Cuppacafe

Batman Rules

Personally, I think that this is very cool, as it will ensure that more funnybook films will be made, and that the producers of the film will (hopefully) be faithful to the mood and design of the comics themselves (no more “Pow!” “Bam!” “Zap!” of the Batman TV show. No more bat suits with nipples and codpieces, and no more stunt casting of comedians because these are “funny” books.

In spite of my Spider-Man leanings, I am a fan of The Batman (especially when he is done right), and this time he is is done very right. For my take on the film, check out Suspension of Belief, my film column.

The Perfessor

Should the President be prosecuted for murder?

Well, former LA prosecutor and prolific author Vincent Bugliosi seems to think so, and has written a very compelling case for this bold action in his book “The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, which lays out a legal case for holding President Bush criminally responsible for the deaths of American soldiers in Iraq.

Bugliosi as a prosecutor in Los Angeles won 21 convictions in 21 trials, including that of Charles Manson. His recent book was recently discussed in the Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog. In a video on his site, Bugliosi explains why he thinks that the President is criminally negligent and should be prosecuted for these crimes. USA Today, also wrote about Bugliosi’s book.

While I haven’t read the book, I’m seriously thinking that I’m going to have to pick up a copy and check it out; especially after yesterday and I had the chance to visit the Bush Legacy tour bus that stopped by my home town the other day. After seeing what the still President Bush is leaving to us after his eight years in the White House, I have to say that we are surely in sad shape as a country.

According to info on the site:

Today, George W. Bush has the approval of only roughly one in three Americans according to most polls with two out of three disapproving of his performance as President. Across the board, Americans reject everything from Bush’s handling of the war in Iraq and fighting terrorism to his handling of the economy, education, the environment and health care.

I gotta say, I don’t feel safer, I don’t feel better off, and I’m not at all happy with my government these days. Say what you will about President Clinton, I was working all through his administration, gas was cheaper, and the economy was much better off then it is now.

The Perfessor

Why We Fight

I was doing a little research on World War II, and ran across a movie that had an interesting exchange between Katherine Hepburn, playing herself, and another actress playing a fictional character.

From the movie STAGE DOOR CANTEEN (1943) [Wikipedia]

The topic is about sending our men off to war. Whether you think ANY individual war is appropriate or not is certainly under discussion, but I thought the general sentiment was nicely “Hollywood-ized”

Passing the Torch

Right now the Olympic Torch is winding its way towards Beijing, where it will light up the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Olympics. Unless you’ve been living with your head in a bucket (or made a deal with the devil to un-marry your wife Sorry, side reference), you will be aware of the fact that there is some consternations about the fact that the Olympics are in China (something to do with Tibet, I’m told).

At any rate, a whole buncha folks seem to be upset over all of this, and are doing their level best to extinguish the torch before it gets to China (again, something about human rights violations or some such nonsense). Thing is, now all the talking heads on the 24-hr TV networks are yammering about is should we or should we not boycott the Olympics.

Fools.

In the ancient world, the Olympic Athletes were the only ones who were given a free pass to cross enemy lines. Wars that were being waged, stopped so that the athletes could cross unmolested. We have so politicized the Olympics that it isn’t funny. So whenever I hear someone talking about boycotting the Olympics (like these empty-talking heads on TV) I want to bitch-slap the A-hole.

To make my point the last (only) President to boycott the Olympics was Jimmy Carter. You might recall that he didn’t get re-elected. You may think that this is a coincidence, but I have my own theory (like you didn’t see this coming, eh?) Consider this. For many of these athletes this was their only shot at Olympic Gold. When it came time for Carter to run again, do you think that any of these kids were going to vote for the guy who personally screwed up their lives? Not hardly.

I know, I know, I can hear you already, so a couple of hundred whiny athletes didn’t vote to reelect Carter big deal. Well, it wasn’t just the U.S. team, it was all their family members, and all of their friends, and perhaps even former athletes who understood their pain. Now imagine all of the boys and girls clubs and all of the (middle schools?) high schools, from whence those athletes came. Now factor in all the schoolmates, teachers, coaches, fellow city and town residents, and all of the local politicians (especially the Republicans) who watched as the kids were let down by their government.

Not enough you say? You just might be right. So consider this. Hundreds of U.S. corporations paid thousands and thousands of dollars for the privilege of attaching “Official Sponsor” to their name. The U.S. Broadcast networks paid some serious bucks to broadcast the games, U.S. Newspapers were all stoked up to report on the games (and reap the financial reward from increased circulation and the influx of all those afore-mentioned “Official Sponsor” mega-dollars). Then Carter gos and pulls the rug out on all of them, and says we’re not going.

Now look at all the revenue that was lost by all the corporate sponsors, and as much as these CEOs love their burgeoning sports heroes, they love their company bonuses even more, and when some bone-headed politician with morals and ethics gets in the way of them lining their pockets with good ol’ U.S. dollars they are simply not going to let one go by without some form of retribution. Starting to sound like a plausible theory now, eh?

So tell me again that boycotting the Olympics is a good idea.

The Perfessor

Senate District 7 Photo Dump on Flickr

I finally got around to looking and processing many of the photos I took at the Democratic Senate District 7 Convention held last Saturday.

Besides the horrendous overcrowding in a room that should have been raided by the Fire Department, everyone pretty much survived intact.

Instead of publishing all the photos here, I created a set over on Flickr

Democratic Convention Texas Senate District 7, Harris County

We don’t know why the Chair of the Senate District wears that hat. I think he first started wearing it 20 years ago after losing a bet.

What Hillary is doing with Obama!

Sound and knowledge
of what Sarah Silverman
was doing with Matt Damon
required.

Senate District 7 photos are coming!

If you thought the Texas Democratic precinct caucuses were overwhelming, you knew what to expect with the next level of fun. The “county” convention, or in Texas’ case, the (State) Senate District caucuses were held today, and I was there, snapping photos and witnessing a bit of historic overcrowding.

In general, the mass of Democrats took things in stride. As crowded and as slow to start as it was, all the Democratic faithful showed a great spirit and cheery willingness to put up with the conditions, some of which I’ll go into in a future post.

I took several dozen pictures, and I’ll post many of them very soon.

As you might read in the upper corner of the blog, at the moment I’m doing some server maintenance of note this weekend, and that takes priority.

You might have read my last post on the caucus process, where I played the role of Temporary Precinct Chair to an overcrowded room of caucus goers. I decided on the spur of the moment that, having attended the Senate level as well as the State level conventions in the past, I’d leave that opportunity for others. So, I chose not to attend the Senate District 7 (SD7) as either a delegate or an alternate. As it turns out, I needed a break from this server move business, and thought I’d go anyway, as a Guest.

First off, the map to the SD7 convention was at a community college south of the Galleria — according to the map that was given to all the precincts on the primary election night. That was before the record turnout in the March 4th primary. Those in charge of SD7 had to find a new location — why? Because in prior Democratic primaries, only a fraction of the alloted delegate and alternate slots were committed to. In my precinct, 603, we got to field 14 delegates and 14 alternates. I think the most we ever sent to the Senate convention was eight, and of those, maybe five showed up. Not so much this time, as all 28 delegate/alternate slots were filled.

So, a new location had to be found on short notice. The pavilion at the horse racing track. hmm… Is this like the air conditioned bleachers?
Well, more on that later.

I show up late. Well, late if I was a delegate like in previous conventions. Around 9:45am. For this convention, that was gloriously early.

I’m greeted by a line of hundreds outside the race park gates.

–

And it wasn’t moving.

–

Now, this all has a happy ending, so don’t despair. But for the crowd of delegates outside, being outside of the convention hall when you’re supposed to be inside has got to be frustrating. But there was nothing to do.

So I went picture taking.

– –

Fun stuff!

Anyway, more to come.

For more background on today’s convention as well as some conventions that did NOT go as smoothly as SD7’s, here’s an article from the Houston newspaper. [Chron.com]

One of the wildest conventions was Senate District 19 held at a San Antonio warehouse.

When there was a fight over the list and credentials of registered delegates, the warehouse owner threatened to expel the convention. Also, the San Antonio Fire Department cited the convention for overcrowding and finally the delegates voted to abandon the rules. The convention halted at one point so people could move their cars from parking spots reserved for a nearby wedding.