December 31, 2006

Happy New Year to All!

You can be sure I won't be seeing Dreamgirls again on New Year's Eve. [I told you to stop reviewing. You'll never work in Hollywood again.-ed. Not with anyone connected with Dreamgirls.]

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 11:11 AM
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December 30, 2006

Capital Punishment and Saddam

Surfing the 'net today in the aftermath of the Saddam hanging I see the usual suspects decrying the the dictator's execution in the predictable manners (Hello, Robert Scheer). What interests me more are the objections of capital punishment purists, because I can sympathize with their position. But I think their orthodox views are misguided in this instance. They may even have been blinded by a form of narcissism, by wanting to be considered "good."

I almost always oppose capital punishment for the usual moral and practical reasons. But in the instance of political mass murderers like Hitler, Stalin and, yes, Saddam, I think public safety vastly outweighs any ideological considerations. Life imprisonment is a great risk with such people. These men (and those like them) have literally millions of adherents who would like nothing more than to free them so they can return to power and kill again. And this is not just the stuff of a Hollywood movie when a serial killer escapes and might add another twenty corpses to his dossier. The numbers here are staggering. The death of Stalin (whether natural or encouraged) more or less ended the horrors of the Gulag. An assassination of Hitler in the thirties would have saved tens of millions. Does anyone really think that an incarcerated Saddam would never be freed? I wouldn't want to bet on it.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 10:53 AM
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December 29, 2006

Joe's Byline

Sen. Joseph Lieberman's oped in the WaPo today is worth reading as an exercise in statesmanship. Interesting too are the words he uses to describe himself at the bottom of the piece:

The writer is an Independent Democratic senator from Connecticut.

Bravo.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 11:55 AM
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Taxi Driving in Seattle

Yesterday afternoon, after wrapping up our vacation with a couple of pleasant hours in the Elliot Bay Book Company, Sheryl, Madeleine and I started back to our hotel to pick up our bags and head home to LA. We were with our friend and my Pajamas colleague Gerard. He proposed we take a cab; he would drop us by the hotel before continuing to his home.

We found one quickly. It was driven by an African guy. We had to instruct him about the location of our hotel; it was new. In the course of this I asked him where he was from. Kenya, he said. But then quickly added he was Somali. Many Somalians live in Kenya.

Ah, Somalia. Immediately the three adults in the car perked up. We acknowledged we knew there was big trouble in that country, the attack from Ethiopia on the ICU, etc. To our surprise, our driver immediately launched into a vitriolic attack on Al Qaeda. They were evil violent men, hijacking Islam across the globe. He had details of their infiltration of Somalia from a phone call he had made the previous night, how they were using Saudi money, etc. Thousands of people were being murdered by these Wahhabis for no reason. He was obviously following the situation closely. Al Qaeda was a danger to all mankind, he said.

It was a refreshing to hear this view from a Moslem taxi driver in Seattle. He was obviously pleased that we recognized the travails of his people too. So he continued with his explication of what was behind this terrible situation - how the Moslem religion could have been taken over by these violent forces. Someone was behind the rise of this Saudi Wahhabism . The answer, he said, was Israel. It was all an Israeli plot. They were behind the Wahhabis.

Suddenly our hearts sank. How could a man who seemed so reasonable, so knowledgeable, say something so obviously crazy?

Just then we were at our hotel. Sheryl and I left the cab, stunned. I phoned Gerard from the airport. What had the man said on the way to his place? Gerard - wisely - had let him continue. There was no point in fighting with a man like that. Better to learn how his mind worked. Gerard simply inquired why the Israelis would want to back Al Qaeda when Al Qaeda was sworn to destroy Israel. The man replied by talking about his childhood, his Islamic education. He had learned about the Jews from the Koran. That was the truth, of course.

Taxi driving in Seattle. So it goes.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:48 AM
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December 28, 2006

A (around my belt) = pie R squared (and growing)

Of course, we're talking about pizza pie here, which is making a comeback since Wolfgang Puck ripped it away from Napoli and put some salmon and cream cheese on it, then added just about anything else you can think of. The results then were, well, interesting for a while, but now serious pie is back. We tried it last night in Seattle at Tom Douglas' latest eatery - Serious Pie. If you're within three miles or so of the place, don't miss it. I don't know what it is with this Douglas guy but he seems to do almost everything well ... even Greek food. The pizzas at Serious Pie were some of the best I've eaten.

Next stop: Mozza in LA. This is the new Nancy Silverton-Mario Batali upscale pizza joint, which is currently the hottest seat in my home town. I have tried to get in several times at weird hours, but so far no luck. I take this to be good news for my waistline, since sooner or later the traffic will lighten up and I will find myself in front of one (or six) of their pies.

OOPS: Typo in the above. I meant three hundred, not three, miles from the restaurant. I wrote that in a hurry before catching a plane back to LA. Note to promoguy: I like Patsy D'Amores too. THere's a branch in the Farmers Market, as you probably know.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:51 AM
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December 26, 2006

Christmas Week is for Movies-The Reviewing Fool continues

I have comments up on Babel and The Pursuit of Happyness at Pajamas.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:40 AM
Comments (4)

December 25, 2006

Happy Christmas to all readers of the site...

... from a Jewish agnostic who has learned to respect Christians more than ever in the last few years.

Above is the Freestone Inn, Mazama WA where we are spending a few days, cross country skiing or nursing bruises and strains from same. It's a spectacular place with (this year) a huge amount of snow. Also, there are no cell phone communications, a Zen lesson at Christmastime for this "connection freak." But there's plenty to eat, of course, and a bottle of Leonetti merlot to be enjoyed with the inn's Christmas dinner.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:07 AM
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December 22, 2006

Sandy Berger - a rumination

I didn't sleep well last night. Part of the reason was I was in a hotel room in a new bed, but the other was Sandy Berger. I was up late reading the PDF file of his investigation we posted this morning on Pajamas. Everything we had heard about him was true - and more, possibly a lot more. I kept tossing in my bed, trying to puzzle out what kind of man behaves in the manner he did. Surely, a coward - but a coward of a special sort.

The more you read of the file the more you realize that there are many unanswered questions about Berger's behavior that the government has not chosen to disclose (if they know). We cited some obvious ones with the PJ post, but so much of the file has been blacked out, there may be whole areas not yet imagined. What interests me here, however, are not the facts (I don't have the sources for that), nor even the nearly obscene leniency of his sentence. (After reading even the redacted version, I can't believe this man will have his security clearance back in three years. What judge allowed that?)

No, what interests me is Berger the man. What manner of moral reprobate could act they way he did after some three thousand people were murdered by Islamist terrorists. No doubt the inner Sandy has a raft of rationalizations, varied ways of justifying his criminal behavior to himself whether he was defending his own actions or Clinton's or both. (It would be interesting to know, wouldn't it?) Perhaps Berger is even sophisticated enough (though I suspect not) to reference EM Forster's famous dictum: "If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country." But the problem is - Berger wasn't just betraying his country, he was betraying real, living human beings, past and potential victims of terrorism. As we learned on 9-11, it doesn't matter what country they come from. It is a betrayal of humanity as much as it is a betrayal of our country (though of course it is that.)

So "Pants" Berger is a coward of a special kind - a character out of a novel, something for a modern Tolstoy perhaps, a refined species of modern narcissist. He can also be looked at as an example of another highly-reviled category - traitor. I don't use that word loosely at all either. I don't regard Cindy Sheehan, for example, as a traitor or Michael Moore or any of those people, much as I disagree with them. They have vigorously espoused their opinions in a free society. Sandy Berger smuggled top secret documents out of our National Archives. We may never know what that was about, what was in them (or in their notes) or why he did it. He is a traitor. They are not.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:09 PM
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December 21, 2006

If you want to get depressed ...

... read Ron Rosenbaum's latest post. He spells out why Islamism is more dangerous than communism ever was - and asks for a solution? So far there have not been many suggestions.

As for me, I'm going on vacation.... cross country skiing in the Methow Valley. Considering that I don't think I can handle more than two hours a day of the sport and that our hotel has broadband, I suspect there'll be some blogging, even some photos of the Great White North (or northish). I'm going to try to enjoy myself and not obsess on Ahmadinejad and footnote 55 (see Rosenbaum). Maybe while skiing I'll come up with an idea ... but don't hold your breath.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 12:00 PM
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Toss-up Oscar Season: I'm open for bribes

According to our good friends at Variety, this year's Academy Awards are up for grabs with no clear front runner. It's nice to be voting in an election for once where my vote actually counts (even if the election is not quite as significant as, say, the presidency of Iran). Nevertheless, voting in the Oscars can be something of a chore. It used to be (when I first joined the Acad over 20 years ago) that I was all excited to vote in the awards. But those kinds of honorifics get tired fast and now I ... and I bet a number of Academy members if they admitted it ... resent having to watch a lot of movies that don't really want to see, if only to feel vaguely honest about their votes.

And now that I'm grousing, let me complain about a great perk that has vanished. It also used to be that you could be a hero to friends and family lending out (or giving away) the tapes and DVDs sent out as screeners by the studios to all Academy members. No more. In this era of online piracy, most of the DVDs have digital watermarks with our names on it. One poor sucker in the acting division wound up with a $60,000 dollar fine (yes, you read that correctly) when some copies with his watermark turned up in Hong Kong. Kind of gets your attention. So you keep the discs close to home. And they keep coming - like the Sorcerer's Apprentice. In our house, with my Acad membership and Sheryl and my WGA memberships, we have wound up, for some reason, with five copies of World Trade Center. Maybe we should use them for coasters. [Sake coasters. They come in sets of five, according to the Japanese tradition.-ed. Very goooood.]

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:21 AM
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December 20, 2006

Remember the Maine(stream)

A gentleman named Joseph Rago, an assistant editorial features editor at The Wall Street Journal and a reader of Henry James (from his text), has at the blogosphere today for not reporting news. [That again?-ed. You read me correctly, sir. He writes: "The bloggers, for their part, produce minimal reportage. Instead, they ride along with the MSM like remora fish on the bellies of sharks, picking at the scraps."] Now I'm not going to get personal with the WSJ, a fine paper I read every day, just because they used original reporting from this blog on the Oil-for-Food scandal without attribution or because it is evident that Mr. Rago has not been paying much attention to Pajamas Media where we have broken many stories in the last couple of months (several of which have been linked by Drudge - how many have been linked from the WSJ, I wonder).

To be honest, I don't blame the WSJ or any other paper for railing against blogs. And, yes, they are right the vast majority do not report news. But many are starting to do so, not just Pajamas, but the Huff Post as well. A fair number of individual blogs are also going out and reporting. It's not rocket science, I have to say. Reporting is the obvious next step for news and opinion oriented blogs and Rago and his confrères better get used to it. (I suspect deep down they already know.) I was surprised a newspaper as well-edited as the WSJ was still running this tired material. [Christmas filler.-ed. Could be. We have the same problem at Pajamas.]

NOTE TO RAGO: I love James too, but I get my advice from Satchell Paige.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 12:17 PM
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December 19, 2006

Your tax dollars at work...

An abstinence program for 29-year olds?

"The data clearly show that the majority of older teens and adults have already had sex before marriage, which calls into question the federal government's funding of abstinence-only-until-marriage programs for 12- to 29-year-olds," Finer said.

How does this track with a world where robots will have rights? It doesn't seem fair. [I'm for abstinent robots.-ed. I'm not.]

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 4:46 PM
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December 18, 2006

The Return of the "Moderate Fundamentalists"

It was good news, I guess, but I still shook my head in wonder when I read this sentence in The Guardian's coverage of Ahmadinejad's apparent electoral setback in Iran Friday: "The outcome appeared to be mirrored elsewhere, with councils throughout Iran returning a majority of reformists and moderate fundamentalists opposed to Mr Ahmadinejad."

Moderate fundamentalists? Isn't that something like being half pregnant? But I suppose we should be grateful for the success of the reputedly pragmatic Rafsanjani and the repudiation of that most fundamental of fundamentalists (no moderate fundamentalist he) Ayatollah Mohammed-Taghi Mesbah-Yazdi, Ahmadinejad's presumed spiritual mentor, who came in a humiliating sixth. As I recall Yazdi was the fellow deemed too fundamentalist for even Khomeini and banned , for a while anyway, from public life.

With Ahmadinejad (for the moment) mildly in eclipse the man to watch is apparently Tehran mayor Mohammed Baqer Qalibaf, a "pragmatic conservative," according to The Guardian. They don't actually explain what that means in Iranian terms. In any case, the "expert" who tipped The Guardian on Qalibaf's rising star requested anonymity, a smart move, I would imagine, where he comes from. [Maybe he works for Seymour Hersh.-ed. Could be.]

MEANWHILE: Regime Change Iran has been covering these elections with a lot more perspicacity than I have or could... and a lot more than The Guardian as well.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:32 PM
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My review of "The Lives of Others"...

... is over on Pajamas. As you will see, I liked it. A lot. A very lot. My only regret is that it will take so long to reach the American public (Feb. 9). This is one for your permanent DVD collection.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:29 AM
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December 16, 2006

"Left in Form But Right in Essence"

When I was a young leftie, that was one of the popular accusations we made against "certain reactionary parties." I believe the phrase came from Mao's essay "On Contradiction," but it could have had an earlier provenance (Lenin?). Someone in the blogosphere will know. In any case, those words have been going through my mind lately, especially with regard to our so-called "liberal" politicians. You know the type - the ones who used to abhor that the US played footsie with likes of Pinochet and Somoza and wanted us to overthrow them. So did I, at the time, and still do. But it seems these supposed left-liberals have changed. The same ones who once called for the defenestration of fascists now favor entering into dialog with them.

Victor Davis Hanson gives us a good rundown of how this works today on his blog.

Does running for President allow a candidate to freelance at a time of war by talking to our enemies and triangulating against the president? Why is Gov. Richardson talking to North Koreans, or Sen. Kerry trying to talk to the Iranians, or Sen. Bayh to the Syrians? Wouldn't that be like a Tom DeLay talking to Milosevic to undermine Clinton during the Kosovo bombing? Or Trent Lott dealing with the Taliban as Clinton sent cruise missiles against them?

Sen. Kerry in Cairo just praised Hosni Mubarak, lauding him by chastising President Bush's failure to listen to this voice of reason and his criticisms of the United States. And why not listen to such advice, since this autocrat has been the recipient of billions in American aid, while squelching all reform for some thirty years in the bargain?

We are in the land of Animal Farm. Liberal is not liberal but something else. I don't know what to call it really. That's why I reached for the old "Left in form but right in essence." Some days I call it "liberalist," some days simply "reactionary." As noted on Pajamas, The New York Times is at the forefront of this non-liberal liberal thinking. We really do need a name for it. Fuddy-duddy? I've tried that. Not bad, but perhaps a tad colloquial for repetitive usage.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 5:49 PM
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A Special Hanukkah Thank You to Ayaan Hirsi Ali

... for her magnificent oped in the Los Angeles Times - "Why deny the Holocaust". It's a must-read by one of the most courageous human beings of our time. If I were on the Nobel Committee, I would give the Peace Prize to Ayaan Hirsi Ali. [Fat chance of that.-ed. Indeed.]

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 11:40 AM
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December 15, 2006

For some last minute Christmas shopping or...

... some VERY last minute Hanukkah shopping (hey, you've got eight days for a reason)... I recommend The English Reader: What Every Literate Person Needs to Know edited by my friend Michael Ravitch and his mother noted educational authority Diane Ravitch. (Yes, I know you think this is logrolling, but the book happens to be a main selection of the Readers Subscription, so I'm not alone here.)

Which reminds me, Happy Hanukkah to all readers of this site. In the Year of the Ahmadinejad it's important to celebrate.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 5:01 PM
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Jimmy Carter self-parody watch

I can't say I really blame Jimmy Carter for not wanting to debate Alan Dershowitz (at Brandeis) on the subject of the Israeli-Palestinian question. A wise man knows when he will be clobbered. But saying Dershowitz "knows nothing about the situation in Palestine" was really a dumb move. Carter has become one extraordinarily defensive guy - and that makes you blind.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 12:56 PM
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December 14, 2006

The Golden Globes as comic relief

There is no greater display of Hollywood's pathetic need for approval than the Golden Globes (nominations announced today).

READER ALERT: If you have anything at all useful to do with your time, like making up shopping lists for Christmas 2014, don't go any further. This is a truly trivial subject.

For those of you who don't know - and don't feel bad if you don't, because not knowing in this case is probably superior to knowing - the Golden Globes are awarded by an outfit called the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Who are these folks? Well, there are plenty of jokes, but it's only a slight exaggeration to say the typical HFPA member is an aging waiter at a Romanian restaurant in Santa Monica who once wrote a movie review for the Bucharest Tribune under Ceausescu. Now I have nothing necessarily against Romanian waiters, aging or otherwise. They may have better taste in movies than I do. But the idea that this conglomeration of part-time gossip columnists could be taken seriously as award givers is beyond ludicrous.

But seriously they are taken, especially by the likes of Sean Penn and assorted other Great Political Thinkers of the Thespian persuasion, who dust off their tuxes and trundle down to the Bev Hilton for the great occasion to profusely thank the Foreign Press for their prizes. It's reminiscent of that old Jules Feiffer cartoon of the desperate actor: "Did you see me? How was I?" But happily, there is an upside to this narcissistic display. It is an opera bouffe parody of award ceremonies in general, even those of supposedly greater respect like the Nobel (Arafat for Peace?) or the Pulitzer (the AP for photography in Iraq?). Awards? Phooey! [Except for those you may win.-ed. Of course.]

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 2:43 PM
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Sen. Tim Johnson

I am going to be on MSNBC this morning (Allison Stewart - 9:30-10A PST). I was scheduled to talk about blogs and the political season, but the news about Senator Tim Johnson (D-SD) broke quickly over night, so the subject has shifted. The man is only 59 and it is a terrible situation. Many of us have had strokes in our families and we know what it can mean. If an appointment has to be made, I think the situation ... and the climate in the country ... calls for something statesman-like and non-partisan to the degree it can be.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:42 AM
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December 13, 2006

Half Nelson

In the wake of the embarrassing Silvestri affair, you will excuse me if I suspect Senator Bill Nelson (D-FLA) was clueless about the history and policies of the Syrian Baathists when he met today with President Bashar Assad. Nelson informed us: "Assad clearly indicated the willingness to cooperate with the Americans and or the Iraqi army to be part of a solution" in Iraq.

And Nelson believed him?

Now, Senator Nelson, count of ten... what is Hama? (answer: here)

I wonder if Nelson even knows who Rafik Harari is and what Assad's cronies had to do with his demise. The idea that you could expect Assad to deal honestly is obscene.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 2:13 PM
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December 12, 2006

Ahmadinejad - The Counter Conference

Tony Blair - among other leaders- is outraged at the conference of Holocaust deniers scheduled by the mullahs. But as we know, outrage at Ahmadinejad & company never seems to work. Indeed, the theocrats appear to thrive on it, whipping up their minions in a chorus of "Death to Israel!", etc.

So I propose an alternative approach. Why not have a conference of our own - "Does the 12th Imam exist and are those who believe in his coming certifiably insane?" We could get a series of eminent psychiatrists to testify on to what degree this is "magical thinking"and if the leadership of Iran should be institutionalized. This conference should be heavily publicized and run incessantly on our television networks, just as their Holocaust drivel runs on their state run networks. Turn about is fair play, no?

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 12:22 PM
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Rockin' Woolsey is up on Pajamas

The video Andrew Marcus and I made of James Woolsey rockin' out with "Skunk" Baxter (the Doobie Brother turned defense expert) is now up on Pajamas. If you can't get it at that link, try the front page. A lot of people seem to be hitting on it at the moment. Please be patient. Thanks.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:02 AM
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December 11, 2006

Rockin' Woolsey... The former DCI rocks out with a former Doobie Brother and tells it like it is on energy independence

I was at the Four Seasons Bev Hills last night to see James Woolsey receive the Jerusalem Prize of the American Jewish Congress. These events are usually pretty stodgy but this one was surprisingly entertaining, not least because the former Director of Central Intelligence turns out to have a secret side. [Don't they all?-ed. Not this kind.] Woolsey, who hails from Oklahoma, is a closet country rocker. Well, he came out of the closet last night to perform with Jeff "Skunk" Baxter of the Doobie Brothers. A quick-and-dirty video of the duet will be up on Pajamas later.

Woolsey's keynote speech at the event was quite interesting. His hobby horse du jour appears to be energy independence and he is quite convincing on the subject. Without it, he indicates, we will continue to be the primary subsidizers of the Islamofascist terrorism which is bent on destroying us. The former DCI is not, however, a great advocate of hydrogen because of the immense costs in building a new infrastructure. He favors the use of grasses, a cheaper and more immediate method. Once we make a public commitment to energy independence, he thinks the Saudis, Mullahs, etc., will panic and begin to mend their ways. I think that's more than worth a shot. Where are our politicians?

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 10:07 AM
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December 9, 2006

Silvestri the Dumb (What Nancy Knew)

Projection rules the world and those who have spent the last few years accusing Bush of stupidity were usually stupid themselves, but nothing prepared me for this. Silvestre Reyes - the man about to be installed as Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee - repeat Intelligence Committee - does not have even the most basic rudimentary knowledge of Al Qaeda. This is not just embarrassing, this is humiliating and fairly close to nuts. Read this interchange between Jeff Stein and Silvestre:

Al Qaeda is what, I asked, Sunni or Shia?

Al Qaeda is profoundly Sunni. If a Shiite showed up at an al Qaeda club house, they'd slice off his head and use it for a soccer ball.

Silvestre, as I'm sure most readers of this blog know, is the candidate chosen by Nancy Pelosi to bypass Jane Harman. Harman undoubtedly knows full well that Bin Laden, being Saudi, is Sunni- as are the vast majority of Al Qaeda leaders from Zawahiri on down. The uneducated Reyes will now be charged with making judgments about Iran (does he know they are Shia?). Talk about history coming back as farce!

Now let me ask a question. How many of these rudimentary facts does Pelosi herself know? I would venture not many. And yet we are in her hands.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:59 PM
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Zlateh the Goat

Hannukah is fast upon us and, although she reads very well herself now, I have been reading some Isaac Singer children stories to Madeleine. These tales are mostly set in Chelm, a village of lovable idiots in Yiddish lore. We finished the book tonight with the title story, "Zlateh the Goat." It is an astonishing work of compressed compassion and something of an animal rights masterpiece. (Singer was a vegetarian.) Tears were in the eyes of father and daughter when I shut the book.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:29 PM
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December 8, 2006

Behind the scenes Chez Richard (Perle)

One of the things I didn't know about Richard Perle until I went to visit him at his suburban Washington home the other night - yes, I'm the culprit behind the wobbly camera in the Pajamas video - is that he is a gourmet cook with a fabulous kitchen. Also, he makes a killer cup of espresso in the true Italian fashion replete with crema, etc. Yes, the so-called Prince of Darkness is a Prince of Cuisine.

Which got me to thinking about how people surprise you. Their real life personae are so often different, even opposite, from their public image. Two of the more prominent neocons I know - or people called or accused of being neocons, no one seems to know what it really means, if anything - Michael Ledeen and Perle - are two of the warmer, more teddy bear like guys I have met in recent years. But maybe I'm missing something. Maybe they have a secret side that I just haven't seen, even though I have certainly spent a lot of time hanging out with Michael at least on both coasts in the last couple of years and nothing particularly nefarious has come up. He hasn't even asked me to spy on anybody or forge any documents. But again, maybe he knows I wouldn't be particularly skillful at either of those endeavors (disastrous would be more like it).

Anyway, I'm getting on a plane back to Los Angeles now. More to come of my Washington adventures.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 4:19 PM
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I doubt the Iraq Survery Group asked Haniyeh ...

... when the committee decided that peace in Iraq should be linked to a solution of the Israeli-Palestinian Crisis, but he has given them a succinct answer anyway. The Palestinian Prime Minister said in Tehran the other day: "We will never recognize the usurper Zionist government and will continue our jihad-like movement until the liberation of Jerusalem." [Maybe he was just shoring up his base.-ed.]

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 5:30 AM
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December 6, 2006

Is James Baker the biggest American anti-Semite since Father Coughlin

... or is he just the Michael Richards of diplomacy? I always wondered if Baker was being fairly quoted when he supposedly said "F... the Jews! They didn't vote for us anyway." Now, after reading smatterings of the Iraq Survey Group report, I think that's the least of it. He wants to have a regional conference in the Middle East without Israel but with Iran and Syria. From Insight Magazine: "As Baker sees this, the conference would provide a unique opportunity for the United States to strike a deal without Jewish pressure," an official said. "This has become the most hottest proposal examined by the foreign policy people over the last month."

Pressure for what - it's own survival? "Most hottest" indeed.

UPDATE: There's also this from the report: The final point in the list was: "Sustainable negotiations leading to a final peace settlement along the lines of President Bush's two-state solution, which would address the key final status issues of borders, settlements, Jerusalem, the right of return and the end of conflict."

"'Right of return' is not in Oslo I or Oslo II, it's not in the Bush Rose Garden speech, it's not even in UN 181, the original partition resolution -- it's part of the Palestinian discourse," said the US analyst.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:44 PM
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Annals of Film Crit

JPod has some fun today with Mahnola Dargis of the NYT: You know, at times, people come up to me randomly on the streets of New York and ask me, "Say, JPod, how exactly would you define the word 'pretentious'?" And I have to admit I am usually stumped and unable to sum up exactly the qualities of pseudo-thought that the word represents. That is why I am grateful today for the film critic of the New York Times, Ms. Manohla Dargis.

John's referring to Dargis' review of David Lynch's latest, which, among other "sophisticated" uses of the English language calls the director's Mulholland Drive a "meta-cinematic masterpiece." [Does that mean it has a score by Zubin Mehta?-ed. No, it means it had a score in the style of Zubin Mehta. I see.]

Simon's rule for movie reviewing: Short reviews good. Even shorter reviews even better - as in HIX NIX STIX PIX. By way of example, here's two more from my growing pile of Academy DVDs. There were two movies about magicians this year. The Illusionist: worth seeing. The Prestige: not worth seeing. [Aren't you going to back up your opinions?-ed. Maybe later.]

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 8:46 AM
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December 4, 2006

Did anybody else see Bush tonight?

I watched the short excerpt of Brit Hume's interview with the President that was shown tonight on Hannity & Colmes. Brit asked the expected questions about Bolton, Iraq. I don't know about the rest of you, but I thought Bush looked like a beaten man. We are living in dreadful times.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:53 PM
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Bolton Out - Long Live Pusillanimity!

There's something inevitable about the White House step down on John Bolton. Inevitable, but sad. Back to diplomacy as usual. Long Live Pusillanimity! [Well, it's the UN.-ed. Word.]

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:59 AM
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December 3, 2006

In praise of Jonathan Gold ...

Jonathan Gold, for those who don't know who he is, non-Angelenos mainly, is the restaurant critic for the LA Weekly, among other fancier venues (Gourmet). An indefatigable explorer of the ever-spreading jungle of ethnic restaurants in Southern California, he has had more direct affect on my life than any other critic in any form (art, literature, film, etc.). I go where he tells me to go. [You mean you don't go where film critics tell you to go? You do it yourself on occasion. -ed. Stop me before I review again.]

I think Gold may have introduced more Caucasians to the mammoth Chinese community of the San Gabriel Valley than any known white man but, to my knowledge, does not speak a word of non-menu Mandarin, Cantonese or any other dialect (I have met him a few times, but never thought to ask. Anyway, then he would also have to know Tagalog, Urdu, etc., etc.)

It had been a while since Sheryl, Madeleine and I ventured forth to one of Gold's picks - he has a Gold's 99 of indispensable SoCal restaurants that is definitely vaut le detour - but last night we headed down to San Gabriel to try out the new Green Village, which Gold deemed "the fanciest Shanghainese restaurant in town." Well, it wasn't that fancy, just fancy for the type, meaning white table clothes and friendly waiters. It was clearly relaxed enough to be kid-friendly, not just for our kid but a healthy sprinkling of Chinese children as well, enjoying the Shanghainese cuisine with their families. And what cuisine! As usual there were a host of things on the menu you had never heard of before - but at this place they are all so inviting and well presented you want to try them all. We'll be back. Meanwhile, if you're near the San Gabriel Valley (probably now the best place outside China for Chinese food), stop at Green Village (it's not very expensive either). Try the gee-tsai - a vegetable I had never tasted before and couldn't get enough of - and the house spare ribs - off the bone in bits sprinkled with sesame... addictive.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:41 AM
Comments (8)

December 2, 2006

Can't wait to negotiate with these guys

Two religious fascists meet to promulgate their psychotic belief system. [Is this what James Baker wants?-ed. I guess we're going to find out.]

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 4:20 PM
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Annals of Hollywood - Dept. of Self-Parody

For those few of you interested, Ms. Gwenyth Paltrow has "ankled" Hollywood for the tonier atmosphere of Blighty. "I like living here because I don't fit into the bad side of American psychology. The British are much more intelligent and civilized than the Americans."

Her example: She said having US pop star Madonna, 48, who married British film director Guy Ritchie six years ago, nearby was another advantage to living in London.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 10:08 AM
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December 1, 2006

Good news and bad news at Pajamas Media

The good news: for the first time we have two simultaneous Drudge links - one for the Dinerman article on the new Star Wars initiative and the other for Rich Minter's great reporting on the mysterious imams on the US Airways flight (we are first to market with the fascinating police report on that).

The bad news: our servers have been on the edge of crashing all night. Who knows what the morning will bring?

UPDATE: Servers operating fine for the moment in heavy traffic.

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 9:47 PM
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Annals of the Internet

This email, just received by Pajamas, speaks for itself:

Funny how you guys moderate comments to only post ones supporting your
position, ROFLMAO.

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Contactor: anonymous ( no email address provided ) no URL

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 5:09 PM
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You may hate him but...

Nine for nine from the field and ten for ten from the line for thirty points in one quarter! Who does that?

Posted by Roger L. Simon at 7:48 AM
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