that? It's fine to cite the Gallup Poll if you believe in it but you oughta stand by it when it tells you something you don't want to hear. Same with the CBO. Same with any reference or survey. Or maybe the rule should be that once you say it's wrong, you're not allowed to cite it to support your side for two years or something.

Fred Kaplan discusses plans to cut our defense budget. What Fred has to say about this is important because he's the only person in the entire country who ever reads our defense budget.

The bad news: It's taken me until five in the morning to finish the script I had to send off before I can go to sleep. The good news: I thought it was going to take until six. Good night…what's left of it.

Yes, yes, I know. Thomas Jefferson didn't write the U.S. Constitution. But he's the guy whose writings people seem to always cite when they want to argue that the infallible Founding Fathers (you know…the guys who set up the mechanism to change what they ratified and even started changing some of it themselves) had in mind.

Number thirteen in a series…

Like a lot of you, I don't quite get what folks in Congress thought they were achieving this morning with their selective and abridged read-aloud of the Constitution. Sounded to me a little like the kick-off of a new sales pitch. They're going to go right on doing whatever they want but now they'll make an extra effort to pretend that it was exactly what Thomas Jefferson wanted…and therefore to oppose them is to go against ol' Tom and the rest of the Founding Fathers.

This has generally been the strategy of those who call themselves Strict Constructionalists: They figure out ways to argue that John Adams didn't want John Quincy Adams to have to pay taxes on any inheritance. A lot of these same folks work the same scam with The Bible, only they pretend there that their prejudices and selfish agendas are those of God and therefore inarguable. Would that they respected those sacred writings enough to not wrap themselves in them.

The Comic-Con International has announced another twenty Special Guests for their 2011 gathering. I am again on the list so I suppose I'll again be hosting at least a panel or two. Or three. Or fifteen.

I will also be a Special Guest at the WonderCon, which convenes in San Francisco on April 1…well, I almost typed "next year" but realized it's now this year. These are the only two conventions I have planned at this time.

Barbra Streisand is reportedly dickering to direct and star in a motion picture remake of Gypsy. I'm not sure this is a good idea and I'll tell you why. It's not because the last film version was so good or even any good. It's because what was wrong with it will probably be wrong with a Gypsy starring Streisand. This show is about a woman — Momma Rose — who was willing to do anything (lie, cheat, steal, anything) to make at least one of her daughters a star. Why? Because Momma Rose didn't want her kids to live in near-poverty as she had, and also because Momma Rose couldn't have been a star herself so she wanted to live vicariously through her kid. That's what the whole "Rose's Turn" number is all about: I did it for you but I also did it for me.

The movie starring Rosalind Russell never worked for me because, among its other flaws, Rosalind Russell could not suppress her image as an elegant, successful woman of talent and breeding. That is not Momma Rose. It's like Cary Grant trying to play a guy with no looks and no class. I obviously never saw Ethel Merman do the original on Broadway but when I hear the cast album and imagine her up there, she seems perfect to me. Ethel Merman had the star power and talent necessary to carry a lead role like that but she looked and talked like a waitress in a greasy spoon cafe.

Can you buy Barbra Streisand as a woman who could never have been a star herself? Who had to push her daughters into vaudeville (and one, indirectly, into stripping) in order to have even a vicarious taste of stardom? If she makes the film, I'll try…but she's going to have to throw away a lot of what makes her Barbra Streisand to be credible as Momma Rose. Frankly, I'd rather see her go in front of a green screen for a week or so, refilm all her scenes from Hello, Dolly! and have them digitally insert them over her old performance in the 1969 movie. This would be the perfect time to do that because she's just now getting to be the right age for the part.