Riba Rambles:
Musings of a Mental Magpie
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About the author: Elisabeth in early 2007, photo by Todd Belf
Elisabeth "Lis" Riba is an infovore with an MLS. This is her place to share whatever's on her mind, on topics both personal and political. [more]
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Saturday, May 06, 2006
To end the week on the same note in which it began
Posted by Lis Riba at 9:21 PM

IFF you have seen School Reunion, AND (not our relative, but another who goes by that conjunction) has written two excellent followup fanfics: Wendys and A Good Life.

I strongly recommend them (they're totally G-rated gen) but only after you've seen the episode.

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Still more Shakespeare
Posted by Lis Riba at 2:30 PM

Magid added two more productions to Bard in Boston:

Redfeather Theatre Company is putting on As You Like It this summer in Worcester, and the Industrial Theatre is putting on Merchant of Venice FREE at a variety of locations around Eastern MA, including Sanders Theatre on July 14.

The former is one of my favorite Shakespeare comedies, and I've never yet seen the latter performed (I'm keeping a list with a goal of seeing them all), so I hope to be there for both.

Meanwhile, poking around some of the Doctor Who stuff, I found out that Anthony Head is playing Duncan in an October-release independent film of Macbeth, as a modern-dress gangster story.[Unlike Scotland, PA, this is using the original language.]

And, of course, sometime this year, Branagh's As You Like It will also hit the screens. Still no word on release dates, but I'm keeping an ear out...

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Saturday Cat Blogging
Posted by Lis Riba at 10:20 AM

Better late than never...

Via some cute videos on SplodeFromCute, may I present Lucky Stars Cattery, breeding traditional (applehead) Siamese in Kingston, MA.

One of their queens had kittens on April 15th, and they've got a live kittencam focused on the litter's sleeping area.

OMG!TehCute!

The kittens have been rolling around and crawling over one another and sometimes kicking one another (accidentally, as one stretches and the other's in the way) or play-fighting.

Ooh, the mamacat just came in...

Her back's to the camera, but what a difference in scale.

[If you're having trouble with the WMV plugin (as I seem to be in Opera) here's the direct link to the highest quality video

Also, be sure to visit their "Fun Stuff" page to see the attempt to take a group photo. [When Boopsie was younger, she was a jumper like Holly...]

Speaking of Siamese, anyone more seriously interested in ownership should take a look at Siamese Rescue. Nationwide listing of formerly homeless or abandoned Siamese needing good homes.

There are none currently in Massachusetts, though when I last checked there were two quite impressive ones. Lucy (VA4084) spent the winter "with a feral colony who taught me the ropes of living outside" -- in a New England winter! And Maggie Mae (VA3220) had been with her foster for so long that even though we couldn't adopt her, we were tempted to ask whether we could just visit and socialize...

Still, both have homes now, but there are many more needing adoption across the country.

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Friday, May 05, 2006
Happy Blog for Radical Fun Day!
Posted by Lis Riba at 11:01 PM
Blog for Radical Fun

Squeaking this in at the last minute, it's Blogging for Radical Fun Day. And what, praytell does that mean? To quote brownfemipower:

It is the day when all us radical/progressive bloggers get to forget about angry trolls, forget about the fifty papers we have to grade, forget about the much too tiny bank account, the dead babies and the oppressive bush regime. It is a day that we can dance and dance and learn about each other from the perspective of our likes, rather than our dislikes. It is a day to laugh and laugh and laugh!!!

And what do I like? What evokes my goofiest grins and makes me feel giddy and gleeful and girlish again?

Doctor Who

I was a heavy-duty Whovian in my middle- and high-school years.

I got away from it during its hiatus, but with the new series, it's like rediscovering my first love.

Ian never really watched the show, so not only am I having a blast seeing the episodes old and new, but I get the vicarious thrill of watching Ian's reactions (and answering his questions). BTW, major kudos to the folks who put together Wikipedia's Doctor Who portal. Excellent excellent reference.

[While I'm in the glow of Dr Who bliss, thanks also to my parents, for introducing me to the show (more on this in a later post), letting me go to conventions, and spend so much money on the show.]

And to tie this in to my liberal leanings, I'll point out that Star Trek has always been about a military crew. The Doctor is a lone man, shepherding around a couple of youngsters. He always took the side of the little guy against the tyrants. And, at least by the time Tom Baker was Doctor, the women he hung out were self-sufficient (at least against ordinary situations) and were quite the role model for a growing girl.

Yeah, I wanted to be a companion. Even though I'd only seen her in one or two episodes, I really felt a kinship with the Second Doctor's companion, Zoe. Brilliant brunette computer genius, but somewhat sheltered and without much street smarts. Not bad for 1968...

Anyway, about to head back downstairs and watch more episodes. But I just wanted to share this with y'all before the day was up...

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Thursday, May 04, 2006
Shakespeare: Soon, Summer, and Beyond
Posted by Lis Riba at 7:01 PM

[Crossposted to Riba Rambles and Bard in Boston]

I've been somewhat remiss in keeping Bard in Boston updated, and for that I apologize.

Now playing / Coming soon

According to the latest Phoenix, Huntington Theatre Company will be running Love's Labour's Lost May 12 -- June 11.

Opening Friday at the Coolidge Corner Theater, the award-winning documentary Shakespeare Behind Bars, about convicted felons putting on The Tempest

And don't forget that Actors' Shakespeare Project is currently performing All's Well That Ends Well, now through May 14 at the Cambridge Family YMCA Theatre.

Summer schedules

Meanwhile, local theater companies have been posting their summer schedules. Unfortunately, this year looks to be a bit light:

American Repertory Theatre has just announced their 2006-2007 season, which has absolutely no Shakespeare in the schedule.

Even Shakespeare & Company (in Lenox) is only staging two Shakespeare plays this summer, instead of the usual three:

Also this summer, Actors' Shakespeare Project will be is holding a summer institute at Emerson College on The Art of Teaching Hamlet (and others), and will be holding a summer fundraiser sunset cruise with entertainment provided by the company (June 19)

Looking forward to fall, ASP has already announced next season's schedule:

  1. Hamlet starring Ben Evett as the title character (October - November)
  2. A Winter's Tale (January - February)
  3. Titus Andronicus (March 29 - April 22)

Finally, though, we New Englanders are lucking out. Searching for Shakespeare is an exhibit put together by London's National Portrait Gallery, six portraits alleged to be of the Bard together for the first time ever... along with other works about the theatre and personalities of the time.

The exhibit is making only one North American stop: at the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven CT, from 24 June-17 September 2006.

This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, not to be missed!

And that's all the news I have for now about Shakespeare events in New England. Anyone know of other items to add? If so, please don't be shy about posting them directly to Bard in Boston.

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Slanguage update
Posted by Lis Riba at 6:28 PM

A couple House-isms from last night's episode. Given the number of people I've seen squeeing about this scene, I suspect they'll start making the rounds:

  • Saying "yoo-hoo to the hoo hoo"
  • Marching the penguin
  • Ya-yaing the Sisterhood
  • Finding Nemo

For those who have no clue what I'm talking about, these are House's delicate euphemisms for describing a young girl's gratification disorder.

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A really great disturbance in the Force
Posted by Lis Riba at 12:54 PM

Somebody strike up the band!

Lucasfilm will release the original unaltered Star Wars trilogy on DVD on September 12.

According to StarWars.com:

In response to overwhelming demand, Lucasfilm Ltd. and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment will release attractively priced individual two-disc releases of Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Each release includes the 2004 digitally remastered version of the movie and, as bonus material, the theatrical edition of the film. That means you'll be able to enjoy Star Wars as it first appeared in 1977, Empire in 1980, and Jedi in 1983.

This release will only be available for a limited time: from September 12th to December 31st. International release will follow on or about the same day. Each original theatrical version will feature Dolby 2.0 Surround sound, close-captioning, and subtitles in English, French and Spanish for their U.S. release. International sound and subtitling vary by territory.

"Over the years, a truly countless number of fans have told us that they would love to see and own the original version that they remember experiencing in theaters," said Jim Ward, President of LucasArts and Senior Vice President of Lucasfilm Ltd. "We returned to the Lucasfilm Archives to search exhaustively for source material that could be presented on DVD. This is something that we're very excited to be able to give to fans in response to their continuing enthusiasm for Star Wars."

Now, I remember before Empire came out, that the opening credits for Star Wars just said "Star Wars" and not "A New Hope" nor "Episode IV". Despite their promises, I somehow doubt Lucasfilm will go quite that far, thus acknowledging that he didn't have the current omnibus in mind from the beginning...

In fact, given the sheer number of tweaks and alterations Lucas made upon each rerelease, I suspect we won't know what version we're getting until it's on the shelves.

Of course, it sucks for everyone who already owns the Special Edition on DVD (and have to buy a second copy in order to get the original) -- but never let it be said that Lucasfilm wasn't expert at parting fans from their money.
[I still remember dragging my parents to the theater to catch the 1981 rerelease shortly before Empire came out. Even though we already had a bootleg video of the movie by that time, Lucas added some promo that made it a must-see. That's also where they changed the title and numbering.]

But given Lucas' previous recalcitrance (and warped notions of progress), I still consider the release of pre-Special Edition movies a win. It's as if millions of voices cried out in desire and are finally sated.

I wonder what this means for The Star Wars Holiday Special?

Via Tom Smith, who points out that StarWars.com illustrated the story with a photo of Han shooting first...

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Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Random research...
Posted by Lis Riba at 8:40 PM

Toying further with this morning's story idea, I spent about an hour-plus searching and browsing through my employer's book database, making note of potentially useful or interesting titles (including some on other subjects that slipped in through my search terms, which I've marked with *s).

So, here's a huge list of books, in the order in which I found them:

And that shows you where my mind has been...

BTW, Scott at Polite Dissent conducts medical reviews of each House episode. They're spoiler-laden, but rate the medical mystery and the solution, discussing medical ethics displayed and how obvious or ludicrous particular suggestions/tests might be. Cool blog. He also does similar reviews of various comic books that include medical subplots, and (much to my joy) has been conducting an issue-by-issue retrospective of one of my favorite comic books: Hawk & Dove. Squee!

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Death or Cake?
Posted by Lis Riba at 7:52 PM

What else can you say to a Flickr pool of Dalek cakes.

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Rambles Reviews: All's Well That End's Well
Posted by Lis Riba at 6:18 PM
All's not well for Jennie Israel, David Gullette and John Kuntz (click to enlarge)
Photo from All's Well by the Actors' Shakespeare Project; click to enlarge

The words just aren't working for me. So rather than delay any longer, I'm (once again) going to quote Ian's post verbatim:

The Actor's Shakespeare Project, our favorite Shakespeare troupe, is putting on "All's Well That Ends Well" through May 14th. If I say that, of the six plays they've done so far, this is the weakest, please understand that it is STILL amazingly good. It's just that it's very hard to follow up the best "King Lear" in 20 years in the United States.

I guess, if I had to rank them, I think I'd go
King Lear
Richard III
Measure for Measure
Julius Caesar
Twelfth Night
All's Well That Ends Well

Maybe I'd swap "Julius Caesar" and "Measure for Measure." Perhaps this simply means that I like tragedies better than comedies? I just don't feel that there's as much "meat" in "Twelfth Night" and "All's Well" as in the other ones -- although there IS enough, and the company and director find it, and use it.

Now that I've said that it's not as good as their other productions, let me tell you just how amazingly good it was.

Let me start by talking a little bit about ASP in general. It's a repertory company, so we get to see the same actors in role after role.

When my little sister was growing up, she and my mother would go to the ballet regularly. My sister got to the point that she recognized each of the dancers, and had favorites, and would make CERTAIN to go to various performances if certain dancers were dancing. She was a real fan of the company.

Lis and I have a somewhat similar relationship to this company. Except that EVERYBODY is our favorite.

One thing I want to mention is that, in my review of "King Lear", I mentioned that, "Allyn Burrows (who played Kent in this one, Glouscester in Richard III, the Duke in Measure for Measure) really does Upright Noble And Pure characters really well, and Ben Evett (who played Cassius in Julius Caesar, and Edmund in this production of Lear) does scheming bastards really well. And I'd love to see Burrows get a chance to play a scumbucket, and Evett get a chance to play a paladin-type, just 'cause I think the actors would have fun with 'em."

Well, Ben Evett directed this one, but didn't act in it. But Allyn Burrows got to play Parolles, so I got half my wish. And it certainly looked like he had fun.

Well, on to discussing the play itself. I should start where I usually start, talking about the space. In general, I'm convinced that the set designers who work with ASP are, to a person, insane-in-the-good-way. I mean, they must walk into a space, squint really hard, and say to themselves, "How can I use this space in a way that nobody's expecting, but will work better than anything which a NORMAL person could come up with?" Some day, we're going to walk into an ASP production, and discover that the seats are all duct-taped to the ceiling or something like that. And it's going to work, too.

The space they were using is the theater in the upstairs of the YMCA outside of Central Square in Cambridge. This poses some challenges for them, because, for instance, it's the same place that they performed "Julius Caesar". And so they clearly had to use the space differently.

So they built risers from the floor up the stage, and used that as stadium seating, and put the stage on the floor. Worked really well, partially because, as it is stadium seating, you never have to try to look through someone's head, and partially because of how they used the stage.

The stage had a backdrop of curtains emblazoned with symbols -- fleur-de-lises, stars, and the like. This reminded me of how the Rose and the Globe theaters were painted, according to the most recent research that I've heard of -- symbols on the walls and ceiling of the stage actually had meanings, which, perhaps, were used in the plays, although that's pure speculation. In any case, these symbols seemed appropriate -- a motif of fleur-de-lis showed that the play was set in France, for instance. The floor was painted in what appeared to be an abstract map, which matched the wide-ranging scope of the play -- people running from one country to another.

The other thing which they did, which was brilliant, was how they set up the curtains so that, at a certain point, they could swing them back and reveal a much larger area for the set, allowing them to do dances, and, in general, make a scene feel less claustrophobic. They used this emotional effect quite well.

So that's the space. Now let's talk about the sounds.

Music has been an important part of every ASP production we've seen so far, but mostly in a background, atmospheric context. But in "Twelfth Night", they had musicians onstage and part of the action, as you really HAVE to do for a play which starts, "If music be the food of love, play on!"

And they continued this. And improved on it.

The first thing we heard was the actors, backstage, doing vocal warmups. They've done things like this before -- "Julius Caesar" started out with actors, in groups, chanting lines, building up energy. So I didn't think much of it. They do these things on purpose, of course -- if they are doing warmups in front of you, it's because they want YOU warming up to see the play the same way they're warming up to perform it.

And the first we saw of the actors, the real START of the play (they always do interesting things to start the play) was four of the actresses standing in a circle, part-singing a folksong.

Between each scene, and, more than once, within a scene, actors would sing a song, which always related in theme to what was going on in the play, reinforcing it, and giving it more emotional impact. As they don't do proscenium arch staging, they change scenes in front of you, and this was, from a practical point of view, something to keep the audience involved during the changes.

But, if you remember from my review of Theater@First's production of "Merry Wives of Windsor", I felt that doing open scene changes like this, in Shakespeare, often disrupts the flow, and kind of dissipates the energy and momentum that the plot builds up. By matching the music to the plot and the emotional tone, they avoided this problem, and, instead of dissipating the energy with each scene change, they intensified it.

This is partially because of the brilliance of Sara Stackhouse, the music director, in choosing the works, and partially because the actors in ASP have voices that range from pleasant through oh-my-ghu-get-this-man/woman-a-recording-contract-NOW.

I don't know why I'm so surprised by this. I mean, the folks in ASP are consistently amazingly talented. I should have expected that they could sing. At this point, I should just expect that they can do anything. If, next season, in their production of "Hamlet", they all demonstrate that they can fly, shoot laser beams out of their eyes, or turn into giant robots, well, they've shown that they can do everything up to that.

In any case, now that they've demonstrated that they can sing, and have a brilliant music director, I want them to sing in EVERY play they do from now on. At least the comedies. (They're doing "Titus Andronicus" next season. Think that would work as a musical? You could call it "TITUS!" With the show-stopping number, "Bake The Kids A Pie", and the downbeat "Sing Without a Tongue", with the unforgettable lines, "Ah ha a ahh gaaa ahhh ahh/Aa aaah a aahha." I mean, if we've learned anything from "Sweeney Todd", it's that musicals about cannibalism are always big hits. Um. Yeah. Back to the review.)

So let me talk a little bit about the play itself. Both their performance, and what Shakespeare wrote.

The play is made up of pretty typical Shakespearian bits, but put together interestingly. It's by-the-numbers -- but the numbers are put together not entirely as you'd expect. It starts with a head-fake.

Okay, simple setup. Boy = Bertram, just made the new Count of Rossilion (a county in southeastern France, although it's actually spelled "Roussillon", but we can forgive Shakespeare that, as he lived before regularized orthography), as his father just died. Girl = Helena, a young, virtuous, beautiful woman whose father, also recently deceased, was a brilliant doctor, who left his recipes for medicines with her. She's being fostered with the Countess of Rossillion, Bertram's mother, and loves Bertram, but doesn't want to say anything because he's a count and she's a commoner. Bertram's mother, no dummy, takes about thirty-eight seconds to figure out that Helena loves Bertram, and, since Helena is a beautiful, smart, virtuous woman who would really make a fantastic wife for her son, is not at all displeased by this. The Countess encourages Helena to follow her plan: go to Paris where the King of France is very sick, and see if she can heal him. If she can, she can make a deal with him -- he can gentrify her, and she'll be able to marry Bertram.

She gets to Paris, shortly after Bertram (who has to go there 'cause he's the new count), and strikes a deal with the king: he gets better, she gets to marry any nobleman she pleases; but, if he doesn't, she dies.

So, that's the plot, right? You know how it's going to go: she's going to have a great deal of trouble curing him, and it's going to be all suspenseful to see if she dies or if there's a happy ending, right?

Nope.

It's a head-fake. The king's cured in the next scene. And she chooses Bertram.

And Bertram freaks.

And THAT'S where the plot starts.

See what I mean? It's by-the-numbers -- but not the numbers you were expecting.

Enough of that -- I'm sure you can find plenty of discussion of Shakespeare's use of tropes in "All's Well" on your own. So let me talk about THIS performance.

Slapstick, and lots of it. The humor in "All's Well" -- most of it isn't on the page. Some is -- there's a scene where a bunch of folks stage an abduction of Parolles, the cowardly braggart, which is almost as funny when you read it as when you see it -- but most of the humor is in the delivery. And, in this production, in the physical comedy.

John Kuntz, who plays Bertram and The Clown, got his start in comedy, but, in ASP, his purely comedic roles have been minor ones so far. So this is the first time we got to see him, as The Clown, cut loose and go totally over-the-top nuts. He adds some physical humor to his portrayal of Bertram, too, largely in scenes which would otherwise be boring since they consist entirely of exposition.

Parolles, too, is done with a good deal of physical humor. But Allyn Burrows is too good an actor to just leave Parolles as nothing more than a comic relief character -- although he does that part admirably. But along with the comedy, he adds enough to the character that we have a bit of sympathy for this variant of Il Capitano.

It's been commented that the ending of "All's Well that Ends Well" is a bit ambiguous. I mean, as the play ends, everything looks like it's been tied up neatly and everything is all beautiful and hunky-dory. It's not until you're thinking about it later on that you start to wonder whether everything did end well, and whether all is well. . . .

This production doesn't shy away from that ambiguity, and, in fact, has a beautifully staged grace note between Helena and Bertram, no words, which intensifies it.

So, that's this production. Extensive use of slapstick, music, and emotion. Actors and directors who truly care about their characters. A play which is far more ambiguous and complex than it seems on the surface, and a production which recognizes and highlights that fact.

You can get performance times and buy tickets here.

And you should.

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Idle curiousity
Posted by Lis Riba at 6:00 PM

Question 1: Do any studies exist comparing disposable napkin use when napkins are available at each table vs. a central napkin dispenser?

It's one of those subjects I wonder about perennially, and started thinking about it again at lunch.

Our cafeteria has a central napkin dispenser by the checkout (where we pick up our utensils). And I always find that I pick up more napkins in these situations than if I had a dispenser at-hand. [I'm not talking handfuls, but 2 or 3.] I mean, I don't want to be caught with a messy spill without sufficient napkins -- or at least enough to prevent stains/running before I can get more. If napkins are right there, I only take what I need.

Now, obviously, the disadvantage to providing a napkin dispenser at each table is the additional work to ensure they don't run empty. [And I suppose maybe a theft risk.]

What do you think?

What do you notice about yourself (and others)?

Between the paper industry and the restaurant industry, I'm sure somebody's conducted actual research on this, though I'm not quite sure where to look...

Question 2: Does anybody know the origins or history of the song "99 bottles of beer on the wall"?

The Wikipedia entry offers variants, but no history. When's the earliest reference to the song? Where did it originate? How has it spread?

Inquiring minds want to know...

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Is there a Doctor in the House?
Posted by Lis Riba at 7:25 AM

I can't quite recall which LJ community I saw this (link, anybody?) but somebody suggested that Doctor Who could be the ultimate fandom for crossovers, given his ability to travel throughout time and relative dimensions... And this post proposed a fanfic challenge along those lines.

I thought nothing more upon it until later last night, when I suddenly imagined the First Doctor needing medical assistance from Dr. Gregory House. Ouch. Battle of the brilliant crotchety misanthropes!

Clearly, the Doctor's companion would be suffering from a mystery disease intriguing enough for the expert diagnosticians of Princeton-Plainsboro. Imagine the confusion of House's ducklings as they try to check out the patient's home and can't find it. Or when somebody finally gets a stethoscope on the Doctor and hear the double-beat... And clearly the disease itself has to be something primitive, prehistoric or just plain obsolete, picked up somewhere weird along the Doctor's travels.

I doubt I'm going to write anything like this, but I find the speculation fun.

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Tuesday, May 02, 2006
oh damn
Posted by Lis Riba at 9:45 PM

According to Locus (via Bear):

Fantasy writer Lisa A. Barnett, born 1958, died this morning at her home in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, of a brain tumor. She and her partner Melissa Scott published three fantasy novels together, The Armor of Light (1988), Point of Hopes (1995), and Point of Dreams (2001), the last of which won a Lambda Literary Award in 2002.

My sympathies to Melissa Scott.

[Though I haven't mentioned it recently, Armor of light is one of my favorite novels, and is partly responsible for first piquing my interest in Kit Marlowe.]

PS @ 9:56: Keith DeCandido has additional information:

Fantasy author Lisa A. Barnett died today of a brain tumor. She died peacefully in her sleep, surrounded by loved ones, including her partner and sometime collaborator Melissa Scott.

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A useful distinction
Posted by Lis Riba at 7:35 PM

Ages ago, Ian studied Aristotle for a class on rhetoric.

And Aristotle described "envy" and "emulation" as two different emotions:

In both, you feel distress because someone else has something you don't have.

  • In envy, the desired resolution is for the other to lose that thing or quality.
  • In emulation, the desired resolution is for you to gain it, or a resonable facimile thereof.

Now, Aristotle separated these because it requires different rhetorical techniques to evoke one or the other in an audience. But it's also very helpful to recognize in and about onesself.

What do you want? To elevate yourself or bring others down?

Food for thought...

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Bush doesn't value the National Anthem
Posted by Lis Riba at 7:20 PM

ThinkProgress has been on a roll today regarding the English-only National Anthem nonsense.

First, in 1919, the U.S. Bureau of Education commissioned a Spanish-language version of "The Star Spangled Banner." The State Department's website also features four-separate versions of the anthem in Spanish. So much for Lamar Alexander's claim that "never before has [the anthem] been rendered in another language."

Then they found stories from Bush's first presidential campaign, revealing [Bush] would drop in at Hispanic festivals and parties, sometimes joining in singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" in Spanish.

That tidbit was picked up by the press corps at today's White House briefing. McClellan had no answer.

Jon Secada even sang the National Anthem in Spanish in Bush's White House.

Constrast those actions with Bush's words on Friday:

Q Mr. President, a cultural question for you. There is a version of the National Anthem in Spanish now. Do you believe it will hold the same value if sung in Spanish as in English?

THE PRESIDENT: No I don't, because I think the National Anthem ought to be sung in English. And I think people who want to be a citizen of this country ought to learn English, and they ought to learn to sing the National Anthem in English.

PS: Last week, I posted two versions of the Anthem in Yiddish. Meanwhile, Ian posted the words for "To Anacreon In Heaven", the original lyrics to the melody.

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Sunday, April 30, 2006
A Stanley Motss production
Posted by Lis Riba at 8:00 PM

PS: If you haven't already seen this, last week's Time Magazine revealed Josh Bolten's five-point plan to shore up Bush in the polls and hopefully keep Congress Republican.

In brief, the plan entails:

  1. DEPLOY GUNS AND BADGES. This is an unabashed play to members of the conservative base who are worried about illegal immigration. Under the banner of homeland security, the White House plans to seek more funding for an extremely visible enforcement crackdown at the Mexican border...
  2. MAKE WALL STREET HAPPY. In an effort to curry favor with dispirited Bush backers in the investment world, the Administration will focus on two tax measures...
  3. BRAG MORE...
  4. RECLAIM SECURITY CREDIBILITY. This is the riskiest, and potentially most consequential, element of the plan, keyed to the vow by Iran to continue its nuclear program despite the opposition of several major world powers. Presidential advisers believe that by putting pressure on Iran, Bush may be able to rehabilitate himself on national security...
  5. OURT THE PRESS. Bolten is extremely guarded around reporters, but he knows them and, unlike some of his colleagues, is not scared of them. Administration officials said he believes the White House can work more astutely with journalists to make its case to the public...

Please note, these are excerpts only. The full article has much more detail.

But, as Josh Marshall points out: "[T]he White House is now telling us that engineering a confrontation with Iran is a key part of their plan to resuscitate the president's dismal approval ratings in time to survive election day." All those beating of the wardrums is purely politics.

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Corrupt? Absolutely!
Posted by Lis Riba at 7:40 PM

Many other people are blogging the top story in today's Globe but I can't let this go by without comment:

President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.

No wonder he's never vetoed a bill. He doesn't believe he's subject to the same laws as everyone else.

George W. Bush doesn't understand that the President of the United States is, at heart, just another citizen of the country. Hell, even constitutional monarchs have laws they must obey which limits their powers.

Am I wrong to call this kind of behavior despotic or dictatorial? He's certainly claiming more power than King George III whom our Founding Fathers believed was so intolerable.

But with actions big and small, Bush demonstrates this arrogance again and again.

Remember "I'm just a bill" from Schoolhouse Rock? For a bill to become a law, both the House and Senate have to vote "yes"?

Well, did you hear what happened with the Deficit Reduction Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 2005? The Washington Post has a good summary:

Last December, Vice President Cheney broke a tie vote in the Senate to win passage of a bill that would cut nearly $40 billion over five years by reducing Medicaid rolls, raising work requirements for welfare, and trimming the student loan program, among other changes.

Among those other changes was a provision to save $2 billion by restricting Medicare payments for durable medical equipment, such as wheelchairs and oxygen tanks. Under the Senate bill, government-funded leases for such equipment could last only 13 months.

As the measure was being sent to the House last month, a Senate clerk inadvertently changed that 13-month-restriction to 36 months, a $2 billion alteration. With the mistaken change, the measure squeaked through the House, 216 to 214.

After the mistake was revealed, Republican leaders were loath to fight the battle again by having another vote, so White House officials simply deemed the Senate version to be the law.

Now several ranking House Democrats are filing suit to stop enforcement of the law, claiming it was passed illegally (since the House never voted on the law as signed) and therefore violates the constitution.

Or on Earth Day, President Bush took a bike ride... through an area restricted to endangered species:

[T]he Palm Springs Desert Sun reported that by riding through the area, Bush had ignored the "voluntary avoidance" guidelines at the Monument. The guidelines are meant to protect a species of endangered bighorn sheep:

Jim Foote, acting manager of the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monument, said the Clara Burgess trail is also among those monument managers ask people to avoid part of the year to prevent disrupting endangered Peninsular bighorn sheep.

The trail is one of about 10 in the monument under a "voluntary avoidance" program. People are asked to stay off the Clara Burgess trail from Jan. 1 to June 30 during the sheep lambing season, he said.

If this latest Bush bike ride was like his others, a "massive entourage," including a "long convoy of SUVs and off-road vehicles," came along for the ride.

Does the man care for anything but his own gratification?

The whole attitude reminds me of a Tom DeLay quote (which I've blogged before):

When [House majority leader, Tom DeLay] tried smoking a cigar in a restaurant on federal property, the manager told him it violated federal law. His response, according to The Washington Post, was, "I am the federal government."

No he's not. Nor is Bush. This is our fcking government, and it's about time we took it back!

PS: Glenn Greenwald has more. He's also got a book coming out shortly: How would a Patriot Act? defending American values from a president run amok. Given the quality of writing on his blog, this should be good...

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Olde but goodies
Posted by Lis Riba at 6:35 PM

Today's New York Times Magazine includes an article about a British restaurant whose chef has begun recreating Tudor recipes. Even includes a few of them.

Via a comment in Making Light, in response to the best post-while-drunk ever.

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Brand new model
Posted by Lis Riba at 4:10 PM

Don't ask me how, but I just saw Saturday night's British episode of Doctor Who guest-starring Sarah Jane Smith and K-9.

Damn, that's good...

Right now, I'm tempted to classify it as one of the best ever, but that's partly the newness talking.

Still, nice to see such nods to and expansion of the classic canon I grew up on.

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