Obama expects to “visit” press without taking questions; apparently all oblige him except one.

Asked how he could reconcile a strict ban on lobbyists in his administration with a Deputy Defense Secretary nominee who lobbied for Raytheon, Obama interrupted with a knowing smile on his face.

“Ahh, see,” he said, “I came down here to visit. See this is what happens. I can’t end up visiting with you guys and shaking hands if I’m going to get grilled every time I come down here.”

I wanna be your friend, but if you insist on doing your job attacking me, I can’t be your friend any more.

Obama did reveal a juicy tidbit, however: Incoming press secretary Robert Gibbs “got a fist bump from me” because Obama was just so gosh-darn proud that he survived his first press briefing. Aaaww. See, press? If you be good boys and girls, someday, you might get a fist bump too!

I may hurl. Video at Hot Air.

I saw Prince Caspian last week. For those of you who know me from ye Olde Skool, hold your breath: This purist liked the very altered movie. A lot.

**SPOILERS** for Prince Caspian below. (Oh and by the way, I came across Lost spoilers in the public news-feed area of Facebook today–i.e. somebody in my friends list just plastered spoilers in her status, and when I complained, said that she considered anything fair game after the time of the episode airing. WTF? Unless you have some special powers or access, you can’t possibly possess any spoilers BEFORE it airs, so your breathtaking courtesy in witholding what you don’t have is, shall we say, a little lost. And you really should catch up to the era of TiVo and realize that not even TV Guide puts spoilers into headlines any more, for those of us with a schedule that doesn’t care to adhere to the network’s air time. Thus endeth passive-aggressive rant.)

(more…)

What year is this?

Benediction at Obama ‘s inauguration, Rev. Joseph Lowery

Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day

Black will not be asked to get in back;

When Brown can stick around;

When Yellow will be mellow;

When the Red Man can get ahead, man;

And when White will embrace what is right.

That all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen. Say Amen …

You know, my kid’s sick, we’re just sitting around in our PJs, he’s watching pretty much whatever he wants on TV, which is decidedly not history-making political events. I felt a little bit like a slacker mom for not sitting with him and showing him the peaceful transition of power, the solemn ceremony that makes my eyes fill, the joy and pride I and others have in our nation.

Honestly, I’m really glad I skipped it. “Mommy, what’s a Red Man?”

As Ace says, I’m so glad we’ve moved past race in America. Old black men get a pass because they’re either angry or just old–after all, they lived through it. Well, stuff it. Give them a pass if you want, but not a national stage. Oh, wait, it’s not just old black men–it’s young black women making more money than I ever will, too. Not getting a pass? Black men who want to encourage black men and women to take a stand–it’s the wrong stand, you see.

I am proud to be an American today, yesterday, last week, four years ago, seven years and four months ago, tomorrow, and forever.

I have a sick child and plenty of other family/friend life issues occurring, so blogging is at a low. But I do want to know one thing, spoiler-free, please: With approximately five characters I care about still left identified “human” or at least non-Cylon (Adama, Starbuck, Apollo, Gaeta, and Roslin), why in the world should I bother watching last season and this current, final season of Battlestar Galactica? Come on, my TV peeps, help me out. I suspect disappointment is in my future and would rather not court it by watching.

From interview with Peter Liguori, entertainment chair at Fox:

Is Dollhouse as bad as we are hearing?

Joss Whedon has an unbelievably loyal fan base, and he really knows how to write to that fan base. I expect that they’re going to be there. They’re going to enjoy his show. One of the things about airing on Friday night, a show is not expected to have those boffo ratings.

So you’re not burying him in the Friday graveyard?

No, I’m not burying him in the Friday graveyard. I’m giving him a little bit of a reprieve by being on Friday.

Whew. Nothing like praising a show with faint damns, as Dorothy Sayers would say (yes, it’s Sayers Week here at Chez Anwyn). I’m giving him a little reprieve, to see if there’s any snowball’s chance in hell he can draw in anybody who’s not already in love with either Captain Mal or Eliza Dushku. And if not, then we’ll dump it.

Are people who like Buffy and Firefly completely unreliable indicators of a large enough demographic to keep a show alive? Given the fifth-network treatment of Buffy and Angel and the quick death of Firefly, I’d have to say it seems so. The question would seem to be why? Joss’s shows are about people with somewhat fantastic powers or circumstances (but ultimately still about the human interest), but so are Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings. Is the lesson that if it can’t be marketed to children, as well, then the adults of our stripe aren’t enough? Where does that leave Star Wars? I was three when A New Hope came to theaters–I wasn’t buying a ticket.

The only shows I can think of with a Joss vibe lately are Veronica Mars and Chuck. Veronica survived three years in the fifth-network dimension and suffered from a lack of a coherent vision from her creator. Chuck, however, has spent a season and a half on Monday nights, and while not exactly “boffo,” got itself bought for a full-season renewal this year. It’s holding its own. Despite Liguori’s positive spin about the base and Friday night not holding much expectation, let’s not forget what happened to vampire tale Moonlight on Friday nights. No matter what he says, Friday night is a graveyard for ordinary viewers (i.e. anybody not already frantically devoted to a show plus people who don’t like The Ghost Whisperer). It takes a lot of doing and some blind luck to get a show that does well on Fridays. The question is, what will Fox settle for with Dollhouse? Are they okay with it if it comes in a perennial second behind Ghost Whisperer? And if not, look out for the half-season cancellation, Joss fans.

The folks at Whedonesque, of course, have much, much more to say.

But this one might have some … resonance.

I dreamed that Obama had been elected merely president of my undergraduate university rather than president of the United States. As an “inaugural” stunt, he was behind a counter dealing with a line of students who needed to make financial arrangements for room and board. There were two options: Pay your room and board bills as they became due, or take a “mortgage” on your dorm room–i.e. you could pay after graduation in installments, but with a large interest payment tacked on. My sensible parents, with me in line, told me not to mortgage for the higher interest but said we’d manage to make the payments at their due date.

I also dreamed that when in the room itself, a voice kept telling me to shut the blinds or somebody would shoot me through the open windows, but that every time I turned around, whichever blind I had just shut was open again.

Wonder what that means?

The fact that you, Mr. Hitchens, do not personally believe in God, or any god, does not precisely give you the right to lower-case God in a Newsweek article, and the Newsweek editors who allowed it should turn in their stylebooks. The fact that you believe there is no such being as God does not negate the fact that in writing, the word God, capitalized, is used to refer to a distinct, specific entity commonly acknowledged to be the God of Judaism and Christianity, the God of the Bible.

When you start lower-casing Santa Claus, Sherlock Holmes, and Allah, Newsweek, then you may let Hitch get away with this cutesiness. Not before.

Via the headlines at Hot Air, where even Hitchens fanboy Allah doesn’t lower-case God except in cases of interjectional “thank God” moments.

Update: I assumed it was obvious, but I guess it should be noted that an advanced search for “god” at newsweek.com shows numerous instances of capitalized “God.” Hitchens did this to make a point and the magazine’s editors supported him. But as I point out on the comments below, while other gods who fall under the umbrella of the lower-case common noun (including God) have identifying proper names (Zeus, etc.), and while God does have other proper names (Jehovah, etc.), God is his most common proper name and thus is capitalized. Hitchens could have made his point in a stylistically correct way by simply referring to “men of the Judeo-Christian god,” but chose to go for the shock value and broke the rules in so doing.

“There isn’t one man in ten million that’s worth breaking your heart over.”

–Harriet Vane Wimsey in Dorothy Sayers’s Busman’s Honeymoon. Easy for her to say. And with the object/person confusion, too. Thanks for the tip, Harriet!

… badass.

Via the boys at Ace’s house.

…I never thought I’d have much respect for one at the Huffington Post. I read this post taking Al Gore to task for spreading the nonsense that is human-inflicted global warming climate change last week and was duly shocked that the HP ran it–shocked, surprised, and pleased.

Now Arianna huffs, in an effort to retain her cred with her peeps:

When Ambler sent his post, I forwarded it to one of our associate blog editors to evaluate, not having read it. I get literally hundreds of posts a week submitted like this and obviously can’t read them all — which is why we have an editorial process in place. The associate blog editor published the post. It was an error in judgment. I would not have posted it. Although HuffPost welcomes a vigorous debate on many subjects, I am a firm believer that there are not two sides to every issue, and that on some issues the jury is no longer out. The climate crisis is one of these issues.

Dear Associate Blog Editor at HuffPo: Bravo. Even if you only did it to stir the pot, bravo anyhow. When Arianna fires or disciplines you, I hope you decide you’d rather retain your integrity than that job.

Via Hot Air headlines.

How many “quirky” shows about crazy lawyers can one person have in them? I guess the only reason David E. Kelley’s shows ever get cancelled is to give the actors a frickin’ break. How long till the audience gives him a permanent one?

And, just to separate it from Ally McBeal,, I guess, this show has a woman lawyer named … Skippy Pylon.

Maksim Chmerkovskiy and Karina Smirnoff engaged.

Silver lining: Maybe she’ll cheer up this season.