Fuel for thought

As the price of our gasoline soars
Just to fatten oil industry whores;
We've become docile fools,
Who deplete fossil fuels
And will fall just like all dinosaurs.

Record Prices Fueling Energy Debate
CBS News, 4/22/06

Arachnophilia

You can't keep a good city down
With so many claims to renown.
What Web destination
Is best in the nation?
Why, Cleveland, while Spidey's in town!



It's lights, camera, action on Euclid
Spidey crew ready to spin its magic
Julie E. Washington, The Plain Dealer, 4/21/06

Prized Find

You can keep your hip-hop and your punk.
By comparison, all of that's junk.
#1 with a bullet, sir,
And, now, with a Pulitzer;
Give me jazz by Thelonius Monk.

2006 Pulitzer Prize winners
Seattle Post Intelligencer, 4/17/06

General dissent

An Easter Parade

This week brought a new powder keg:
Six generals differed to beg
That Rumsfeld, this Easter,
Be out on his keister,
As the crack in Iraq's rotten egg.

Behind the Military Revolt
By Richard Holbrooke, The Washington Post, 4/16/06

Appreciating the gravity of the situation

When the stork brought her bundle of joy,
No one told her he wasn't a toy.
So Brit got confused
When words that they used
Were "Bouncing" and "Baby" and "Boy."

Officials Pay a Visit to Spears
Social workers are called after
the singer's baby falls from a chair.
By Richard Winton, Los Angeles Times, 4/12/06

Slim pickin's indeed

When it comes to leadership

Indifferent to any rebukes,
This president raises his dukes
And plans, even now, boy,
To leave (the mad cowboy!)
His brand on Iran using nukes.



With my sincerest apologies to the real Slim
who could ride the bull, not just sling it.



THE IRAN PLANS
Would President Bush go to war
to stop Tehran from getting the bomb?
by Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker, 4/17/06 issue

L'uva acerba

Berlusconi is counting the ways
To create just a few more delays.
It's clear from the vote he
Was beaten by Prodi.
He'd better recount better days.

Berlusconi demands ballot review
BBC News, 4/12/06

Newsflash: Both leaks came from the top

One's questions of faith grow acuter
When faced with a major refuter.
We discovered this week
Mr. Bush sprung the leak,
In the gospel according to Scooter.

The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot?
NPR, 4/6/06

Libby Said Bush OKd Leaks
By Richard B. Schmitt and Peter Wallsten
Los Angeles Times, 4/7/06

Consider the alternative

Thank you, Ronni, for setting the pace
On an issue that all of us face;
And answering why,
As time goes on by,
We must greet it with power and grace.

Here's looking at you, kid.
Happy Birthday!
Hope you play it again,
and again and again and again and again and…

Time Goes By
What it's really like to get older
By Ronni Bennett

"Hidden" agenda

In our lives' everyday interplay
All the baggage we've hidden away
May emerge with effect
That we cannot direct.
All this carries a certain Caché.

View a trailer

I saw Caché (2005) a few weeks ago and it is still rattling around in my head. Ostensibly a smart thriller in the mode of Hitchcock, this is not a movie for those who like all the loose ends tied up in a neat bundle. Even with the ambiguity, this is indeed a very certain film; certain in its methods, certain in its acting, certain in its impact and certain to get you talking.

This movie, whose title translates as "Hidden," works on many levels. It is a taut thriller and a thoughtful "art" film. The plot centers on a French couple that are terrorized by a succession of voyeuristic videotapes left at their door. The tacit invasion of privacy and implied threat of these actions throws Georges (Daniel Auteuil) into a paranoid search for their origin that unsettles every element of his life. There is a political subtext to this film that alludes to abuses of power; by the French in the 60's with Algerian immigrants and in the current day Bush "War on Terror."

The acting is superb across the board, with a wonderfully measured performance by Daniel Auteuil. This is not to diminish superb performances by Juliette Binoche and the rest of the supporting cast but, clearly, it is Auteuil's film. He has been a favorite of mine since his turn as Ugolin in Claude Berri's Jean de Florette and the, even better, sequel Manon des Sources. If you like your story threads resolved, rent both of these.

Caché raises more questions than it answers. What is our responsibility to those around us? How can a small act ripple into unimagined repercussions? (In this respect, it is reminiscent of last year's very fine Crash) What is the nature of media in our current society? As the film plays with our sense of reality, it forces us to focus on minute details, the "hidden" elements of daily life hinted at in the title that are nevertheless in plain sight. Pay close attention to the background action during the closing credits for a hint as to one possible answer. Or maybe it will only raise more questions?


Pointed Focus
Austrian director Michael Haneke discusses his latest film, the elusive thriller Caché
by Jason Shawhan, Nashville Scene, 3/2/06

So what does that make me?

I'm so tired of the Dubbaya bashing
And those Liberals need a good thrashing!
I've not gone NeoCon.
I'm just trying it on
For the day. Don't you think it looks smashing?


Is it just coincidunce that NeoCon
is an anagram of cone on?

To all my newly acquired conservative brethren:
Don't forget to turn back your clocks tonight-
to the Middle Ages

Dick Cheney announces he will run in 2008
Urged on by the "Draft the VP" campaign started
at the Limerick Savant blog
Al Jazeera, 3/31/06

April Fuels

The White House is setting new rules
For SUV mileage and fuels
But they're giving free passes
To allow green house gasses
They must think we are all April fools

Federal government takes aim at California's greenhouse gas rules
Tim Molloy, Associated Press
San Jose Mercury News, 3/26/06