The battle of the wits is over

While GW might win the election, it's clear that the battle of the wit -- those clever enough to retain a sense of humor through all this -- is on the side of those supporting John Kerry.

There has been such an outpouring of clever web sites (see WWW.billionairesforbush.com) that as painful as it is to consider another four years of George W. Bush, the laughs have been good.

The polarization has been bad in some ways, but good in others. How can you possibly compromise with Halliburton? How can you compromise on Iraq? A colleague predicted that we are about to enter 20 very hard years of social unrest, with the left finally ready to take on the conservative lunatic fringe that has taken us so far down the right-leaning road.

I keep hearing people on the right talking about fighting the totalitatian regimes in the world and installing democracy.

Maybe we should start with that in Washington.

mjf 10/23/2004

The battle of the films

So this morning's newspaper featured a story about a right wing movie which sets out to somehow counter Michael Moore's Fahrenheit. I wish in one of these flicks, they would address the business about the relatives of Osama Bid Laden being allowed to fly out of the U.S., when most of us were sitting on the ground stuck solidly.

Some of the Fahrenheit film probably could be challenged, but that part, well, I just want a reasonable explanation.

And I suppose the Saudi-Bush business dealings could use a little clarification, too.

One thing is clear, movies are about to become the new political battleground. And maybe it will mean a resurgence in movie attendance. I've seen Fahrenheit, Silver City, and Going Upriver in the last three weeks. And they were all excellent films, politics aside. Going upriver is so good, I'm going to use it in a class eventually to explain about Vietnam.

It's that good.

mjf 10/19/2004

Hold the election soon, please

Like sports teams that have peaked, the electorate is really ready to vote and only getting increasingly angry and frustrated as we close in on election day.

It's almost as if everyone just wants to get it over and get on with whatever occupied our lives before we lived through this mess of a campaign season.

Of course, if the election goes to Shrub, well, we will be able to get back to watching the unemployment lines grow (until the benefits run out) Halliburton making even more profits (but perhaps in the next soverign nation the U.S. decides to liberate) and a return to inflation (oh, it's out there, it's out there).

Hurry November, hurry.

mjf 10/18/2004

Life in Crawford, Texas

I just read that the good people of Crawford, Texas are taking their newspaper to task for having the termerity to endorse John Kerry for President, instead of their hometown boy.

It reminded me of all the editorials I had to write in which the owner/publisher of the newspaper had one opinion and I had another. Guess whose opinion the newspaper published?

But with the force of the Internet -- even this blogging stuff -- that kind of power has diminished, certainly. Right now thousands of bloggers are probably having a good Internet laugh at the 740 people in Crawford, Texas who are hopping mad at their newspaper.

I guess they haven't lost anyone in Iraq yet.

mjf 10/1/204