Tuesday, February 18, 2003

Random Hits... --21 people were killed in a stampede in a Chicago nightclub.  There were, evidently, 1500 people in the place (twice the legal maximum occupancy) when security guards brilliantly decided to use pepper spray and mace on two women having a fight.  The crowd panicked and crushed 21 people.  What the hell is this?  Who are these jackass security guards?  I cannot imagine what it must be like to be caught in something that must be entirely primal, like a stampede.  I hope the owners and the security guards go to jail for a while.  Maybe John Ashcroft will step in here and enforce the death penalty. --Gonna piggyback on Doug's comments on Pipeline yesterday regarding a possible run for the White House by General Wesley Clark.  Clark is an impressive guy--a former NATO Supreme Commander--with a command of foreign policy and politics that are, as I understand  it, just all right with me.  The GOP has to be praying that this doesn't come to pass--with the public increasingly doubtful about the direction of the country and Bush's ability to lead us anywhere good, bringing in a certifiable badass* whose patriotism and experience are unquestionable is not good for Bushco Mark II.  *Certified by the American Badass Institute --We watched Minority Report yesterday after renting at the commissary here.  While it's not as good as Undercover Brother, I can say that this was a pretty solid film, visually cool and all that.  But I am annoyed, increasingly, by Stephen Spielberg.  His inability to not have a "they all lived happily ever after" ending is annoying.  His last two movies--this and A.I.--each had these natural ending points that would have been ambiguous, mysterious, brilliant, if dark.  (In Minority Report, it was the capture of Cruise; in A.I., when the kid finds the statue underwater.)  But SS powers through it, adding on a fairy tale feel that chafes me. --I've been watching some Fox News lately, because it's on AFN a lot here.  What total bullshit!  I mean, I know I should have abandoned my structuralist notions of objectivity long ago, but come on here.  Are they actually on the White House payroll? --It's been raining so much here that the ocean is an ugly brownish color here, so the view out our back patio doors isn't nearly as nice as usual.  What was that about 20 inches of snow? 1:39:57 PM    Let's hear it. []