Thursday, June 25, 2009

Michael Jackson - RIP


The second cultural icon to go on the same day.

I was never more than a lukewarm fan of his music, but his historical status is undeniable. He was the Elvis of my generation.

Farah Fawcett - RIP


She lost her long battle with cancer today. I had this poster in my bedroom when I was in junior high school.

Friday, June 19, 2009

Iran

In my judgment, Krauthammer offers nuggets of wisdom from time to time. But not everytime.

This time, I think that his advice is not wise.

And I think that he is willfully ignoring Obama's obvious strategy, which is to tread very carefully so as not to taint the demonstrators as American stooges. Obama is prudently content at this point to let Britian do the heavy rhetorical lifting.

So far, I approve of Obama's moves, but this is a fluid situation. 48 hours from now I could be agreeing with his harshest critics if he doesn't adapt adeptly.

This is a big moment. A really big moment.

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Book review

I have not done book reviews before. This will be my first, and it will be terse.

My Mother gave me a copy of Nelson DeMille's "Wildfire". The plot is right up my alley, and my wife (and Google) attested to the quality of this author's other works, none of which I had read. Sounded perfect.

I enjoyed the book to a degree, as I covered the 500 pages in a few days. But, overall, I found it stupid for several reasons including, but not limited to, the following:

  • The premise is that the US Government has a secret contingency plan which provides that if a nuclear weapon is detonated in the United States and there is no substantial negative evidence within 30 minutes of detonation that it was not the work of Islamic radicals, the US would automatically and without discussion launch 122 ICBMs at Islamic countries from Morocco to Pakistan and wipe them all out. No presidential authorization would be needed to launch these 122 missiles that would kill at least a billion people, and would contaminate the entire planet indefinitely. Under this plot, the President had to take affirmative steps to stop the launch of 122 nuclear missiles, not specifically authorize such launches. Hence, part of the plot is to have the President distracted and out of communication during those 30 minutes.
  • The hero, along with his wife, identifies the body of their friend and colleague in a morgue, the victim of a gruesome murder. After they leave the morgue and go back to their B and B and while they are unraveling a conspiracy of apocalyptic proportions with only hours available, they are uncontrollably horny and decide to use one of those hours to have sex.

I will stop there. The book was not an uninteresting read, with all of its flaws. But it made the early James Bond movies seem remarkably plausible in comparison, including the "Mr. Bond, here is my plan, you cannot stop me, and have a seat over there and enjoy some Scotch while you watch me destroy the world" final chapter.

If plots like this still make the NY Times bestseller list, I need to seriously consider a different line of work.