A Great Man Helps A Great Cause

I've had my problems in the past with Bengals Wide Receiver Chad Ochocinco. He's a great receiver and all around player, but he comes across as full of himself. He seems to be one of these guys who is obviously out for himself, a master of self-promotion. He has appeared on Dancing With The Stars, is a showboat on and off the field, and not too long ago introduced his own line of condoms.



Although he was born Chad Johnson, he had his name legally changed to Chad Ochocinco, which is the Spanish language spelling of his team number-85. Lately, he has publicly mused about changing his name yet again, to reflect the number on his team jersey in Japanese.

These are the kinds of antics, in addition to his gregarious nature on the field, that lends many to view him as-well, a show-off. It leads you to wonder how he could possibly get along with such a person as Terrell Owens, who recently joined the Bengals. Talk about a clash of personalities.

But now I have come to think I might have misjudged the man. He has lately come out with his own brand of breakfast cereal, named, of course, Ochocinco's. My initial reaction was, "there he goes again". But come to find out, a portion of the proceeds from sales of the cereal will go to benefit the Feed The Children Foundation.

Now I have to admit, I am impressed. And, having taken the time to call the toll-free number of the foundation, I am also quite touched.

And believe it or not, if you take the time to call the number of this fine organization, I promise you that, unless you have a heart of stone and ice-water coursing through your veins, you will also be touched and impressed.

1-800-HELP-FTC

You will be under no obligation whatsoever. But I promise, you will be moved.

Clean Air And Poverty

Moonbattery has a report that is so hard to believe, I can't really vouch for it at face value. But it wouldn't really surprise me to learn that the EPA is poised to initiate a series of regulations that might well result in the elimination of potentially 800,000 American manufacturing jobs. There could never be a good time for something like this to happen, and as of right now, there could not be a worse time. I really hope they don't go through with this, that somebody somewhere sees reason and reins them in.

But if they don't, and if they do go through with this insanity, I damn sure hope it happens now, so people can feel the effects long enough before the election to make a new GOP congressional majority not merely a probability, but a foregone conclusion, and in the meantime swell those Republican numbers far more than what they might ordinarily be.

After all, the best thing Democrats can do to help Republicans is simply be Democrats, proudly and openly.

The proposed rule has to do with emission standards. Old furnaces and boilers will have to be retrofitted, retooled in order to meet the new standards and guidelines. What this means is there will be layoffs in some cases, a near freeze on new hiring in others, and in some instances, no more nor less than a complete halt in production.

Way to lead us into the Third World, EPA. Nixon must be spinning in his grave.

I Don't Ask For Much

The newest Lamborghini will do nicely.

Outlaw

Outlaw is one of those television series that will tell you exactly what the liberal media thinks about conservatives. Or, perhaps more succinctly, it will tell you what they want you to think about them.

It's really simple. Not all conservatives are bad people. Sometimes, they are just deluded, and always wrong, about everything. Many if not most of them, however, are pure evil incarnate. In the world of Outlaw, you can't become a conservative leader without being evil. If you are not outright evil, then you are at least amoral, or at the very best, ambivalent.

Then there is Cyrus Garza who, as portrayed by Jimmy Smits, is a George W. Bush appointee to the Supreme Court. When he is not spending his time upholding conservative legal precedent-for no other reason than the curious belief that no former Supreme Court decision should ever be overturned (how this squares with the many established liberal legal precedents is fairly unclear)-he spends his days and nights drinking, gambling (while getting kicked out of casinos for cheating, and running up massive debts), and womanizing. This will in all likelihood eventually be revealed as a means of attracting lonely, fantasy-craving, sex starved middle-aged female viewers numbing his raging conscience, which has been nagging and torturing his innermost soul. Despite all his best efforts, of course, his conscience is winning. Which means, by definition, there is no way he can possibly remain a conservative.

The turning point comes when he decides to chuck his Supreme Court position and re-enter the legal profession to fight for the little guy. In doing so, he has earned the ire of his highly placed former conservative supporters and backers, who are already thoroughly pissed at him for, in the series premiere episode, his vote to allow a retrial of a Black Criminal who has been convicted of murder and sentenced to death

Why does this piss them off so much? Apparently, conservatives are so ideologically attached to the death penalty, they don't care if a condemned man is or is not innocent. He has been found guilty, and so must die. Period, end of story. Smits character is a turncoat, and now, the conservative movement is out to destroy him. After all, if Cyrus Garza has the temerity to rule that a Black Man should be granted a retrial, who's to say he might not one day vote to overturn the death penalty all together? They should be glad that he left the Court, but remember-in addition to evil, conservatives are fairly stupid.

But you would think even they would not be so stupid as to miss the disturbing signs of Garza's nascent liberal leanings. His late father was a liberal attorney, who loved him and nurtured him, while reminding him daily what a schumck he was. It even turns out that Garza has a Black Friend, also a liberal attorney, who was responsible for involving him in the case of the condemned felon previously mentioned. The Black Friend also has a Black Teenage Daughter who hates conservatives and openly calls Garza a Fascist-to his face. He has a vaguely Gothish, somewhat whorish assistant who makes life difficult for his squeaky clean conservative assistant. He even has a younger, liberal admirer who blurts out her feelings of love to him.

The only thing that has kept Garza hanging on to his conservative credentials by the skin of his teeth is his amoral lifestyle. But even here, the handwriting is on the wall. After all, if he were really a conservative, he would be an accomplished hypocrite and expert at hiding his personal flaws, like all true conservatives.

Of course, the entire premise of the series is nonsense. For just one example, even the most ardent supporters of the death penalty would be loathe to see an innocent man sentenced to die, as this gives the anti-death penalty movement their most legitimate complaint. They should be at the forefront in demanding fairness for all defendants, and in demanding not only fair trials, but in seeing unjust verdicts overturned whenever one turns up.

This series unfortunately was not intended as a thoughtful exposition of competing American political philosophies, it was meant pure and simply as liberal propaganda.

Jimmy Smits probably has a year or two left on his NBC contract. What better way to burn it out than to give him a vehicle on a Friday night at ten pm, a night and time when the television viewer demographic is dominated by those middle aged and elderly voters, many of whom might be on the fence politically and who might well be swayed by a popular television actor portraying a character in the midst of finding his soul by turning from his past indiscretions and fighting for what is right.

Which is, to be sure, all that is left. I watched this show hoping for the best, but fearing the worse. My fears were well founded. The only surprise this show might offer is if, at some point, Garza's father does not turn out to have been murdered by his, and now his son's, conservative enemies.

There are some things in life you just can't make up. Then there are things like this you just shouldn't bother to watch.

The Archetype Nikita

Last night I watched the series Nikita on the CW, and while I can't say it was a complete waste of time, I wasn't unduly surprised. It was actually good in some respects, as far as the acting and the production values. The overall story line and plot was good, and even the dialogue, while not grade A, was not that bad either.

But-sorry, it just wasn't Nikita. Neither was the older version that aired once upon a time on FX. Both seem to owe more to Alias than to the original French film version which became an overnight cult classic.

Yet, it was by no means universally lauded. It received mixed reviews, and while it did respectably good box office, it was not Star Wars, or Iron Man.

So the question is, why do they keep remaking Nikita? There have been three film remakes alone. The current series is the second television version. There must be something seemingly magical about the concept.

Long time readers are of course familiar with the avatar at the top of the blog. It is the goddess Artemis aiming her bow. I have had other pics at the top. Once I had Aphrodite, another time Odin. These are all archtypes. Although I haven't gone out of my way to advertise it, I tend to view all deities from a Jungian perspective. They are archetypes. They represent universal forces that permeate nature, and by extension, all mankind. They speak to the human experience. That is why they are so powerful, and have, in one sense of the word, ALWAYS been worshiped, albeit in differing forms, from one culture and time to the next. Through the heyday of the Christian era, they have been with us. Sometimes they work to our benefit. There have also been times when they have manifested to our detriment. Whether they manifest of good or for bane to a large degree this depends on us.

But whatever the case, they are always with us.

Nikita, in my opinion, represents one of these archetypes, albeit in fictional entertainment form. That explains why she is so powerful, why she exerts such a pull on the popular imagination to such an extent Hollywood keeps trying to recreate the magic of the original, and so far, without exception (including the current incarnation) has always come up somewhat short, in some cases woefully short.

Nikita was a feral child, a girl of the streets, a heroin addicted youth incarcerated for the murder of a policeman, who was taken out of prison, her death faked, and then trained to be an assassin. She was trained in all the ways a culturally astute woman would be trained. She was instructed in the ways of seduction, and all the different ways to please a man. And, of course, she was trained in the ways of espionage, and murder.

But at heart, she was Nikita, the wild, feral child of the streets. She only wanted to live, to survive, and did what she had to do. But when she got the chance, she exerted her need to live free.

Before she did so, she moved in with a young man who worked as a store clerk. He was an unassuming sort, with little to no ambition of which to speak. She was comfortable with him, not so much because he was easy to control, but because she was not threatened by him.

Although she loved him in a sense, it seemed to have been more in the way one might love an adoring pet than a lover one might see as an equal. But she loved him nevertheless, and was forced to leave him, and her new/old life, when it became obvious her former handlers and controllers would not, or could not, let her just walk away from what they saw as her "contractual" obligations.

We were left at the end to wonder, how would she ever make it. She was a survivor, but could she thrive living on the run, always trying to stay one step ahead of the French Intelligence service that saved, then created, and then manipulated her. But of course, we knew the answer to that. She would survive because she was Nakita. That was, after all, what she was, a survivor, a fighter, and when necessary, a killer, a destroyer of lives and souls. If anything, a better question might be, how can they survive without her.

The new series takes it a step further. They have her now on the offensive against the company (in this series, now a secret American agency), whom she is determined to destroy, even as they are in the process of training new "recruits" to carry on the cause, which they describe to them in patriotic terms (though of course there are shady, sinister overtones to the agency).

Yet, as good as Maggie Q is in the role, we see little of the original Nakita. Just another trained assassin. Admittedly, the show could evolve over time and we might see more of the wild, feral child Nikita. We do see some hints of it in the younger recruits of the agency. But so far, the magic is contained inside the allure of sophistication and CW production values. One would expect as much, since the CW is primarily geared to a youth market. As such, Maggie Q as Nikita, while suitably vengeful and violent, is yet much too restrained, much too lacking in blood lust, and far too merciful.

Toward the end of the debut episode, she stopped short of killing the man who was in charge of the mission to capture and kill her, electing to just wound him to make it look good. He himself had stopped short of killing her when he had her in his sights, admitting that he had a thing for her. He let her go with the warning that the next time they met, it would end differently.

That promise would have been the only inducement the old Nikita would have needed to blow him away on the spot. Granted, one can make the argument that this is an older and ostensibly wiser version of Nikita, one that might see him as a potential ally.

Even so, its still not Nikita.

Still Waiting, In A Haze Of Smoke

When everything goes to hell in a handbasket, all you can do is bitch. People will tell you it doesn't do you any good, but it does help you to vent. Right now, I do need to vent. I got my car fixed, then came a plumbing problem. I'm still waiting for the bill on that one. On top of that, now that my car has had new valves put in, it still runs hot, so I'm still not out of the woods. I have a family medical drama on-going that I'd rather not go into right now. And, since my computer broke down and I have too much of this other crap going on to get it fixed, I have been smoking like the proverbial freight train. Seriously, I had cut down to a half pack a day, with little problem. Now, since I have all this other crap going on, and nothing to occupy my time with in a constructive way, other than a few minutes at the local library computer every once in a while (yes, Sonia Belle, they do have libraries in Kentucky, I've been smoking worse than Obama in the White House men's room.

What I need is some good fucking drugs, but who can afford that?