Plague plushies.

Susan sent me a link to these, and I simply couldn't resist. I promised her I would take some pictures, so here they are:

The following is a summary of the Biblical account of the plagues which is found in chapters 7-12 of Exodus, which I got from Wikipedia. : )

Prelude (5:1 - 5:9, 7:8 - 7:13): Moses and Aaron approached Pharaoh, and delivered God's demand that the Israelite slaves be allowed to leave Egypt for the purpose of observing a holiday. After an initial refusal by Pharaoh, God sent Moses and Aaron back to show him a miraculous sign of warning - Aaron's staff turned into a serpent, and swallowed the staffs of Pharaoh's sorcerers. Pharaoh remained unimpressed.

Blood (7:14 - 7:25):


The first plague was blood. God instructed Aaron to strike the river Nile with his staff; all of its water turned into blood. As a result of the blood, the fish of the Nile died, filling Egypt with an awful stench. Other water resources used by the Egyptians were turned to blood as well (7:19). Pharaoh's sorcerers demonstrated that they too could turn water to blood, and Pharaoh therefore made no concession to Moses' demands. This plague lasted for seven days.


Frogs (7:26 - 8:11):


The second plague of Egypt was frogs. God commanded Aaron to stretch his staff over the water, and hordes of frogs came and overran Egypt. Pharaoh's sorcerers were also able to duplicate this plague with their magic. However, since they were unable to remove it, Pharaoh was forced to grant permission for the Hebrews to leave so that Moses would agree to remove the frogs. To prove that the plague was actually a divine punishment, Moses let Pharaoh choose the time that it would end. Pharaoh chose the following day, and all the frogs died the next day. Nevertheless, Pharaoh rescinded his permission, and the Israelites stayed in Egypt.


Fleas or Lice (8:12 - 8:15):


The third plague of Egypt was fleas. God instructed Aaron to take his staff and strike at the dust, which turned into a mass of fleas that the Egyptians could not get rid of. The Egyptian sorcerers declared that this act was "the Finger of God", since they were unable to reproduce its effects with their magic.


Beasts or Flies (8:16 - 8:28):


The fourth plague of Egypt was Arov. Commentaries usually render this word as flies, but some understand it to mean beasts, capable of harming people and livestock. The Torah emphasizes that the arov only came against the Egyptians, and that it did not affect the Land of Goshen (where the Hebrews lived). Pharaoh asked Moses to remove this plague and promised to allow the Israelites to worship God in the wilderness. However, after the plague was gone, Pharaoh "hardened his heart" and again refused to keep his promise.


Pestilence (9:1 - 9:7):


The fifth plague of Egypt was an epidemic disease which exterminated the Egyptian livestock; that is, horses, donkeys, camels, cattle, sheep and goats. The Israelites' cattle were unharmed. Once again, Pharaoh made no concessions.


Boils (9:8 - 9:12):


The sixth plague of Egypt was Shkhin. The Shkhin was a kind of skin disease, usually translated as "boils". God commanded Moses and Aaron to each take two handfuls of soot from a furnace, which Moses scattered skyward in Pharaoh's presence. The soot induced festering Shkhin eruptions on Egyptian men and livestock. The Egyptian sorcerers were afflicted along with everyone else, and were unable to heal themselves, much less the rest of Egypt.


Storm (fiery hail) (9:13 - 9:35):


The seventh plague of Egypt was a destructive storm. God commanded Moses to stretch his staff skyward, at which point the storm commenced. It was even more evidently supernatural than the previous plagues, a powerful shower of hail intermixed with fire. The storm heavily damaged Egyptian orchards and crops, as well as men and livestock. The storm struck all of Egypt except for the Land of Goshen. Pharaoh asked Moses to remove this plague and promised to allow the Israelites to worship God in the desert, saying "This time I have sinned; God is righteous, I and my people are wicked." As a show of God's mastery over the world, the hail stopped as soon as Moses began praying to God - hail which was then in the air never reached the ground; it simply disappeared. However, after the storm ceased, Pharaoh "hardened his heart" and refused to keep his promise.


Locusts (10:1 - 10:20):


The eighth plague of Egypt was locusts. Before the plague, God informed Moses that from that point on He would "harden Pharaoh's heart," (as promised earlier in 4:21) so that Pharaoh would not give in, and the remaining miracles (the final plagues and the splitting of the sea) would play out. As with previous plagues, Moses came to Pharaoh and warned him of the impending plague of locusts. Pharaoh's officials begged him to let the Hebrews go rather than suffer the devastating effects of a locust-swarm, but he was still unwilling to give in. He proposed a compromise: the Israelite men would be allowed to go, while women, children and livestock would remain in Egypt. Moses repeated God's demand that every last person and animal should go, but Pharaoh refused. God then had Moses stretch his staff over Egypt, and a wind picked up from the east. The wind continued until the following day, when it brought a locust swarm. The swarm covered the sky, casting a shadow over Egypt. It consumed all the remaining Egyptian crops, leaving no tree or plant standing. Pharaoh again asked Moses to remove this plague and promised to allow all the Israelites to worship God in the desert. As promised, God hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he did not allow the Israelites to leave.


Darkness (10:21 - 10:29):


God instructed Moses to stretch his hand over Egypt, and this brought a plague of complete and utter darkness, which lasted for three days. This was an unnatural darkness, and was tangible. However, the Israelites were able to see perfectly. After the plague subsided, Pharaoh summoned Moses, and again tried to bargain with him: he offered to let all the Hebrews go out to the wilderness, but required them to leave their livestock in Egypt. Moses refused this condition, and implied that before long, Pharaoh himself would offer to provide the sacrifices, as long as the Israelites would leave. This outraged Pharaoh, and he threatened Moses with death.


Death of Firstborn (11:1 - 12:36):


The tenth and final plague of Egypt was the death of all Egyptian first born males - no one escaped, from the lowest servant to Pharaoh's own first-born son, including first-born of livestock. This was the hardest and cruelest blow upon Egypt and the plague that finally convinced Pharaoh to submit, and let the Israelites go. God told Moses that this plague would cause Pharaoh to send the Israelites away, and ordered him to prepare the people to leave. He also commanded Moses to teach the ritual of Pesah - the sacrifice of a lamb for God, and the eating of Matzot ("Poor-man's Bread"). God told Moses to order the Hebrews to mark their doorpost with the lamb's blood, in order that the plague of death would pass over them. In the middle of the night, God himself came upon Egypt and directed the Angel of Death to take the life of all the Egyptian first-born sons, including that of Pharaoh's own son, and all Egyptian sons. That night, there was a great outcry in Egypt, such as had never been heard before. However, no Hebrew first-born was killed, as God "passed over" the Israelite houses.

After this, Pharaoh, furious and saddened, ordered the Israelites to go away, taking whatever they wanted. The Israelites didn't hesitate; and at the end of that night Moses led them out of Egypt, with "arms upraised".

But how much more would they have celebrated had they known that one day their troubles would be made into toys for children, eh? Oh, and by the way, the cow, the frog, the louse and the locust all have a string that you can pull to make them vibrate! However, I really don't understand why the blood and the darkness get little googly eyes, but the hail and the boil don't. Hmm.....

Repaint! Repaint!

And thin no more.

A bad joke, I know, but one of my favorites. So, anyway, here are 7 possible signs of the Apocalypse that have come to my attention lately:

1) The upcoming opening of the new "sex theme park" Amora in London. And here I thought the British couldn't widen their cooler-than-us lead any more than they had with the whole "banning Snoop Dogg from the country" thing. Who do we ban? Cat Stevens. Sigh.

2) God is calling on people to sacrifice their children again! Hey, it worked for him with Abraham and Isaac, why fix something that ain't broken? Although, Isaac actually survived the test.

3) In what appears to be a massive wealth redistribution program, God is having Nigerian teenagers collect "reparation for the sins of the West" from white people via computer. ("What do you want me to do? It is my God-given talent." -- emphasis mine)

4) In the meantime, "No, to answer your question, there is nothing sacred." This quote is from an article in the New York Times about LIVE COMMERCIALS being performed before plays. "'They're a captive audience,' Mr. Kelling said. 'They can't switch channels or change over or walk out once the thing is started.'" Mr. Kelling, you, sir, are the devil.

5) Human nature trumps the grassroots nature of the internet. First, this e-mail was forwarded to me today. What's funny about this "prank"? I just don't get it. Second, on Monday I was the victim of a MySpace virus -- a bulletin came from a friend with a link in it. I clicked on the link, watched the mildly amusing video, and thought nothing more of it. The next morning, however, I see that I have now sent out a bulletin with the exact same text and link. And my friend says he never sent the first one, either. Apparently when you click it, embedded programming lets it send itself out as being from you. But it doesn't do anything malicious, it just invites people to see this same stupid video. I just don't get this either. Maybe these were perpetrated by Nigerian teenagers.

6) I actually saw and enjoyed the movie of "The DaVinci Code." I haven't read the book, but have read the horrible reviews, so I didn't expect to like it. But it was pretty good, although it suffered from Harry Potter syndrome, in which the filmmakers try so hard to cram in all of the plot points from the book that they sacrifice all of the characterization that makes us care about the plot. Ian McKellan steals the show, but when doesn't he?

7) Pat Robertson may be crazy, but he is apparently the strongest man in the world. According to his website, he can leg press 2,000 pounds. See here for an explanation of why this is impossible, but I can't imagine Pat Robertson would lie. This has gotta be a harbinger of doom. Or an "Omen" if you will..... (and pity my poor nephew, who's about the same age I was when "Damien: Omen II" came out and I had to spend months being called Damien by my classmates.)

There you have it. The end is near. See you in the next life!

Ain't it cool?

Other things I have enjoyed recently:

Saw "Over The Hedge." It didn't have enough meat on its bones to merit a mention in yesterday's monster movie post, but it was fluffy fun nonetheless. Garry Shandling is surprisingly good, and I especially enjoyed Nick Nolte as the cynical bear.

Got bored with all my video games recently and had to go buy a new one. Have now been playing and LOVING "Dungeon Siege II" for about a week. It wasn't my first choice, but it was what the store nearest the house had in stock; and I have been surprised and pleased by it. I enjoyed the first "Dungeon Siege," and the sequel has (so far) done a great job of keeping the good parts and fixing the bad parts from the first installment.

Had dinner last night with Kingston and, in a big surprise, Chris Sutton, an old friend from our summer stock days that I haven't seen in years. He's in town with the tour of "Spamalot," and Kingston ran into him on the train, so they arranged to surprise me at dinner. It was a great night -- hours of eating, drinking and catching up. We also plan to hang out with him this weekend, and hopefully see the show next week before they move on to their next city.

Finally finished reading the newest Robert Jordan book, "Knife of Dreams." It was much better than the recent books in the series. I really enjoyed reading it. I bought a bunch of new books, so I have a lot to look forward to! Some of it will be non-fiction, as I'm beginning to do research for a show I'll be assistant directing in the fall, "Emma," about the life of early-twentieth-century anarchist and feminist Emma Goldman. I picked up her autobiography, as well as the autobiography of the playwright, historian Howard Zinn.

The weather is finally nice enough to ride my bike some!

It looks like I have found a place to live, although I have a meeting about it tonight and I don't want to jinx things, so that's all I'll say for now.

I've also been really digging on comics again this summer -- there is some really good work being done out there right now, and I'm glad to be back to reading them.

And that's what's making me happy this week!

Who shot JR?

Hoo-boy. Where to start? Sorry this is delayed. The end of the semester was pretty crazy and I've been in something of a waking coma since, trying to recover my sanity. [I've recovered it now -- I took the weekend off!]

So, as I mentioned in my last post, the weekend before last, I saw three movies -- "The Promise," "Friends with Money" and "Mission: Impossible 3." I can also now add "Poseidon" to the list. Let's talk about this.

The title of this post is a dual reference -- one part a nod to the fact that I promised to write this and then disappeared, and also a comment on the seeming semi-retirement of Reader movie critic Jonathan Rosenbaum. I miss ol' J.R. because his movie reviews were always so smart (almost to the point of inscrutability) and would explain how the movie being reviewed related to both the history of cinema as well as the modern world around us. But now that he rarely writes anymore, I have to do everything myself. Sigh.

I'm going to start by reviewing each movie simply as a moviegoer out for a good time.

"The Promise" is a very interesting movie. The reviews on it have been very mixed, and for good reason -- it's kind of all over the map. Sometimes this results in something for everyone, sometimes it results in not enough of anything for anyone. At the beginning of the movie, I found myself detached from it, appreciating the beauty but wondering why they had bothered with actors at all when everything was SO heavily computer retouched that it could have just been animated. Halfway through, though, I was intrigued by its fairy-tale-mash-up plot and archetypal simpleness of the characters. I was also getting used to the visual style and beginning to relax into it. And by the end of the movie I was completely drawn in. The ending felt a little anticlimactic to me, but I know it was heavily edited for its US release, so maybe there's a fuller resolution floating out there that I can see someday.

"Friends with Money" really moved me. Everyone in it had problems, but no one was given short shrift -- we are equal in our neuroses. It did leave a lot of questions unanswered at the end, but the acting was uniformly excellent. And it doesn't hurt that all the actors are oh-so-pretty. I have to agree with the reviews I've read that said Joan Cusack was underused, but Keener, McDormand and Aniston really shine, and Simon McBurney is a huge stand-out among the men.

"M:I 3" was actually pretty good for a dumb summer action flick (Note: I refuse to write it as "M:I III" because that just looks weird). Keri Russell wasn't in it enough to bug me, Phillip Seymour Hoffman couldn't have been in it enough for me, and Ving Rhames was in it more than in the previous installments, which was nice. Cruise was fine, and I really liked the whole supporting cast -- besides Keri and Ving, there were Jonathan Rhys Meyers (who I recently loved in "Match Point") and Maggie Q (who I've never seen before but fully expect to see more of soon) rounding out the field team, Billy Crudup (always great) and Laurence Fishbourne (haven't seen him since the "Matrix" trilogy) in the home office, Michelle Monaghan (who I recently loved in "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang") as Cruise's clueless wife, and Simon Pegg (who I recently loved in "Sean of the Dead") as the comic relief.

"Poseidon" was really quite thrilling -- I was on the edge of my seat for much of the movie, and actually found myself holding my breath along with our heroes at one point! A great, good-looking cast and crazy fun special effects made for quite the thrill ride. Kurt Russell is always great, this may be Josh Lucas's best role ever, and I've always enjoyed Richard Dreyfuss; he needs to stop doing TV movies and get back into some meaty roles. The girls aren't given much to do, but Mia Maestro is great as the claustrophobic stowaway, and aside from Jacinda Barrett's on-again-off-again accent, they do a lot with what they're given.

Okay. There's the review in brief: I enjoyed all four films very much. Now let's talk about the cultural implications of each film. [Warning: some spoilers ahead. I tried to keep them small. Sorry if it ruins anything for you.]

"The Promise" is an easy film to dismiss at first -- the story and characters are seemingly too simple to sustain much analysis. It's just a fairy tale, right? But the premise of the film brought up a lot of questions for me. The character of Qincheng is a poor, starving child at the beginning of the movie. Her mother has just died and she has no prospects for food, let alone the future. A goddess appears to her and offers her a proposition: she can become the most beautiful woman in the world, showered with riches and worshipped by men, but any man she ever loves in return will be taken from her. Desperate and hungry, she agrees, but of course ultimately wishes she could take back that choice because life isn't worth living without love. Remember our discussion about regret awhile back? How does one cope with a choice that turns out badly? Especially if that choice was made when one was young and ill-informed? Or in the heat of passion? Is love really what it's all about? Is my life any less worth living because I don't have a girlfriend right now? Obviously a lot of our mythology about love stems from a natural instinct toward the preservation of the species -- you need to fall in love so that you'll have children (and it's not just movies that support that myth; see here and here). Isn't it time to move past that? Aren't we overcrowded on this planet anyway? In the movie, the servant Kunlun loves Qingcheng so much that even though she doesn't love him back (or at least isn't given a chance to find out if she loves him back), he sacrifices himself to give her the chance to go back in time and change her decision. Is that a noble ideal -- the fullest expression of service to others? It's presented as such, but only because his sacrifice will enable her to choose love and go on to perpetuate the human race. Like I said, a lot of questions.

"Friends with Money" touches on some of the same themes, but also moves beyond them in interesting ways. In brief: Joan Cusack's character has the most money, but she has lost touch with what it's like not to have it; she lives in what's basically a dreamworld. Frances McDormand has plenty of money, but she's having something of a midlife crisis -- she knows that this is as much as she's going to get, and it's not as much as she always dreamed of having, and she's angry at the world because of what she perceives as its unfairness towards her. Catherine Keener has plenty of money, but it can't save her marriage. When the remodelling project that she and her husband embark on makes them the black sheep of the neighborhood, the loss of that simple civility from her neighbors points up the fact that she doesn't get even simple civility from her husband anymore, either. And Jennifer Aniston has no money, and wouldn't care about that if she were happy, but she doesn't seem to know how to get that either. Similarly to "The Promise," most of the characters' unhappiness stems from the problem of rising expectations -- not getting things that aren't physical necessities, but which you think you deserve. What this movie does, though, is take on all of these problems from the point of view that as much as we blame our problems on external forces, all of our issues ulitmately come from within ourselves. What redemption the characters are able to find comes from accepting their own limitations and learning to love themselves again. The last line of the movie is from Aniston to the unlikely guy she has finally found to love, "That's okay. I have issues, too." A good lesson that we could all stand to hear more often.

There's a lot more to talk about with "Mission: Impossible 3," however. To begin with, there's the utterly ridiculous "love story" between Cruise and his wife, in which all of his lies and deceit are forgiven, even though they result in the endangerment of her life, because he risks his life to save her, and what greater expression of love could there be than that? I can think of one: NOT LYING TO HER IN THE FIRST PLACE. Just a thought. Standard crappy movie version of love, but depressingly common and thus certain to be influencing the way a generation thinks of relationships. In other crappy movie cliches, there's a lot of collateral damage in the movie that no one seems to give a second thought to. Not as much as in, say, a Jerry Bruckheimer film, but still a lot. Why is it that no one ever seems to care how many lives our hero ruins, as long as he catches the bad guy? I guess theoretically it's because it's less lives than would be ruined if the bad guy had his way, but it's still pretty ridiculous.

Second, this movie really put the MPAA ratings system into perspective for me. I do NOT understand why this movie was rated PG-13. There were people at the performance I saw who brought young children, and there was violence in this film that disturbed even me. Not that giving it an R-rating would have stopped them from bringing their children, but maybe it would have made them think twice. I know that an R results in less ticket sales for the studio, and if you want to make a PG-13 movie to get more money, I can respect that. But for god's sake, THIS WAS NOT A PG-13 MOVIE. The only reason it wasn't rated R is because there was no nudity, and that's the double standard that people have been talking about for years but that I've never really understood as viscerally as I did while watching Phillips Seymour Hoffman torture Tom Cruise's wife in front of him with an 8-year-old sitting in front of me. I'm reminded of the story from the making of "South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut" when the ratings board told Trey Parker and Matt Stone that their characters could discus fisting and get an R-rating, but if they had a character define it, then they would get an NC-17; but when they changed it rim-job then everything was okay. The system just seems so arbitrary.

Third, the movie didn't do very well. I was at a prime-time showing on the Sunday of opening weekend and the theater was barely a third full. Is this a referendum on Tom Cruise's personal life (or his religion)? If so, is that a good thing? Some people find it very hard to separate the artist from their art. (Some people would also take issue with me for implying that Tom Cruise is an artist.) I am torn on this issue, I must say. It does make sense to want to give your money to people whose views you support. I do it myself -- for example, I have refused to see "The Chronicles of Narnia" because I don't want to support Phillip Anschutz in any way. But nothing is ever that black and white, you know? For example, Anschutz may be an An-schmuck, but that doesn't mean everyone who works for him is. I guess we all just have to make those decisions on a case-by-case basis.

And lastly, "Poseidon." I enjoyed the movie, but I have to question why it was made. Somehow in the world as we know it after 9/11/2001, the traditional disaster flick doesn't make as much sense as it used to. Are we supposed to feel good because 5 people survive the disaster? Are we supposed to sympathize with their struggle? Is it supposed to be symbolic of something? Are we supposed to feel better about the world when Kurt Russell tells us, "It doesn't make any sense -- who lives and who dies"? Are we supposed to identify with their heroic efforts and belive that we would do the same if we were in that situation? Honestly, I left the movie not feeling hopeful about the future of those 5 survivors, but feeling depressed about the thousands of meaningless deaths. I didn't see Wolfgang Peterson's last nature film, "A Perfect Storm," but from what I've heard of it, even there I feel like the characters had reasons for braving the storm, and there was some scientific interest in the weather patterns described. In "Poseidon," Andre Braugher casually tells us they were struck by a "rogue wave," which is unusual but not unheard of. How anticlimactic. At least with a movie like "The Day After Tomorrow," there's more of a national/global sense of the tragedy -- everyone is affected, but as a species we will survive! All I felt here was that maybe everyone should join the Navy so that when tragedy strikes, they, like Josh Lucas's character in "Poseidon," have the knowledge and skills to lead a plucky band of survivors to freedom.


So, I know that this was really long. Sorry. That's part of why it took so long for me to get back to it -- it was a little daunting to finish. There's other stuff I wanted to work in that just didn't make the cut because this was approaching novella length already. Anyway, thanks for reading this far and I'll see you in the funny pages!

Egads.

Here's some crazy stuff:

Disney's cancelling their exclusive promotions deal w/ McDonald's, citing concern over being linked to negative publicity about juvenile obesity. Never thought I'd see the day.

I was a big fan of John Edwards in the last election, even (no -- especially) before he became Kerry's running mate. The link is to an interesting article on some of his positions for 2008.

I saw a thing recently where someone was asked to name five things they couldn't live without, and their number 5 answer was "hyperbole -- I don't know what I'd do without it... probably I'd DIE!" I think if anyone ever asks our president the same question, he would have the same answer, but not ironically.

Ooh -- a new play by Irvine Welsh! Ooh -- it's premiering at a new theater in Dublin! Oh... it's about Munchkins?!

Those Freakonomics guys are great. Here we have a take from them on the old "nature vs. nurture" argument.

What do you think about this? It's like Netflix for books, except you borrow books that other people are willing to lend from their personal libraries. I like the idea, but there aren't a lot of books on the site right now. Obviously, there has to be a certain level of trust involved for the initial people who sign up, or there never will be a lot of books on it. I think I might try it...

I have much more to talk about -- see here and here if you want to bone up ahead of time -- but I want to tie it in to a discussion of the three movies I saw over the weekend, so it won't be until at least tomorrow, if not later in the week. See ya then.

Good ol' TJ.

Okay. So I'm a little obsessive. I know, big surprise. "The guy with the blog called 'Punctuation Fetish' fixates on little details? What a shock."

Yes, it bugs me when things are wrong. When people say things that are incorrect for whatever reason. But there are times when you want so much for them to be right that it seems counterproductive to make the correction. This is when you stand at the line; and it's interesting to see who crosses over. Is it really about the importance of what is right? Is it really about how obsessed with perfection I am? Whatever it's about, I'm crossing that line here today. [Note: there are also times when you want something from the person so much that it's counterproductive to correct them. But that's not what we're talking about today.]

A little background: I don't read the Chicago Sun-Times. I think it's a crappy paper. If it's lying around and there's nothing else to read and I'm stuck waiting for something, then sometimes I'll pick it up, but it seems like I never actually enjoy reading it. They have lame articles and lame comics and too many classifieds (although they do have Roger Ebert). And their columnists just make me angry. Especially Mark Steyn. That guy is such a jerk. He's totally full of himself, and he often comes across as bigoted, or at least mean-spirited. He's a conservative Republican through and through. But goddamn the man can write a good column, and as much as it pains me to say so, I have to say that I liked and agreed with his column of April 30th.

In it, Steyn attacks John Kerry for using a quote in a speech that Kerry mistakenly attributes to Thomas Jefferson ("Dissent is the highest form of patriotism"). I think Steyn relies too heavily on ad hominem attacks against Kerry (a common Steyn problem), but his basic point is correct: Get a fact checker, John! I, like Steyn, find continued use of this non-Jeffersonian quotation RIDICULOUS.

However, I object to it simply on the grounds that it is incorrect. Steyn seems to object to it because he thinks what the quote is talking about is wrong, and doesn't want such a bad idea attributed to a great American like TJ. For example, Steyn says that "As far as I can tell, it was Nadine Strosser, the ACLU's head honcho, who cooked up the Jefferson fake." First of all, her last name is Strossen, not Strosser. And second of all, yes, she's an easy target, and one that I'm sure Steyn would like to nail with a charge of making stuff up. But, even a simple Google search will turn up an article on About.com attributing it to historian Howard Zinn. And these guys did some research on Lexis and Westlaw and discovered that Dorothy Hewitt Hutchinson said it all the way back in 1965. So, um, get a fact checker, Mark!

The worst part is how accurate he is about the state of politics in America today. Like I said, the man can write. Toward the end of the column is this powerful quote: "If the right is full of armchair generals, the left is full of armchair generalities: Nothing can be done, any course is futile, everything's a quagmire." It's true that the hardest thing in the world right now (certainly for me at least) is believing that anything's ever going to change. My favorite quote from the Illuminatus! trilogy is:

"They did then look further and, lo, high as they were they saw the founding of a great republic and proclamations hailing new gods named Due Process and Equal Rights for All. And they saw many in high places in the republic form a separate cult and worship Mammon and Power. And the Republic became an Empire, and soon Due Process and Equal Rights for All were not worshipped, and even Mammon and Power were given only lip-service, for the true god of all was now the impotent What Can I Do and his dull brother What We Did Yesterday and his ugly and vicious sister Get Them Before They Get Us."

Amen.