Under A Naked Bulb

A lonely outpost

2010-04-01T18:21:00.001-07:00

If you've found this blog, you've found my furthest outpost in all of cyberspace. While the Twitter feed to the right contains up-to-the-minute breaking news and observations, I don't post regularly here at all.

For that, you'll have to go to SlashPolitics, my daily blog about everything Nevada politics. You can find breaking news (via Twitter), Nevada political headlines from other places, videos, polls and, of course, my take on things.

You can also check out the newspaper I edit, Las Vegas CityLife, for more of my work, including a weekly column titled Coffee & Outrage.

Finally, I appear regularly on 8NewsNow, the local CBS affiliate in Las Vegas. Currently, I show up on the 6 p.m. newscast on Mondays and Wednesdays.

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you'll follow some of these links.

End of the West Wing

2006-01-24T11:23:00.000-08:00

Has it really been two months? Time flies when you have to edit a newspaper, write another blog, learn to golf, travel for holidays, watch TV, go to movies and smoke a fine cigar or two.

But we've got news, and unfortunately, it's not good.

Katie Couric made it official on Monday's The Today Show: The West Wing is ending after its current season, which focuses on the race to replace President Josiah Bartlet (Martin Sheen). That means while we will see who wins the White House — either U.S. Rep. Matt Santos, D-Texas (Jimmy Smits) or U.S. Sen. Arnold Vinick, R-Calif., (Alan Alda), we won't see that person actually govern. And that's too bad, since they are two fine actors.

The show had been somewhat crippled by the death of John Spencer, who played Leo McGarry, a candidate for vice president with Santos. Sheen said a few nice words introducing the last few episodes that Spencer was in, but the show will still have to deal with Spencer's real-life death, too.

Meanwhile, it's as good as ever. Monday's episode, "Duck and Cover," dealt with the fallout (pun intended) of a nuclear accident, and it was gripping. The best scene, of course, was between Bartlet and Vinick on Air Force One, as they debated the merits of nuclear power before they learned that a federal engineer who had managed to make a critical fix in a damaged plant had died. But Vinick's stance — nuclear power is generally safe and free of harmful emissions — wasn't given short shrift, either. (By the way, the plant in question was set in a fictional California city, but was clearly referring to the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, near San Clemente, Calif.)

Some will argue that The West Wing hasn't been good since co-creator Aaron Sorkin stopped writing, and we will admit there was a slump. But c'mon: What other show could actually interest viewers in the rules of a filibuster, the nature of political polling, complex foreign policy or all the other esoterica that was featured on The West Wing over the years? Not since we learned via Schoolhouse Rock how a bill becomes a law have we been this engaged in policy on TV. And ABC's new rival, Commander In Chief owes The West Wing a lot. The show made politicians as cool as cops, doctors or lawyers on the tube.

Not only that, but The West Wing was inspiring, too. During the scandals of President Bill Clinton or the increasingly polarized days of President George W. Bush, the show proffered the hope that there really could be good people in government, and they really could make the world a better place. Instead of tax cuts for the rich and invasions based on bad intelligence, we saw the better angels win one once in awhile. It seems we need that more than ever.

So we'll miss the show, that's for sure. (Commander In Chief isn't bad, with Geena Davis as the president and the amazing Donald Sutherland as an evil speaker of the House conspiring to run against her, but it's sure no The West Wing.) But we'll continue to appreciate what it did, for TV and for the country, well into the future.

And we still have to find out who wins that election.

Persecution of Christians?

2005-11-08T08:08:00.000-08:00

According to a story than ran today in our local paper, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the Internal Revenue Service is threatening to revoke the tax-exempt status of the All Saint's Episcopal Church in Pasadena, Calif. The reason? A former pastor gave an anti-war sermon two days before the 2004 election, and the IRS says that tax-exempt churches are prohibited from intervening in political campaigns and elections.

We hardly know where to begin with this. Aside from the general First Amendment problems with the IRS rules, there's the fact that the Roman Catholic Church told its parishioners that voting for U.S. Sen. John Kerry in 2004 was a sin, and there's been no move to revoke that institution's tax status. Which is the greater degree of "intervention" -- the relatively accepted notion that war is bad, or the fact that you could spend some time in purgatory, or worse, for pushing the Kerry button?

Churches have walked close to this line for years, especially conservative ones, which distribute "voter guides" that are thinly disguised endorsement lists for Republican, anti-abortion candidates. Occasionally, the IRS threatens (and sometimes does) take away a tax-exemption from a church. (According to the story, a church in Binghampton, N.Y. got its tax-exemption pulled for running an anti-Bill Clinton ad.)

Two things are at work here: One, a debate over whether or not churches should even have tax-exempt status at all. (We personally think they should, since the church's mission ideally is not to be concerned about temporal politics, but the fates of souls on earth and into eternity.)

Two, there's another debate, about whether there should be restrictions on what churches can say if the government does grant them favors. This is another good reason for churches to be separate from government; give them a tax exemption, and all of a sudden the government is editing your sermons. And if a pastor is not free to repeat the words of Jesus -- turn the other cheek, love your neighbor as yourself, etc. -- then we've got a serious problem with the government, not the church.

The bottom line: We think a church should be as free to say that welfare is bad because it produces a dependence on the government and laziness in the populace (a statement with which we don't agree) as it should be to say that war is wrong (a statement with which we do agree). The principle is the church should be unmolested, regardless of tax status, to preach the gospel, which is its mission anyway. And if it takes paying taxes to be able to perform that mission, then churches should render unto Caesar and continue to speak truth to power.

This doesn't look good

2005-11-08T07:44:00.000-08:00

Anybody who saw Sunday's live debate episode of The West Wing knows what we're talking about here: It looks like U.S. Rep. Matt Santos, D-Texas, (Jimmy Smits) is in some trouble. There's no debating that U.S. Sen. Arnold Vinick, R-Calif., (Alan Alda) won that exchange.

Before we get into that, however, a quick side note: We've always had a problem with real journalists appearing in movies and on TV to play themselves, even if it does give the dramatic entertainment a greater sense of realism. So we officially object to NBC News' Forrest Sawyer acting as debate moderator. (Do you think he got paid his usual $35,000 speaker's fee for the job?

But back to the debate: While fake, it was the best presidential contest we've seen in a long time, as Vinick proposed junking the rules, which limit candidates to just a few minutes of time to respond to complex issues. We've always wanted to see that happen, and it's sad that it could only happen on the The West Wing, a show where democracy's dreams come true. It's one of the reasons the show is one of the best on TV.

And that's not just a liberal partisan speaking. In choosing Alda to play a moderate Republican candidate -- and to play him with far more depth than James Brolin's previous GOP standard-bearer, a knuckle-dragging, dimwit Florida governor -- the show's producers have done a great thing. They've allowed us to see a real debate between two philosophies devoid almost entirely of straw men.

Santos hits Vinick for being beholden to big oil companies through campaign donations. Bam! Vinick hits back that Santos is in the same boat, only with public-employee unions. Vinick hits Santos on health care. Bam! Santos hits back that we should all be on Medicare, with its ultra-efficient, 2 percent administrative overhead.

This was no one-sided, Jed Bartlet (Martin Sheen, seen all too infrequently these days) slamfest on a one-dimesional Republican character totally out of his depth. This was a real debate.

Which is not to say it wasn't scripted. Of course it was. How else to explain Santos' surprised and unsure expression when Vinick suggested junking the debate rules and going toe-to-toe when they did the show for the second time, for us west coast audiences?

Speaking of Santos, he held his own, but we think most viewers would agree he came out No. 2 in the debate. (And we're saying that as someone who agrees with most everything Santos said in the debate.) He was unsure of himself, taken aback by Vinick's aggressiveness and fazed by Vinick's brutal honesty about most of the senator's own ideas. (How many jobs will a Vinick administration create? "None." That's because business creates jobs, not government, Vinick said.)

Part of it comes down to the fact that Alda is a much more experienced and -- let's just say it -- better actor than Smits. He's still got the charm and the humanity we all recognize from M*A*S*H. And, since the producers have decided to portray him as a Republican candidate opposed to, rather than in the grip of, the Republican religious right, he's a character we can actually like.

But neither have they compromised what makes him a Republican. We daresay that Alda (who in real life is no member of the GOP) gave a better representation of the economic side of being a Republican than any real Republican candidate since Ronald Reagan.

Still, this is The West Wing, a show famous for having its liberal heroes come back at the last minute to carry the day. We're still holding out for a Santos victory in the end, whenever that comes. But one thing is true on The West Wing that's not been true in real life for a long, long time: The choice between Santos and Vinick is one that most voters might actually have to think about.

Our 'Lost' Theory of Everything

2005-10-30T18:26:00.000-08:00

Back on Oct. 10, we started to make a stab at a Lost Theory of Everything, something that would explain exactly what happened on the island, who everybody was, and what was going on there. Well, we've learned a few things from there, and we're going to take another stab at it.

Now, we know that the island was a unique research facility, probably conceived to either contain the outbreak of a dread disease or to conduct research that may or may not be legal or ethical for a government that may or may not want to acknowledge responsibility. When you want to quarantine either disease or information, it doesn't get much better than an unknown (or perhaps deliberately uncharged) island somewhere in the South Pacific.

We also know that Hurley first learned of the Lost numbers — the ones that Desmond was found entering into the computer every 108 minutes — from a guy in an asylum. We now believe that this person was a researcher and/or a subject of the island's experiments, who somehow escaped and got off the island, albeit without his sanity. This further proves, we believe, that the hatch and the equipment inside it were not designed to monitor the island's experiments; they were the experiment.

The others (apologies to Michelle Rodriquez, who we mistakenly put in their camp; she's actually part of another group of survivors) in our theory are very likely ex-scientists or subjects themselves, exposed to the mysterious "incident" remarked upon in that film that Locke was so interested in seeing more than once. They may be as insane as Hurley's mental ward friend, as their homicidal behavior demonstrates. Their fixation with children (Claire's baby; Walt) may be part of their pathology.

Now, the question is, is the experiment over, abandoned along with the awful results when "the incident" took place? If so, this really is a Lord of the Flies scenario, in which the survivors need to band together, arm themselves and take control of the situation by finding a way off the island. But what if the experiment is not over, and everybody is still being watched? That makes things far more complicated, and escape an even higher priority.

For example, when Michael, Sawyer and Jin set sail on the raft, how did the boat (crewed by what we must assume are the others) know an escape was underway, and where the raft could be found? Was it the others observing the survivors covertly, or was it still-unseen scientists observing from yet another hatch/command post (we've seen at least two now)? And will all escape attempts be thwarted?

The island's population, then, is summarized like this:

• The Flight 815 Survivors, Forward: They have congregated at the beach and at the caves.
• The Flight 815 Survivors, Aft. They have congregated at the other, above-ground hatch on another part of the island.
• The others. They appear to move around, but have access to a brown-water boat and a port facility, apparently.
• The French Woman, camping alone down the beach from the 815 Survivors Forward, near a mysterious, still-unexplained cable that runs into the water, which is very probably a power-source/communications link to elsewhere. (It may have been left over from when the island was operated as a research facility.)
• Possibly, a group of scientists who are still running the entire show as an experiment.

Another question, and with this the geekfest ends: This island seems to have attracted a lot of disaster over the years, from the 18th-century ship the Black Rock to the drug-smuggling airplane, to Flight 815 itself. Is that all coincidental? Is it a supernatural Bermuda Triangle? Is it fate? Or is it deliberate, possibly an extension of the magnetic field in the hatch that can somehow screw up navigational equipment like compasses?

We sure wish these runup-to-sweeps re-runs would end so we could get some answers.

Judith Miller, tool

2005-10-17T11:23:00.000-07:00

Bill Keller, executive editor of the New York Times, said one of his regrets in the dustup over the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's name is that the reporter who had the on-background discussions at issue with Vice President Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was Judith Miller.

"I wish it had been a reporter who came with less public baggage," Keller said in Sunday's paper.

What baggage? Well, Miller is the reporter who helped the Bush administration make its case that Saddam Hussein had a growing stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, a case that has been proven totally false. ("W.M.D. -- I got it totally wrong," Miller admitted in the same Times piece.)

And that begs the question: If Keller lacked faith in her because of her track record, why assign her to the story of how the administration had gotten it wrong? After all, Miller was part and parcel of getting it wrong, and her mistakes, assumptions and biases might surely be at issue in the subsequent investigation.

And this is especially true given Miller's own admission, in a sidebar to Sunday's story on her case, that she'd been granted a security clearance while embeddedd with weapons-hunting troops in Iraq. And as a result of that clearance, she admits "...I was not permitted to discuss with editors some of the more sensitive information about Iraq."

In short, Judith Miller was a tool of the administration's weapons line, sworn to secrecy by the administration, who totally forfeited her role as a journalist unbound by anything but an obligation to tell the truth. For that alone, Keller should have discharged her from the Times.

Instead, Keller asked Miller to look into how the administration got it so wrong. And in the course of researching that story, she discussed with Libby the identity of Valerie Plame, the wife of former ambassador Jospeh Wilson. Plame worked in the CIA's division studying weapons proliferation.

Some background:

Before the Iraq invasion, when Cheney, through Libby, asked the CIA to get more information about persistent reports that Iraq was trying to acquire uranium from Niger, Plame suggested sending her husband to the African nation to investigate, and CIA agreed. (Libby would later lie and say Wilson's trip was not at the behest of Cheney, but even a casual reading of Miller's own words shows this not to be the case. The only "mystery" is why she lets Libby'scontradictionn pass without comment.)

Wilson, of course, found the reports to be false, and said so. But the Bush administration, and Libby, insisted even after Wilson's trip on believing the information, and Bush mentioned it in his 2003 State of the Union speech. Wilson, who knew the truth, wrote an op-ed piece in the Times, calling the administration on its lies.

Now here's where things get dicey. Libby, and President Bush's political director, Karl Rove, wanted to hit Wilson back. To do that, they let reporters know in not-so-subtle terms that Wilson's wife sent him to Niger, and the CIA was trying to cover its ass for getting things wrong. It's a classic Bill Clinton maneuver: Question the accusers' motives.

Yes, we know that by admitting this, we are letting Rove and Libby off the hook. They didn't intend to violate a law that protects the identities of undercover CIA operatives. They did intend to slime Wilson. And in so doing, they may have violated the law anyway.

We've praised Miller for going to jail to protect her source, even a source with such impure motives as Libby. That's what journalists are supposed to do, and that's how they give life to the battered, bruised and neglected First Amendment. Conversely, we've criticized her for agreeing to testify to the special prosecutor looking into the leak case, after she got a personal waiver(s) from Libby. As far as we're concerned, no such waiver under these circumstances could be voluntary, and even if Libby climbed to the top of the Capitol dome, stripped naked and announced through a bullhorn he was the leak, Miller should have kept silent, no matter how long she was in jail. That's the consequence, and the obligation, of such a promise.

And, while we're on the subject, let's talk about Libby's waivers, and his other, possibly illegal behavior. It seems that, after Libby testified to the grand jury, his attorney sent word that Miller was totally free to testify and, by the way, Libby had told grand jurors that he had not discussed Wilson's wife's name or undercover status with journalists. (In fact, Miller's notes reflect that they did discuss Plame, although Miller claims that she first heard Plame's name from somebody else, somebody whom she cannot recall.)

Message: If you say differently, you'll be contradicting Libby's testimony. In fact, Miller frankly admits she took that as a suggestion that she not testify.

Then, after Miller chose jail over being a rat, she got to thinking that perhaps she could talk to Libby again, get a waiver of her promise and get the heck out of jail. "I owed it to myself to see whether or not Libby had had a change of heart," she said. (Actually, she owed it to herself and to everyone else in the profession of journalism to never reveal her source, no matter what.)

Libby wrote her an oddly worded letter that got to the point thusly: "I believed a year ago, as now, that testimony by all will benefit all," adding "...the public report of every other reporter's testimony makes clear that they did not discuss Ms. Plame's name or identity with me."

What's the point of these assertions? To influence Miller's testimony, of course. And discussing grand jury testimony with the intent to influence another person's grand jury testimony is a crime.

Miller admits that she told the grand jury that someone else gave her Plame's name (she initially misspelled it "Valerie Flame" in her notes) but that she did talk with Libby briefly about Plame. So no matter what other journalists said, we know that Libby did tell Miller about Plame's job. (And we know from other testimony that Rove told or confirmed to journalists that Plame sent Wilson to Niger.)

Why go on about this? Well, on Tuesday night, Miller is scheduled to receive a First Amendment award from the Society of Professional Journalists at its convention here in Las Vegas. We disagree, and here's why:

-- Miller's failure to truly investigate the WMD case for war allowed the Bush administration to perpetrate a fraud on the public, and take the nation to war under false pretenses. Almost 2,000 Americansoldierss have died as a result of that decision.

-- Miller's own newspaper on May 26, 2004 published an editor's note from Keller that criticized the paper's coverage of the case for war, saying the Times bought in to the administration line too easily. The note never mentioned Miller, but five of the six stories it called into question were Miller's.

-- Miller gave her word to a source that she would not reveal his identity or what he said. That promise should apply no matter if the source came forward or not. Instead of helping the First Amendment, Miller debased it by sharing her notes and testifying for hours in front of the grand jury. Awards, especially First Amendment awards, should be for those who don't yield to government pressure, not to those who do.

-- As a result of Miller's actions, prosecutors all around the country will think they can jail reporters and learn the names of sources. This has had, and will continue to have, a horrible chilling effect on the free flow of information. Every reporter's word has been diminished by Miller's decision to ask to be let out of her promise. It would have been better had she never made the promise in the first place, and gotten beat on the story. (That, by the way, happened anyway, as conservative columnist Robert Novak was the first to "out" Plame in his column on July 14, 2003.)

In Libby's letter to Miller, he wrote that "your reporting, and you, are missed." We couldn't imagine a greater indictment of a journalist than praise from an administration hack. This is the stuff of a First Amendment award? We've got a better honor in mind, a one-word moniker that should stick with Miller for good.

Tool.

Toby? Not Toby!

2005-10-17T11:11:00.000-07:00

We know that, just a few posts ago, we said the real leaker of the military space shuttle secret on NBC's The West Wing was not C.J. But we never imagined that Toby would confess on Sunday's episode! Now, we're thinking that we could be wrong, and that the leaker might be C.J. after all.

So what's Toby up to? Glad you asked. We think he's covering up. Here's why:

-- To save C.J., who Toby thinks is the leaker, from ending her career with a trip to federal prison. He tried to get her to hire a lawyer, and when he saw that she was simply going to go down with the ship, he decided he'd beat her to the punch.

-- To save the Democratic Santos-McGarry ticket. If Toby admits he's the leaker, then the investigation closes down, and Leo won't have to testify and thus risk sinking the campaign.

Sure, Toby will get fired and go to jail over the leak. And sure, he has a family to think about. But Toby's stoicism would easily let him endure getting fired (this is his last job, after all) and a short stint in federal prison. In his mind, in fact, it's even worth it.

What happens next? We saw in previews the president facing off with Toby, but the look in Jed Bartlet's eyes suggested to us he knew what Toby was doing was a noble gesture, not an admission of breaking the law. But what's a president to do? The jailed reporter isn't going to reveal his source, and contradicting Toby would be as good as telling the Senate committee it should keep looking for the real leaker. The leaker isn't going to admit it, if he (or she) hasn't done it so far. This plan is just crazy enough to work.

We can't wait for next Sunday, baby.

Commander in Cheese!

2005-10-12T17:49:00.000-07:00

So the fall lineup is looking pretty good thus far. ABC seems to have captured viewers with its The West Wing knockoff Commander in Chief, which features Geena Davis as a political independent who becomes president when the top man dies in office. All of a sudden, Davis has to navigate the most perilous political shoals in the world, populated by piranha like House Speaker Nathan Templeton, infused with evil in every scene by the incomparable Donald Sutherland.

There's no small amount of cheese in this show. The first first gentleman, played by Homicide: Life on the Street vet Kyle Secor, has to adjust to life in a woman's job, when he really longs for policy. Her kids have to deal with the pressure of being under the media microscope. And she's got at least one world crisis per episode, to provide the drama.

Overall, it's an OK show, filled with promise, but guaranteed harsh judgment because of the long, seven-year shadow cast by TV's reigning political drama, The West Wing. At times, Commander in Chief suffers by comparison. (Maybe they could have made Davis a lieutenant governor, in a big state somewhere?) But the concept is still rock solid, so we'll just have to see where Madam President takes us.

Speaking of The West Wing, the show is back with a vengeance. Instead of the lopsided, over-in-two-episodes election that pitted Martin Sheen's Josiah Bartlet against James Brolin's dimwitted Florida governor a few seasons ago, we've got a race between two actual human beings, played by two actually good actors! Alan Alda is California Sen. Arnold Vinick, a flawed but principled man who really does want to unite the country. Jimmy Smits is Texas Congressman Matthew Santos, a flawed but principled man who really does want to unite the country.

Oh, by the way, Vinick is the Republican, and Santos is the Democrat. (Our partiality is to Santos, not just because we share his political leanings, but because we love and adore the talented Janeane Garafolo, who plays a Santos media consultant. Listen to her, congressman! She's wise. And hot.

The show isn't shying away from issues, either, with immigration, the Minutemen, guest worker programs and the like occupying the bulk of Sunday's episode. It's TV wherein average voters can actually learn the issues, and maybe even care about them, which has always been the genius behind The West Wing. Oh, and before we leave the subject, let us predict that White House Chief of Staff C.J. Cregg will not be the leaker of state secrets who gets fired in an upcoming episode. Too much focus on her leads us to think this is classic TV misdirection. A more minor character — please don't let it be Mary McCormack's national security staffer! — will be the one to get the ax.

We're also taking in Surface, about a whole new species of sea monster that eats boats, people and causes global warming. It's not bad, and they reveal just enough information in each show to keep you coming back each week. On Lost, as we said a couple posts ago, we're through the looking glass and finding out more about the island all the time.

Our one-time reject list includes Ghost Whisperer, the Jennifer Love Hewitt vehicle in which she can see and talk to dead people. Our prediction: The show itself will be dead soon. Also Night Stalker, an attempted revival of an X-Files-before-X-Files-was-cool franchise. Why can't they do a show about what it's really like to work at a newspaper? Trust us: There's a gold mine of real life material just at our own little weekly.

A final note before we leave. The addition of Chris Noth as a part-timer on Law & Order: Criminal Intent was a great move. We longtime fans of Law & Order miss Detective Mike Logan, and we're overjoyed to see him back. Plus, for fans of the classic show, former U.S. Sen. Fred Dalton Thompson is a pretty good actor, imbuing his character with pragmatism and even a touch of Thompson's own conservative outlook.

That's all for now, as we await the return of three cable-only shows, Rescue Me, Over There and Battlestar Galactica, all of which earn top marks under this naked bulb.

Miers litmus test

2005-10-12T17:24:00.000-07:00

ABC News, posting a story by The Associated Press, has revealed that aides to President Bush are today calling conservatives to discuss the religious views of Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers. James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, said he'd talked to Karl Rove, who informed him that Miers belongs to a pro-life church.

Well, isn't that special?

The only reason that Bush or his aides would have to discuss Miers religious beliefs would be to convince unsettled conservatives that Miers is one of them. Apparently, the president has come to realize his former line of "trust me, she's got a conservative judicial philosophy and won't legislate from the bench" was just a little to subtle for some of his supporters on the right, who haven't seen her at the Repeal Abortion Rights Now barbecues. So by discussing her churchgoing, Bush hopes to calm the crowds and score for himself a badly needed victory.

The problem is, it's offensive. Litmus tests on judges in general are ill-considered — you pick a judge for the person's overall experience, temperament and wisdom, not for how he or she will rule on one particular case. But religious litmus tests are especially offensive. Will candidates in the future be asked if they are Christian, Jew or Muslim? And what particular sect, Roman Catholic, Protestant, Conservative, Orthodox, Sunni, Shiite? It smacks of Iran, where the mullahs decide who is, and who is not, qualified for office.

Some people are wise to the trick, and by some people, we mean U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., ranking minority member of the Judiciary Committee. "We don't confirm justices of the Supreme Court on a wink and a nod. And a litmus test is no less a litmus test by using whispers and signals," Leahy said, according to the AP. "No political faction should be given a monopoly of relevant knowledge about a nomination, just as no faction should be permitted to hound a nominee to withdraw, before the hearing process has even begun."

"What we have seen so far," Leahy added, "is more of a commentary on the litmus tests and narrow motivations of vocal factions on the Republican right than it is a commentary on the qualifications of Harriet Miers."

He's absolutely right. It doesn't matter if Miers is a Christian, a Jew, or an atheist with no religion whatsoever. What matters is her education, experience and fair-mindedness. Will she fairly apply the law — including all relevant precedents — to future cases? Will she be honest in her views, both before the Judiciary Committee and, if confirmed, on the bench? If so, she deserves a chance to be on the court. If not, she should be voted down.

But the fact that Bush's people — and Bush himself, who says religion is part of the reason he chose Miers — have to drag her faith into the debate tells us that the Republicans are desperate for a win, and that they don't mind blowing kisses to the religious right to get one. We cannot believe that this is the will of all of the 62 million people who comprise the 51 percent of the electorate who voted for Bush. At most, it's a small minority, one that should be resisted and routed, not indulged.

Something to keep in mind for next time, eh?

A world gone mad?

2005-10-10T11:00:00.000-07:00

Religious folk are fond of saying gay people are sinners, and surely bound for hell. Their source material comes primarily from the Old Testament of the Bible, when homosexuality was considered a death-penalty sin (then again, so was adultery).

So what does it say when a gay man is the best defender of Christianity? That was the case on Friday's epsisode of Real Time with Bill Maher, where blogger and New Republic editor Andrew Sullivan stood up to Maher's oft-repeated assertions that religion and mental illness are one and the same. People of faith — true, genuine faith — are the ones doing good works and not seeking publicity or zealously trying to make their faith the law of the land, Sullivan said.

And he's right. While Christianity is often judged (and misjudged) by the actions of its most misguided adherents, there are millions of people who call themselves Christians who do good things for others all the time, never demanding that government reflect their views. They know that what really matters is not whether a law passes or a judge gets appointed, but whether they obey the biblical commands to feed the hungry, care for the sick, help the needy and preach the Gospel.

If every Christian did that, intstead of engaging in partisan power struggles like every other political animal, we daresay Maher would be proven wrong. Sullivan, in the meantime, has done a good job of standing up for the faith, a faith that generally tells him and people like him that they're unwanted.

Now that's simply amazing.

Art imitates life ... on "The West Wing"

2005-10-10T10:18:00.000-07:00

President George W. Bush may be safely re-elected to his second and final term, but that doesn't mean he's got it easy. In fact, just the opposite: The Republicans haven't been in this much disarray since President Richard NIxon was directing a criminal enterprise from the White House. Let's do just a brief list:

• The Iraq death toll is approaching 2,000 war dead, and the American public widely thinks Bush is bungling the job, according to polls.

• Speaking of Iraq, Bush's political guru, Karl Rove, may be indicted in connection with a probe of who leaked the identity of a confidential CIA officer to conservative columnist Robert Novak. Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, has also been confirmed as a source of the leak, which was done for political reasons to tarnish an administration critic.

• The Hurricane Katrina response is still fresh in everybody's mind.

• The Senate Majority Leader, Bill Frist, is under investigation by the SEC for insider trading, and the House Majority Leader, Tom DeLay, has been indicted for conspiracy and money laundering in connection with a campaign finance scandal.

• Gas prices are so high, even Bush is talking about conservation.

• And the president's latest nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court, Harriet Miers, is being roundly criticized by many conservatives from the ridiculous (Ann Coulter) to the sublime (William Kristol).

It used to be that conservatives loved Bush and trusted him implicitly to do right by their cause. Not so much anymore. Pat Buchanan and Rush Limbaugh are asking the question about why they should have to trust Bush that Miers would be a good justice when he could just as easily have appointed a known conservative, Federalist Society member to the job.

Cut to NBC's The West Wing, which is now focused on a heated battle between U.S. Rep. Matthew Santos, D-Texas (Jimmy Smits) and U.S. Sen. Arnold Vinick, R-Calif. (Alan Alda) in their quest for the presidency. On Sunday's episode, a Ralph Reed-type Christian Coalition figure demanded assurances that the pro-choice, irreligious Vinick would appoint pro-life judges to the courts. Vinick can't do what he wants — tell the guy to pound sand — because if the Christians go away, he could easily lose a close race to Santos, who is also pro-choice.

So he lies, and tells the guy that, sure, he'll appoint pro-life judges. The move shocks his staff, but Vinick, who clearly detests the religious rights' power mongering and the fact that his supposedly confidential commitment shows up on The Drudge Report, dismisses it by saying "I lied to a liar."

Cut back to reality, as James Dobson, head of Focus on the Family, tells reports that he knows certain things that other people don't know, and as a result he's supporting Bush's pick of Miers. Did the president, or somebody in the White House, tell Dobson that Miers has committed to pro-life votes on the bench? What does he know, and from whom? Dobson is playing coy, but at least one senator, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, wants to subpoena Dobson to share his little secret with America.

But while Dobson may be convinced, the rest of the right isn't, including a former associate, Gary Bauer, now with the American Values Coalition. "You can be an evangelical and you can be self-described pro-life," Bauer said. "But it doesn't tell you what she will do about a decision like Roe [v. Wade] that has been set in stone now for over 30 years. And that's the rub."

Actually, the rub is the fact that the Republicans relentlessly use the religious right to elect candidates, but never pay off the bet in terms of action. Consider the goals of the movement, and then consider how much success they've had in reaching their goals. Abortion is still 100 percent legal in America; there is no mandatory prayer in schools; evolution is still taught as true in almost all places in America, and the places where it's challenged are considered intellectual backwaters; and the 10 Commandments are still not allowed (unless, says the Supreme Court, the display isn't religious). Sure, Republicans talk a good game, but when it comes right down to it, they don't deliver what the religious right wants.

(One possible exception is President Bush's faith-based initiatives, which literally funnel money to religious groups. It's a truly bad idea, the implications of which we're only starting to see. And the biggest advocates — religious charities — stand to be the ones harmed the most by accepting federal money. They, unfortunately, don't see that.)

Why? Our theory is that the party is already beholden to a monied lover in Big Business, which doesn't much care for religious folk, either. After all, with their allegiance to God above all else (including commercialism, which is the new nickname for what the Bible calls "mammon") Christians aren't exactly a compliant target audience. They object to racy TV shows and interfere with advertising. The Catholics are always complaining about how business should pay fair wages. And preaching about doing good for others (rather than acquiring wealth so as to buy all the latest cool stuff) isn't exactly a message business likes.

So when it comes right down to it, politicians will do what's in their best interests, and the best interests of their donors in the corptacracy. And it's not in Bush's best interest right now to try to jam through a real conservative. Thus, he picks Miers, who has never worn judge's robes, to be his nominee, knowing her lack of a record makes her confirmation all the more likely, giving him a much-needed win. In real life, on TV, it's all about political survival.

"The whole strategy here is the so-called stealth strategy. And at the end of the day, the only ones who get fooled by it are conservatives," Bauer said.

Uh, oh. We think they might be finally catching on....

All is not Lost

2005-10-10T09:55:00.000-07:00

So, it seems that we at Under A Naked Bulb were right after all. The island on ABC's "Lost" which now hosts the survivors of Flight 815 was a scientific research outpost. This explains some, but not all, of the odd goings-on. For example, we know that the polar bears were part of the island's zoological experiments, and the power cable that Sayid found leading off the island was laid by the scientists who created it. And the hatch was the duck blind where the experiments could be monitored.

But more questions have been raised than answered. What happens if the code isn't entered every 108 minutes? What was the incident that the doctor in the film referred to? Why did Desmond ask if anyone in the Flight 815 survivor party had gotten sick? Was some disease released on the island, with those in the hatch protected by its quarantine?

And what about "the others," who seem to count Ana Lucia (Michelle Rodriguez) in their camp now? How long have they been on the island, and were they subjected to whatever disease was released there? How did poor Ana join their ranks? And are there other survivors from the tail section of the plane running around on the island, too? Once Sawyer and Michael (and Jin) returned to the island, they were taken captive, while at sea, the others seemed interested only in Walt. And did Walt's appearance in the jungle, with that odd plastic mask, show that he'd been returned and had escaped the others?

For our part, we definitely agree with Jack's assessment: The 108-minute, code-entering thing was an experiment, but the subject was the person entering the numbers. Nothing would happen if they weren't entered. The thing is, from the age of the computer and the other equipment in the hatch, it seems like the experiment had been abandoned for a long time. Who knows how Desmond got to the island, or how long he's been entering those numbers. (It looked like the food supply was pretty extensive, however.) What if something happened to the scientists who created the island (victims of a mini-plague?) And what if the inhabitants were simply forgotten?

One thing is sure: If you were going to do research that was either government-sanctioned and dangerous, or not sanctioned at all (for ethical or practical reasons), an island somewhere in the South Pacific would be perfect for it. With nobody coming or going, the chances of an accidental plague are remote, and quarantine is easy. If you had money, the logistics of getting material and equipment to and from the island wouldn't be hard (somebody had to excavate and build the hatch, and that takes more than shovels and 2x4 beams).

If we were the survivors, we would undertake a comprehensive search of the island, to find out what the hell else was out there, as well as who. Not only that, but if there is a dock or port facility somewhere, to say nothing of a hidden airfield, there may be some clues as to getting off the island, like a chart of the area. Depending on where they are in the ocean, other islands may not be that far away. And who's to say that there isn't some team still monitoring everything from a distance, still conducting experiments, people with a way off the island? (After all, once you discover you're in an experiment, the utility of the study is compromised.)

One thing is for sure; this is still one of the best shows on TV in a long, long time.

Apple's New Phone

2005-09-08T11:24:00.000-07:00

Anyone who knows computers knows to look to Apple for innovation. From the very first Apples (I learned on a IIc, with a single, lovely IIe the pride of the high school computer lab) to the first Macintosh to the latest PowerBooks and all-in-one iMac, Apple never stops thinking about innovation. And thus it's no surprise that the outrageously popular iPod has morphed into a telephone.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced the ROKR, a combination telephone (with color screen) and 100-song iPod, not to mention a camera, built with partner Motorola, no stranger to a couple of innovations itself. Atlhough the song capacity is small (the iPod Shuffle holds 100 songs, but most other units hold thousands) the phone is a step toward the consolidated, universal device I've always thought we'd all be carrying around someday.

Apple has the phone, the MP3 player, and the camera. Now what's left?

• BlackBerry-type e-mail program.
• PalmPilot-like calendar/schedule program, with memo pad and task list. (Also available in the BlackBerry package.)
• Video camera.
• Super-fast wireless Internet feeds, which Palm and BlackBerry have, although at slow speeds.
• Infrared data transfer capability.
• A mini-suite of Microsoft Office-like products.

I'd like to think that a device like this, once the price comes down so that most people can afford one, will be revolutionary. With RSS feeds, we can get blogs delivered to our BlackBerrys or cell phones now. The same is rapidly true of news clips or TV shows. Soon, the little device will function as a de facto mobile television.

For somebody in journalism (they call it the "communications business" sometimes) advances like these are fun. Although I've read recently in the book "Tuned Out," that people aren't reading getting news anymore from any source, Internet and TV included, I think devices and advances like Apple's give us at least the opportunity to change things. The platform will be there; now it's up to us to get the audience.

You can bet I'll be using Apple products to prepare the content for whatever the new medium is. And I highly recommend them to all the rest of you out there, too. When it comes to being everywhere, PCs are king. But when it comes to ease of use, an elegant user interface and intelligent design, Apple reins supreme.

To sleep, perchance to blog...

2005-08-23T18:55:00.000-07:00

Yes, it's been a long, long time since Under A Naked Bulb has been lit. And no, it's not an abnormally long grieving period for James Doohan. I'm afraid it's ... another blog!

In my work life, I edit a Las Vegas newspaper called CityLife, Las Vegas' oldest alternative newsweekly. (It's Sin City's version of the Village Voice.) And one of the newest initiatives is Various Things & Stuff,a blog about Nevada and national politics and policy. (We also talk about adult beverages.) And since that blog is updated daily, I've been neglecting poor Under A Naked Bulb.

I've also been reading, including my friend and colleague Jon Ralston's brand-new blog, Vegas Pundit. Jon goes back and forth between impossible movie questions and political insights, and it's a fun read. I especially like the back-and-forth linking between him and Hugh Jackson's Las Vegas Gleaner. Between Jon and Hugh (and the Las Vegas Review-Journal's Erin Neff) Las Vegas politics is totally covered.

But fear not, gentle reader(s). I'm not going to abandon Under A Naked Bulb. It may be a struggle to find new content at times (I put everything I'm thinking about usually into CityLife or Various Things & Stuff.) But I will find time and material for this blog as well. So stay tuned.

In the meantime, follow some of these links, if politics in Las Vegas is your thing. I promise you won't be disappointed.

James Doohan, 1920-2005

2005-07-20T10:48:00.000-07:00

It's a sad day for fans of the original series "Star Trek." James Doohan, who played Lt. Cmdr. Montgomey Scott, has died at age 85. Doohan played the chief engineering officer of the U.S.S. Enterprise in three seasons of regular TV, six movies and one episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation." He was always a hit at conventions, too.

A couple things most people don't know: Doohan was a veteran of the Canadian Army, landed on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day and was wounded in battle thereafter.

And, although he titled his autobiography "Beam Me Up, Scotty," that phrase was never used at any time in the series or the movies. Capt. Kirk (William Shatner) would say "beam me up," and in "Star Trek: The Voyage Home" Kirk said, "Scotty, beam me up," but the most famous Trek phrase is, as fans say, extracanonical.

Doohan isn't the first member of the Enterprise crew to slip the surly bonds, either. DeForest Kelley, who played Dr. Leonard McCoy, died several years ago. Doohan's death comes during the first time in more than two decades when there was neither a "Star Trek" TV series nor a "Star Trek" movie in production. ("Enterprise," a "Star Trek" prequel, went off the air this year.)

Another address, same blog

2005-07-15T10:46:00.000-07:00

Showing that I'm truly master of early 1990s technology, Under A Naked Bulb now has another address. When you type in "stevesebelius.com," you'll be instantly transported to Under A Naked Bulb. Just another fine feature brought to you by the wonderful people at Network Solutions. For my next trick, I'm deciding among a spinning logo, a flaming logo, or perhaps both!

Rove the leaker?

2005-07-11T17:31:00.000-07:00

So, Karl Rove has, by his own admission, admitted to discussing with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper, the employment of one CIA officer Valerie Plame, although not her actual name. That's a small but important distinction, as we shall see in a moment.

Rove, you may recall, was furious with former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, Plame's husband, for an op-ed piece in the New York Times that shredded the Bush administration's false claim that Iraq had sought uranium in Niger for its nuclear weapons program. Since Iraq had no nuclear weapons program, uranium would have done Saddam Hussein as much good as a Chili's gift card, as far as becoming a nuclear power is concerned. (On the other hand, such a card would have given the dictator access to at least two different kinds of baby back ribs.)

So Rove, Bush's political strategist, hatchetman and all around mudslinger, told Cooper (and presumably others) that Wilson's wife, who worked at the CIA in weapons of mass destruction, was the one who'd sent Wilson to Niger to check on the reports, not the CIA director or anyone else. Rove gallantly withheld her name, however, which would be about as hard for even a rookie reporter to discover as the identity of the current speaker of the House.

Get it? Wilson was sent to Niger as an act of nepotism so the CIA, which pretty much gave the Bush administration the intelligence it wanted on pre-war Iraq, could ... undercut the very intelligence it had certified??? No, it doesn't make sense, unless you put it in its proper, post-Clinton context, i.e. discredit your accuser and the problem posed thereby goes away.

Not this time, however. The justification of the war is widely considered to be a total failure of the intelligence-gathering ability of the United States (at best) or pre-cooked lies spoon fed to the American people (at worst). And believe me, this is a worst-case scenario if ever there was one.

So, possibly acting on a tip from Rove, conservative columnist Robert Novak rushes Plame's name into print, exposing her connection to the agency and possibly jeopardizing past intelligence work she did for The Company. And THEY say that WE'RE unpatriotic if we question the war? Please. It's patently clear that the Bush administration will say and do anything to justify its policies, which is to say, it's a presidential administration. But unlike Bill Clinton's saying-and-doing anything to cover up some Oval Office fellatio, these lies had real and deadly consequences that continue to this day.

Now, as big a douchebag as Karl Rove is, I cannot quite bring myself to condemn him. Why? Because as a journalist myself, I often utilize leaks, "on-background" sources, off-the-record information and anonymous tips to ferret out stories. And I would be a hypocrite for condemning leaks, even ones that -- it can be argued -- violate federal law.

Others were not so forgiving, and calls to "find the leak" echoed throughout Washington, D.C. And thus the special prosecutor's investigation of Cooper and New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who investigated, but never wrote about, the leak. Miller is now serving time in federal prison for refusing to divulge her sources, while Cooper is chatting with the grand jury, having been released from his promise of confidentiality by Rove. (Rove's lawyers, by the way, have confirmed what Cooper's subpoenaed notes will show, that Rove spoke to Cooper about Plame and Wilson in the days before Novak wrote his column.)

Thus we have another wonderful example of the Mr. Magoo Presidency: Karl Rove leaks the identity of a CIA officer to a journalist, and the woman who never even wrote a story ends up in jail. It's right up there with U.S. Sen. John Kerry serving in Vietnam, and getting slammed as a coward by supporters of the guy who dodged the whole conflict.

And I think to myself, what a wonderful world...

More good news for TV fans

2005-07-11T13:56:00.000-07:00

Who says the summer sucks for TV? Already, the F/X original "Rescue Me" is back for a second season. And this Friday, the SciFi original "Battlestar Galactica" is back. NBC aired the season-ending episodes on Saturday night, and they were better than anything else on network, or cable for that matter. The show is getting lots of critical acclaim, despite its placement in TV's sci-fi ghetto.

When we last left "Galactica," Cmdr. Adama had just been shot by Boomer, who realized she was a Cylon agent. Capt. Lee Adama was in the brig, for mutiny. President Roslin was also in the brig, for interfering in military affairs. Lt. Thrace (call sign: Starbuck) will be in the brig for acting against orders, just as soon as she returns from Caprica with a historically important artifact. And there's a Cylon-human baby on the way.

Let's see, that leaves Col. Tigh in charge of Galactica, the stunning Cylon Number Six in charge of Gaius Baltar (the vice-president, who we assume will take the reins of government until the whole putting-the-prez-in-the-brig thing is worked out) and nobody in charge of the wild bunch on Caprica. Should be interesting, as always.

That's "Battlestar Galactica" at 10 p.m. Friday on the SciFi Channel. Check it out.

Repeat a simple lie

2005-07-05T00:08:00.000-07:00

I keep hoping that the sheer volume of lies told by the Bush administration will someday exceed the public's ability to not care, and the whole bushel of bull will come crashing down in our collective living rooms. So far, the bushel seems to be holding quite nicely, thank you.

Bush's speech, which I've been admittedly slow at reviewing, having had a large amount of tri-tip to consume at a July 4th weekend barbecue, has many unsubtle ironies. (Bush encourages young people to join the armed forces, saying there's no higher calling. Was there a higher calling when he was dodging service in Vietnam? And how does it feel to be cast -- quite literally -- in the LBJ role, Mr. President?)

But the central and most telling lie is the repeated references to Sept. 11 while discussing the war on terror. Need we review the facts again? First, although Bush seemed to be obsessed over Iraq while the Twin Towers were still burning (or so says Richard Clarke), nobody else has linked the two. Sure, Dick Cheney has tried his level best, but eventually Bush was forced to admit that no, Saddam Hussein had nothing whatever to do with 9/11. He'd better tell Cheney, because the veep still has his doubts, and occasionally expresses them publicly.

And then the September 11 Commission report comes out, and confirms there was absolutely no connection between Iraq and 9/11.

So why did Bush explicitly mention Sept. 11 five times -- and allude to it a sixth -- when talking about Iraq and the war on terror? Confronted, the president could easily say he never explicitly linked the two, but if I were to go on here about Joseph Goebbels infamous dictum -- if you repeat a simple lie often enough it will be believed -- would not right-wing critics accuse me of linking Bush and Hitler's regime? I could surely say I never compared Bush to Hitler (actually, I did once, and on TV, but that's another story) but that wouldn't be enough to satisfy sniffers of right-wing bias. Would it? So why should those of us on the left let the president by on any less a standard?

Sept. 11 was carried out by Osama bin Laden, supported by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Once we'd invaded that country and routed the Taliban, our war on terror -- at least the shooting part -- was over. The bloody Iraqi postscript? That's all on one George W. Bush, who finds war a nation's highest calling only when he's not the one going to fight it.

New blog on the block

2005-07-05T00:01:00.000-07:00

My regular viewer will probably not notice, but there's a new blog link at right. It's for the Las Vegas Gleaner, a new blog perpetrated by my old colleague Hugh Jackson.

Hugh, a former editor of the Las Vegas Business Press and CityLife (of which I am now editor), is as astute as they come, and his departure from the Fourth Estate to work for the do-gooders at Ralph Nader's Public Citizen was a loss for Las Vegas journalism. I couldn't be more pleased to see he's back in the fray, and I couldn't give him a higher recommendation.

Hugh has the writer's great gift of coming at an issue from an angle you might not expect, with a wry twist designed to make his point stick. I'll be a regular visitor to his blog as the days go by, for nothing else than to steal story ideas.

Keep 'em coming, Hugh.

SCOTUS gone mad

2005-06-30T12:47:00.000-07:00

In journalism, SCOTUS is shorthand for Supreme Court of the United States. And while you won't see the major newspapers say so, remember you read it here first: This has been one of the worst terms the court has ever had.

They haven't blessed slavery, or OK'd putting anybody in a camp. But, in quality and quantity, their rulings have been consistently wrong this term. Let's take a quick tour of the madness:

• They've said that redevelopment/economic development is a "public use" within the meaning of the phrase in the Fifth Amendment. Basically, the ruling had the net effect of allowing the city of New London, Conn., to take people's homes and turn the land underneath over to developers who want to build offices, shops and residential projects. In most states, this kind of behavior is known as "armed robbery." Now, under federal law, it's OK.

WHAT THEY SHOULD HAVE DONE: Ruled that the city cannot take private property in order to turn it over to a private developer.

• They've said that it's OK to have a 10 Commandments monument on government property so long as the display isn't religious. How in the hell can you have a 10 Commandments display that's NOT religious? Do they know God authored the 10 Commandments? And that the first one reads, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me"?

WHAT THEY SHOULD HAVE DONE: Ruled one way or the other that monuments like the 10 Commandments do, or do not, violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment. If they do, there is no 10 Commandments monument that would be legal on public property. If they do not, then the monuments are allowed. Personally, I don't think they "establish" Judiasm as the state religion (the commandments come from the Torah, after all). But I do think they tend to exclude people who don't belong to the religion on display, and therefore don't belong on property owned by the public.

• They've failed to uphold journalists' rights. Sure, this one is personal with me, but it's still important. Judith Miller of the New York Times and Matthew Cooper of Time have reported on the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame, and the U.S. attorney investigating the case wants to know their sources. They have, quite correctly, refused. But he's insisting they be jailed for contempt of court for their insolence. (Meanwhile, Robert Novak, who was the person who actually outed Plame as a CIA operative, goes unmolested. While I think he's a loathsome prick, I don't think even he should have to give up his source.) The Supreme Court had a chance to intervene, but declined to hear the case.

WHAT THEY SHOULD HAVE DONE: Taken the case and told the Justice Department that forcing journalists to reveal their sources constitutes an impermissible chilling of their First Amendment rights. After all, if no sources talk to reporters, reporters don't find out about some very bad things. And while that may be fine with this administration, it's bad for democracy, which, as it turns out, is also fine with this administration.

• They've said it's perfectly all right for Drug Enforcement Administration agents to arrest and prosecute people who use marijuana to treat their illnesses, despite the fact that their states (in the instant case, California) have legalized medial marijuana. Voters in California, apparently thinking they had some sort of right to self-determination, self-government and that quaint notion of a "republican form of government" mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, legalized the use of marijuana to treat illnesses. But the U.S. government's war on drugs will not be stopped by a little thing like the will of the people. Federal agents arrest those who grow and possess marijuana, and prosecute them in federal court. (In one notable case, they refused to let a defendant or his lawyers mention to the jury that he was growing marijuana with the blessing of the city of Oakland, Calif.) The court missed an opportunity to stop this outrageous injustice, a perfect example of where we need some judicial activism.

WHAT THEY SHOULD HAVE DONE: Ruled that the U.S. Constitution (and state constitutions) do not permit the government to tell its citizens they cannot consume any substance, thus ending the drug war once and for all. But, more reasonably, they could have said the federal government lacks power to enforce federal law when voters of a state have passed legislation that's contrary to U.S. Code, provided states are not violating the basic, civil or voting rights of any group. In this case, the law in California grants MORE rights to its citizens than are allowed by Congress.

Oh, by the way, a couple weeks ago the feds raided a Bay Area marijuana club, taking away a harmless medicine from sick people, who were left totally unprotected by the highest court in the land.

With rulings like this, it's hard to imagine things getting worse, although Democrats paint a fairly scary picture of what might happen should President George W. Bush get to appoint an "extreme" justice to the court. I'd like to see somebody who reigns in federal power when its appropriate (striking down laws against drugs, flag burning, stealing people's property, curtailing the First Amendment in any way) and upholds federal power when its appropriate (banning civil religion). Is such a person out there? And if so, can we get him on the short list?

I know, I know. Wait until Jan. 20, 2009, at noon.

Rescue 911

2005-06-30T12:33:00.000-07:00

Tommy's in AA! You've got to be kidding! But no, Denis Leary's cynical firefighter — who's not above invoking Sept. 11 to escape from a parking ticket — is regularly attending AA meetings in the second season of FX's "Rescue Me." Have they gone daft? Tommy is not supposed to be the kind of guy who gives up all his secret, evil plans for a life of sobriety, even if he does see visions of the crucified Christ on his kitchen ceiling.

That's my immediate reaction after seeing the first two episodes of "Rescue Me" this season. Things aren't all bad, however, as Tommy is scamming like crazy to get back to Ladder 62, his old firehouse, just as soon as he gets back from Ohio, where he's gone to get the kids that his ex-wife moved without even a word. (His daughter takes after her father; she finds life in London, Ohio, unbearable. We know a guy like Tommy wouldn't be comfortable there, either.)

And how does Tommy get the time off and transportation to Ohio? He joins the fire station glee club, of course. I love this guy. Too bad his new brothers in Staten Island don't. They have a jar in which you've got to put a buck every time you swear.

Meanwhile, the writing and the characters mesh so perfectly, it's unbelievable. The scene between Franco (Daniel Sunjata) and Laura (Diane Farr) was classic.

My reader posted a comment, wanting to know what I thought. Well, "Rescue Me" is still worth watching. It might be better if Tommy got back to his old self, which I'm sure will happen as soon as he sets foot in the old 6-2.

Rescued At Last

2005-06-20T17:41:00.000-07:00

No, "Lost" isn't back. But "Rescue Me" is. The season 2 premier airs tomorrow night (that's Tuesday, June 21) at 10 p.m. on FX. The reviews so far look good, and if it's anything like the first season, "Rescue Me" is destined for the hall of classics. More on the subject later this week.

A real city

2005-06-18T18:40:00.000-07:00

SAN DIEGO -- First, this is an experiment in mobile blogging, posted from a BlackBerry while I'm sitting in the San Diego airport, waiting for a flight back to Las Vegas.

In some ways, it's a flight I don't want to take. San Diego is a city I love, but more than that, it's a city. Las Vegas, by comparison, isn't. A loose collection of suburbs, a tourist district, a faltering downtown, yes. But a city is much more than just that.

Attending a conference these past few days, gazing out my 11th floor window at downtown San Diego evoked feelings I don't really have about Las Vegas. Sure, there's the little thrill about coming around the 215 beltway, traveling west, and getting the full view of the Strip from Mandalay Bay to the casinos of downtown. Or catching the Strip at night, from a plane. But it's not really the same as appreciating a genuine city, one that has a true sense of place.

Perhaps it's because I live in Las Vegas full-time that I just don't appreciate it anymore. And the fact that I was visiting San Diego for a short time made me appreciate it all the more. Maybe I would get sick of the San Diego skyline, the water, the city itself, if I lived here full time.

The thing is, I don't think so.

Final finale

2005-05-26T14:32:00.000-07:00

Well, the television season of 2004-2005 is finally over. Before us stretches an empty vastness that won't be filled until Denis Leary returns in "Rescue Me" in June, followed by "Battlestar Galactia" in July and "Real Time with Bill Maher" in August. After that, September brings us shows old and new once more.

But let’s take one long look back at two final finales that aired this week, before we surge ahead? There are spoilers, so be warned fans of "NCIS" and/or "Lost."

First, I maintain the most surprising season finale was not "Lost," but "NCIS." The acronym stands for Naval Criminal Investigative Service, known to some critics as the "Admiral's Gestapo," although you never hear that from series star Mark Harmon. The show is a spinoff from the dearly departed "JAG." And in the final episode, the closing scenes, in fact, a wanted terrorist assassinates Special Agent Kate Todd (Sasha Alexander) right in front of Harmon’s character, Special Agent Jethro Gibbs! It was one of those endings that you just don't see coming, and the producers kept it a well-guarded secret until the episode aired on Tuesday.

And I really liked Alexander’s character, too, along with the interplay between Todd and fellow Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo (Michael Weatherly).

All of that is not to say that the finale of "Lost" wasn't surprising. Sure, the semi-regular character who popped up in just the last couple episodes was bound to die, and die he did. It wasn't as surprising as the "NCIS" ending, but it was pretty cool nonetheless. Here's the first question we have to ask: How in the hell did a slave ship from Africa end up miles inland? The island could not have grown around the ship (assuming the island is of volcanic origin) in just 200 years. I'm with the blown-up science teacher: It had to have been placed there by weather, like a tsunami.

Interesting side note: The heroin smuggler's plane was from Nigeria, or at least that's what the maps indicate. The slave ship was also from Africa, perhaps Mozambique. Connection?

The monster, or whatever it is, is a mystery. Apparently, it appears as a puff of black smoke, or a distortion of light. It appears to be able to grab objects -- like big trees, and Locke -- and move them, but it doesn't otherwise seem to have corporeal form. So why howl and run away when Jack tosses a stick of dynamite at it? If it's really not of this Earth, it shouldn't be harmed by explosives. If so, how can we explain its near-invisibility and swift movements?

Let's end the speculation right now about there being no "others." We know there are, since Ethan was one. (Hurley determined that Ethan was NOT on the plane, so he was either a stowaway or was already on the island when the plane crashed.) Somebody, presumably Ethan, but maybe somebody else, killed another survivor, too, when he or they were trying to grab Claire and her baby. So, Danielle the French Woman may be crazy, but there ARE others. (And didn’t Sayid hear them, too?)

And could those others have been the ones on the boat that intercepted the raft? I think it's a strong possibility, and here's why: The boat they were in was small, gasoline-powered and definitely not suited to blue-water duties. Michael commented, in fact, that the raft was about 15 miles from the island before they spotted the radar return that was the boat. Therefore, my view is that the powerboat surged from the island in order to intercept and destroy the survivors' only method of seeking rescue from the outside world. If I'm right, this fascination with children that "the others" have (Claire's baby, and now Walt) is odd. Is Michael Jackson running the gang?

It's safe to say Sawyer isn't dead, and that the three remaining members of the raft’s crew -- Sawyer, Michael and Jin -- will get back to the island, although it will probably take a couple episodes and be harrowing. The question becomes, are "the others" so convinced that the raft crew will die at sea (or be able to return to the island) that they didn't bother killing them off? They were armed, after all.

Back on the island, we've finally blown the hatch off ... the hatch. What's inside? A ladder. To what? Or where? Is there some vast underground complex under the island? Locke did appear to want to let the invisible monster take him down the hole, and he's been trying to get inside the hatch for weeks. What does he know, or think, about it? And what was up with Hurley's last-minute, desperate try to keep Locke from opening the hatch? That makes three characters -- Sayid, Hurley and Walt -- who have warned Locke about it, to no avail. And two of those warnings have been somewhat supernatural. Or has Locke already been inside? (Don't forget the episode in which Boone died, and a desolate Locke pounded on the hatch, only to have a light come on inside. Maybe he’s seen what’s down there, and wants more. He has faced off, early on, with the soul of the island and pronounced it “beautiful.”)

Let's review: The two most popular theories about the show are still operative. One holds the island is a government research facility built deep in the South Pacific to contain whatever it is that’s being studied. This theory is supported by the fact that Sayid found a power cable that leads offshore while exploring the place, which means somebody had to provide. The researchers (perhaps they're "the others"?) can't reveal their presence to the survivors because of the nature of their work, and they can't let them leave or be rescued for the same reason. Something bad is happening there, and if the world were to find out, there would be problems. That’s’ why Danielle’s research crew was never rescued; their disaster beacon was never heard, at least off the island. This theory doesn’t explain the others’ fascination with kids or the supernatural monster.

The second theory is still plausible, too: Everybody died on the plane crash, and now they are in some kind of purgatory, there to expiate the sins of their lives. Boone, who was essentially a good person with the exception of sleeping with his hot stepsister before their flight back to L.A., was the first to go because he had the fewest sins to overcome. The rest, as Sun said in the finale, still have their lies and bad acts to contend with. If that's true, the island could be a way station of the afterlife, different enough from the real world to give the survivors an environment in which to choose to redeem themselves or continue to do evil, but not so different as to leave them in a state of confusion. That's how a 200-year-old pirate ship, a plane that's perhaps 50 years old and an odd hatch all fit together. "The others" could be angels trying to save the innocent (Claire's baby, Walt) from the purgatory faced by the wicked, or demons assigned to vex them and keep them from moving on to heaven. Locke’s vision of the island as beautiful could just as well be the devil, in his well-known disguise as an angel of light. The supernatural monster makes more sense in this latter scenario, and the well-guarded hatch could descend into hell.

Clearly, I can’t wait for answers. “Lost” is still the best show on TV, and September seems like a long, long way away.

Thank you, Greg Mitchell

2005-05-17T14:19:00.000-07:00

In journalism, the rule is, paraphrase, until somebody says something so good, you can't say it any better. And that's what Greg Mitchell has done today in a column on the website of journalism's bible, Editor & Publisher. Mitchell wonders just how White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan has the nerve to lecture reporters on credibility (in the wake of the now-retracted Newsweek piece about a Koran being flushed down a toilet) when the Bush administration has huge credibility problems of its own.

Thus, I quote here.

And again, thank you Greg Mitchell.

A belated opinion

2005-05-17T12:41:00.000-07:00

Not last week but the week before, blogger Andrew Sullivan was a guest on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher." (That show is now on hiatus, but will return in August for another season.)

Now, I don't always agree with Sullivan, but I always find him interesting. You may, too. His blog has plenty of interesting things to say, or at least I think so.

Now Maher, whom I really enjoy, is nonetheless anti-religion. And I mean that in the truest sense of the word "anti," the way anti-abortion people liken the practice to infanticide, the way anti-American people burn flags, the way anti-matter annihilates matter when the twain meet. He thinks religion is a mental illness, or at least he agreed when George Carlin said so.

But Sullivan is not, and rose to defend the Catholic church, but more specifically spirituality, in the wake of Maher's rant. The gospel has to be true, he said, for it to have endured more than 2,000 years. And, while flawed, we need the church to be the guardians and proponents of that gospel. "Jesus said the kingdom of God is within you: Love one another, forgive one another," Sullivan summed, one of the best, most succinct, abbreviations of the gospel truth I've heard out there recently.

And I've been thinking about that for the past couple weeks, at odd times. If all faithful believers did just those things -- love one another, forgive one another -- they could change the whole world. But enveloped as they are in the Terri Schiavo case, preoccupied as they are with filibustering judges (enough to devote a whole Sunday to the topic!) and focused as they are on the finer points of theology, the simple truths get lost.

And that's too bad.

Not that I'm against applying one's faith to public policy and seeing how public policy matches up. You can't really be "pro-life," or embrace a "culture of life" while making an unnecessary and unjust war upon other nations, or letting people in your country go hungry or come to harm that could be prevented with medical care. You can't really be a follower of Jesus without, at some point, coming to terms with what he meant when he said, the things you do for the least in society are the things you did for him. You can't get around the necessity of truly forgiving those who've sinned against you when you are constantly confronted with the doctrine that God has forgiven you. Contrary to Maher, I think the country might do with a good dose of religion.

But it shouldn't be injected into the state, or, worse, by the state. That's the job of the church. And so long as the church is trying to do the state's job, or bidding on the state's faith-based contracts, or whatever, the job goes undone.

So I'm going to keep thinking about what Sullivan said, and where he got the idea. I'm going to continue to be grateful that there is a church, and that it calls people to live faithful and good lives. And I'm going to continue to hold people accountable who profess the faith but don't live it. But I'm going to continue to forgive, as well, because the penultimate sentence in this post describes me as much as anybody.

A glaring mistake

2005-05-17T12:33:00.000-07:00

Because of the odd seasons used by cable television, there's one exceptionally good show I neglected to mention a few posts ago. That's "Rescue Me," on the FX Network. It stars Dennis Leary as a New York City firefighter, and features an excellent ensemble cast that reunites a couple people from Leary's last great show, "The Job." That show was unwisely canceled by ABC, where all good programs go to die (with the exception, of course, of the Jim Belushi/Courtney Thorne Smith hit, "According to Jim”).

In addition to being gritty and edgy (in a way that cable can, and networks can't, especially in this day of heightened FCC scrutiny) "Rescue Me" touches on some deep themes, though the eyes of some deeply flawed but deeply funny characters. Leary, as always, is excellent. If you haven't seen his standup act, you must. It's a riot.

Anyway, "Rescue Me" launches its new season June 21 on FX. My calendar is circled.

The others

2005-05-16T06:40:00.000-07:00

No, it's not a preview of this week's "Lost," although I am looking forward to finding out just who that French chick is always talking about when she refers to "the others." Today, however, I'm talking about other blogs, those written by a few of my friends.

First up is a traditional blog, written by Geoff Schumacher. Dogsbody is Geoff's journal about politics, books, movies and various other topics from his Nevada perspective. Geoff recently published a book, "Sun, Sin and Suburbia," about the modern history of Las Vegas. It's a pretty good read, and very wide ranging.

Next is the postmodern blog, or the anti-blog, written by Scott Dickensheets. Scott's a great writer, but you will find no evidence of that whatever on his blog, as it contains no entries whatsoever. I hope we see something here soon, but until we do, you can read his stuff in the Las Vegas Weekly.

Finally, there's my friend Bryan Allison, who is part of a longtime online collective called pre2k.com. Here, you'll find all sorts of things, many posted by Las Vegas expatriate Geoff Carter, now a resident of Seattle. I envy him living in an actual city, and for the coffee. He envies us for living in a fake city, but still has us on the coffee.

Oh, and don't forget to check out my day job, Las Vegas CityLife, which is Las Vegas' oldest and, if I may brag, best alternative newsweekly. That site is updated every Thursday, and you can expect some interesting changes there as well in the near future.

Those were the voyages...

2005-05-14T17:36:00.000-07:00

Note: Spoilers about the series finale of “Enterprise” lie dead ahead.

Star Trek is over.
At least for now.
But, ironically enough, on Friday the 13th of May, the most recent Star Trek show -- "Enterprise" -- ended its four-year run. That means, for the first time since 1979, the Star Trek franchise doesn't have a new movie or television show in production.
And that's just too bad.
True, ratings for "Enterprise" had fallen, no doubt assisted by Paramount/UPN's decision to move the show to Friday nights, where good TV goes to die. Even the watch-anytime movement embodied by TiVo couldn't save Capt. Jonathan Archer and his intrepid crew, who had prequeled the original series by about 100 years.
Actors, and fans of the new show, were particularly disturbed about the way the show went out, with guest appearances by "Star Trek: The Next Generation" favorites Jonathan Frakes, as Cmdr. William Riker, and Marina Sirtis, as Counselor Deanna Troi.
The final episode of "Enterprise" unfolded against the backdrop of a seventh-season Next Gen episode called "The Pegasus," in which Riker's old captain (Adm. Eric Pressman, played by Terry O'Quinn, late of "Lost" fame) returns to retrieve an illegal Federation cloaking device from the U.S.S. Pegasus, stuck in an asteroid. It was a pretty good episode, in which Riker had to wrestle with Pressman's order to keep the controversial device secret. And why not? The advanced Federation cloaking device allowed ships to move through normal matter as well as remain invisible to sensors. I've often wished in rush-hour traffic that I had one of those bad boys for my car.
But the introduction of outsider characters did two terrible things: One, it reduced the final episode of what could be the final Star Trek series to a postscript of an 11-year-old episode of another show. The "Enterprise" crew unfolded in holodeck flashbacks as a way to help Riker work out his moral dilemma, with the death of a favorite “Enterprise” crew member and the founding of the United Federation of Planets almost as afterthoughts. And two, it implied that the fan base of "Enterprise" was insufficient to sustain even a final episode on its own, without help from another crew. No wonder the “Enterprise” cast resented the intrusion.
True, “Enterprise” had its problems. It's third-season foray into a distant region of space to stop a race intent on destroying Earth was intended to boost ratings, but it seemed like one, long, drawn out borefest. And the final-season arc about Archer and his crew fighting alien-assisted Nazis? Pure crap.
But Enterprise had its high points, too. It finally answered one of Star Trek's most enduring questions: Why did Klingons in Capt. Kirk's day look different than the ones we saw at the beginning of "Star Trek: The Motion Picture"? True answer: Makeup budgets were bigger in 1979 than they were in 1966. Star Trek answer: A genetic mutation, created by an ancestor of the scientist who built Next Gen's Data. (Now THERE was a star appearance, by Brent Spiner, done right.)
Like all Star Trek series -- save, of course, for the original -- "Enterprise" borrowed from its predecessors. There was the fun two-part episode toward the end in which we saw the show unfold, from opening credits on, in the evil mirror universe, in which humans are bent on conquest and not peaceful exploration. (That episode was a two-fer, since "Enterprise"-era characters located the U.S.S. Defiant from the classic series episode "The Tholian Web," and used that advanced ship to kick some ass in their time. The speed with which they adapted to a ship 100 years more advanced than their own was a little distracting, and the ending just left us hanging, but it was a fun time overall.)
And, of course, the most tried, tired device in all of Star Trek -- time travel -- was overused.
Of all the series, "Enterprise" was the most boxed in. Star Trek history has been written, and thus the prequel crew couldn't really do much except meet for the first time species like Klingons, Gorn, Tholians, Orions, all with better makeup than the original. But they couldn't really explore new worlds, since we pretty much know about all of them. They couldn't really have cool phasers or advanced technology, since the original series didn't. (Still, those fully automatic blaster rifles were cooler than anything Kirk had.) And they couldn't go off in a new direction without bumping up against another show, or a movie, or some piece of Trek canon.
Still, their efforts were worthwhile, even if the show never really caught on with the public. A latter-day effort to save the show was ignored by Paramount, much unlike the decision back in the late 1960s to save the show from cancellation that spawned the entire enterprise that has come since.
History and better commentators than I will put the show in its place when it comes time for that. I rank the original at the top, since it was truly groundbreaking, with “Next Generation” following close behind. “Voyager” probably comes in next, since it sailed into what was truly a new universe (or new section of our galaxy, at least). “Enterprise” probably comes after that, with “Deep Space 9” bringing up the rear. (That show suffered so badly it needed to start a galactic war to survive.)
Has Star Trek lost its allure, after five series and 10 movies? Was the audience of 1966-1969 really so different than the audience of today? Has the culture changed too much, that the exploration of space and all the possibilities thereof are less interesting than seeing people eat bugs on "Fear Factor" or try to screw each other over on "The Apprentice"? If so, has Gene Roddenberry's vision of a world where people have evolved past their darker sides been lost forever? And if that's true, what does it say about us?
I hope it says that what fans and non-fans alike are waiting for is a show for 2005 and beyond that is truly as groundbreaking as the one in 1966. All that's lacking is imagination, creativity and a studio willing to put up a franchise in a place where it can compete and hold its own against everything else on TV, on DVD, and on the Internet.
The last time I checked, the science fiction section at the bookstore was crowded with Star Trek-inspired books, some based on the shows, some new. There are writers plowing these fields, so the talent exists, and so does the fan base.
At the end of the final episode of "Enterprise," the Galaxy-class Enterprise-D moves away from the asteroid field in which the Pegasus was untombed, as Patrick Stewart's voice begins the classic speech: "Space, the final frontier . These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Her ongoing mission..." The mantra is picked up by William Shatner, over an image of the Enterprise from the original series, "...to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life, and new civilizations..." Finally, we cut to the Enterprise of "Enterprise," as Scott Bakula finishes: "...to boldly go where no man has gone before."
After all these years, and all these episodes, I still love those words, and the ethos they represent. Surely, I can't be the only one? Surely, this can’t be the end?

Message: Get a life

2005-05-14T17:05:00.000-07:00

Note: The following post contains spoilers of season-enders for a TV show or two. Abstain from reading if you’re as big a couch potato as me.

As the May sweeps season ends, God is trying to tell me something.
No, it's not that the world is ending, heralded by that Britney Spears/Kevin Federline reality show. But Britney looking full-face into the camera asking "can you handle my truth?" is surely an end-of-the-world moment. Sure, I can handle your truth, Britney: You suck and are becoming increasingly annoying. Can YOU handle your truth, is the question.
No, the divine Telex to me is probably the same as to Mr. & Mrs. Spears: Get a life, at least one outside of the 25-inches of television screen in your living room.
This season alone, no fewer than five television shows I've followed for years are disappearing into the void. They are, in no particular order, "NYPD Blue," which went off the air in March after 12 seasons; "JAG," "Third Watch," "Tru Calling" and "Enterprise." (I’ll have more on that soon.)
Not only that, but May will also see the end of the "Star Wars" saga in theaters and (I hope) in merchandising tie-ins.
This leaves me with some serious holes in the weekly TV schedule, or as is so often the case, fewer things to see on the TiVo.
Sure, there are some new shows to take the place of the old ones ("Law & Order: Trial By Jury" and “Battlestar Galactica,” on Friday nights). But the fact is, as lame as some of the shows were ("JAG" seemed to set new highs, or lows, on a weekly basis) I'll miss them.
"Third Watch," especially, is a loss, and a sudden one. The show that originally had focused on the swing shift for a group of Manhattan police officers and firefighters had its soap-opera moments (the maudlin introductions in the wake of Sept. 11, for example) but it was a quality show. Unlike "Tru Calling," in which unaired episodes will apparently sit the Fox vault, "Third Watch" was given notice that its tour was coming to an end, and the show fielded a final, wrap-everything-up finale.
"Tru Calling" was just getting interesting -- pitting Eliza Dushku's lifesaving character against Jason Priestly's hep Grim Reaper -- when, from what I can tell, the show got killed.
What's left? Well, there's the hit-and-miss "Las Vegas," which is somewhat unbelievable for a real Las Vegan like me. (The casinos really don't have access to CIA/NSA/NCIC-type databases on everybody, and facial recognition software isn't really that good.) But with Vanessa Marcil and Molly Sims, we can all get over those little leaps in logic. Charlie Sheen's vehicle, "Two And A Half Men," isn't bad, either. The "JAG"-spinoff "NCIS" is fun, as is "Scrubs," and "According To Jim." (Hey, I love Jim Belushi, what can I say?) "Joey" is still hanging in there on Thursday nights (and who didn't know he was going to hook up with the somewhat-ditzy blonde lawyer neighbor?) and so is "ER," although it's losing Noah Wylie, making Sherry Stringfield the only remaining original cast member (and even she went on a hiatus). Of course, "The Simpsons," "South Park," “Real Time With Bill Maher” and "The Daily Show" are always good.
I saved the best for last, however: "Lost," a show that started this year, is truly great. It's got mystery, suspense, sex appeal and Evangeline Lilly.
So, while I think the divine “get a life” message is still applicable, I’ve still apparently got plenty of ways to ignore it. And I didn’t even have to dip into the Netflix stash.

The time I met Dan Rather

2005-03-22T16:07:00.000-08:00

Once, years ago, I got the chance to interview Dan Rather. He came to Las Vegas to sign copies of his latest book, "Deadlines and Datelines." The circumstances couldn't have been more ignominious: The interview took place in the back room of a Borders Book Shop in Henderson, Nev. I was a writer for CityLife, an alternative newspaper in Las Vegas. Rather, by obvious contrast, sat atop the media colossus at the other end of the universe as anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News.

We talked about media, bias, how the public consumes news and how those methods were changing. We talked about dream journalism jobs (I was in mine at the time; Rather's favored post-CBS work was to become the AP bureau chief in a small town in Texas, the name of which I've forgotten).

What struck me during the interview was the sense that this was a true newsman, a colleague, a fellow warrior in the fight for truth, justice and the people's right to know. I detected not the least bit of arrogance in the man. It was this humility I often saw on TV, too. Once, while fielding live calls from witnesses to the destruction of the space shuttle Columbia, a prankster got through, and told Rather he was an idiot. "Of course I'm an idiot," Rather readily conceded, before going on to note, correctly, that this was hardly the point.

I waited to write about Rather to see the reaction to his departure. The right predictably cheered his departure and chided him for being biased. Who isn't biased, I wonder'? Is there such a gray, passionless, neutral observer out there? If so, would that person actually KNOW anything? It seems to me that knowledge and experience create bias in people, and that's not always a bad thing.

When people complain about bias, they are usually talking about a bias against the side with which they agree. A certain type of person can detect even the faintest, remotest hint of anti-Republican prejudice in the simple facial expression of an anchor on CNN, and point it out for all the world to see. But that same person can watch the Fox News Channel all day long and never notice a hint of one-sidedness. Why? Do fish know water is wet, or do they just swim in it? And of course, the same is true of the New York Times-reading, NPR-listening liberal, who is often shocked to see the kinds of things they do on Fox.

Rather was often accused of bias during his career, especially during that infamous exchange with President Richard Nixon, who asked Rather if he was running for something when Rather was applauded at a live news conference. "No sir, Mr. President. Are you?" Rather shot back, with an impish grin. Later, he'd say he regretted that, but at the time, I think it was a somewhat overpowering desire not to be embarrassed that led him to make that statement. But I think he also learned from it, because he didn't do anything like that again. (His intense grilling of President George H.W. Bush over Iran-Contra wasn't a repeat; that was necessary and proper for a reporter confronting a president whose claims of being "out of the loop" didn't hold up.)

But I think what impressed me most about Rather, during his career and in that interview, was the fact that he obviously loved journalism, loved chasing a story and loved telling people about it. And that's an important thing for a reporter, especially these days, when news is becoming more and more commercialized, prepackaged and focused-grouped. Rather came from the old school, the one in which a newsroom was a loud, noisy, boisterous place with phones ringing, typewriters clapping and people shouting. Try that today and you'll get written up for disturbing the reporters and editors who've become accustomed to a workplace more like an insurance office than a place where creativity bounces off the walls.

I couldn't end this post without mentioning Memogate, the scandal by which Rather's entire career will unfortunately be judged. Mistakes were plentiful, from the initial discovery of the story all the way through to the spirited defense of the documents that should never have seen the air. Rather admitted to those mistakes in a humiliating national apology that was nonetheless the right thing to do. Yet, behind it all, there's the undeniable fact that President Bush's service in the National Guard was irregular. The memos in question may have been fake, but even the president's defenders cannot establish the president served a full, uninterrupted term in the guard.

True to form, Rather isn't letting his mistakes get in the way. He'll be reporting stories for "60 Minutes II," that is, unless CBS cancels that show. With all the fluff on the broadcast dial, "Survivor," "The Apprentice," "Fear Factor," "The Bachelor," "The Bachelorette," etc., it might be nice to have a place where an old-school, veteran newsman has a chance to practice the craft of journalism, to keep chasing stories, and to keep bringing people the news.

A tale of two television (shows)

2005-02-28T22:04:00.000-08:00

Two of my favorite shows are leaving the airwaves for good this year, while a third favorite is back from campy death for another crack at audiences.

"NYPD Blue" has been an amazing show since in started in 1993. It broke barriers (it introduced prime-time TV audiences to the words "bitch," "asshole," "bullshit" and the ever popular "douchbag." It showed more nudity than had been shown on TV up to that time. And the violence was all too real.

Ironically, the liberal media Hollywood elite bent on perverting our kids have been working overtime to sanitize TV recently, so much so it's doubtful "NYPD Blue" would be picked up today. Thank God Janet Jackson didn't participate in the 1992 Superbowl, or we may never have known the joy of watching the ultimate anti-hero, Dennis Franz's Det. Andy Sipowitz.

The measure of a good show is to go back, look at early episodes and see if they hold up. Any Court TV viewer can tell you that any episode of "NYPD Blue" chosen at random can hold its own against any other show out there. (There are precious few scripted dramas with "NYPD Blue's" longevity; only "Law & Order" and "The Simpsons" have been on as long, says the New York Times.)

Like other great shows — "M*A*S*H" comes to mind — "NYPD Blue" is going out on its own terms, perhaps having stayed a season or two beyond its welcome. Diehard fans like me would watch into eternity, of course, but the show had slipped from its high perch reached in the early years. When it finally wraps up Tuesday, March 1, we'll be seeing the end of an era.

Ditto for another show, literally and figuratively a universe away. "Enterprise," the first "Star Trek" show not to carry the "Star Trek" name, is being retired after four mostly disappointing seasons. It's proof positive that simply beaming anybody into a starship called Enterprise isn't enough. The people who inhabit her have to have character, or the show is dead.

The original "Star Trek" didn't last as long as "Enterprise," going out after just 72 episodes. But the impact of that show is felt to this day, even stronger than when it was in original production. The impact of "Enterprise" will be more akin to a phaser set to lightly stun, at best.

It looked promising: Scott Bakula as Capt. Jonathan Archer, leading a diverse crew into space with the virtually brand-new technology of warp drive, about 100 years before Capt. Kirk departed on his original five-year mission. But it never followed the pattern of other "Star Trek" derivatives, which is a lagging first and second season, followed by a coming-into-its-own for about four more.

Fans will protest Paramount's decision to cancel the show, but even that repeat of the letter-writing campaign that saved the original "Star Trek" from an early death seems like going through the motions. Again, ardent fans like me would watch anything they put on. And perhaps that's the problem. If we demanded more, our love of quality would outweigh our baser lusts for something, anything to continue the franchise.

Now, we get a break. There are no new "Star Trek" series in development, no new movies being shot. For the first time in a long time ("Star Trek: The Next Generation" debuted in the late 1980s) there will be a lull. Perhaps the good people at Starfleet Command in San Francisco could use the time wisely to decide how, or perhaps if, "Star Trek" should continue. From what I've seen, there's no lack of fan interest, or writing talent. It's sad that so much of the former and so little of the latter made it to "Enterprise."

They did, finally and somewhat convincingly, explain why the Klingons of Kirk's day look different than those we saw in "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" and afterwards. Explain? Never. That's what DVDs are for.

And until recently, DVDs were the only way to experience the space opera known as "Battlestar Galactica." The late 1970s series was campy, low-budget and heavily undergirded with Mormon theology. But I and all my friends loved it, and hung on every episode. When money and the jealousy of George Lucas killed it, we were devastated.

But when the Sci-Fi channel a couple years ago revived it, some weren't sure what to think. It was a kind of "Pet Cemetery" resurrection, where the animal looks the same, but is a totally different creature. The late Lorne Greene was replaced by Edward James Olmos as Adama, the commander of the Galactica, which is a spacebound aircraft carrier. Starbuck, a fan favorite played by Dirk Benedict, was convincingly transformed into a wisecracking, cigar-puffing chick, in the person of Katee Sackoff. And the red-eyed, slow-footed Cylons? They now look like humans and are played by former Victoria's Secret models. It's a brave new world.

The new "Battlestar Galactica" is darker than the original. Where Greene's Adama truly believed the Lords of Kobol were guiding him and his refugee fleet to Earth, Olmos' commander doesn't really believe, but uses the myth of Earth as fuel for hope, to keep his people moving. The human-looking Cylons, virtually impossible to distinguish from humans, can't be shot or blown up as easily as the morally neutral robots of the original, when the heroes were just blasting away at malevolent toasters. These Cylons believe in God, and think they have souls. And the Mormon dogma is gone; the latter-day Lords of Kobol are apparently Greek gods.

There are all manner of sub-themes, like a healthy strain of Luddite-ism (networked computers are banned on Galactica, as the Cylons now traffic in computer viruses — it's not clear if they also send spam messages to the ship promising lonely housewives looking for action or hot cheerleaders shooting video of a field trip to a farm). There's failure and redemption (Starbuck had a fling with Adama's other son, Zack, and passed him out of basic flight when he should have failed, thus putting him on a flight deck in the path of a deadly accident). And there's evil and sadism, as Cylons toy with humans like Dr. Hannibal Lecter sizing up his latest meal.

Would we have liked this Battlestar Galactica back in 1979? Who knows. Perhaps each show was uniquely suited to its time. All I know is, the revised and updated Galactica will likely sail longer than the poor, careworn Enterprise.

The Oscars Rocked

2005-02-28T21:43:00.000-08:00

To be honest, I was forced to watch the Oscars. (Don't ask.) Under normal circumstances, I would have gone to the movies, read a book or dozed off to a favorite DVD rather than witness Hollywood's most self-congratulatory moment. But once the annual car wreck started, I couldn't look away.

The saving grace? Chris Rock. I've been a huge fan since forever, and I knew he'd spice things up. The Bush-bashing bit about working at the Gap, coming up trillions short in your register and starting a war with Banana Republic that winds up being based on false pretenses was priceless.

Today, however, as stars were just rolling out of bed, shaking off hangovers from Oscar parties and thinking about returning borrowed gowns and jewelry, a new work acquaintance asked about the show, and Rock's joke in particular. Didn't it seem as if he was diminishing the sacrifices of the troops, as if he was saying their deaths were in vain?

Exactly, I replied. That's exactly what he was saying.

Well, my new friend replied. That's wrong.

The more I thought about the exchange, the more (gulp!) nuanced my thoughts became. Of course, the war on Iraq is more serious than a retail dispute. Of course, the sacrifice of a solider dying while obeying the lawful orders of his commander-in-chief is never in vain.

The more than 1,000 combat deaths are more like ... what's the word?

Unnecessary. Not ignoble. But definitely unnecessary.

It's hard to be against the war and yet support the troops. It's often a rhetorical high-wire act, requiring alacritous use of verbal balancing bars like Rock sending out much love to the troops after having done his Gap-Banana Republic bit. It's the kind of shady middle ground that President Bush and his national security team know that most Americans will find it hard to occupy. Might as well just slap a yellow ribbon magnet on the SUV and be done with it.

For the record, it is possible to support American soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines and yet still be circumspect about sending them into combat. In fact, it's obvious that skepticism toward justification for war evidences more concern for the troops than pre-ordained war plans made in the vacuum of fact and evidence. And by that I mean Bush and his national security team.

If we truly do value our fighting men, then we should be all the more stingy when it comes to committing them to a fight. We should at least be damn sure of our evidence, and fully convinced that force is the only remaining option. If that sounds more like World War II or the first Gulf War to you than Korea, Vietnam or the invasion of Iraq, you're certainly part of what one Bush aide called "the reality-based community." Please, for the sake of your sanity, refrain from asking "as opposed to what"?

Rock didn't disparage our troops or their sacrifices with his joke at the Oscars, any more than celebrating the Oscars during a time of war showed disrespect. But by putting it in terms the average American (who DOESN'T read newspapers or watch TV news but who DOES shop at the Gap and Banana Republic) can understand, he illustrated a simple but powerful truth:

Those 1,000-plus deaths were not in vain. But they were unnecessary. And that deepens the pain at the loss.

May God protect all Americans serving abroad, and see them safely home when their mission is done. And may He hasten that day.

The blog is back!

2005-02-28T21:18:00.000-08:00

A time for war

2004-04-20T11:53:00.000-07:00

I knew it was coming, and of course I feared the worst. It was an election year, and there were some dicey things on TV. But when that wardrobe malfunctioned during the Super Bowl halftime show, I knew there would be a government fatwa on broadcast decency.

Sure enough, Howard Stern came under scrutiny by the Federal Communications Commission, which led to a fine and prompted Clear Channel (owner of 93.2 percent of all radio stations in the United States, Canada and U.S. possessions overseas) to drop his show from certain markets. The FCC then promptly returned to deciding whether using the F-word as an adjective on a broadcast show was all right, or whether it should be banned entirely.

But it's not going to stop there. At least not if a couple of congressmen who appeared at the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas Monday have their way. U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, seemed to imply that broadcast decency standards should be applied to cable and satellite television as well, where uncensored dialogue plainly rules the day.

"If I can see it on my TV and my grandson can click and watch a channel, whether it's satellite, over-the-air or cable, the same rules in terms of decency should apply," Barton said. Barton, by the way, is chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, a panel that has some oversight into these matters.

Fellow Congressman Conrad Burns, R-Mont., said the federal government might have to interfere in the "creative community" if it doesn't improve decency standards on its own. (I don't think he gets the irony.)

"Someday, they're going to have to do some work too or somebody is going to have to take a good close look at them. I don't know anybody that's as far-removed from mainstream America than Hollywood. I don't know what they're doing about it [indecency] but it's unbelievable."

(I'd suggest that perhaps Congress is farther removed from mainstream America than Hollywood, since Janet Jackson's breast and the words "asshole," "bitch" and "bullshit" occurring regularly in the scripts of "NYPD Blue" don't seem to be the biggest concerns of the American people. Or I could suggest that the biggest indecencies on TV -- President Bush's misleading remarks to justify a war in Iraq that has now cost the lives of 700 American servicemen -- never seem to arouse Republican ire.)

But while we're on the subject of being far removed from something, how far removed is Big Government intrusion into a private business from the Republican party line of small, non-invasive government that lets the free market decide the value of a product? Farther than Hollywood is from mainstream America, I'd guess.

Because the fact is -- as the only sensible guy at the NAB forum, U.S. Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., noted -- the free market ought to pick off bad shows, as advertisers and audience leave. The heavy hand of government shouldn't have anything to do with it.

Some say it's just an election year, time to fire up the Culture Wars to draw distinctions between gay-marriage-loving, nudity-appreciating, Hollywood-values-type Democrats and morally-upstanding, porn-eschewing, America-loving Republicans. Don't worry about it; the careworn First Amendment will withstand the onslaught of Barton and Burns, they say.

But I say, we have to worry about it. Because what they're talking about is government censorship of a creative work prior to its broadcast to the public. And that is wrong: legally, constitutionally and morally. If we don't say anything when we think they might not really do it, it will be too late to say something when they actually do.

And that's why the industry needs to find its backbone, and stand up to congressional bullies. It's fine for them to convene summits on decency, or appoint study panels. But they should also insist that Congress protect their rights, chief among them the First Amendment. They should tell Barton to take away the remote control from his grandson if they're worried about what he might see, and remind him that no one watches TV at gunpoint (with the possible exception of fans of "Touched By An Angel").

And if Congress continues on a jihad to regulate the "creative community," they should all be advised in a firm voice to go outside and play a vigorous game of hide and go fuck themselves.

I can still write that on the Internet, right?

Correction

2004-04-20T11:47:00.000-07:00

In my April 12, 2004, post, I slandered Matt LeBlanc ("Friends") by saying he appeared in the awful 1998 film "Kissing A Fool." That was actually David Schwimmer (also "Friends"). In addition, I incorrectly said Crown Theaters runs "The Twenty," a pre-movie adfest. "The Twenty" appears in Regal and Edwards theaters. Regrets for the mistakes.

Friends farewell

2004-04-12T22:42:00.000-07:00

If you get to the movies early these days, at least in theaters owned by Regal, Edwards or Crown, you are treated to "The Twenty." It's a digitally projected pre-movie adfest on crack. Gone are the lame slides with movie trivia questions interspersed with offers for a free Coke if you show your movie stub at the eatery a few doors down the strip mall. Now, you can see previews for TV shows on NBC and TNT on top of ads, just like you were at home (presuming your living room had 200 seats and a giant, rear-projection TV screen).

Last time I ventured into a theater (to see "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," which I recommend) there was a tribute to "Friends," the long-running NBC sitcom that's ending in May after a decade on the air. There was the maudlin music, scenes from past episodes and the interviews with tearing-up cast members. (I suppose if I was about to lose $1 million per half-hour episode, I'd be tearing up, too.)

C'mon, folks. Bill Shatner said it best on SNL so many years ago: It's just a TV show.

You wouldn't know it from the hype, however. NBC is milking this cow until every udder is sore. We've had "viewers' choice" favorite episodes leading up to the final new shows. We've had cast members show up on late-night talk shows, discussing the end of "Friends." And we're sure to see NBC pull out all the self-promotional publicity stops leading up to the final episode.

Will Rachel move to Paris for a job? What will happen with Ross, and their baby, Emma? Will the gang stay together when Chandler and Monica move to the suburbs? What's in store for Phoebe and her new husband? And -- oh, God, please say it isn't true -- will Joey really star in his own spinoff? (Yes, according to Matt LeBlanc's entry in the Internet Movie Database.)

Alert readers will now notice the joke is on me, since I know all the characters. Yes, I admit I watch "Friends," and have since the show started back in 1994. It's an all right show, although it's declined a bit in recent years. But it's funny. Not "Seinfeld" funny, but better than most of ABC's primetime lineup. (The exception there, of course, is "According to Jim," which is great.)

So if I, a dedicated fan, can let the "Friends" gang go their separate ways, shouldn't we all be able to do it? They are, after all, fictional characters who will be most mourned by NBC executives, and then only for their ability to wring cash out of advertisers.

Then again, freed from the chains of a weekly half-hour show, the cast is free to make movies. Movies like "Bruce Almighty," (Jennifer Aniston) "3,000 Miles to Graceland," (Courtney Cox Arquette) "Fools Rush In," (Matthew Perry) "Scream" and its sequels (Cox Arquette), "Romy & Michelle's High School Reunion," (Lisa Kudrow) "Lost In Space," (Matt LeBlanc) "Serving Sara" (Perry again) and "Kissing A Fool" (LeBlanc).

Hmmm. How about another season after all?

Sad news for Vegas

2004-04-02T16:22:00.000-08:00

No, it's not the report in the local Las Vegas newspaper — the Review Journal, which for full disclosure purposes is my employer — that former Clark County Commissioner Dario Herrera was cited for assault at a construction site. The one-time congressional candidate done in by ethics problems great and small, isn't letting a federal indictment on corruption charges stand in the way of his making a living. But allegedly hitting a guy who may someday be a tenant of the under-constructdion condo complex shows that Herrera seems to have lost some of the political skills that got him named a golden boy of the Democratic Party.

No, the real sad news today is the departure of the Deregulator, whose writings are linked on this page. Rick Henderson, mild-mannered editorial writer by day, mad blogger by night, is the one who got me into blogging in the first place. His last day at the Review-Journal's editorial page is today; he's leaving to spread the gospel of capitalism, free minds and free markets at the Riverside (Calif.) Press-Enterprise.

Rick will be missed at the paper. Not least are the many laughs we've shared over the absurdity of politics, whether Vegas style or nationally. We didn't share the same philosophy on matters political or economic, but Rick was always able to offer a credible defense for his stance without ever taking the debate too seriously -- if there were more like him on the right, the rest of us wouldn't consider them such A-holes.

Then again, we didn't disagree on everything, either. Rick's research into the issue of separation of powers, borne out in a lengthy Review-Journal op-ed piece, sparked an intellectual as well as political revolution in Nevada that eventually found it's way to the attorney general's office and, someday soon, the courts. It will be a lasting legacy if Nevada's jurists find, as Rick did, that public employees cannot serve simultaneously in the Legislature without running afoul of the state constitution.

So, good luck to Rick (the link to the Deregulator will remain, so fans can keep up to date on his writings). We hope the next "guy at the next desk" will be as cool.

Here we go

2004-03-03T19:44:00.000-08:00

So McDonald's has announced that it will stop serving "Super Size" portions of food and beverages. Gone are the Sack 'O Potatoes-size French fries, and the Bucket O'Coke. It's not a fast-food conspiracy to get you to buy two medium orders of fries and two Cokes, thus increasing corporate profits. It's even worse than that.

McDonald's is launching a "healthy lifestyle initiative."

In the name of getting its fat-assed customers into "healthier, active lives," the chain is doing away with the seven-ounce serving of fries, which according to a story in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal weigh in at 610 calories, with 29 grams of fat, 390 milligrams of sodium and 77 grams of the evil carbs.

As someone who has eaten a fry or two, I can honestly say, McDonald's fries compare to none other, especially right from the fry machine, hot, steaming and salty.

And, apparently, deadly. So in an obvious move to head off the trial lawyers who attacked Big Tobacco and are currently wrangling with Big Gun, the super geniuses at Mickey D's are getting rid of Super Size stuff, putting apple slices in Happy Meals and substituting 1 percent milk for the usual 2 percent. (I can feel the pounds slipping away already.)

Leave aside the Letterman-style jokes -- what's one of the top 10 things overheard at the McDonald's drive-through? "Would you like the name of a good heart specialist with that?" When McDonald's starts worrying about our health, you know this nation is morbidly obese. These are the same people who developed the Quarter-Pounder with Cheese, and when that wasn't enough, came up with the Double Quarter-Pounder with Cheese, which has killed more people per capita than any 10 Haitian dictators. And they're going to lecture me about eating healthy?

I could suggest that if you're overweight, the best course of action would be to stay away from McDonald's in the first place. It doesn't matter if you trade in the Super Size fries for the six-ounce version (540 calories and 26 grams of fat). If you're eating at McDonald's at all, you're missing the point of a "healthy lifestyle initiative." Just because a Big Mac has lettuce on it doesn't make it a salad, fat boy.

But isn't that really the point, after all? Aren't we as a society now trying to delude ourselves into thinking that, if we only get the medium fries with our Quarter-Pounder with Cheese, and oh, make that a Diet Coke, will you? -- we're somehow eating healthier? What a joke.

Personally, I think McDonald's ought to keep serving up the same old fare, in even bigger sizes. And advertise it for what it is: Artery-clogging, heart-stopping, gut-bombing good times on a bun! Sure it will kill you, but you'll die with a big, ketchup-stained smile on your fat face.

Lawsuits? Screw 'em! If there is somebody out there who thinks that eating two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles and onions on a sesame seed bun isn't a ticket to an early grave, I say let natural selection take its course.

But by trying to jump on the healthy lifestyle bandwagon, McDonald's is showing that it's part and parcel of our politically correct, safety-goggled, seat-belted, sterile culture, where everybody should wear a helmet while driving a car and should make sure to beat the crap out of anybody even thinking of smoking a cigarette within a five-mile radius. The place we used to go for what we all know is an unhealthy indulgence is putting apple slices in our happy meals, serving salads and bland chicken sandwiches? What has become of our culture?

Yes, we're getting fatter. Yes, we're dying sooner. Yes, we indulge ourselves with Super Size fries that have more calories than the residents of some countries eat in a week. Yes, we're commercialized media victims who always want fries with that. But we know who we are, and even though we keep promising to get to the gym one of these days, and never do, we're happy with who we are.

Or at least we used to be. Now, thanks to fat people with access to good lawyers, we have a future of tofu burgers, salads with non-fat dressing, and sparkling mineral water to look forward to, provided, of course, that none of things can be found to cause cancer. We'll drive to McGreens in our non-polluting cars, patiently wait in line for the clerk to screw up our order (some things never change) and then munch on our "I-Can't-Believe-It's-Not-Beef" veggie burger, all the while dreaming of the good old days.

Some might call it progress. But I can still tell the difference between a dead cow and the Sprout-O-Licious vegan alternative. If I shave a few years off for self-indulgence, so be it. I promise not to sue anybody on my way out.

Can I get a Super Size Amen with that? Anybody?

Civil religion?

2004-03-01T20:07:00.000-08:00

Is it just me, or does anyone else out there think it's perfectly reasonable to have separate rules for running your church as running your country?

I'm a Catholic, and my church teaches that homosexuality is wrong, and thus gay marriage is forbidden. They've got plenty of biblical backup, in both Old and New Testaments to justify that position.

And that's fine. Nobody has to be a Catholic (well, maybe the Irish). It's entirely voluntary. And it's not like the Catholics are hiding their views in the fine print, either. You get full disclosure before you sign on the bottom line.

But the point is, not everybody in the nation is a Catholic. There are Protestants, oh, so very many Protestants. There are Mormons and Muslims, Baptists and Buddists, Hindus and hedonists, agnostics and atheists. And we all have to live together in the United States.

So am I wrong to suggest that the Catholic predisposition against gay marriage is perfectly appropriate in the parish hall, but not in the halls of Congress? Is it blasphemy to suggest that if gays are allowed to form civil unions (let's not call it marriage), the institution of marriage sanctified by God and solemnized in churches would remain intact?

I would defend the right of the Catholic church to conduct only mixed-sex marriages. For the church to do otherwise would be to betray more than 4,000 years of doctrine and teaching.

But there's a huge difference between pastors and bishops whose job it is to instruct us on how to live a pious life, and congressmen, whose job it is to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Yes, I know our laws against murder and robbery have their roots in "Thou shalt not kill" and "Thou shalt not steal." Some of the founders of our country believed in God, although some would have trouble uttering the Nicene Creed. But not killing and not stealing are rules under which we can all live, and to which we can all agree.

But civil society might not be able to agree that lusting after a woman is the legal equivalent of committing adultery, or that hating a person in our hearts is the same as murder, as Jesus said during the Sermon on the Mount.

It seems to me that the church and the government have two totally separate jobs, and that we put both at risk when we try, even in small ways, to combine the two. The sacred never purifies the secular; the secular always sullies the sacred. The church's real problems didn't begin with the heretics who cropped up in the decades immediately following the Crucifixation and Resurrection. They started in earnest when Constantine made Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire. In the end, it didn't keep the Romans from sin and political collapse.

Jesus knew that you don't change a society from the outside in, by making people act like Christians through force of law. He knew you change a society from the inside out, by converting individuals to a life of virtue and service to God and fellow man. That kind of conversion can stand against oppression, persecution or even the gates of hell. But the trappings of religion imposed by government without a true change of heart could easily be the definition of hell. Yes, you have order, but the corruption of the human spirit remains, and yearns always to manifest itself.

No, I'm convinced the church and Congress have wholly different jobs, and the twain should not meet. The church should continue to speak out on issues of morality, and to feed the flock, awaiting the return of Christ and the end of history. And the Congress should continue to foster a country where people of all faiths, all beliefs and all lifestyles can live in freedom and harmony.

Or am I wrong?

An update on political talk TV

2004-03-01T09:59:00.000-08:00

No sooner did I write about Dennis Miller's rightward shift than the Monday morning paper carried an article from The Associated Press, revealing that Miller's slowly improving CNBC show will be among several cable TV venues to host the first flight of ads for the Bush-Cheney 2004 reelection effort. I wouldn't ever suggest Miller's change of outlook wasn't heartfelt; he seems to truly believe what's he said about Sept. 11 and the war on terrorism. But it certainly doesn't hurt being part of the prevailing class.

I assume that if Bush-Cheney 2004 is taking to the cable television airwaves, "Politically Incorrect" will be next on the list of must-buy ad time? After all, we're talking market share here, aren't we? But it's the quality of audience, not just the quantity. And judging by audience reaction to the comments of Maher's guests, I would estimate there are as many Bush supporters in Maher's audience as there are readers of this blog. (Thanks for reading, Rick and Scott!)

Other venues the AP says will be featuring Bush-Cheney 2004 ads include Fox News. That's got to be just a little disconcerting for Miller. Guilt by association is the stuff of the Hollywood blacklist, yes, but if somebody put me in the same category as, say, Ann Coulter, I'd take it as a sign to start some serious soul-searching.

A quick hit on the talk shows

2004-02-29T17:27:00.000-08:00

Recently, a study was published that revealed many people were getting their news from late-night television variety shows, like "Late Night with David Letterman," or comedy shows, like "Real Time with Bill Maher." Media monopolists immediately rushed into lamentations about the fall of the American empire, as if that hasn't already happened with the invention of spray-on cheese. And that's to say nothing of the long national nightmare that is reality TV, which draws large audiences of people who appear to be borderline retarded.

But I think it's not all bad that folks like Bill Maher, Jon Stewart and Letterman are educating people about politics. In many ways, they are more interesting, more informative and more concise than hours of 24-hour cable shoutfests.

Let's take a look at a few of my favorite politically oriented shows, and the benefits they bring to the debate:

* "Real Time With Bill Maher" (8 p.m. Friday on HBO, with frequent repeats): I must confess that I lost interest with Maher's old show, "Politically Incorrect," which got worse when it jumped to ABC. Everybody shouting, playing to the audience, tended to dilute the original concept, which was fairly brilliant. Then came Sept. 11 and we all had to watch what we say -- in the words of the contemptible Ari Fleischer, ex-White House press secretary -- and Maher lost his job for making the perfectly legitimate point that the terrorists were not cowards, no matter what else they were.

But he's back on HBO, with one of the best all-around shows on television today. Maher is funny, irreverent, independent and quick on his feet. He assembles some of the best panels around, even if guests still tend to play to the audience. But his "New Rules" are some of the most incisive social commentary around. (To see some transcripts, check out Maher's Web site.

Maher exemplifies what's right with getting some of your news from this kind of show (not all, mind you, but some): He isn't going to let some screaming irony pass. He's also going to tell you why someone is wrong, or lying, or being intellectually dishonest. And he's going to do it with humor, a weapon with such a sharp edge that Sir Thomas More suggests we use it against the devil. And there's more than a few devils skewered on Maher's show.

Consider the recent ads put out by the MoveOn.org organization, comparing President Bush to Adolf Hitler. The first rule of being taken seriously in politics, Maher reminds MoveOn.org, is to stop comparing everyone you don't like to Hitler. Besides, he continued, Hitler was a decorated combat vet, and Bush served in the Texas Air National Guard. Hitler was democratically elected with a majority of votes. Bush lost the popular vote to former Vice President Al Gore. Bush, he concluded, is nothing like Hitler.

You won't see that on Fox. Or CNN.

* "Dennis Miller" (9 p.m. daily on CNBC): When I first saw Dennis Miller's new show on CNBC, I was shocked. Sure, Miller has taken a rightward tilt in the last few years, but this wasn't the same Dennis Miller who perfected "Weekend Update" on Saturday Night Live, who made his HBO show the original "must see TV," who packs them in at $60 a pop in Vegas. This was a shadow of his former self, cracking jokes to a studio audience of no one, admitting the techs were arriving shortly to take the stick of his ass.

I'm glad to report the show is getting a studio audience soon, some of whom will get about 55 percent of Miller's obscurely subreferenced humor. But he desperately needs someone besides the camera operator to appreciate what he's doing behind that little desk. The jokes, after all, are still good, even if he could be the opening act on Day One at the Republican convention.

* "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" (11 p.m. daily on Comedy Central): To say Jon Stewart is a comic genius leading a staff of comic geniuses would start to cover it. I rarely laugh out loud at TV (well, ABC's "According To Jim," -- where I get most of my political news -- is an exception) but it's the rare "Daily Show" that goes by without at least a chuckle.

Like Maher, Stewart has an eye for the ironic, the mendacious and the absurd that all great comedians and journalists have. (This was, after all, Mark Twain and H.L. Mencken's bread and butter.) No one is safe from Stewart's razor-sharp wit, although like Maher he isn't the biggest fan of President Bush. And the live reports from correspondents are some of the funniest stuff on TV.

As always, Letterman and Leno (11:30 p.m. daily on CBS and NBC, respectively) have monologues that key off the news to make fun of those who make headlines. But these, too, are instructive: They puncture the self-righteous and the self-important, and remind people of what's really happening. This may have the net effect of increasing cynicism, but these days, you've got to be dead to not be a little cynical. (What's the bumper sticker say: "If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention"?)

Besides granting the networks and newspapers a monopoly on delivering the news never seemed like that great of an idea to me, especially since I work in one of those institutions. So if people are interested in politics because Bill Maher, Jon Stewart or David Letterman is chatting about it, I say good for them, and good for all of us, too.

A betrayal of conscience?

2004-02-24T08:15:00.000-08:00

During the 2000 presidential campaign, I had the opportunity to meet many of the people running for the White House. I met Vice President Al Gore, who gave reporters about 30 minutes after a Rolling Stone photo shoot at UNLV to ask questions. Gore was clearly uncomfortable being peppered by the state's top political journalists (my colleagues) but answered every question thoughtfully. He was accompanied, but unassisted, by staffers during the interview.

I met U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, who was more at ease with his questioners but seemed ill-at-ease on the campaign trail. When he pulled out one of the most awful Democratic cliches -- when you want to make a car go backwards, you select "R" on the gearshift, but when you want to go forward, you select "D" -- he actually seemed embarrassed.

I met Dick Cheney, who had the fewest people skills of any politician I've met. He entered the room and sat down without the customary handshakes. Unlike Gore, he hadn't been briefed, and didn't know anything about any of the people who he'd be talking to that day. He was uncomfortable with some questions, and at one point even had to consult a staffer to ask what the Bush-Cheney ticket's position on storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain actually was. (It turns out "screw Nevada" was the policy, although wisely not pressed into double-duty as a campaign slogan.) He left like he'd arrived, without handshakes. The Republicans should thank God for former U.S. Sen. Alan Simpson, R-Wyo., who was campaigning with Cheney that day and who was charming, engaging and informed. Too bad Simpson wasn't on the ticket.

And I also met Ralph Nader, who drew a fairly sizable crowd to a rally at UNLV. He sat with reporters one-on-one afterwards for interviews, and was clearly the most informed of any of the candidates. And he was also the most principled, standing by an anti-corporate agenda the entire time. (For the record, he said, he was against Yucca Mountain AND nuclear power, and was the only candidate with those beliefs.)

I liked Nader. Later that evening, during an appearance on "Nevada Week in Review," I actually donned a "Vote Nader" campaign button, although it was too small to be seen by viewers. I penned an op-ed piece praising Nader, and mentioned him in another lamenting how the Democrats had become so damn Republican.

But when it came to crunch time, I chickened out. In the voting booth, I seriously considered voting for Nader, but eventually decided on Gore. It's an admission I make with shame, because I abandoned a principled candidate for the most pragmatic of reasons: I couldn't bear the thought of George W. Bush in the White House, especially with the GOP in charge of the Senate and the House.

Now we know today that if more people had made the same calculation I did, Gore would be president. Nader got more than 90,000 votes in the controversial Florida election, which Bush "won" by just more than 900. (The vote Bush really won, the one that put him in the White House, was the 5-4 ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court; more on that below.)

I had a nebulous feeling back in 2000 that a Bush presidency would be bad for America, but I had no idea about some of the horrible specifics. I've been keeping a list, which I expect will morph into a manifesto for future posting, but here's a few bullet points:

1.) The highly questionable method of Bush's election and the subsequent Supreme Court battle. For more on this, see an excellent little book by lawyer and author Vincent Bugliosi (the former Los Angeles County deputy district attorney who prosecuted Charles Manson and co-wrote "Helter Skelter") titled "The Betrayal of America." It's well worth a look.

2.) The overwhelming influence of corporations, through political connections and campaign contributions, on the Bush White House. The Bush administration, more than any other, seeks to privatize profits while socializing costs on a host of programs.

Social Security? Privatize it, by shifting funds to the stock market, thus boosting corporate income and paying off fund managers. It's not an administration concern if a program that has endured since the Great Depression is gutted in the process, or if workers rely on corporate liars and invest in a company that goes under because of sheer greed, like Enron.

Medicare? Privatize it, by turning aspects of the program over to private companies, thus allowing them to make a profit but barring the government from doing the same thing using the vast purchasing power of a state-run program.

And the war? Socialize the costs by sending in our troops to rout the Iraqi army and restore some kind of order, while privatizing the profits by allowing private companies to come in and make money from supplying troops and rebuilding the nation.

3.) And speaking of the war in Iraq, books could be written about the mendacity of the Bush administration. We know from former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neil's book that war in Iraq was a foregone conclusion from Inauguration Day. The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks have been consistently cited by administration officials as a justification for the Iraq war, but it has never been proven that Saddam Hussein or Iraq had anything whatever to do with what happened in New York, Washington, D.C. or Pennsylvania that day. (At most, the attacks justified routing the Taliban from Afghanistan.)

The faulty intelligence, its use and abuse, as well as the flubbed handling of reconstruction and the rising death toll apparently don't concern the Bush administration, which forms commissions with far-off due-dates and prohibits reporters from covering the return of American caskets. These are the solutions to their problems, both political and moral.

4.) Back at home, Bush took a record surplus and transformed it through the magic of tax cuts into a record deficit. (We're now expected to cheer when the White House claims the deficit won't be as bad as we thought.) There have been record job losses, and Republican opposition to extending unemployment benefits to those people who are diligently trying to find work.

5.) The USA Patriot Act? Sure, Democrats in Washington wanted these powers for years, but could never get them. (Has anyone heard me defending the Democrats, or even claiming to be one?) Once again using Sept. 11 as an excuse, the administration has gone for the brass ring of unconstitutional power grabs. (And don't say the powers won't be abused; they already have been: Here in Las Vegas, they were used to seize documents in connection with a political corruption investigation that had nothing to do with terrorism.) And a bill that would limit the Patriot Act's provisions to terrorism investigations -- supposedly the reason it was passed in the first place -- is opposed by the administration.

The list goes on and on, but I highlight these few only to make this point: In 2000, the damage that could be done by a Bush presidency was theoretical. Now, it's all too real. We simply cannot afford four more years of George W. Bush.

That's why on Sunday, when I first heard the news that Ralph Nader had decided to run again, I wasn't pleased, even though I should have been. Nader is more of what a Democrat ought to be than almost all of the front-runners put together, and isn't afraid to say so. But the effect of his candidacy cannot do anything but help Bush.

Nader is a man of principle, and I feel badly for not supporting someone with whom I agree on many issues. But isn't ending an unjust regime a principled thing as well?

La Gloria California

2004-02-17T05:21:00.000-08:00

So it seems some in my home state of California are objecting to Gov. Arnold Schwarznegger's plan to turn the courtyard of the state Capitol into a smoking area, so he can entertain guests with his favored Cuban cigars. (The only reason he's doing it is that the state has decreed it a moral sin to smoke indoors.)

According to The Associated Press, groups like Tobacco Survivors United and Stop Tobacco Abuse of Minors Pronto (STAMP, get it?) are knocking Schwarznegger for setting a bad example for the ultimate pressure group, "the children."

To which the governor's spokeswoman, Terri Carbaugh, has the perfect response: "He certainly discourages children from smoking, but he is over 18."

To bad members of the anti-tobacco groups aren't. To them, any person smoking anywhere at any time is a terrible evil that must be -- apologies here -- stamped out. This isn't a health issue, and probably never was. At its heart, it's the ancient temptation from the Garden of Eden, the serpent's whispered promise to Eve: "Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." And what's the best part about being God? You get to control the behavior of other people that you personally find offensive.

A stretch? Not really. Laurie Comstock, who founded Tobacco Survivors United, cites a California law that bans smoking within 20 feet of a building or an "operable window." And since the courtyard is overlooked by offices with operable windows, the governor's smokers may have to be curtailed. "Certainly, if any of those windows open, they may have an issue," she told the AP.

Remember that Comstock doesn't work at the Capitol. She won't ever be on the other side of one of those operable windows. It's pretty clear she won't be invited to the governor's smokers. And it's not likely Schwarzenegger will entertain the kids from Mrs. Johnson's third-grade class on their Capitol tour by inviting them out for some genuine Cohibas.

So what's the big deal, if consenting adults retire to the patio so the governor can show some hospitality and try to wrangle a few votes to rescue the Golden State from billions in debt? Ask Comstock and her fellows: They are as gods, knowing good and evil. And you'd best not cross them.

The only problem is, in the Garden of Eden story, the serpent has always been portrayed as the devil.

On gatekeepers and stenographers

2004-02-16T16:52:00.001-08:00

As a full-time, professional journalist (meaning I've persuaded somebody to actually pay me to write in the pages of a newspaper) you may think my opposition to people getting their news from Web sites is simply an outgrowth of anticompetitive instinct. You may think I want to keep the monopoly on news so as to keep myself employed.

But to think that I’ve any ability to stop the flow through that particular dike with a single finger is utter folly: There’s no stopping the Internet.

Instead, what I’m calling for is a stop to professional journalists treating the Internet like it was a trusted source. Because it isn’t.

Perhaps I’m just fooling myself to think that people still look to the media for accurate reporting, and that they think that what they read in the paper has gone through some kind of vetting. There aren’t many people out there who will say (as someone I once knew did) that “they wouldn’t let them put it in the paper if it wasn’t true.” And there are those who, like Denzel Washington’s character in “Training Day,” think 90 percent of what’s in the paper is bullshit: entertaining, but false.

And when journalists report that certain Web sites have reported something, that’s not journalism. It’s gossip, and unsubstantiated gossip at that. Do it over a back fence, over beers or over a coffee table during a break from “Oprah:” Don’t do it in the pages of a newspaper.

I’ll answer the obvious question: Yes, there is an incident that has sparked this post. And no, I’m not going to tell you about it. To do so would be to commit the same sin I’m preaching against, and while I may be many things, a Jim Bakker-style preacher I am not.

Journalists have a professional, legal and moral obligation to provide credible information to the public. Each time they fail, the entire profession fails, just as each time a sexual abuse scandal is revealed, the entire Roman Catholic Church suffers.

Say a Web site were to make unsubstantiated allegations of wrongdoing against a political figure. The easy thing to do is report it, or at the very least, ask somebody about it, and hang a story on that gossamer-thin peg. It’s also the lazy and irresponsible thing to do.

What we in the media should do is act as a gatekeeper, first asking if the material is worthy of getting into print. Is is really a story? Even if the allegation were true, does it impact how the person would do a public job? If he or she is being accused of embezzling public funds or ferrying a mistress on junkets at government expense, the answer is clearly yes. If it’s private wrongdoing with no connection to public duty, the answer is clearly no.

Only when that question is answered should journalists move on to the next, and equally important question, is it true? And only when they’ve satisfied themselves (and their editors, and probably the newspaper’s lawyer, too) that there is some truth to the allegations should they ever be published.

It takes longer. It’s more work. But if we don’t do it, we risk our own credibility, to say nothing of a potentially innocent person’s life and career. Too often, we forget that, and do so at our peril.

A friend and colleague of mine, political commentator Jon Ralston, has penned a piece on this subject. He speaks from personal experience more eloquently than I, and his commentary is well worth a look.

The first post

2004-02-10T23:04:00.000-08:00

"Under construction" is the third oldest cliche on the Web, after porn and "404 Object Not Found." But it's all underanakedbulb.blogspot.com has for now. Someday, hopefully soon, it will be home to politics, religion and all the other things you shouldn't do or say at cocktail parties. It's a manifesto, a declaration of war from a happy warrior and a call to arms for an apathetic age when people are happy so long as they've got cable, a big-screen TV, pizza delivered hot to their door and beer aplenty. "Is man no more than this?" We'll find out.

More soon.