More Thoughts on the Rich Warren hoo-hah

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/melissa-etheridge/the-choice-is-ours-now_b_152947.html

Great Post on the Rick Warren Controversy

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lee-stranahan/embrace-what-you-have-in_b_151976.html

Obama, sadly, has become an empty vessel into which progressives have poured all their hopes and dreams, thwarted not just over the last eight years, but probably over the last half century. Obama is, was and always has been a pragmatist, not an ideologue, and I've never seen in him anything that would suggest otherwise. He'll get there, but he'll get there by bringing the people to him, to the side of right, not by forcing his/our will upon them. Like it or not, Warren has brought a acknowledgment of global warming and world-wide AIDS among a huge swath of the Evangelical community. Warren is just another tool that Obama can use to bring this country together toward a common goal.

If You See One Move This Season

See Milk.

A incredibly subtle portrayal by Sean Penn that would have veered all over the road in the hands of a lesser actor. A supporting cast that matches Penn's restraint; remember, we're talking about San Francisco in the middle of the gay awakening in the 70s and all of these actors play their characters as complex human beings, not as fey, swishy, Types. Ditto Josh Brolin. No twinkie scarfing, fat-tie wearing maniac. Brolin, and director Van Sant allow us to feel for this lifetime loser, and that's scary. And finally Gus Van Sant, who has nurtured these careful performances, and writer Dustin Lance Black who wrote this chamber symphony. Not a dry eye in house--and each tear was well earned.

Worth The Trip to Eugene

Ninkasi Ale, so named for the Sumerian goddess of fermentation, is brewed, enjoyed and revered in Eugene, Oregon.
Sadly its not distributed--yet--outside Oregon and Washington. The IPA is among the best out there, the double IPA, double the goodness. Hail Ninkasi!

http://www.ninkasibrewing.com/

More than a pumpkin...

Turtle attacks pickup truck

One to Put in the Queue

State of Play: BBC Miniseries directed by David Yates.

What I Should Have Learned in School...

Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945, by David M. Kennedy.

Very readable in-depth overview of that other depression. Long, but somehow not long enough, considering the timespan and the fact that a lot of stuff happened between those two dates. Kennedy is a writer who explains complex concepts clearly and coherently, and has the endearing trait of occasionally puffing up his chest and exhaling a gust of purple-tinted writerliness. A wonderful book. And Hoover doesn't come off as half the feckless moron that many today would have you think. To compare Bush to Hoover is to do old HH a great disservice.

Alcoholic Beverage of Note...

Not all that original, but here it is:

Call it "The Lard Ass."

1. Ice down some egg nog.
2. Add a splash of Bulleit bourbon, stir vigorously.
3. Grate in some fresh nutmeg.
4. Plant yourself in an easy chair, and enjoy (and take care of tomorrow's calories today!)
   

Books of Note...

Revolutionary Road, by Richard Yates.

Not since Orwell's Coming Up For Air (another book of note) has ennui been so lovingly wrought. Yates prose is generous in a way that his follower Raymond Carver's prose is guarded. Where Carver suggests, Yates elucidates. The sentences, so finely wrought, betray no sweat on the part of the writer, but appear effortless, as though sprung fully formed from a superior mind. His observations, neat, cruel, are mots juste, again and again. Really a fine, fine book.