Archive for May, 2009
Wednesday Open Thread
What’s on your mind this Wednesday?
Tuesday Open Thread
What’s on your mind this Tuesday?
Happy Memorial Day
Today we think the focus should be on the men and women in uniform, past and present, who kept this nation safe and protected our freedoms. So, in that spirit, that’s what we want to be about today. We had our barbeque fun yesterday, and today have a bunch of little American flags we saved from various campaign events last year; we’re taking those to the cemetaries around us here in Chicago to make sure as many veterans as possible get a little posthumous recognition as we enjoy what we hope will be a lovely sunny spring day.
Whatever you are doing today, whether it’s a barbeeque or a party or whatever, try to work the national anthem in there for a moment, and pause briefly to remember this is indeed not just “a pretend holiday”, but something that matters a great deal. Memorial Day is not “party day”, as much as we want you to enjoy it.
"I am not sure I could get through Senate confirmation."
This is fascinating: when asked by CSPAN host Steve Scully whether he would want to follow President Taft’s lead and take a seat on the Supreme Court when his term as president is up, Dr. Utopia, in a rare moment of realistic honesty, said:
“You know, I am not sure that I could get through Senate confirmation…”
He’s probably right, too.
The Senate would actually vet him, look into his past, including his admitted drug abuse (and possible selling of controlled substances while at Columbia in New York), his nocturnal activities in Chicago, his trip to Pakistan in the 80s when US citizens were not allowed to travel there, his time in Jeremiah Wright’s hatemongering church, his pay-to-play deals with Yesse Yehudah and others while in the Illinois Senate, his involvement with Tony Rezko, Broadway Bank ,the Giannoulias Family, and other unsavory types in Chicagoland…and on and on.
The Senate would do what the MSM refused to do, as Michael Steele recently noted, just because the MSM loved the idea of a black man becoming president…only, still, nobody knows who this man really is.
A SCOTUS confirmation hearing would certainly get to the root of that.
Quite possibly, Dr. Utopia would be the most liberal and radical SCOTUS Justice this nation has ever seen, so he’s correct that he’d most likely never be confirmed. We still feel after his term is up he’ll just make an absolute fortune giving speeches, and possibly get his own show on Oprah’s network so he can be on TV every day the way he likes and continue to cultivate and indoctrine his followers as he’s become accustomed to. Whatever he does, he won’t want to to work hard or be too far from the spotlight.
But, we have to give credit where credit is due, since Dr. Utopia does have some grasp of reality in knowing he won’t be on the Supreme Court once his term is up. It’s Memorial Day, not Thanksgiving, but we are always grateful for small favors.
Sunday Open Thread
We’re heading to a barbeque today on the Southside of Chicago, where we’re hopefully going to get a lot of interesting things to report back for you later today or tomorrow. It is a wild and busy weekend here in Chicago, but our thoughts remain with all the men and women in uniform, especially those who died for this country. Remember, Memorial Day is not, as we heard two young women say today, “a pretend holiday”.
It is not “BBQ Day” or “Drink Beer Day” or “Eat As Much As You Can Day” (which is, in fact, ironically enough January 29th, coincidentally enough, Oprah’s birthday).
Have fun this weekend. Spend time with family and friends. If you’re us, root out as much great political scoop as you can, but never forget the reason this is a long weekend is because so many brave men and women lost their lives on fields of honor so that we at home could enjoy the freedom to spend this weekend any way that we see fit.
Ghosts in the Museum: Movie Review by Patricia Melton and the Mineral City Coffee Club
Dear HillBuzz,
My name is Patricia Melton and I am the President-for-Life of the Mineral City Coffee Club. I am also an amateur detective, professional aquaculturist, political commentator, accomplished gardener, central Ohio’s foremost authority on both Akhenaten Egypt and the personal correspondence of John and Abigail Adams, and the absolute best event planner the annual Wooly Bear Festival has ever seen (so eat your heart out, Anne Millar, because you’re not getting your grubby hands on the Wooly Bear Festival so long as there is breathe in my body, no matter what you think or how much you plot and scheme). I am the beleagured wife of a model train and jam obsessed husband named Earl, mother of a talented and resourceful son named Robby, adopted mother to many smart and adventurous cat-babies, friend to just about everyone in Mineral City (except Anne Millar, who is my nemesis), and the person people generally come to around here when they want the straight scoop on something, like whether a movie is good to see or whether something in a can or jar has gone bad (I just give some to Earl, and if he doesn’t complain too much about the smell or taste, chances are it’s probably good). I have a daughter, too, named Ann-Louise, but the less said about her, the better.
This weekend, I’m visiting my son Robby in Chicago, with Earl in tow, for Memorial Day — one of our regular trips up to visit Robby, which in reality is partly Earl visiting the giant model train setup down at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago while I actually choose to spend time with our only son (unlike Earl, who just can’t get enough of tiny people standing around waiting for little trains going in circles to whirl by).
Yesterday, while Earl was down there messing around with those damn trains, and Robby was busy working (unlike my daughter Ann-Louise, who seemingly does nothing all day in New York, except make lists of things she wants and intends to trick various men on Wall Street into buying for her), I took my great-niece Bellereve and great-nephew Beaureese out to see the new Ben Stiller movie “Ghosts in the Museum: Part Two”. These are my niece Heloise’s children, and their father is French, which is how I account for their strange names. I love these kids to death, but I always assumed “Heloise” was as weird as it would get in our family (thank my sister Prudence for that one), until Glen-Paul came into the picture and started naming things, I think to personally irk me, the way most of France does collectively on occasion.
I took Bellereve and Beaureese down to the big movie theater that’s by the river in downtown Chicago, where you have to ride something like 4 escalators just to get up to where the screens are, and the kids were just mystified by that (as most children and my husband Earl love escalators and are fascinated by them). In Chicago, many things like banks, shopping malls, movie theaters, etc. are built on a ridiculous number of levels because space is at such a premium (or they are trying to confuse Oprah, and thus protect the concession stands), so even something like Target has special escalators for your shopping carts to take them up to the second or even third floor above. We’re sure not in Mineral City anymore, people!
Well, the three of us went to see “Ghosts in the Museum: Part Two”, as I told you before and hope you remembered. You don’t technically need to have seen “Ghosts in the Museum: Part One” to enjoy this particular movie (all you need to know is that a few years ago there were ghosts in the museum, and that scared some people, but at the end of the movie everyone was friends and then they had a big dance party). This particular installment of what I assume to be a “Ghosts in the Museum” franchise (next top: The Louvre!) picks up more or less where the last one left off, where Ben Stiller is a security guard who tries to keep the ghosts in the museum under control and stop them from breaking things or getting slime all over the place, as ghosts are apparently made of ectoplasm and this is a major hazard when dealing with them (or grown men who are obsessed with model trains, where “ectoplasm” is synonymous with “various kinds of Smuckers’ jam” and the breaking of things is more or less consistent with the above).
All these years, I could have qualified to be a security guard at a museum and never knew it..and Earl, apparently, is a ghost.
Well, in this new sequel, various things happen and the ghosts that were in the New York museum now move to the Smithsonian museum, because the producers of the movie wanted to take the action to Washington, DC (though, I’ve heard and have reason to believe this is quite accurate, they also briefly considered setting the film in Mineral City, too, to help our local economy). Various things happen, and Abraham Lincoln comes back to life and goes on some kind of a rampage and then the ghost of Amelia Earhart comes to life and she looks a lot like Amy Adams, who seems like a very nice girl (who would never become an ungrateful daughter who lives in New York, never visits, and embarrasses herself and others unlike other daughters I know who moonlight as cautionary tales). I think Emma Thompson is in this movie too, and played the ghost of Eleanor Roosevelt, but I fell asleep a few times so I may have imagined that. When it’s so dark in a big room full of strangers and I’ve been on so many escalators to get way up there, I get so tired.
The whole time I was watching Amy Adams as Amelia Earhart racing around and having adventures, all I kept thinking about was in 50 or 60 years “Ghosts in the Museum: Part Ten” will probably have Hillary Clinton in it instead of Amelia Earhart, because I believe history is going to record this particular woman as one of the greatest Americans that have ever lived and many years from now became an important ghost to have in movies people love. Amelia Earhart was brave and adventurous, but she never put everything on the line personally to run for office, and deal with all the vile nastiness that her own party threw at her, the way Clinton did. Yes, it took a lot of guts to fly across the Atlantic, but it also took a lot of guts to campaign so hard when Clinton knew the DNC and primaries were stacked against her, while her opponent spread all sorts of nasty sexist lies about her and even stooped to calling her and her husband racists. But, Clinton pressed on and on and finished 2008 stronger and more well-respected than she has ever been. And just look at her now. Currently Secretary of Great, and still a future President too.
Bellereve and Beaureese just adore Hillary Clinton, and it’s not just because they know how I feel about her, and know not agreeing with me means no ice cream later. Belle is 10 now and she keeps reminding me that if Clinton runs again in 2016, she’ll be old enough to vote for her, which makes her little brother so very jealous, as he’ll have to wait until 2020 to be able to vote (unless ACORN is still around then, in which case anyone can vote, including ghosts in the museum or cartoon characters from TV). Heloise, my niece, is one of those people who think Clinton will run for something long before that, though, but I don’t put all that much stock in Heloise’ opinions, considering whom she married and what she named her children. I love my niece, but there are many perfectly good baby books with actual names in them so there’s no need to go making things up, as I have repeatedly told her for 8 years now and will most likely continue to do so for many years to come, as I am very good at reminding people of the things they have done that I don’t like in case they forget and think I liked those things (because I don’t).
My son Robby’s friend Abbey named her son Rembrandt (but Robby and everyone calls the little guy Lil’ Remy, for short, even though that’s really two syllables as well, just like his actual name, so it’s not as much a time-saver as it is hippity-hop flavored), and tells people it’s after the painter, Rembrandt, but some people think it’s after the brand of whitening toothpaste (which is just stupid, and tooth-racist). In reality, Abbey named him Rembrandt after Rembrandt Brown, a character on the TV show Sliders, which is Abbey’s favorite show (which at first I thought was about miniature hamburgers, but then I found out it’s about alternate dimensions and a TV remote control that lets you travel to them, where sometimes they do have miniature hamburgers, which is just surreal).
In alternate dimensions, Hillary Clinton indeed won the Democrats’ nomination in 2008 and became president and who knows where any of us would be today as a result (not waiting around for our unicorns to finally come, that’s for damn sure). It’s fun to speculate about that, and sometimes at Coffee Club meetings the ladies and I sit down and try to imagine what Clinton would be doing differently if she was president, or we wonder what McCain would be doing if he was president. We’re careful not to devote too much time to things like this, as it’s a fantasy world no different than Earl’s obsession with those damn trains (and just look how productive THAT is), but it’s a fun diversion at times.
I have to say I am not the biggest fan of movies (too loud and boring), so sometimes during them I let my mind wander on to other things. During “Ghosts in the Museum: Part Two” instead of Amelia Earhart and Eleanor Roosevelt running around saving the day, I pictured Hillary Clinton up there on the screen (who could be played really well by Amy Adams, now that I think about it). Clinton’s out there having all kinds of adventures we don’t know about, I’m sure. On the campaign trail, we all saw how funny she is and how much energy she has, so if anyone can stop the ghosts in the museum in real life, it would be her.
After the movie, I took Bellereve and Beaureese to a little restaurant called Minnie’s on Halsted at Armitage that Robby loves, and Earl met us there, with bags full of model train nonsense he got from some hobby shop between the museum and the restaurant (which probably saw him coming a mile away and forever will record yesterday as “That Marvelous Day the Fool From Ohio Gave Us All His Money”). All the food is miniature at Minnies’s: little hamburgers, teeny fries, min-pizzas or baby pulled pork sandwiches. It’s a cute place for kids or grown men who still keep asking Santa for shrink rays, well into their 60s at this point, which is damn ridiculous. Earl asked us how we liked the movie and the kids said they really liked it, but I only remember bits and pieces of it, which is typical for movies kids and Earl tend to like. There was a lot of running around and special effects and various ghosts, and Emma Thompson doing a remarkable impersonation of Eleanor Roosevelt at the UN, and then it was over and little Beau was tugging on my arm saying, “Autiemelt, you’re snoring again!”.
During lunch, coincidentally, my daughter Ann-Louise called me and immediately launched into her characteristic and undecipherable screeching, all upset about something or another. I just put the phone on speaker while we ate more of our lunch until the wailing morphed into halfway understandable English. “Not fair…not fair…not fair,” was all I got out of her at first, until I finally put enough of it together to realize Ann-Louise was upset at hearing Alissa Milano and Eliza Dushku are slated to become the first female Ghostbusters in the new movie they are making about the Ghostbusters (“Ghostbusters III: More Ghostbusting”). Since she was very little, Ann-Louise has dreamed of becoming the first female Ghostbuster. To this day, she still dresses up in a powder pink Ghostbusting suit with an old vacuum tied to her back every Halloween mainly, I think, because she wants to meet (or date) Slimer, the big fat green ghost in the movie. Lord knows she’ll never use that vacuum on the actual floor. If you’ve seen any of the hedge fund managers or dairy traders my daughter has brought to various functions, you’d understand why Slimer actually isn’t a bad choice in comparison (and truth be told, many girls tend to date men as jam-covered and voracious as their fathers, after all, unfortunately).
I told Ann-Louise, “See, this is what you get for voting for Obama. Because if you want women to get anywhere, women need to stand together. So welcome to Hope and Change, missy, because now you are not the first female Ghostbuster but maybe you could have been if Hillary Clinton was president now.”
And that just got Ann-Louise wailing unintelligably again, Obot that she is, which was completely my intent, as I still had a micro-mini BLT and some teeny fries to finish that were getting cold indulging my daughter’s particular brand of jealous ridiculousness. I let her cry it out for a few minutes more while we finished lunch, with Bellereve and Beaureese asking again and again what was wrong with their cousin, and me trying to explain what a Slimer is, and then just giving up.
I have no time for Obots when there are tiny sandwiches to finish before Earl gets to them (worse than a particularly mannerless mongoose, that one is).
I finally told my daughter that maybe she could be an extra or something in the movie since Robby has friends that are actors in California, and she didn’t like that much (not only because she hates the idea of being only an extra when she wants to be a star, but that her brother has dated well-known comedic actors and she hasn’t), so she just hung up the phone (and probably next called the doorman in her building, who gets to listen to most of her wailing when either her brother or I aren’t taking her calls, but the doorman is mercifully Bulgarian and doesn’t seem to understand 95% of what Ann-Louise is upset about, particularly when it involved Ghostbusting).
So, in short, “Ghosts in the Museum: Part Two” is a movie that kids or man-child husbands will like, but not something you’ll have very much to say about later. Now, “Ghostbusters III: More Ghostbusting” is a movie I’m already looking forward to, mainly because it will teach my daughter a lesson and rub it in her face somemore that all that Hope! and Change! and other nonsense certainly didn’t apply to Ghostbusting anymore than it applied to Hollywood casting or anything else you choose to insert here.
Patricia Melton
Mineral City, Ohio*
*but in Chicago through Memorial Day visiting my son Robby, who has actual grown-up goals that don’t involve becoming the first (in his case) openly gay Ghostbuster
Friday Open Thread
What’s on your mind as we head into the weekend?
What do you think were the most important or interesting things that happened this week?
What did you think of former vice president Cheney’s speech on how the current administration is bumbling anti-terror efforts?
How is Hope! and Change! working out for you?
