Eat More Fat

No picture with this one, guys, this is a Serious Post. I maintain another blog, focusing on food, which is far more irregularly updated than this one, but this is a topic I feel so strongly about that I wanted it to be front and center on my main soap box.

Chef and author Michael Ruhlman maintains a blog on his website which is fabulous for a number of reasons. First, he is a very intelligent and well-written man and his blog is a pleasure to read. Second, he is interested in all things food (as am I), and writes about wonderful, interesting and cutting-edge food news that range from write ups of new and exciting chefs to bits and pieces from his amazing book The Elements of Cooking. Third, he — like me — is a big fan of fat and salt.

What’s that you say? Don’t I know that America has an obesity problem? And a blood pressure problem? And all other kinds of problems? Of course I do! I also know that what is responsible for those problems — aside from generalized increases in laziness resulting from the way technology has compeltely taken over our lives and made us a largely sedentary nation — is the pounds and pounds of diet foods and substitute seasonings that we shovel into our mouths. And Ruhlman knows it, too. Today, he posted this on his blog (most awesome parts bolded for your enjoyment):

True Blue Evangelicals: Eyes on the Prize looks at “The Party Faithful”

I admit it: I don’t think of Evangelical Christians as Democrats, ever. I always assumed they were all evolution-denouncing, pro-life, abortion-clinic-bombing, Iraq-war-supporting, deep Red Republicans who would rather suicide bomb every planned parenthood in America than vote for a Democrat.

I am wrong.

Salon is currently running an interview with Amy Sullivan, an author and evangelical christian who has been a blue-blooded Democrat her entire life. She recently wrote a book called “The Party Faithful,” which addresses the surprisingly large number of evangelical christians (according to her, 16 million evangelicals voted for Kerry in 2004… really?) who have voted for the Democratic party both recently and throughout the party’s history. The interview is fascinating for a number of reasons, from the story of how Sullivan realized she was an evangelical, despite her devotion to being a liberal Democrat (it happened at a Christian rock concert she was sent to cover), to her incredibly interesting and complex views on abortion, the abortion debate, a woman’s right to choose and how evangelicals have to deal with that:

You touch again and again on the issue of abortion and give examples of how Democrats can augment their appeal with religious voters just by subtle shifts in language. You write how some Democratic candidates are using the phrase “abortion reduction in addition to choice” when they discuss their positions. But isn’t this just a form of clever marketing? Doesn’t it obscure whether or not a candidate believes abortions should be legal?

None of these candidates suddenly start hiding the fact that they’re pro-choice. No one who voted in Michigan was confused as to whether Jennifer Granholm supported a woman’s right to have an abortion. What some Democratic candidates are doing would in fact just be clever marketing if it wasn’t backed by policies that are being proposed right now in Congress to reduce abortion rates. There’s really no argument about whether it would be a good thing to reduce the abortion rate. That’s been something that’s been standard policy with the choice groups in addition to everyone else for decades. The problem is, I’ve been talking to these folks for a long, long time, and they say, “Of course we want to reduce abortion! Don’t people know that?” And I say, “No, they don’t know that. And you don’t get any credit for it if people only hear you talking about a right to choose.”

If you take a group like Planned Parenthood, 90 percent of their efforts are on reducing unplanned pregnancies, and yet when they looked at the materials that were going out, 90 percent of their message was about abortion and a woman’s right to choose, and they said to themselves, “There’s a good reason people don’t know what our work really is. And don’t know that a very small percentage of what we do is related to abortion.” So, I think you can call it marketing, but I think that’s cynical, because I think it’s more appropriately public relations to let people know what Democrats really stand for and what liberals really stand for when it comes to abortion. The thing I always come back to is, Republicans take for granted that their base knows that they’re pro-life and they’re not moving on that. And so the people Democrats need to speak to are those people in the middle who are kind of queasy about abortion but who don’t want to see it outlawed. Democrats never mention reducing the abortion rate or the rate of unplanned pregnancies, and so they lose that opportunity to reach out to voters who are less sure about their position on abortion.

The interview is a really, really worthwhile read, and I suspect the book is as well. So consider this my latest installment of Eyes on the Prize. Let’s not forget about the people we don’t always assume to be liberal, to be Democrats, let’s get them on our side. This is our time, our election, our moment for CHANGE (erm, can you tell where my primary vote went?). WE CAN MAKE THE DIFFERENCE. EYES ON THE PRIZE, KIDS: BIG BLUE 2008!!!

The 80th Annual Academy — Oh, NO WAY!

[picture source]

This is what Daniel Day Lewis is thinking in the shot above:

“Drainage! Drainage, Eli, you boy. Drained dry. I’m so sorry. Here, if you have an Oscar, and I have an Oscar, and I have an extendo-fork. There it is, that’s an extendo-fork, you see? You watching?. And my extendo-fork reaches acroooooooss the room, and starts to eat your Oscar… I… eat… your… Oscar!”

It’s okay, Daniel I was thinking the exact same thing.

Last night was the 80th annual Academy Awards, hosted by Jon Stewart and honoring, mostly, people who deserved to get honors. I thought Jon Stewart did a fantastic job hosting an awards show (well, the awards show) with only 8 days to prepare, and while it was a bit heavy on the montages, well… 8 days to prepare! Also, Academy, please always seat George Clooney front and center so that I can see him through 90% of the show, k thx bai.

I was very pleasantly surprised that Tilda Swinton won for Best Supporting Actress; I have not seen Michael Clayton but Tilda Swinton has rocked the socks in enough other movies for me to wholeheartedly support her win (and can I just say, for the record, that Michael Clayton is at the very top of my movie list). Javier Bardem was an obvious, predictable choice in Best Supporting Actor and to be honest I don’t know who I would have given it to instead, and my problems with him winning stem from the movie he was in, not from his particular performance. I’m more irate that Paul Dano was not given a Supporting Actor nod for his incredible performance in There Will Be Blood, a movie which should have gotten, I think, more attention all-around for its cast beyond the incredible Daniel Day Lewis.

Speaking of which, he very rightly won Best Leading Actor, and to give it to anyone else would have been a travesty. Marion Cottillard’s win for Best Leading Actress looked deserved, though I haven’t seen the film, and she was charming and French so… yay?

Really, everything seemed right as rain up until the final two awards, for Best Directing and Best Picture.

1. Paul Thomas Anderson should have won the Directing award.

2. I’m not sure what should have won Best Picture, other than it should not have been No Country For Old Men

I saw both There Will Be Blood and No Country For Old Men. Both were movies not exactly meant for women; I don’t remember who said it, but I read an interview with someone in which they said they felt they didn’t connect as well as they could have to Jack Kerouac’s books because, as women, they were unable to understand some of the testosterone-fuelled influences and points of view in his work. Both of these movies were similar in that they pushed women almost entirely out of the picture. These were movies about men, for men, with the same silent, brooding sensibility that men possess and which drives women insane. So I understood, going in, that one or both might go over my head.

Now, There Will Be Blood was able to connect with me, I expect, through the combination of extraordinary directing and storytelling on the part of Paul Thomas Anderson, extraordinary acting on the part of Daniel Day Lewis, and an extraordinary soundtrack by Johnny Greenwood (of Radiohead, and who was totally denied a deserved Soundtrack nomination because, supposedly, too much music had been written before they finalized his contract to do the film. Bullshit). I mean, There Will Be Blood was an absolutely epic movie about greed, manipulation, morality, immorality, mortality, humanity, love and hate. It was complex — Daniel Plainview was complex — and introspective and quiet without ever seeming purposeless.

No Country For Old Men was the opposite. It was quiet, and brooding, but where There Will Be Blood reached into the oil-black depths of greed and pride for its motivation, No Country For Old Men saw money and stopped there. The premise — that an innocent bystander finds a large sum of money in the desert after a drug deal goes pear-shaped, takes it, and finds himself hunted by a psychopath who wants his money back — was undermined by the movie itself. The man who finds the money sends his wife away and goes on the run to protect it after understanding he is in danger…. but that’s the only time we hear about that. He moves without purpose from place to place, evading but not escaping, and it seems like he’s not even trying. Javier Bardem’s character was supposed to exist on Hannibal Lecter-like proportions; an uncontrollable, unpredictable psychopath who chooses the fate of everyone who comes in his path by the flip of a coin. Except that only happened twice in the movie; the rest of the time he killed people out of annoyance, impatience and spite, like every other killer in the history of film (and hence why I am slightly ambivalent about his win last night — he really wasn’t as creepy as he was hyped to be, and that Oscar should have gone to Paul Dano who nearly gave me nightmares!). Moreover, the extent of the motivation and insight into the characters’ thoughts ends right there. There is nothing behind this movie — Tommy Lee Jones seemed to wander aimlessly around, not actually trying to investigate the botched drug deal and ensuing, like, 20 murders, commenting cyncially on the state of the country that didn’t care enough about itself to act with any common decency.

No County For Old Men lacked purpose and direction (even the end, a black screen after a TLJ monologue, seemed abrupt and without movtivation) and really didn’t try to look beyond the surface information (however minimal) provided by the book and the script, both of which were purposefully sparse. I am a big fan of the Coen Brothers and like their films in general, but this was not the film to win Best Picture this year (it was not the Best Picture, not by a long shot, no matter how many critics try to convince me otherwise) and it was not the film to give them their first Directing Oscar. They have done, and will do, much better work.

My friend insists that he saw the Coen Brothers — who delivered one of the shortest acceptance speeches last night — tug their ears when they went on stage and that PT Anderston tugged them back in return. He also said he read an interview in which the Coens asked, “Do you really think our movie is the best of the year? Really?” It seems they knew they were being honored perhaps out of time (I don’t want to say erroneously because I like them, but.. yeah, erroneously) and personally were rooting for PT Anderson… and so they gave them his props.

At the time I was too drunk and too busy ranting about the injustice of it all to notice.

–Sara

What’s Wrong With This Picture?

I mean other than “That’s Miley Cirus at the Oscars.”

I could go into a big thing about why 15-year-old tween-stars shouldn’t be allowed to participate in events for (supposedly) highly distinguished actors and actresses getting very exclusive awards, but I’m too distracted by her body. Look closely:

Her shoulders, and entire upper body is facing whoever is standing to her right.

Her FEET are pidgeon toed and pointing straight at the camera.

What?

–Sara

It’s OVER.

It’s been an incredibly painful four months, but the WGA strike is finally over:

“The strike is over,” Patric Verrone said, dispassionately but with the hint of a smile. “Our membership has voted. Writers can go back to work.”

The WGA West prexy announced the news, something the town had taken as a fait accompli, shortly before 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills. Some 92.5% of the 3,775 ballots cast were in favor of ending the 100-day strike, with 3,492 members voting yes and 283 die-hards ready to tilt at the windmill of continuing the work stoppage that began Nov. 5.

The vote on lifting the strike concluded a mere three days after the WGA cinched its contract agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers in the wee hours of a Saturday morning. The strike vote was held over a 48-hour frame, with members able to vote in person at the WGA Theater and at Gotham’s Crowne Plaza Hotel, or via fax.

[snip]

Moonves, CBS Corp. prexy and CEO who worked closely with News Corp. prexy Peter Chernin and Walt Disney Co. topper Robert Iger in initiating the informal negotiations that broke the WGA impasse last month, said that both the scribes and the studio brass had learned a lot during the wrenching process of watching TV and film production grind to a halt.

“I think there was some miscommunication early on. It was important that we started speaking eye to eye. Ultimately, getting the percentage of streaming revenue was important to (WGA), and I understand it,” Moonves told Daily Variety.More than one option(Co) Daily Variety
Filmography, Year, Role
(Co) Daily Variety

“We will never know if they would have achieved these things without a strike. I think it’s really important now that everybody come back together, and work together. I think that’s going to happen. Let’s not look backward; let’s look forward. Let’s not talk just once every three years but maybe every month. Especially on new media. The rules of our business are changing so rapidly, the ways people are using media and content are changing so rapidly. For our creative partners, relationships and communication are really important. The (WGA) realizes it, and we realize it.”

Although relations between guild leaders and AMPTP conglom toppers seemed to be nonexistent during the worst stalemate periods of the strike in December and early January, Moonves said the ill will quickly dissipated once both sides agreed to meet together in small groups and under the cover of a media blackout.

“Once (WGA leaders) got to know some of us (toppers) they realized where we were coming from. Nobody handed us these jobs,” Moonves said. And he was quick to praise his colleagues Chernin and Iger for “doing an excellent job in going in with (WGA toppers) and working out the details.”

source

I find it hard to express what a relief this is. I have said many times on this blog, as I have written in wholehearted support of the writers, that I love television. It is my favorite visual medium, I prefer it to movies by a wide margin, and I am devoted and loyal to several show beyond reason. It has been a painful, gutwrenching time watching my favorite shows — and newbies that have captured my whimsy — drift off into nowhereland as their pre-filmed stock of shows have run out and the strike has continued. It’s a shame that the strike will already result in the loss of many jobs, and the loss of a portion of new shows that probably don’t deserve the axe yet.

That said, the writers had to do what they had to do in order to successfully get wages and credit for types of media that have been, and will continue to be, more and more central to the way we consume entertainment. There was no question that the WGA had to fight for their New Media (read: Internet) and Streaming residuals, because if you don’t set the precedent now that this is work that must be paid for, you lose the ability to do so for anyone in the future. The WGA has hopefully paved the way for many writers and artists whose work will flourish on the internet in the future to be paid fairly and completely for their work.

WGA, I applaud you, I support you, and I sincerely hope to be part of you one day.

New episodes to many shows aren’t expected until March/April at the earliest, which is a bummer, but to end this post on a lighter note, here’s something about LOST:

“Lost” showrunner Carlton Cuse says the fourth season of his acclaimed sci-fi drama will be no more than 13 episodes this season, cut down from an order of 16 due to the writers’ strike expected to end today. Eight episodes were scripted before the strike. Cuse hopes to produce five more to air this spring.

It sounds like Cuse and the rest of the “Lost” writing staff will end the fourth season at the same story point they always intended, cramming eight episodes of plot into the season’s final five installments.

“We will have to condense some stories,” Cuse tells The Hollywood Reporter.
The third episode of the fourth season airs this Thursday. Sources say all 13 fourth-season episodes could conceivably run between now and the end of the season without a break.

13 < 16, but 13 > 8, therefore 13 = AWESOME!!!!

–Sara

Natalie Cole is an Idiot

Man, I’m an angry girl right now aren’t I? Natalie Cole has blasted Amy Winehouse for winning five of the six Grammys she was nominated for on Sunday night:

While Amy Winehouse and her fans will be celebrating her winning streak at the Grammys, one star remains not so impressed.

Fellow jazz singer Natalie Cole, daughter of legendary crooner Nat King Cole, has said she is “disappointed” the troubled star was honoured with five gongs at the prestigious music awards.

She said: “I don’t think bad behaviour should be rewarded, so I was disappointed.” And when asked if she thought the Back To Black star should have won any Grammys, she replied: “No, I don’t think she should have.”

Winehouse won record and song of the year for her autobiographical hit Rehab and picked up best new artist, best pop vocal album for Back To Black and best female pop vocal.

The 24-year-old is as famous for her turbulent lifestyle as her talent and is currently getting help for her drug addiction at the Capio Nightingale rehab centre in London.

But 58-year-old Cole believes she is speaking from experience, after battling her own demons with substance abuse in the 80s, temporarily putting her career on hold.

She said: “I know because I was in that situation. I lost five years of my life and my career because of drugs. So you don’t play like that.”

Aside from the fact that Natalie Cole hasn’t had a hit except for the duet version of “Unforgettable” which she recorded with a recording of her late father, and that she hasn’t been relevant in the music world for years (ok, that’s probably overstatement, but I’m annoyed), it seems that Ms. Cole has missed the point of the Grammys entirely. In a world where an artist’s personal life is often the only thing that seems to matter — I mean, really, does it matter if Britney wears panties or not? Her album is going to sound the same if she does or doesn’t (at least, I hope so) — and in which music is rarely celebrated for its quality and instead is judged based on the marketability and conformity of the person/people making it, Amy’s wins on Sunday was an example of an extremely talented artist being rewarded for an exceptional album and song. Make no mistake, Back to Black was one of the best all-around albums of 2007, and “Rehab” was one of the best songs on it. Amy’s voice is unique, is singular; her writing abilities (I mean, really, Natalie, she wrote that whole album! By herself! How many pop singers now-a-days can you think of who do that??) are outstanding, her ear is fantastic, and for all her drug and personal problems she is giving it her best to have an extended and successful music career.

That is exactly the kind of thing the Grammys should reward. Perhaps Ms. Cole is annoyed that she was never lavished with praise… well, ever, and certainly not her during her drug days. Jealousy, Natalie, is very unbecoming.

–Sara

Thunder Thighs

The cynical, realistic side of me knows that most of you are probably a lot more inured to this than I am, but at this point the discussion about women’s bodies has just gotten surreal, and I’ve been immersed in fashion week for eight or nine days now and that entails looking at so many photos of 15 year old eastern European girls whose thighs are the size of… of… I don’t know, something really small and it warps everything so far out of perspective to look at these waif giraffes and then I see something like this and it just blows my mind.

The famous singer Beyonce Knowles performed at the 50th Grammy Awards in Los Angeles last night. Besides her solo performance, she was joined by the legendary Tina Turner.

She changed clothing a number of times during the night. She wore a long silver-blue dress to the awards ceremony. To the delight of the male public, she appeared on stage in ultra short green shorts.However, it seems that the r’n’b diva has gained a few kilograms, and in doing so, started rumours of an alleged pregnancy. Beyonce has recently married the famous rapper Jay-Z, and they both had their rings tattooed on.

There are two things wrong with this statement. One, when a woman gains weight it does not automatically mean she is pregnant, it means she is human. Two, Beyonce Knowles is not fat.

I don’t know how to be any clearer than that. Beyonce is a fucking woman. She has hips, she has thighs, she has a bust; she also has a tiny, tiny little waist and a face women would kill for. She is beautiful. She looks like a woman looks. I think the majority of the male population agrees; Beyonce is stacked.

Beyonce has more in common with a Jayne Mansfield or a Marilyn Monroe than any of our modern, sleek sex symbols. Somewhere along the line we have lost our taste for — or at least commerce wants us to think we’ve lost our taste for — hips, thighs and breasts, the trifecta that has defined womanhood for millions of years. Fashion since the Enlightenment had placed increasing emphasis on the smallness of the waist, therefore exaggerating the curve of the bust and the hip, until the 1920s, when flapper dresses hit. And even then women aimed for an hourglass all the way through to the 1960s (think of housewives with crinolines, or Marilyn and Jayne) when mod fashion hit and Twiggy changed the body type of the modeling industry.

Maybe we’ve gotten unused to how women are shaped, but goddamn it it’s time to snap ourselves out of it. I weigh on the low end of a normal BMI; I’ve always been described as slender when my body type was in question. I’m not tall, but I’m not short; I’m in the middle. And yet I find myself obsessing over the size and shape of my thighs, and I flirted pretty heavily with an eating disorder freshman year of college (lucky for me it didn’t take; I take real pleasure in eating, and writing and learning about food and its history). I’m sure I’m smaller, thinner than Beyonce, but I’m also sure that I wouldn’t stand a chance in the same room as her. It annoys me so much that someone would imply that her shape, her incredible figure, is a sign of being fat because it is so obviously wrong and misogynistic. I’m sick of hearing it.

–Sara

Technology We Don’t Need

That thing up there is called the Amazon Kindle. I’ve never heard of it before, not until I logged in to Amazon this morning to buy some used DVDs (come to mama, Tom Dowd) and found myself faced with an ad for Amazon’s cutting-edge “portable reader.” Or as they put it:

Three years ago, we set out to design and build an entirely new class of device—a convenient, portable reading device with the ability to wirelessly download books, blogs, magazines, and newspapers. The result is Amazon Kindle.

We designed Kindle to provide an exceptional reading experience. Thanks to electronic paper, a revolutionary new display technology, reading Kindle’s screen is as sharp and natural as reading ink on paper—and nothing like the strain and glare of a computer screen. Kindle is also easy on the fingertips. It never becomes hot and is designed for ambidextrous use so both “lefties” and “righties” can read comfortably at any angle for long periods of time.

We wanted Kindle to be completely mobile and simple to use for everyone, so we made it wireless. No PC and no syncing needed. Using the same 3G network as advanced cell phones, we deliver your content using our own wireless delivery system, Amazon Whispernet. Unlike WiFi, you’ll never need to locate a hotspot. There are no confusing service plans, yearly contracts, or monthly wireless bills—we take care of the hassles so you can just read.

With Whispernet, you can be anywhere, think of a book, and get it in one minute. Similarly, your content automatically comes to you, wherever you are. Newspaper subscriptions are delivered wirelessly each morning. Most magazines arrive before they hit newsstands. Haven’t read the book for tomorrow night’s book club? Get it in a minute. Finished your book in the airport? Download the sequel while you board the plane. Whether you’re in the mood for something serious or hilarious, lighthearted or studious, Kindle delivers your spontaneous reading choices on demand.

I suppose I support anything that encourages reading; as I child I was a voracious reader (earning the nickname “bookeater,” which was well deserved as I could and would read two or three books in a single day) and that is something that has enriched my life in ways I never could have predicted. In fact, to this day I remain deficient in my consumption of all the arts except books, music and television. I am the worst movie-watcher on earth (Want proof: I still haven’t seen “The Departed”), due largely to the rule I grew up with in which I wasn’t allowed to see any movie based on a book until I had read the book first. I think this was originally enacted to keep me from seeing Stephen King movies (and it didn’t work; he’s probably my favorite author and I don’t care if you judge me!), but as a result I read a lot of great books and decided the movies were unnecessary. And so, now, I haven’t seen whatever movie you were going to ask me about, ok? But, people, what ever happened to books? And magazines? And newspapers? I know for the fact the latter two are pretty easy to tote around as I’m usually carrying at least one of each in my purse. In fact, I usually have at least one of all those media in my purse at all times. And sure, sometimes I’m on the metro and I break out whatever I’m reading at the time — The Third Policeman, Island, Twilight, Kitchen Confidential, whatever — and realize that I’m really in the mood for something else. But reading isn’t just pleasure, it’s also discipline. It’s about making your mind re-enter a fantasy world that it might be momentarily distracted from for the sake of compelling storytelling.

It’s not just about us being lazy — and I think clearly we are, and the Kindle just kind of confirms it — but have we forgotten the pleasures of paper? The smell of freshly pressed wood and freshly printed ink? The smell of really, really old, yellowed, delicate pages? The durability of hardback, the malleability of paperback? The amazing feeling when you realize, in the middle of a large, wonderful bookstore, that you are surrounded on all sides by words, so very many words. Perhaps it’s just me. Perhaps I’m a luddite, or perhaps I’m just a writer, still taken with what I perceive to be the inherent romance and comfort of paper, ink and words themselves. Of my three tattoos, two are punctuation, and the next one is a sentence, probably to be inked to the back of my neck in tried-and-true Helvetica (which, coincidentally, I have just located and rented a documentary about, and which I plan to watch today with a friend). But for as much as I wish people read more, I also wish they wouldn’t go so blindly with a piece of technology we simply don’t need. Books are heavier, and probably more inconvenient, and they certainly don’t play to our whim-filled times, but I think maybe we need to redsicover some of our self-discipline and start realizing that the world isn’t meant to cater to us.

Now, go read a book.

–Sara

Is it… Is it really over??????

According to several websites, Michael Eisner has said the WRITER’S STRIKE IS OVER!!!!!!!!

He said that the negotiating teams from both sides have drawn up and shook hands on an agreement which will be circulated to the rest of the guild for approval on Saturday (tomorrow). He said that it’s a deal which is impossible to turn down.

Guys. GUYS. I am not a religious person. At all. But I’m dead serious: PRAY. Please, spend all weekend praying for this to be true. Because if it is, then… then…

I can barely stand to think of it for fear of jinxing it. My fingers, my arms, my legs… they are all crossed. Ohhhhh, pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease…

I WANT TO KNOW WHAT THE ISLAND IS, CARLTON!!! I REALLY, REALLY DO!!!

–Sara

A Moral, Political (probably slightly silly) Dilemma

So, my super-awesome friend Mike works for PBS in reporting capacities, and invited me over to his apartment last night to keep him company while he watched Fox News (EWWWWW) and NBC (the network channel, not the cable channel) and took notes on their coverage of the primaries (sparking a long discussion of how much media should cover media, the role of the reporter, objectivity, etc. which I haven’t had since journalism classes at college. I miss you, Prof. Socolow!) for his job. It was a trip, because I watch Fox News as often as I run around naked proclaiming my love of GW Bush, and I had to drink a lot of wine to make it through the hours. Believe me, it was tough.

But also kind of hilarious. The Aryan bent of FOX makes me giggle, and seeing the evil, evil mug of Karl Rove offering his opinion was hysterical. Seriously, you want ROVE’S opinion? The guy who orchestrated the past 7 years, who has brough America to its knees, the proverbial Nero fiddling on the burning ashes of our country? Only FOX, man, only FOX. And their tokens! Oh, so many tokens. The token brunette female (seriously, they are all so ARYAN), the token very-light-skinned black guy, the token democrat… so many tokens.

On to my dilemma, though. So we’re sitting, we’re talking, and this kind of Freudian slip comes out of my mouth and next thing you know I have coined THE phrase that could really, really help the Republicans make a strong showing this year. It’s a really, REALLY good phrase. A TNR or TPM-worthy phrase. It would work wonderfully for McCain especially. Mike wants me to write a blog using it, or a blog about it (probably not like this, though; I don’t think this existential outpouring is what he had in mind), but guys… I can’t. I just… can’t. There is no Democrat-centric slogan/catchphrase I can counter it with. And I think I’d have to commit Hari-Kari if I actually published on the intarwebs (even though this blog gets, like, 50 hits a day) because it could potentially do so much damage to the Dem cause, and goddammit I don’t want no more Republican presidents! You fucked it up, you lose!

So what do I do? Make a huge improvement on my writing career by unleashing my awesome, yet potentially EVIL phrase onto the web? Or help ensure a Big Blue World in November?

I think.. I think this one’ll have to stay under wraps. Goddammit.

–Sara