Posted 8/16/2003 09:39:18 PM by Edward Driscoll
VICK BREAKS FIBULA: Michael Vick, star QB of the Atlanta Falcons, fractured his right fibula during tonight's preseason game against the Baltimore Ravens, and will miss up to the first four weeks of the regular season. Don Banks of Sports Illustrated has some thoughts on how Vick's injury impacts the Falcons' season.

Posted 8/16/2003 09:30:25 PM by Edward Driscoll
A FEW CHOICE WORDS: Jerry Lawson would like to share them with Dick Gephardt.

Posted 8/16/2003 07:55:03 PM by Edward Driscoll
NICE SATURDAY: My wife and I spent much of the day getting errands done--not the least of which was dropping my 15 year-old Fender Telecaster off at the shop for a refret and 500,000 mile tune-up. It's an amazing guitar--the first commercially produced solidbody electric, and in commercial production since 1950. It's basically a hunk of wood with strings, two pickups and a quarter-inch jack, but it's been played by everybody in rock, country and blues: Bruce Springsteen, Jimmy Page, Pete Townshend, Merle Haggard, Albert Lee, Eric Clapton, etc., etc. You name the guitarist--he's probably played a Tele. I played mine in college, in my old rock group. I can't wait to have it back for another 500,000 miles of service.

Posted 8/16/2003 11:25:14 AM by Edward Driscoll
LAST SUNDAY, we mentioned Cruz Bustamante's collegiate ties to Moviemiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan. Tacitus has more details. But those crickets on the set of the Today Show are still chirping. UPDATE: Instalanche!! Thanks Professor! ANOTHER UPDATE: John Fund has some additional thoughts on Bustamante, who is ahead of Schwarzenegger in at least one poll. As Andrew Stuttaford writes, "The damage caused by the Rob Lowe appointment (which is just a nod to Hollywood orthodoxy) shouldn't be overstated but the arrival of [Warren Buffett] looks like a major blunder."

Posted 8/16/2003 11:20:54 AM by Edward Driscoll
IDI AMIN DEAD AT 78: The former despot, long given sanctuary by Saudi Arabia, died of "multiple organ failure", according to Reuters, the "news agency", which drops this classic howler at the end of the article with a surprisingly straight face:

He was driven from Uganda in 1979 by forces from neighboring Tanzania and Ugandan exiles, and was given sanctuary by Saudi Arabia in the name of Islamic charity. A Muslim, Amin had lived quietly in Jeddah on a government stipend with four wives.

"In the name of Islamic charity"? But of course.

Posted 8/15/2003 04:20:59 PM by Edward Driscoll
JURASSIC RINO: Orrin Judd looks at Herbert Hoover, the Republican-in-name-only warm-up act for FDR.

Posted 8/15/2003 04:11:44 PM by Edward Driscoll
WHAT BLOGGING IS ALL ABOUT: It's important for blogs to shine a light on topics the media refuses to discuss. To look at things in a way that the "politcally correct" can't. To see things in a new way. This is one such post, and it truly is...what blogging is all about.

Posted 8/15/2003 03:58:10 PM by Edward Driscoll
DALLAS STAR: Nice profile of Bill Parcells by Paul Attner of the Sporting News.

Posted 8/15/2003 12:43:42 PM by Edward Driscoll
IT'S A LINK FEST over at Across The Atlantic! This site, because of their external links policy, is the target. "Link early. Link often", says Shell. Good plan!

Posted 8/15/2003 12:37:52 PM by Edward Driscoll
QUOTE OF THE DAY:

As they do not see, behind the benefits of civilisation, marvels of invention and construction which can only be maintained by great effort and foresight, they imagine that their role is limited to demanding these benefits peremptorily, as if they were natural rights.

Jose Ortega y Gasset, by way of Nick Schulz. Too bad the guests Larry King had on last night don't understand this.

Posted 8/14/2003 01:46:37 PM by Edward Driscoll
ADVANTAGE INSTAPUNDIT! I was watching Fox News on TV while eating lunch, and was about to post that New York and other eastern cities are suffering a blackout. Naturally, Glenn Reynolds is already on the case. One of Glenn's readers, who is in the midst of the blackout himself, asked if terrorism was involved. But both Glenn and Neal Cavuto of Fox are stressing the heat. Speaking of heat, James Taranto does a little speculating about what's behind France's claim that its recent heatwave has killed 3000. It is an interesting and politically loaded number, that's for sure.

Posted 8/13/2003 07:45:28 PM by Edward Driscoll
GETTING STARTED ON GUITAR: A new review of mine on guitar instructional books is up on Blogcritics. (Amazing how much writing is possible on a five hour plane fight!)

Posted 8/13/2003 02:50:42 PM by Edward Driscoll
HEY, I'M JUST HAPPY HE'S EATING MEAT: Cheesesteak flap "Raises Stakes for Kerry in Philly". I guess Kerry can forget South Philly and PETA... Apropos of absolutely nothing, if you can't make it into South Philly, when I lived in NJ, Big John's in Cherry Hill made a pretty darn good cheesesteak themselves.

Posted 8/13/2003 02:22:25 PM by Edward Driscoll
TONY BLANKLEY: "Californians: There are some of us here in Washington's own la-la land who wish you well". Unlike George Will.

Posted 8/13/2003 01:38:31 PM by Edward Driscoll
GOOD NEWS IN THE GRAND CANYON, according to Dennis Prager.

Posted 8/13/2003 01:20:26 AM by Edward Driscoll
SUPERFLY! Caught it on one of the movie channels on DirecTV tonight. Here's an interesting look at the making of this blaxploitation classic, and how Curtis Mayfield came to do the soundtrack, which a well-known blogger once described as:

truly the best part of the film. Clearly working on a limited budget, the filmmakers somehow were precient enough to spend this portion of their funds very, very wisely. Mayfield's music is part Greek chorus, part counterpoint to the action on the film, some of the best music of the 1970s, and the only sense of morality in the film. I'd love to know at what point Mayfield discovered he would be writing music for a film glorifying drug dealers, and decided to insert his own morals into his lyrics. His music makes an otherwise forgettable movie electrifying. Shaft may have had the bigger budget, and was better directed, but Mayfield's score, throughout the entire film, far surpasses Isaac Hayes' soundtrack efforts in Shaft: only Hayes' theme song can stand on equal footing with all of the music that Mayfield wrote, and Johnny Tate brilliantly arranged, for Superfly. Unfortunately, to borrow a phrase from Les Paul, it seems like a good chunk of Superfly's audience "listened with their eyes", and ignored Mayfield's warnings: visually, Superfly is ground zero for "gangsta rap": huge Cadillacs, even bigger lapels and Fedoras, black gangsters "with a plan to stick it to the man", white policemen pushing drugs themselves (paging Maxine Waters!)--so much of rap culture begins here. (And I can't help but wonder if O'Neal's flowing locks were the inspiration for Al Sharpton's impressively coiffed hair.)

As I wrote a year ago, "Too bad they didn't listen to the music--they might have learned something."

Posted 8/12/2003 08:42:33 PM by Edward Driscoll
OF COURSE WE'RE IN FAVOR OF GREEN ENERGY, BUT: And there's always a but, which Jane Galt fills in the details of.

Posted 8/12/2003 05:30:53 PM by Edward Driscoll
L5, S1: That's the location of the bulging disk in 49ers' QB Jeff Garcia's spine that prevented him from playing in Saturday's pre-season game against the Chiefs--and could possibly sideline him much longer than that.

Posted 8/12/2003 03:28:53 PM by Edward Driscoll
CATS AND DOGS: Rich Lowry is praising Dick Gephardt.

Posted 8/12/2003 11:01:47 AM by Edward Driscoll
BLOGCRITICS IS CELEBRATING ITS FIRST ANNIVERSARY, and they have exceptional taste in their musical artist of the month!

Posted 8/12/2003 10:13:28 AM by Edward Driscoll
QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Everyone knows that the majority of Californians are upset with Davis because he' s too conservative." -- Arianna Huffington Oh, and "Dukakis was no liberal and neither was Mondale", according to former NBC and CNN political reporter Ken Bode on the Chris Matthews Show over the weekend. Gee, I keep missing Gray and Mike's columns in National Review. Are they available online? UPDATE: But wait, there's more! Thomas Hibbs writes, "a caller to C-Span's In Depth on Sunday, August 3, accused the show's guest, Camille Paglia, of being a reactionary conservative and wanting to take us back to the days of 'lynching.'" (Incidentally, for my review of Hibbs' Shows About Nothing, click here.)

Posted 8/11/2003 10:52:04 AM by Edward Driscoll
GREGORY HINES, the multi-talented dancer, actor and comedian died of cancer on Saturday, at a far too young age 57. Natalie Davis has lots of details, thoughts and links at Blogcritics. UPDATE: Here are some further thoughts.

Posted 8/11/2003 10:26:43 AM by Edward Driscoll
JOE BIDEN SAY HE WILL NOT RUN FOR PRESIDENT: In a prepared statement, the senator said:

"With America's sons in the fields far away, with America's future under challenge right here at home, with our hopes and the world's hopes for peace in the balance every day, I do not believe that I should devote an hour or a day of my time to any personal partisan causes or to any duties other than the awesome duties of this office--as senator from Delaware. Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for a term as your President."

Or something like that. Former British Labor party leader Neil Kinnock could not be reached for comment.

Posted 8/11/2003 01:11:03 AM by Edward Driscoll
WHEN LIFE IS ABOUT NOTHING: For some unknown reason, I pulled Marion Meade's The Unruly Life of Woody Allen off my shelf a few nights ago, which I bought a few years ago to read on a plane, and began casually thumbing through it again. Woody was an idol of mine in my late teens and early 20s, and every now then, I'll pull a movie of his off the shelf and pop it into the DVD or laser disc. Meade's book isn't great, but as a "warts and all" portrayal of America's favorite pedophile, it's definitely an emphasis on the former. I did a quick Google of "Woody Allen Interview", just to see what the Woodman had to say recently, and came across this piece from England's Guardian, less than three weeks after 9/11:

[Question from audience]: How have the events of the 11 of September changed New York? WA: I don't think that they've really changed New York. Every country, every city, has its tragic events - there are floods and fires and murders - and of course you grieve and its traumatising, but, you know, time passes and you rebuild and you move on with your life. Even before I left New York last week, people were starting to very slowly get back on track, and that's what will happen. The same thing happened in Oklahoma City after the terrible terrorism there. It's traumatic for a while but they'll either rebuild the twin towers as a symbolic gesture, or build something comparable in its place. They'll be a cosmetic change - airport security will be much more severe and the government will get into the business of protecting the country in a more dedicated fashion - but I don't think anything will really change. The Yankees are playing their baseball games, the Mets are playing their baseball games, people are going to the movies, the theatre will build itself up and the nightclubs, and it will just take a little while to rev up after an unusually traumatic event. I believe that the people who perpetrated it never believed that it was going to succeed as fortuitously for them as it did.

This may be churlish of me, but how hard would it have been for the first words out of Allen's mouth to be "New York is now bereft of 3,000 of its greatest citizens. That's the biggest change." I realize that Woody believes that it's cold, empty, meaningless universe out there, and that people are cold, empty and meaningless themselves. But why perpetuate that belief in yourself?

Posted 8/10/2003 05:56:04 PM by Edward Driscoll
A BOOK ABOUT SHOWS ABOUT NOTHING: I have another review online at Blogcritics, this time about Thomas Hibbs' 1999 book.

Posted 8/10/2003 02:31:32 PM by Edward Driscoll
SCRAPPLEFACE "REPORTS" that Schwarzenegger wants to "give back California". Apparently, so does Cruz Bustamante. Will Katie get around to asking him about Moviemiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan? [crickets chirping] Nope, didn't think so.

Posted 8/10/2003 02:13:59 PM by Edward Driscoll
ARNOLD'S MOST SERIOUS COMPETITION may have just entered the California race.

Posted 8/10/2003 02:03:59 PM by Edward Driscoll
OK, THE GUY IS DEFENDING HIS BROTHER, and personally, I think I'd use the word "leftist" rather than "liberal" myself, but there's much truth here. Jonah Goldberg wrote one of his syndicated columns on a similar theme earlier this year, which is also well worth reading.

Posted 8/10/2003 01:47:30 PM by Edward Driscoll
CHILLY SCENES OF DYSTOPIA: My review of a trio of early 1980s soundtrack albums is up and online, over at Blogcritics. It's doubleplusgood!