Year: 2009

Fortunately enough for George W. Bush, when Richard Reid (the man who singlehandedly condemned all American travelers to have to remove their shoes to go through security) , tried to blow up an airplane using his sneakers, it was considered unpatriotic and borderline treasonous to lob any criticisms at the office of the President when it came to matters of home security. On vacation during the incident, Bush said nothing for six days and faced virtually no critiques or media scrutiny.

Thank God THAT’S over as GOP critics line up to try and do everything short of of accusing Barack Obama of actually putting Abdulbob Bombpants up to the challenge of trying to blow a plane out of the sky. Does ANYONE doubt at this point that if Gore had been in office during 9/11, the GOP–rather than asserting that the country should line up behind its president–would have been claiming that America was targeted because terrorists saw Gore as weak and would have been lobbying for investigations if not outright impeachment?

PAD

The final adventure of David Tennant’s incarnation of the Doctor is nigh. To my mind, it’s pointless to discuss the first half of “The End of Time” because it’s mostly set-up for the meat of the story. So instead I’m going to put forward a challenge:

What do you think the Doctor’s last words will be? I’m betting they’ll be something reasonably memorable. If it were up to me, they would evoke his very first line of dialogue and he’d say, “Bûggër. I never DID get to see Barcelona.”

Anyone else?

PAD

My wife, whose name apparently was similar to someone on a watch list somewhere, was on the no-fly list (now gone from it, thankfully) while Abdul Mudallad, who was in the terrorist data base, was NOT on the no-fly list.

Thank God some fast-thinking passengers and a misfired inflammatory device prevented an even greater tragedy. In the future you can probably kiss good-bye to bringing baby powder on an airplane now. What worries me is that, a few years ago, some idiot tried to sneak on explosives in his shoes and now we all have to remove our footwear to get through security. This guy smuggled in explosives in his pants. Not liking where this is going. Maybe the next big thing for male fliers will be the convenience of travel kilts.

PAD

So over in that corner we had “Avatar,” embracing a host of story cliches under the apparent belief that technological advances in movie making were sufficient to rise above them and make the film more than it was, instead of having the unoriginality of thought dragging the whole enterprise down.

And over in this corner, we have “Sherlock Holmes,” a character who would seem the epitome of old hat, tired, overdone, so much so that there hasn’t been a Holmes feature film in American theaters in twenty years (although he has been omnipresent on television in incarnations ranging from the Jeremy Brett to Hugh Laurie as the Holmesian “House.”)

Yet the new “Sherlock Holmes” film that debuted Christmas day shows how everything old can be made new again–in this instance by returning to the source material in ways that even those who fancy themselves Holmes fanciers are unaware were ever part of canon.

Continue Reading “Cowboy Pete Investigates Sherlock Holmes” →

And all through the house..

Not a creature was stirring; not even a mouse.

Continue Reading “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas” →

In the beginning, “Avatar” was unformed and void.

And James Cameron looked upon “A Princess of Mars” and “Dances with Wolves” and “Ferngully” (but not anything by Harlan Ellison, because he knew better than that) and found them good.  And he wrote a 114-page treatment, and he found it good.

And then he looked upon Gollum and realized that special effects had finally caught up with his vision, and that “Avatar” could actually be made for less than the budget of one week of fighting in Iraq, and 20th Century Fox looked upon it and said, “This could be our next ‘Star Wars’ except let’s make sure not to give away the merchandising rights,” and they made the movie and found it good.

Cowboy Pete, on the other hand, had some problems.

Continue Reading “Cowboy Pete Goes Biblical on “Avatar”” →

(Based on the news report that Laredo, with the closing of its lone B. Daltons, will be the largest city in the U.S.A. without a single bookstore)

As I read a book on the streets of Laredo.
A book in my hand in Laredo I read,
I finished that book and desired a new one
And so to the bookstore I promptly did head.

Continue Reading ““The Books of Laredo”” →