Month: June 2007

• “Kool-Aid pickles violate tradition, maybe even propriety. Depending on your palate and perspective, they are either the worst thing to happen to pickles since plastic brining barrels or a brave new taste sensation to be celebrated. [link | via]
• “The US military is developing a robot with a teddy bear-style head to help carry injured soldiers away from the battlefield.^*” [link | via]
• “In the race for ever-thinner displays for TVs, cell phones and other gadgets, Sony may have developed one to beat them all — a razor-thin display that bends like paper while showing full-color video.” link | via]
• Animated t-shirts

When you work for a long time in literary affairs, you get used to the idea that people who write brilliant books sometimes say foolish things. But you never entirely stop wincing.

Specifically, he’s talking about Ray Bradbury, who would have us now believe that Fahrenheit 451 isn’t really about censorship — and, more to the point, that we’ve never had censorship in this country. (Even though, as Hayden points out, he’s said pretty much the exact opposite of this in the past.) I love the man’s stories dearly, but he seems like such a grumpy old man, and it’s hard not to wince at some of the foolish things he says.

The same now goes for Eric Idle, who is apparently upset over the coconut gag in Shrek the Third:

“…there it is in the first 30 seconds — you go — wait a minute, John [Cleese] and I are in this film and you steal our joke? Um, I don’t know how the others are going to take to this … I hope they (Dreamworks) cleared it with them — the first I saw it was in the premiere — and I was SHOCKED — my whole family went WHAT! How dare you! So I walked out — calmed down — and walked back in — but I was shocked and I think if you steal peoples jokes, I don’t think that’s homage, I think that’s theft.”

“At the end of the day, I believe fully the president is doing the right thing, and I think all we need is some attacks on American soil like we had on [Sept. 11, 2001],” Milligan said to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, “and the naysayers will come around very quickly to appreciate not only the commitment for President Bush, but the sacrifice that has been made by men and women to protect this country.”

Okay, so two things:

1. Dennis Milligan can go to hell. I think this much is clear.

2. There is an obvious flaw in his reasoning, even beyond the “Dear god what is the man smoking?” question. Because if we had more attacks on American soil, that would mean that Bush and company are not doing their job to protect us from more attacks on American soil. See how that works?

Playing devil’s advocate for a minute, Milligan does have a point, however. Had the attacks of September 11, 2001, never happened, it’s unlikely that George W. Bush would have even won a second term. Certainly, his would be a much different presidency, and I think his ultra-low approval ratings would have sunk ultra-low long before they ever did. Bush is “appreciated” by two distinct groups: those who directly or indirectly benefit from his being in office — loyal cronies have never had it so good — and those who ran to him because they’re either afraid of terrorism or want to kick somebody’s, anybody’s, ass.

That doesn’t make Milligan’s argument any less reprehensible…but, for that, I refer back to point #1 above.

…whereupon the skunks eat them like peanuts

The movie is based on a 1979 novel by Roderick Thorp titled Nothing Lasts Forever, itself a sequel to the book The Detective, which was previously made into a 1968 movie starring Frank Sinatra.

I’m just trying to picture Frank Sinatra as John McClane…