Wailing Into The Void

Four belief biases are conspiring to rob us of our pleasure.

This lady makes my head hurt.

The word from Politico is that Obama may hold a major rally Tuesday night at St. Paul’s Xcel Energy Center, the same site where the Republicans will hold their convention in September. Fortunately that leaves plenty of time for the Republicans to rid the arena of any lingering scent of hope.

I saw Raiders of the Lost Ark as an eight year-old when it came out in 1981. I recall flatly declaring back then that it was the best movie I had ever seen in my whole life. I suspect, however, if I had seen the movie for the first time when I was 35 it wouldn’t have made all that big an impression on me. I kept this thought in mind while watching Indiana Jones and the Kindgom of the Crystal Skull earlier this evening.

My adult brain told me that this movie is garbage. There isn’t anything really engaging about the characters or the story. There’s too much CGI. Harrison Ford is too old. Karen Allen smiles too often when she and the rest of the good guys are supposed to be in mortal danger. Cate Blanchett is more campy than menacing as the main bad guy.

My inner eight year-old enjoyed it immensely. When I was eight, two of my favorite televison shows were The Dukes of Hazzard and re-runs of the Batman series starring Adam West. Dukes was all about car chases, Batman was the height of camp and neither show was well known for featuring three-dimesional characters or compelling and coherent plots. They were dumb but they were fun, and so it is with The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

All the juicy details can be found here.

The Jed Report has the goods.

After failing to win the Libertarian Party’s presdential nomination over the weekend Mike Gravel is calling it quits on his political career. Obama Girl is presumably safely back in Barack’s column.

The GOP is still looking for someone to run for Vito Fossella’s seat. If you live in Staten Island, are over 25 years of age and have no embarrassing skeletons in your closet, this could be the opportuntiy you’ve been waiting for!

The New York Times ran an article today reporting that some Republican party leaders are concerned about apparent disarray in the McCain campaign.  It seems like much ado about nothing.  I tend to agree with McCain adviser Steve Schmidt, who’s quoted in the artcle:

“How do you measure success over the course of the spring campaign?” Mr. Schmidt asked. “This is how: The reality of this race is the Republican Party brand is very, very badly damaged, in some places broken. We’ve lost Congressional seats in districts that have elected only Republican for a generation. And Senator McCain is running even or ahead of Senator Obama in most national polls.”

I’d love to believe that McCain’s campaign is in peril, but I don’t buy it at this point.