Self Referential Tosspot

Via Jesus of the Week
The self referential tosspot would be me. Given Mel Gibson's recent troubles, I thought I'd revist a post I wrote a while back about the release of The Passion of the Christ. Well, I think it's still funny.

"March 31, 2004: Pessach of the Christ?

You have to hand it to him- little Mel Gibson has really put the world in a tizzy with his Passion of the Christ movie. The diminutive antipodean is the consumate showman, Elmer Gantry with boomerang, having motivated half the planet to flock to the multiplex in reverent awe and half to stomp indignantly to the ticket booth in order to spend two gruesome hours incandesent with rage. Love it or hate it, the Passion of the Christ has people both talking and handing over cash to see it.

I for one have not plunked down seven bucks to watch this Aramaic bondage movie. For one thing, I'm still boycotting the Brit-hating Gibson for the counter-factual The Patriot and Braveheart (turning the other cheek doesn't mean flapping the arse of your kilt, wee Mel.) Besides, I have no desire to sully my reverent awe of the greatest biblical epic ever made, The Life of Brian. Still, it pains me to see Gibbo having to defend his art against charges of anti-semitism and bigotry, if only because I dread seeing what his remake of D.W. Griffith's Intolerance would be like ("G'Day mate; we're the Ku Klux Klan!")

Gibson has sought to point out the sympathetic Jewish characters in the movie and has even cut the line where the Virgin Mary laments that all of Jesus's classmates went on to be doctors or lawyers but he had to be the messiah. Agahst that the "Jews of Mass Destruction" he portrays on the screen couldn't be found in the Bible, Mel has offered to make amends by directing a movie about the brave defenders of Massada, possibly with Billy Bob Thornton as Maccabaeus. To my mind, he doesn't have to commit the time or money to such a project. He could easily restore his image with non-insanely evangelical world by allowing a remake by a different Mel, as in Mel Brooks.

By allowing us to laugh at racism in Blazing Saddles and facism in The Producers, Mel Brooks helped remove the "monster under the bed" aspect and allowed us to see in part how pathetic, ludicrous, and laughable those discredited belief systems are. Imagine then what Brooks could do with anti-semitism if he had a whole film to skewer it with, rather than just a dance number in History of the World, Part One.

The beauty of it is that because so many of The Passion's devotees consider mainstream cinema to be the work of satan, Brook's doesn't even have to write a new script, and can instead just cobble together bits of his previous films into a new whole presented in aramaic, latin, and yiddish.

With Jackie Mason or Brooks himself as Christ you are guaranteed a mensch of a savior. I see either a Max Byalistock or Hedley Lamarr type as Pilate, and maybe a Mungo in the Judas role ("Forty-pieces-of-sliver-gram for Mister Mungo!") Imagine the disciples enjoying a last supper punctuated by uncontrolled farting. Mary Magdelene (played by Madeline Kahn) singing "Sick and Tired of Love." Maybe even a Jesus who holds a hammer to his own head shouting "Nobody move or the Jew gets it!" Ah yes, it's good to be the Christ.

With Brooks on board, there is a chance that the Passion could become the biggest apostolic musical since Jesus Christ, Superstar. Who could resist singing along with "Springtime for Jesus, in Galilee"?

Keep your fingers crossed that the Australian midget with more accent confusion than Madonna sees the light and plumps for this Mel Brooks' version. The only alternative would be to turn to Woody Allen, and if you think the Christian right hate Jewish people now, wait till after they have seen their savior as an aging neurotic nebbish with an implausibly young girlfriend and jokes that weren't funny in 1967."

And here's Hitchens (whisper his name, lest ye be pilloried by ye olde left) and his splendid invective turned for once on a worthy target. Ah, Christopher H, you are making me nostalgic. Mel Gibson's Meltdown: He is sick to his empty core with Jew-hatred.

Question

Have you noticed that some folks swear off using a microwave (despite the obvious energy consumption benefits vs. a traditional stove or range) to cook food, citing some unspecified health concern? And yet these folks don't seem to have an issue with clamping a cell- or cordless phone to their ear? I wonder if they would refuse an x-ray or a spin through an MRI machine also? And do they recoil in horror from wireless internet hotspots? Do they refuse to hike the granite hills of Maine without protective clothing? Do they eschew brazil nuts ("..the world's most radioactive food due to high radium concentrations 1000-times that of average foods")?

Just wondering what I'm missing here. Perhaps its not about background radiation. Perhaps microwaves cause ebola.

Lazy Copywriter Syndrome

After a busy weekend of chores I slumped down this evening to see if there was anything on the TV worth watching. There wasn't of course, but I did get to see the two commercials that have been bugging me the most recently back-to-back. Such sequential annoyance was enough to make me turn of the goggle-box and stomp upstairs to the office where I currently sit typing this nonsense.

Let's tackle the first offender:


As you would expect from a commercial for Special K, this one features a idiotically slim model flouncing up to her frumpy pals at an outdoor cafe (as opposed to an Applebees in a mall, say) and bragging about how she essentially crapped herself to a size 0 by forcing down the cardboard-like cereal. My beef is less with the ludicrous set-up however than with the inane voice over. It must have seemed fine on paper to pitch like Special K (pause) weigh less, but that sentence is an object lesson as to why ad execs should read things out loud before signing off on them, especially if the read is going to be delivered in a sassy Valley Girl type voice. Then again, perhaps this is an example of truth in advertising and the words than Total were just cut due to time constraints.

OK, next:
This copywriter had the opposite problem. The voice over makes plain that this topical arthritis medicine is pronounced Cap-ZAY-sin. Unfortunately, showing a senior citizen merrily paddling a canoe in a sort of "On Golden Pond" meets "Cocoon" senario while superimposing the product packaging at lower right means you'll have to do a lot more than repeat the name once or twice to break the synaptic connection that imprints the name as Capsizin'. Am I going to splash the cash on a pain rub that wantonly put granny's life at risk? It's almost as ill-conceived a homophone as the French lemonade Pschitt (which apparently is perfect for "pschitter en pschitting"). Oh, how that used to crack teenaged me up while on French exchange.

It Used to be "Tired & Emotional". Now It Is "Unwell & Stressed". Same Dif

Ever since the J.D. Salinger of blogging single-handedly revived David Hasselhoff's career back in April, the be-permed heart throb with eyes like baby oysters has gone from strength-to-strength. The Hoff (as he self-refers) has now reached the pinnacle of fame for washed-up old hams and famous-for-being-famous folk, working as a judge on a TV reality show alongside a former child star and the adulterer/sacked journalist Piers Morgan.

Hoff has been cementing his reputation as a washed-up old publicity whore by doing a a bang up job of acting hammered and then claiming illness, apparently having suffered bouts at both Wimbledon and Heathrow Airport in recent weeks. His attacks of the vapors come on so suddenly you'd think he was wearing a corset. Perhaps he has been taking undergarment advice from Burt Reynolds? Luckily for the world, Hoff has a publicist ready to tell the world:

Hasselhoff Was Sick, Not Drunk
The whole point of this post was to point out that the above is almost the complete opposite of my all-time favorite Earl Brechlin-era Bar Harbor Times, "Woman in Trashcan Drunk Not Dead". I don't think I even need to explain the story...

Of Course They Are Good! They Are Inflatable!

The BBC's photo editors are an odd bunch, and skilled at selecting at least one freak-out wierd image every day for their round up of the Day in Pictures. Today's follows:

Russian synchronised swimmers Anastasia Davydova and Anastassia Ermakova perform at the European Swimming Championships in Budapest, Hungary.
Either the Russians have entered a pair of remote controlled blow up dolls in the contest or I'm a Dutchman's bottom. Dirty cheatoviches.

A Quick Trip Around The Houses

Every now and then I think it is worth taking a second to point out some of the cool things happening in our little corner of the blogosphere. So here goes.

First, Mr. Bill Norris has very kindly posted this video mash-up of Sunday Bloody Sunday by U2 and one of President Bush's addresses to congress from (I think) 2001. Not recommended for epileptics but rather amusing nonetheless.

Second, Joe over at the Air Blog has done the near impossible by crafting a book review that is actually about the book, informative, well-written, and compelling. Read about Ecology of a Cracker Childhood by Janisse Ray, courtesy of Joe's considered keyboard.

Third, I pinched the library listing idea to the right from SeeSaw while she's away in Puerto Rico. Always lock your blog when going on vacation.

Fourth, Infinite Thought has does a surgical number on right wing cant and press mendacity, in this case relating to the fighting in Lebanon and the offensive hate-mongering of the London Evening Standard.

Fifth, there is a lot of faux-nonchalance, pretending-not-to-look stuff going on over at Unwellness while the results of pr*****y t***s are awaiting confirmation.

Finally, Youthlarge and the China-Latina Chowhound continue to provide full VFM and a constant advertisement for rolaids over at The Park Slope Gastronome. With Youthlarge on vacation in Korea and CLC prowling the back alleys of New York in search of a pork chop and a pint they have a wierd atlantic-pacific fusion thing going on.

More Procrastination

I have been meaning to jot down something about the current immigration brouhaha and the fighting in Lebanon, as being both a legal immigrant and a middle east spod myself I reckon I might have some vaguely interesting things to say about both. I have even gone so far as to title a post and jot down notes and link URLs but I can't quite bring myself to commit the time to pull the trigger. Perhaps if I promise to have something up by the end of the work week I'll succumb to the pressure of game theory and complete the post for fear of public disgrace. We shall see.

Turning away from self-flagellation matters and of great international import, I saw a story on the BBC today that reminded me of a comment made by my pal Mockney Motormouth (the original Lion of the Punjab) on his recent visit to my palatial mansion, Disgracelands. We were discussing offspring and Mockney mentioned that googling the phrase "fat baby" brings up this picture of a particularly large Indian kid early in the search:



Today, thanks to the BBC, I had a glimpse of the kid's future: India's 'monster eater' retires.

I'm not a fan of over-consumption (the newly professionalized fad for competitive eating leaves me cold) but I think my love of Indian food and the sheer amazement at the following combined to quell my revulsion:

"On one famous occasion, the man who locally became known as Theeta (monster eater) took advantage of a local restaurant's "unlimited meals" coupon. He reputedly scoffed three bucketfuls of rice, one bucket of fish curry and 10 kgs of cooked meat.

The restaurant in question ran out of food, and police had to be called in to restore order as a large crowd gathered to watch Rappai in action."

Slightly more intelligent stuff soon, I promise.

Steely Dan in Hippy Cliche "Bummer"

In culturally irrelevant news (and with huge apologies to my mum's husband Mark), smug cryto-folkies Steely Dan have been trying to dog Owen Wilson over his role in the undoubtedly shit film, "You, Me, and Dupree", claiming that his character is based in its entirety on "Cousin Dupree" from their song of the same name. The terminally annoying 'Dan of course took their name in its entirety from William Burroughs's Naked Lunch (Steely Dan is a dildo; how apt) but no doubt that was a homage not a "rip-off".

I don't have an axe to grind on behalf of "You, Me, and Dupree". I do however wanted to register my distaste, on the public record, with the use of the following phrases by aging and self-adoring soft-rockers:

Rip-off, uncool, pretty bad Hollywood schlockmeisters, major harsh-ass karma, and apologise to our fans for this travesty

Sod off, Steely Dan. Sod off back to your marshmallow melody condo and get back to trying to trade on faded pop glory for the rest of your insufferable lives.

Watch Where You Are Putting That Night Stick

From the BBC:

NZ policewoman works as call girl
A New Zealand policewoman has been allowed to keep her job, despite moonlighting as a prostitute. The Auckland officer, whose name and rank have not been revealed, apparently took up the part-time work due to financial difficulties....(more)"

My favorite quote of the whole story comes from Auckland politician Ron Marks, who notes:

"I know a hell of a lot of police officers who struggle with the cost of living in Auckland but they don't all rush out and become prostitutes," he said.

Bally good thing too Mr. Marks! After all, the sheep wouldn't like the competition.

I'm also a fan of the BBC's "prostitution" stock photo; so suggestive yet demure....

This Week's Caption Contest

In the temporary absence of some of the other regular features of this blog ("This is not a baseball blog", History Friday, intelligent and trenchant consideration of world affairs, that sort of thing) I'm going to turn to an occasional feature that appears to be cropping up with depressing regularity, the caption contest. Fire when ready.

"Alright, alright, I'll leave you behind."

One Big Toilet

According to the BBC, London is awash in piss:

London streets are being used as a "giant lavatory" because of a lack of public toilets in the city, a conference in the capital has heard. Alan Woods, chief executive of Keep Britain Tidy, said: "After closing time, many revellers simply can't find a loo to use."

A campaigner said London's street cleaners were dealing with two million pints of urine a year.

And truth be told, its not just London. I recall an occasion about 15-or-so years ago when myself and another US based English blogger of my aquaintence were forced to stand on the parapet of the Fyebridge and pee into the River Wensum in Norwich, only to miss the water and accidentally widdle on a recreational fisherman and a swan.

Chutzpah

Beirut and Haifa are about the same distance apart as Providence, RI and Lowell, MA
I haven't decided if I am brave enough to stare unflinchingly into the chicken gizzards of the current conflab in the Levant in order to try to offer up my humble thoughts here on what and who is driving the crisis. I did however want to take a second to record my incredulity at hearing an Israeli foreign ministry spokesman on the BBC this morning insist that Israel was engaging Hezbollah and attacking targets throughout Lebanon in support of UN Resolution 1559. "This is not Israeli policy" he noted "This is UN policy."

I wonder then with Tel Aviv's new-found respect for international law will Israel finally respect UN Resolution 242? Or even any of these?

Maybe the spokesman who was describing Israel as a faithful servant of international order this morning was also the one who described Hezbollah's firing of rockets into Haifa as a "dangerous escalation"; this after Israel had responded to the attack on one of its border patrols and kidnapping of two of its soldiers by launching a sustained and violent air assault on Beirut and blockading Lebanon from the sea? Lest we forget, that of course wasn't a "dangerous escalation" but rather "self defence". And now it seems it was a precursor for Israel's generous, unilateral, enforcement of UN Resolution 1559.

Meanwhile throughout the region people continue to be shredded by shrapnel, or see their worlds collapse, or risk death just buying a loaf of bread. I'd wish a a plague on all their houses but unfortunately it looks like they beat me to it themselves.

Top of the Popes

"Underneath ze lantern,
By ze barrack gate
Darlink I remember
The vay you used to vait
Vas there that you vhispered tenderly,
Zat you loffed me,
You'd alvays be,
Mein Lilli of the Lamplight,
Mein own Lilli Marlene!"
Could be worse. He could be singing this.

Into the West

The view from Great Aunt Charlotte's camp, New Vineyard, Maine
This weekend saw Rockland subsumed by the North Atlantic Blues Festival; two days of average-sounding blues and streets swamped by 16,000 farmer-tanned couples of a certain age with a taste for Harley t-shirts and classic rock radio. Last night was the "blues pub crawl", so Country Mouse and myself teamed up with Mr and Mrs Roper and entered the throng. Stolling Main Street, we took in 3 bands and the crowd before incredulously paying a $5 cover to get into the less than salubrious 'Gator Bar at a local motel. While there I had the great misfortune of doing the "excuse me shoulder tap" so useful for navigating crowded bars, only to find that the large chap I was trying to squeeze past wasn't wearing a mohair t-shirt (as it felt to the touch) but rather was in a tank top and posessed of incredibly hairy shoulders. After that experience we beat feet for the soon-to-close Rockland pool hall, a peculiar mixture of frustrated booze-free under-21s, dessicated elderly drunks, married women doing their best "The Postman Only Rings Twice" reenactments, and yet more sub-par blues. As we meandered home around midnight, I was stuck by the thought that a Maine blues festival is notable for its absence of African-Americans, both in the crowd and in the street bands. Nothing says the Mississippi Delta and the uniqueness of the black experience than a gaggle of Franco-Americans belting out "Boom Boom" for a crowd of middle aged goateed caucasians. I wonder what the African-American equivalent would be? The Harlem bluegrass festival perhaps?

After all the excitement of last night, Country Mouse and I were in need of a more buccolic experience. As luck would have it we had made plans to meet up with CM's mother and her consort in Farmington today and then travel on to New Vineyard to visit the Virginia-dwelling Great-Aunt Charlotte and Great-Uncle Charlie at their camp.

When I first moved to the States 11 years ago I lived in Western Maine (the town of Buckfield, no less). I have always had a soft spot for the region's rolling hills and wooded river valleys and have found its pockets of poverty outweighed by the gentle friendliness of its residents so often lacking among the incomers of the coast. The western mountains might lack the signature drama of the Atlantic counties, its Appalachian scenery part of a subtly changing landscape that reaches from the eastern shore of Lake Ontario to the hills of north Georgia rather than holding the drama of the uniquely Maine bluffs and wetlands of the Lobster Coast, but there is a quiet beauty to it nonetheless. The infamous bumper sticker might claim that "The Real Maine Starts East of Ellsworth" but I'd move an amendment that the codicil "and west of 1-95" be added too.

It was with a happy heart then that I hauled up early and scarfed down my home fries. With Country Mouse handling the driving duties, I was free to take in the changing scenery and listen to "The Swap Shop" on Real Country 103.3 (quite possibly the greatest radio show in Maine: I don't listen to country radio but I do love listening to folks calling in and trying to sell "12 rabbits" or a "two ton rear end". Not only does the Swap Shop answer the question "what is the source of all the used Pontiacs on Maine's roads?" but its also the finest dialect school on the air). As soon as Route 17 leaves the confines of the world's smallest conurbation (Rockland-Rockport-Camden) I'm in the kind of country I love: all farms and tractors, with placid looking cows watching the road from the fence rail and hay bales framing Sunday-idle farm machinery.

As we crossed the Kennebec River I indulged myself with one of my favorite rants about the hideous mess that is our state capital Augusta (also known, aptly, as Disgusta). Every time we run the gauntlet of Ram Town I can't shake the feeling that I'm driving through Mogadishu, Sarajevo during the siege, or Kabul. With the exception of a couple of districts of Portland, Maine does urban architecture with all the grace of a newborn moose calf trying to walk for the first time, and despite competition from Lewiston, Bangor, and Waterville, Augusta is the nadir. Nice library, shame about the Y daycare 2 doors down from the Kennebec County Pennitentiary. Everytime I'm in Augusta, it brings to mind a comment my dad made when we were visiting East Berlin in the old DDR back in 1984: "Just think, this is the shop window of communism but at its best it looks like a shabby housing estate". State capitals should make an effort.

The other thing I noticed as we crossed the Kennebec was an almost instant rise in temperature. Our ultimate destination New Vineyard was only 80-or-so miles from Rockland (shows how long I've been in Maine: I don't think twice about a 160 mile round trip for lunch) but the difference in climate is striking. It was 95 degrees, sunny, and as humid as an orchid house when we left camp at 3pm; just over 40 miles and an hour later as we decended towards the coast east of Augusta it was 73 degrees and raining like the buggery. I remember from when I first moved here July and August in western Maine hitting me like Mike Tyson flattening opponents in his prime. It's good to see that it still does, proving that it wasn't me, it was the weather like I insisted to the skeptical heat-impervious loggers and farmers of Buckfield a decade ago. The difference in the weather between the coast and the interior is so dramatic, that I began to express amazement at the sight of a lobster shack in the tourist trap of Belgrade, west of the Kennebec, until I realized that the fresh fish and bugs only had to travel an hour from dock to table. Eating clams in Iowa it ain't.

Lunch was great. In contrast to her father's more gregarious gang, Country Mouse's mother's family are quite reserved and Mayflowery and so despite having been with CM for almost 7 years and Great-Aunt Charlotte and Great-Uncle Charlie having summered in Charlotte's home state for decades, this was the first time I met them (as well as CM's second cousin and her husband). Out of deference to their Yankee recitude I won't go into details aside from complementing CM's mother on the lobster salad. Given Great-Uncle Charlie's failing health there is a general feeling that this will be their last visit to Maine, but I for one am looking forward to visiting them in Virginia Beach, if only because there are more un-met, shy, and reticent relatives down there too.

WASP's nest: CM's mum, County Mouse, and Great-Aunt Charlotte
Such little adventures are the stuff of my summer. Long may it continue...

Things The Economist Has Taught Me

The Moomins, who I grew up believing to be some horrific creation of the Eastern Bloc based on the appearance of the terrifying felt-creature stop motion cartoon shown on the BBC when I was younger, are actually Finnish.

Things Wikipedia has taught me: the moomin series that so scarred me as a kid was a Polish adaptation of the original Finnish fairy stories, so I was half right. Apparently the later Japanese cartoon version is a lot less spooky; odd given that the original had the same washed out, eerie look as a Japanese contempary horror film like Ringu. Although given that I found that out on Wikipedia, it's probably complete bullshit.

Another gift to the world from Wikipedia: am extensive list of unpleasant to downright vile insults for people from around the globe that I am dead set against anyone using.

Is a Sonic Restaurant a Mini Los Alamos?

The effects of being blasted by hot fudge for too long
The fast food chain Sonic is doing its best to saturate the airwaves with ads for it's new sundae, the Hot Fudge Brownie Blast. Living in the frozen north far from the nearest Sonic I always thought a hot fudge brownie blast was the unfortunate side effect of eating unripe cranberries, but according to the ubiquitous advertising it is a delectable ice cream treat.

On the surface, this ice cream concoction appears to like many other gigantic mounds of processed dairy solids and corn syrup on the market. But when I took the time to listen to the breathless spiel gabbled by the Sonic pitchman over the pictures of heart disease in a sundae cup I realized that Sonic has stumbled onto the holy grail of physics.

The Sonic Hot Fudge Brownie Blast offers warm hot fudge! This is amazing; Sonic has discovered how to make something exist in two temperature states simultaneously! Both warm and hot? How can that be? But that's not even the cool part. The warm hot fudge is frozen! Bugger me! The ability to generate warm and hot heat from a frozen state? I'm no brain scientist or rocket doctor but that sure sounds a lot like cold fusion to me!

See how the ingenuity of the American free market solves the thorniest problems! All hail the physicists of Sonic!

Caption Contest

They really should issue a warning before one clicks through a slideshow and sees this:

Feel free to have at it with your own captions. The original description is in the comments.

Yo Mama....

Hey Zidane, your mama's so fat, she makes you lose your temper in the biggest game of your career and ruins a glittering reputation.

"Sources in France say it is believed Materazzi insulted Zidane's mother."

I wouldn't like to get nutted in the chest by that bony old bonce; he could crack a rib with that bald spot.

World Cup final verdict; nice game, shame about the result. Still as everyone knows, a game decided on penalties doesn't really count so nobody really won and England's campaign wasn't really a bust as the whole tournament is now void.

Those Fiscally Responsible Republicans Stike Again

David Emery, local midcoast boy made good and recent third place finisher in the GOP primary for governor, is demonstrating that the years he spent representing Maine in congress were not without their lessons.

Emery's campaign finished deep in debt ($26,000- a sizeable amount of overspend for a Maine primary) despite drawing the attention and fundraising support from Republican bigwigs like John McCain. Emery refused money from Maine's Clean Elections Fund (which uses taxpayer funding to try to keep quid pro quo special interests from stuffing politician's wallets) and prefered to rely on private donations.

The trouble is Emery spent more than he raised, and now his defunct campaign owes money. The former candidate is now trying to solicit donations from the public to cover his debts.

It seems that Republican spending models have even spread to their ill-fated campaigns: borrow more money that you can conceivably pay back; bet the farm on a lucky break (in Emery's case, winning the primary. Nope, busted flush); and then look to other people to pick up the tab.

Thank goodness the Republicans are the party of personal responsibility and financial responsibility. I'd hate to see what a mess we would be in if they decided they wanted to be irresponsible. Truly, the GOP are a bunch of jokers.

Happy 4th of July from Midcoast Maine

Regardless of where one stands on the the whole issue of American policy and the American people (it is a truism to say that the two are seperate, that is if there were such a monolithic entity as the "American people") you really can't go wrong with a good parade. Therefore this morning Country Mouse and me set off just down the road to Thomaston to get our fill of floats.

Like all things modern and American, parades have become almost overrun by the internal combustion engine and hardly anyone walks in them anymore. The preponderance of slow moving vehicles belching exhaust gave an ironic cast to all the exhortations to "Support Our Troops", many of whom were enjoying America's national holiday hunkered down behind sandbags on top of the world's second largest proven oil reserves. The ludicrous sight of the proudly bemedalled ancient commander of the American Legion post driving his Hummer H1 at a stately 5 mph (I hope he filled his tank for the 3 mile parade route loop) only underscored the emptiness of that particular marketing slogan. A nation at war, indeed. At least the Midcoast Peace and Justice folks marched on foot with their "Impeach!" signs- you may disagree with their politics but they are at least consistent in their values.

While (vaguely) on the subject, I had meant to touch on the flag burning debate last week, so in precis: don't burn the flag, its usually made out of nylon and therefore its fumes would be bad for the environment. However, I'm glad to see that enough Senators were in touch with reality to defeat the silly constitutional ammendment. Those who seek to outlaw such behavior come across as deeply insecure: a broad chested nation really should be able to take the sight of a symbolic cloth going up in flames without reaching to desecrate its founding document. The whole thing puts me in mind of the "Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade" episode in Catch 22; in which base-hugging flunkies scramble around trying to demand public displays of patriotism from bomber crews who fly daily over enemy territory. Gay marriage outrage, flag burning brouhaha: who wants to give me odds on a rivial of the House Un-American Activities Committee? It is all so trivial.

That aside, the weather was perfect and we were able to grab a yard of kerb on the shaded side of Main Street from which to enjoy the parade. For once I was able to watch the parade rather than be in it (for some reason I keep winding up in jobs that involve waving at strangers from behind an organizational banner while walking down the main drag in column with a bunch of Shriners at least once a year) and it was a rather pleasant experience, even though I wasn't able to catch any candy. A few photos should give you the flavour:

Waiting...

Hippies!

Little Leaguers, who were begging for money. I don't know if the collection was for funding the league or was a scam dreamed up by an enterprising 11 year old criminal.

Faithul reenactors, intent on accurately reflecting history; or loonies who love to wear itchy wool in July? You be the judge.

Because nothing says "independence" better than a shed from "Shed City".

And Still The World Cup Rolls Along...

via BBDO

Upon more sober reflection, if a team can't score in 90 or 120 minutes (even with 10 men), do they deserve to advance? Poor old England certainly looked better against Portugal than they had in any of the earlier games (oddly improving even more after Rooney was sent off) but by the time extra time was up I knew that the dream was over. There is something about the arbitary nature of penalties that doesn't sit well with the English footballer, and it showed in the efforts of Lampard, Gerrard, and Carragher, all so easily saved by Ricardo.

I'm no footie sage, but I have to say I had my misgivings when England coach Sven Goran Eriksson a) decided to start with the lone stiker 4-5-1 formation again despite the obvious benefits of sending two stikers up against Portugal's depleted and yellow-card plastered defence; and b) proclaimed that he wasn't going to make any stirring "Winston Churchill" speeches to his players, prefering to rely on the metrics of sports science to make his case to the team. Sven might be an incredibly rational and educated man versed in the ways of footballing geometry, but his charges (for the most part) left school at 16 to pursue a professional football career, have lived in a cossetted bubble of wealth ever since, and might well have responded to a little bit of pointing to the three lions on their chest by the professorial Swede. Perhaps if it was pitched to Eriksson as "motivational psychology" as opposed to "naked appeals to inane but potent patriotism on the 90th anniversary of the first day of the Somme" he might have gone for it. At least we won't have to read about "Sir Sven" this coming January.

Yet another torrid summer of nervous and unpleasant television viewing has gone by (it is never unmitigated fun to watch football when you have a dog in the hunt) without a trophy to show for it. Now I can half-relax and try to enjoy the remaining games, but with the caveat that I'm going to be afraid for the next couple of days or maybe the week that either Germany or Portugal will win the bloody thing. My desired outcome is that after caning Portugal France will take on Italy in the final and win (I do not want the Germans to get a sniff of that home advantage in Berlin) but seeing as my previous desired outcome was England winning I should probably keep quiet.

The one person I feel sorry for in all this- more than Beckham, more than Rooney, more than the justifiably tearful John Terry- is Scottish tennis player and British number one Andy Murray who beat the heavily favoured Andy Roddick at Wimbledon the same day England crashed out of the World Cup. Despite Murray's tongue-in-cheek anglophobia around the football, the poor lad is about to be deluged by a wave of pent-up patriotic fervor redirected towards him from the footie by the St George crossed elements of the Union Jack. Andy me ol' mucker, you are in for it now. Prepare for uncritial support and unbearable pressure until you lose, and then quickly skip town until the Ashes start and you are out of the frame.

Henry and Co....

...Its now down to you. You are the least odious of the semifinalists, and you need to deliver revanche pour vos amis l'Anglais.

Come on France, you know we love you, right?

As for the red card:

"Rooney was battling to keep possession from three Portugal defenders when the trouble erupted. He seemed to be pulled back by Carvalho, and then trod on his opponent's groin as the Chelsea defender was on the floor trying to win the ball.

Carvalho reacted dramatically and Ronaldo sprinted to the referee, apparently to demand a red card. Rooney turned to Ronaldo and pushed him away. The Argentine referee reached for the red card just 10 minutes after England captain David Beckham went off injured in a match which ended 0-0 after extra-time.

Television pictures appeared to show Ronaldo winking towards the Portugal bench as Rooney made his way off."

Sagnol, if you have Ronaldo's legs off on Wednesday, you'll never have to buy a drink in England again.