A Final Whine for 2007

So yesterday I attempt to record a simple demo version of the preceding song for your listening pleasure. I wrote the thing as part of my presentation for a ward Book of Mormon mini read-a-thon, and the debut performance was so well received that I thought I ought to get a version of it in the can before I forgot the tune. For those of you who know my repertoire, the song sounds, right now, a little too much like The Ballad of Stallion Cornell for my taste. It’s in ¾ time and it’s in a kind of pseudo-country/folk style. I was looking forward to tweaking it further as I worked my digital magic, but then I discovered something awful.

It seems that my recording equipment, the DigiDesign MBox with Pro Tools LE 6.9, is woefully out of date, so much so that it no longer works with any recent version of the Mac OSX operating system. To upgrade, it’s going to cost me well over $300, plus a lot of time and effort and pains in the tuckus.

May I go on record as whining that built-in software obsolescence annoys the crap out of me. I also don’t like the new Mac OS much. It works fine on my newest laptop, but I have two older Macs that are struggling to keep up. One of them no longer recognizes my home wireless network unless I give it an enema first.

The old OS worked just fine. Heck, Mac OS 9 worked just fine. I upgraded in order to keep track with the programs that don’t work with old OS, but now I find that a program I needed doesn’t work with the new OS. It’s so deeply frustrating that I want to vomit, but I just can’t seem to make that happen. At least I don't have Windows Vista.

It’s not all bad news. I found a workaround using Soundtrack Pro, a program that’s part of my Final Cut suite. So I may have a version online before you know it. And it won’t cost me a dime. Take that, DigiDesign!

In other news, I really don’t understand New Year’s Eve. Staying up until midnight seems like a waste of up to two hours of valuable sleep. Maybe New Year’s Eve was fun once upon a time, but I’m old and boring now. And New Year’s Day is a pointless, pointless holiday. For most folks, it’s National Hangover Day. For me, it’s just another chance to nap. Which is, now that I think about it, not bad at all.

Happy New Year. Please turn off the lights and lock the door on your way out.

Sing for the Lord a New Song

Ammon was ridin’
By the Waters of Sidon
He was tryin’ to work for the Lamanite King

The sheep were a feedin’
And no one was bleedin’
“Til somebody started a sheep stealin’ thing

All the king’s servants, they ran for their lives
All except Ammon who took out his knives

Because Ammon was fearless, he faced them alone
And soon began hacking through muscle and bone
He sliced through the Brachial Artery part
A big honkin’ artery straight from the heart

CHORUS:
So blood splattered and sputtered and splashed and it spilled
It spiked and it spurted and speckled the hills
If they’d left things alone, they’d have come to no harm
But the thing is, they didn’t, so Ammon cut off their arms


Ammon, he gathered
Up the bones that he shattered
The limbs were, in number, a lot, not a few

He went without malice
To the Lamanite palace
To give ol’ King Lamoni a “How-do-you-do”

“Cause the King was intrigued with his brave servant’s charms
But the dude was freaked out when he saw all those arms

Because Ammon was fearless, he faced them with scorn
And made them all wish that they’d never been born
He ripped through their biceps and triceps and stuff
And didn’t despair when the tendons were tough

CHORUS:
So blood splattered and sputtered and splashed and it spilled
It spiked and it spurted and speckled the hills
If they’d left things alone, they’d have come to no harm
But the thing is, they didn’t, so Ammon cut off their arms


Lamoni lamented
His sins and repentred
And then fell to the earth.
Was he dead, do you think?

No! He awakened
Though his people were shaken
They all had complained
When he started to stink

Because Ammon was strong, he converted the king
And the queen, and the people all started to sing
A song of redemption they couldn’t ignore
And all because Ammon was knee-deep in gore

CHORUS - SING ALONG!
So blood splattered and sputtered and splashed and it spilled
It spiked and it spurted and speckled the hills
If they’d left things alone, they’d have come to no harm
But the thing is, they didn’t, so Ammon cut off their arms

The thing is, they didn’t, so Ammon cut off their arms.


Thank you very much.

Christmas at the Movies

The Christmas season is the time when the Oscar-worthy movies come out to play, and, to my credit, I studiously avoid them.

This year, there really wasn’t much out there that I wanted to see, but I did manage to make it to three films that I quite enjoyed, despite the fact that one of them wasn’t very good and another was, without question, the most gruesome movie I’ve ever seen.

The first flick, which I can recommend without qualification, was Enchanted, which I saw ‘round about Thanksgiving time. The previews made this movie look a little too precious for my taste, but I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the cartoon-meets-real-life premise was executed flawlessly, when the same screenplay could have been filmed as a smarmy parody in the hands of a lesser cast. This is one film where the star, the blithely charming Amy Adams, made the entire picture. She doesn’t have a single false moment on screen. If this role had been given to someone like Cameron Diaz, the whole thing would have reeked of self-parody. And Susan Sarandon as a bitter, aging dragon lady is exquisite typecasting of the first order.

Just before Christmas, the Utah League of Credit Unions sponsored a screening of National Treasure: Book of Secrets, a dumbed-down retread of the already-stupid first movie. I don’t say that by way of criticism – I loved the first movie, largely because it was so earnestly silly. The problem is that the sequel brought the silly and forgot the earnestness. It’s marred by lazy writing that allows our heroes to breeze through impossible situations with the greatest of ease. Witness their “kidnapping” of `the President of the United States, which happens about ten seconds after they come up with the idea. Fortunately for them, the President goes out of his way to allow himself to be kidnapped, wandering away from his own party and waving off his Secret Service agents so he can end up in a dank tunnel with a party crasher he barely knows. This movie is filled with sloppy moments like this. The writers lurch from one gigantic set piece to another for the flimsiest of reasons, following Bizarro logic.

If you doubt me, try and see if you can follow this:

It seems that Nick Cage’s ancestor is implicated as a conspirator in the Lincoln assassination, so he decides to find a treasure that the ancestor was looking for, because that will somehow mean said ancestor is innocent for reasons that only leprechauns can understand. Meanwhile, Ed Harris goes to great lengths to track Cage’s every move, risking life and limb to badger Cage into doing something he would have done more eagerly if Harris had simply asked him. Soon they discover the treasure is hidden beneath Mt. Rushmore, which was built by the government to hide the treasure, which means that plenty of people knew where the treasure was but couldn’t be bothered to actually do anything about it. All this inexplicably proves the innocence of Cage’s Civil War ancestor, and that news is proudly proclaimed on the front page of the Washington Post, presumably next to the headline “Generalissimo Francisco Franco Is Still Dead.”

Stupid, stupid, stupid. And yet…

My kids were engrossed. They didn’t move a muscle throughout the whole thing. And, while this movie insulted my intelligence, it also managed to stay entertaining throughout while being respectful of American traditions and squeaky clean to boot. There’s something to be said for that, and I’ve just said it. That doesn’t make Book of Secrets a particularly good movie, but it does mean that I’ll probably be there to sit through the inevitable sequel.

I doubt they’ll make a sequel to Sweeney Todd, which is just as well, as I doubt there’s enough blood left in the universe to make another movie like this. Against my better judgment, I saw it last night with my youngest sister, a fellow theatre geek who, like me, felt a solemn duty to see the adaptation of what many black-turtlenecked elitists call the Last Great American Musical. Both of us were wary for a number of reasons. We love the original stage version, and we were afraid that Tim Burton would Tim Burtonize the whole thing rather than let the material stand on its own. Johnny Depp as Sweeney seemed like stunt casting, and the R rating promised blood galore, which isn’t something that either of us really enjoys seeing onscreen.

So what’s the verdict?

It’s better than I could have hoped for. And I never want to see it again.

Let’s start with the good stuff, which was plentiful indeed. Other than the absence of saturated color, Tim Burton’s usual visual tics were nowhere to be seen. This was a remarkably faithful adaptation, and, astonishingly, Depp was a magnificent Sweeney. Reviews seemed to imply that he “speak-sang” much of the role a la Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady, but that wasn’t true at all. He sang with a clear, simple baritone that was more than adequate, with the exception of a few moments that could have used more bombast than he could deliver. He would certainly have been lost on stage, but the intimacy of film inherently changes things, making Depp perfect for the role.

I wasn’t as fond of Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs. Lovett, even though she seemed a natural for the role of a dippy devil woman, something she plays in every film she’s ever made. Her voice was paper thin and airy throughout, which was regrettable in a show where she was required to do so much of the vocal heavy lifting. Still, while she’s no Angela Lansbury, she didn’t detract from the proceedings much.

The rest of the cast was wonderful, most notably Alan Rickman as an oily Judge Turpin and Sacha Baron Cohen as a delightfully foppy Pirelli. Toby seemed a bit young, but he won me over by the end of the film. And both Joanna and Antony were shining lights of purity in the midst of the unrelenting gloom that drenched this picture like a cinematic oil slick.

Or should I say blood slick. Son of a Dogcatcher’s Butt, there’s a lot of blood in this movie.

I wasn’t surprised. There’s a lot of blood in the play, too. The difference, of course, is that plays are a lot more artificial than movies are. When you're watching something on stage, you can distance yourself from the whole thing. In contrast, the movie had no escape valve. You're forced to watch as blood came gushing out of real-looking aortas, and you saw things that were only implied on stage, like each of Sweeney’s victims landing with a sickening crunch, head first, on Mrs. Lovett’s hard, stone floor. I covered my eyes when I could, and, since I knew the play, I was warned ahead of time when there was going to be trouble, but, even so, this was more than I could stomach. I congratulate everyone involved for a job well done, but, if it’s all right with you, I’ll stick to the stage version, thank you very much.

Bring on National Treasure III!

Post-Christmas Funk

The day after Christmas is always depressing. In fact, Christmas itself starts to get depressing as the day starts to wane and you realize that you have to wake up and face real life the next day.

I should be more chipper than I am. Today is my daughter Chloe’s 9th birthday, so she’s excited even if the rest of us are not. She loves having a birthday the day after Christmas, despite the fact that the rest of the world is often too busy to notice. It gives us an excuse to keep the party going, and I’m grateful for it.

I just dread January.

There’s nothing pleasant about January. (Yes, oldest daughter Cleta’s birthday is on the 7th, but that’s about it.) January is cold. It’s dreary. Lots of snow shoveling in freezing temperatures. And there are no Christmas lights to keep it artificially cheerful. It’s just a long, hard slog to Spring, which, for the past few years, hasn’t rolled around until April, if then.

Geesh, what a gloomy post this is turning out to be. That’s a shame, because Christmas was great. We had made all the preparations for Santa’s visit well ahead of time, and then at 11:30, my wife remembered that one of the big gifts was being stored at her brother’s house – which was about twenty miles away in the snow. We got to bed at 1:00 AM. So much for being ready ahead of time.

That’s gloomy, too! Knock it off!

Christmas morning was delightful. The kids ripped into their presents and had a wonderful time. We spent the morning playing Guitar Hero III on the Wii, and we spent the afternoon napping. Or at least trying to nap. I was engrossed in the book my wife gave me - the new Steve Martin biography about his stand-up years, titled, appropriately, Born Standing Up. It’s a fascinating look at what it takes to create a life in show biz, something I was unable, or unwilling, to do.

I have a wife and five kids and a life of relative normalcy, whereas Steve Martin spent his young adulthood slogging through funky clubs playing the banjo and squeezing bananas, trying desperately to make his mark. He succeeded, of course, but not without a price. He’ll never have five little sprites ripping open Santa presents on Christmas morning. But I paid a price, too. I think I got the better end of the deal, but something still aches when I imagine what my life would have been if I had taken his route instead of mine.

Gosh, I hope nobody decides to shoot themselves in the head after reading this.

Tracking Santa

That's just the first sighting - you can track his progress here.

I Believe in Santa Claus

No kidding. I really do. 

I didn't used to. I remember, as a child, seeing a Sears price tag on a Christmas present and wondering whether Santa did all his shopping via catalogue. In fact, I can't remember ever really believing as a kid. Some people have very traumatic memories of when they discovered harsh so-called "truths" - my mother recalls the very moment her Christmas dreams were crushed all around her. So she never pushed Santa on us too hard, and maybe that's why I was always pretty fuzzy on the Santa motif.

My own children are now going through the process. We're pretty sure that Cleta, our precocious 10-year-old teenager, has a more practical approach to Christmas than she used to have. And our six-year-old twins are hardcore believers. Two-year-old Stalliondo likes to eat Christmas cards, so I'm not sure where he is on the whole thing. 

It's Chloe, the eight-year-old, who seems to be struggling this year. 

While we were unpacking the Christmas decorations, she stumbled on a note that Santa had left for the kids a few years ago that we'd saved. "This is Dad's handwriting," she observed, and Mrs. Cornell was quick to spirit the letter away. I assured her that the epistle was truly written by Santa and was quick to point out that my own handwriting is almost always illegible, so she must have been mistaken. 

Anyway, yesterday, as the kids were cleaning the basement and/or hurling bloodchilling invectives at each other, Chloe, consumed with fury, spat out acidic words at six-year-old Corbin, concluding with the announcement "Santa's not real!" 

My heart sank, until I saw that Corbin was completely unfazed by this. "Yes, he is," he answered back simply, with just a touch of smugness. "How else would we get all the presents?" Before Chloe could offer an alternative hypothesis, I intervened and sent her to her room.  

When Mrs. Cornell heard about this, she told Chloe that Santa doesn't bring presents to people who don't believe in him. So Chloe, at least nominally, is a believer once again. (To her credit, when all this was going down, skeptic Cleta didn't say a blessed word.) 

I'm a believer, too, and not just in name only. I became a believer when I became a parent, one who works furiously all night long on Christmas Eve to make sure that Santa's visit goes perfectly. If Santa himself were there giving orders, things wouldn't go any more according to his plan than they already do. 

In every organization, the person at the top gets the credit. People talk about companies that are "saved" or "ruined" by their chief executives, or about the accomplishments or failures of any given U.S. President. The reality is that all the work - or lack thereof - is done by the people in the trenches, and the guy in charge does little more than offer direction. Parents everywhere do everything they can to ensure that Santa's ideal for a perfect Christmas comes to life in their own home. People don't do things like that for leaders that don't exist. They're only loyal to things when there's something very real at the core of it all. 

I don't want to get into Santa theology - his corporeality, for instance, or the geography of his factory, or the aerodynamics of flying reindeer. None of that matters much. What matters is what happens on Christmas morning, when the still-believing young'uns see what Santa has brought them, along with a plate of cookies with just a few crumbs left. 

Why should the parents take credit for that? 

Santa Claus allows grown-ups to fulfill the injunction of Christ, when he says:

"But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly."

That's a true principle. More importantly, it's real. And that's why I believe. I'm not interested in living in a world without Santa Claus. 

Merry Christmas. 

Primary Thoughts

I don't see any way that Rudy Giuliani can possibly win the Republican nomination. He's lost his lead in the latest national poll - tied with Romney! - and he's not competitive in any fo the early states. Stick a fork in him. He's done. 

If Mitt wins Iowa, he wins New Hampshire. And then he's the nominee. Period. 

If Huckabee wins Iowa and Mitt wins New Hampshire, it's a mess. Thompson may very well win South Carolina, and then who the heck knows? It ill be fun/painful to watch. 

If Huckabee wins Iowa and McCain wins New Hampshire, Mitt's got nowhere to go. The nominee? McCain. Blech. 

If I had to change places with any candidate at the moment, it would be Mitt. He's got a better than 50/50 chance. Nobody else does. 

If Hillary loses Iowa and New Hampshire, say hello to President Barack Obama. I don't think any of our guys can beat him - including Mitt. I'm relishing the schaudenfreude of watching Hillary flail, but she's so much easier to beat in a general election than Barack is, so I ought to be rooting for her. But I don't think I can. 

I'm eating too much Christmas crap. 

The end. 

Christmas Songs and Hucksters Blow

We three clods from Omaha are
Spending Christmas Eve in a car
Driving, drinking, glasses clinking
Who needs a lousy bar?

This, um, hilarious Christmas parody comes to you courtesy of '70's-era Mad Magazine, via my pre-adolescent memory of yesteryear. It's wretched, but I've never been able to expunge it from my brain.

Today, I discovered that the same geniuses who produced this dreck very likely wrote my daughter's choral program at her elementary school. Witness some of the lyrics I had to endure for a full half an hour:

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree
You are a fire hazard
__________

Glory, Glory, Hallelujah
I like presents - what's it to ya?
__________

Over the freeway and to the mall
A-shopping we will go

Suddenly, We Three Clods from Omaha looks like a Christmas classic.

At the outset, I was bracing myself for repeated use of the word "holiday" instead of "Christmas," but in this case, I was pleasantly surprised. Yes, the opening song was a generic little ditty called "Holiday Lights," but the word "Christmas" was used plentifully throughout the program, and the show ended with a hearty "Merry Christmas" being shouted by the kids.

Yet somehow I still managed to be bugged. Go figure.

Each Christmas song was altered to become this pseudo-Mad Magazine parody of itself, and I just didn't understand why. Couldn't they have actually sung "Over the River and Through the Woods" without mentioning shopping malls and credit cards? Why did "O Christmas Tree" have to be mutilated? I've long ago resigned myself to the fact that only secular carols will be sung in public, but, gee whiz! Why can't you leave even those alone? And what's with the slaughtering of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic?" That's not even a Christmas tune, yet they still managed to mangle it.

At least "Battle Hymn" used to be religious. We also got a health helping of new, "shop 'til you drop" lyrics for "She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain" and "Bingo Was His Name-O." With all the great Christmas tunes out there, why do you have to write nondescript new lyrics for such generic sludge?

Each song was so sickeningly "clever" that I wanted to vomit. This was true until the final number, a Celine Dionish power ballad about Christmas being in the heart. Which came as news to me, since I always thought Christmas was in the bowels. This program certainly was.

That's not to say that I enjoy all religious Christmas greetings, either. Mike Huckabee's new ad, which is a very simple Christmas message praising "the celebration of Christ's birth," is such a shrewd, simple, anti-Mormon hatefest that I want to scream. He lays the Christian stuff on with a trowel, gleefully exulting in the fact that Christian dupes in Iowa will see him as one of their own, with the tacit implication that Mitt Romney isn't. Never mind the fact that Mitt could have delivered the same message. Actually, he couldn't have, because the Huckabites would accuse him of pandering, or trying to pretend he's a Christian when he's really a cultist. Yet Huckabee can slather it on all day long and pat himself on the back for his own bigoted ingenuity. What a turd.

All in all, I'm feeling pretty damn Grinchy. Happy Festivus.

Christmas Eve

Not really, but my in-laws celebrate Christmas Eve with a massive seafood spread, and since we won't all be in the same place this December 24th, we're having it a week early. Crab legs. Shrimp Scampi. Smoked salmon. It's the greatest fringe benefit of marrying into a family from the Pacific Northwest. 

The kids are watching A Christmas Story downstairs. Best Christmas movie ever. Darren McGavin was 61 freakin' years old when he made that movie, and yet he's still perfect as the father of a 9-year-old kid. 

Merry Christmas. You'll shoot your eye out!

The Miracle of the Christmas Poo

This happened to me last year, and I intended to recount the story for a Christmas Day blog entry, but then I realized that if I'm actually blogging on Christmas Day, then there's something seriously wrong with me - and you, if you're wasting time on Christmas reading blogs.

So I thought I'd post it early enough for you to enjoy it. It's the best story about Christmas and crap that I've ever heard.

I wrote up a version of this story when it happened, but my sister's vesrion that she posted over at her group blog, mormonmommywars.com, is much better. So I reprint it here without permission. (I'll take it down if she threatens to sue.)

___________________

H wanted to post this, but her computer’s sick, and mine’s not, so I get to do it! HA HA HA HA HA HA I am excited, because it really is a great story. True, as well, which is the best kind of story. Did not happen to me, but it did happen to my brother.

First, we got to create….da MOOOD. It was Christmas night, the presents have been opened, the fire died down, and the children (all 5 of them) sufficiently died down from their sugar highs to be asleep. Parents zonked out after an exausting, fulfilling Christmas.

Around 2 a.m., the youngest one, an 18 month old of the male persuasion, awakes crying. He had a poopy diaper, and not just any old poopy diaper. One of those blowouts, go up the back, disaster of a poopy diaper. Parents are like “wha? This kid has been sleeping through the night without a dirty diaper for over a YEAR. He NEVER does this.”

No use wondering, just clean him up, and try to get him back to sleep. Daddy cleaned him up, handed him over to Mom to get him back down, and took the diaper downstairs to get rid of the foul thing. Now, normally, in this situation, he would just put the diaper in the garage, to be removed to the outside later, when a trash bag is going out, but “for some reason”, he decided to go outside to deposit the diaper in the outside garbage can.

It was on fire.

It had burned entirely to the ground, and the fire was still going. It was beginning to melt the can next to it, the heat had cracked the window to the garage, and the sill was black from the smoke. He hurriedly runs in the house, grabs a coat and some boots, grabs a shovel from the garage, and shovels snow all over the fire, all the while thinking “My wife is going to be so mad that I’m not upstairs helping to get the baby back to sleep.”

When he did go back upstairs, he informed his wife that the disaster of a poopy diaper quite possibly saved their lives, and for sure saved their garage. He slept the remainder of the night downstairs by the garage, just to be sure.

The moral of the story is twofold:

1) The Lord will use anything, including your child’s bowels, to get your attention when necessary.

2) The Lord looks out for you, even when you’re stupid. Like when you put a bag full of hot ash into a receptacle clearly marked ”Do not put hot ash in can” on it.

The Next President of the United States

Ranking the Candidates

Back in ’96, I remember having a political discussion with a Republican Party operative, and I told him I was terrified that Pat Buchanan would get the nomination. Pat had just won the New Hampshire primary, and I was left with the terrifying prospect of having to choose between Pat Buchanan and Bill Clinton. Yikes.

My operative was more confident than I was that Buchanan wouldn’t go the distance –  he was proven right, of course – but I asked him who he would vote for if forced to make the choice. He sighed and said “Clinton, I guess.” I agreed with him.

That’s not to say I like Bill Clinton. It’s to say I loathe Pat Buchanan. The election of 2000 was a beautiful thing, because Pat managed to destroy the political future of Ross Perot, the Reform Party, and Pat Buchanan in one fell swoop. Amid all the recount nonsense, that little kernel of goodness is often overlooked.

So we then played a game. I would propose two loathsome candidates, and my friend would have to choose between them.

Sample results:

Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter? Bill Clinton.

Bill Clinton or Richard Nixon? Richard Nixon in a walk.

Pat Buchanan or Anyone Else? Anyone Else.

Pat Buchanan became the gold standard for vileness. I threw up any number of wretched candidates up against Mr. Go Pat Go, and my heavily Republican friend always chose the non-Buchanan. I finally asked, “Is there anyone you wouldn’t vote for instead of Pat Buchanan?”

He thought about that for a long time. Ultimately, the only name he could come up with was Adolf Hitler.

I’ve started to play that same game in considering this year’s political candidates.

Here’s my list, in order of preference, each with a rating from 1 to 10. Those above the line are candidates I could support without throwing up. Those below the line would have to be running against someone even lower and/or Hitler in order to get my vote.

So without further ado:

STALLION’S PRESIDENTIAL LIST

Mitt Romney – 9.
A little bloodless, but decent, conservative, and a primo executive - would likely be a great prez.

Fred Thompson – 8.
Might have been in first place if he hadn’t snoozed his way through the campaign.

Duncan Hunter – 6.5
Seems like a decent, conservative guy, but his border fixation makes him somewhat tedious. And he has no shot whatsoever.

Rudy Giuliani – 5.1
If I had to. I like him as a proven conservative leader, but the judiciary stuff makes him almost unacceptable. If I truly believed he’d appoint the strict constructionists he talks about, he’d be in first place.

________________________

Now we get into the UNACCEPTABLE CANDIDATES

Joseph Biden - 3.7
A decent human being with relatively moderate political instincts, as far as Democrats go. Also a tedious blowhard.

Barack Obama – 3.4
Another decent human being who wouldn’t make me want to throw something at the screen every time he came on television. Yet, Oprah notwithstanding, he’s not the Messiah – he’s a by-the-numbers Great Society liberal.

Bill Richardson – 3.0
Seems like a good guy, and one of the more moderate Democrats. Still a Democrat, though, and offers no real reason to vote for him.

John McCain – 2.6
He opposed the Bush tax cuts, inflicted the unconstitutional campaign finance nightmare on the nation, and destroyed all conservative bargaining power on judicial filibusters. Except for his support for the war in Iraq, he is, in my estimation, not recognizably Republican. He’s also the Manchurian candidate who, I’m afraid, might drop a bomb on France if he lost his temper at any given moment.

Tom Tancredo – 2.5
Maybe this guy’s a conservative on the issues that matter. Who knows? All he ever talks about is the border. It’s as if he’s never, ever thought about anything else. Not interested in a single-issue president who skews a bit wacky.

Alan Keyes – 2.2
Yikes. I actually voted for this guy in the Utah Republican Primary in 2000. I’m not sure when he crossed the line from passionate orator to full-blown loon, but he’s there now, and there’s no going back.

Ron Paul – 2.1
Another loon, albeit more dangerous because he has more money than Keyes.

Chris Dodd – 2.0
Mr. Ted-Kennedy-Waitress-Sandwich claims to have reformed his ways – he’s even married to a Mormon – but he’s a tired liberal hack who comes off as smarmy and partisan.

Dennis Kucinich – 1.2
You’ve got to sort of respect a guy who knows he’s a nut and makes it a selling point. You don’t, however, have to vote for him. Nor should you.

Hillary Clinton - .03
An opportunistic, corrupt, vindictive shrew with no core principles other than a lust for power.

John Edwards - .007
An opportunistic, corrupt, vindictive shrew with core Socialistic principles that scare me to death.

Mike Huckabee - .0000666
This is a man who smiles, and smiles, and is still a villain. He sees himself as called by God to destroy my faith, and he’s so deeply disingenuous about it that it scares me to death. His record on fiscal issues is abysmal, and he would do more damage to my party than Hillary Clinton ever could. I’d vote for him over Hitler, but not too many others. Actually, scratch that. If that were my choice, I’d probably just not vote. 

Or vote Libertarian.  (Same thing, really.)

Huckabee Lied; Mormons Sighed

Do Mormons believe that Jesus and Satan are brothers?

No.

Would Mike Huckabee accept that answer? Probably not. 

The query came up in a discussion with  New York Times reporter, and it was accompanied by a statement that Huck “did not know much” about the Mormons. Yet he asked a leading question designed to make Mormons look freaky, and he did so presuming that he already knew the answer. So if I had been there and said “no,” he would likely have accused me of being evasive. 

The reality is that he’s the one who’s warping the truth in order to smear my faith, and the twit knows damn well what he’s doing.

The “Jesus/Satan Brotherhood” question, as the spokesman for the LDS Church stated, “is usually raised by those who wish to smear the Mormon faith rather than clarify doctrine.”

Because we don’t believe Jesus and Satan are brothers. Jesus had no brothers. 

He was the Only Begotten of the Father in the flesh.

The New Testament does imply that he had half-brothers – and probably sisters, too - who were children of both Mary and Joseph. One of those half-brothers, James, wrote an eponymous epistle that is part of the scriptural canon.

None of those brothers was Satan. And my Church has never said, implied, or believed otherwise.

“Wait a minute!” the Huckster might answer. “You believe that both Jesus and Satan lived in heaven before the creation of the Earth, and that both are the spirit children of God, don’t you? Deny that, you lying Mormon cultist!”

Ah, so the question is deeper than it appears, isn’t it, Hucky? Which belies your own smirky little lie that you don’t know much about my faith. Because to even ask your smarmy question, you have to have a basic understanding of the LDS doctrine of preexistence, and the idea that all of us are sons and daughters of God, at least as far as the soul is concerned. So in that sense, yes, Jesus and Satan are brothers, as much as I’m a brother of, say, Manuel Noriega. But if you were to ask me if Manuel were my brother, I’d say no, because I only have one brother – in the flesh. And when people ask me about my brother, I usually answer without thinking theologically or spiritually. Manuel never figures into the equation.

When you asked the question, you intended it to be heard one way even when you knew you were insinuating something else. It’s the same tactic that puds like you employ when you go around saying Mormons aren’t Christians. Using specific theological constructs – i.e. Mormons are not a part of the historical Christian tradition, or Mormons deny the Nicene Creed – you define Christian in an exclusive way that is lost on the casual listener, who hears “Mormons aren’t Christians” and concludes that we worship Joseph Smith or Brigham Young or a head of polygamous lettuce and not Jesus Christ.

Both “Christian” and, in this case, “brother,” have both a common definition and a theological one. When you slander us as “non-Christians” or “Jesus/Satan/Brother” types, you are thinking theologically while, at the same time, intending the hearer to associate the accusation with the common definition.

In other words, you are deliberately attempting to be misunderstood. Or, to put it more bluntly, you’re being dishonest.

You, Mr. Huckabee, are excrement. 

Interpret that how you will. 

Indiana Jones and the Denny's Senior Discount

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull opens in theatres on May 22 of next year, but all of the movie sites have been buzzing about it for what seems like decades. Before the title was announced, everyone was trying to come up with the cleverest new moniker for the film while at the same time mocking Harrison Ford’s advanced age. (My favorite was Indiana Jones and the Confusing Bingo Card.) But all the footage of Harrison/Indy has been encouraging – he looks older and grayer, yes, but he’s still fit and Indiana Jones-esque – so people have stopped making up geezer titles and everyone’s getting excited.

Except me.

No, that’s not quite true. I’m pretty excited, and doubtless I’ll be there on opening night. I just don’t think I’m going to appreciate where this thing is going to go.

By the way, if you’re scared of movie spoilers, read no further. I don’t know the whole plot of the movie, but I know enough to be dangerous. If you want to be completely and utterly surprised, turn back now.

Still here? Well, I warned you. Except now, you’re probably expecting something really juicy, and I really don’t know all that much. So you’re probably going to be disappointed. (Just thought I’d warn you about that, too.)

Anyway…

The plot is centered around a crystal skull, which is presumably constructed by aliens. And that’s what bugs me. Every other movie has focused on religious artifacts, requiring Indy to suppress his worldly skepticism and take a leap of faith. Each movie ends with a mystical denouement that is both unexplained and unexplainable. And that’s the way I like it.

Science can’t give us the reasons why the Lost Ark melted off all the Nazis' faces, or why the Shankara Stones burned through the bag and killed Mola Rum, or why the Last Crusader Knight lived for hundreds of years reading the Bible by himself with all those fake Grails. What’s more, if there are scientific reasons, we don’t want to know what they are. It’s fun to watch the utterly rational Indiana Jones get his comeuppance as he encounters spiritual forces far greater than he is.

So along comes this alien crystal skull, and suddenly everything is going to get explained. And that just plain sucks.

From what I’ve heard, the Lost Ark was tagged in a box and, according to this new movie, sent to a warehouse – in Area 51. That’s just a rumor, but there’s some indication that the Ark is going to figure prominently in the story. If you look at the teaser ad, you’ll see Indiana Jones’ hat and bullwhip resting atop a large wooden crate with the same number - 9906573 - as the crate they put the Ark in at the end of the first movie. In addition, John Hurt is going to be playing Abner Ravenwood – Marion’s father and an Ark fanatic who was presumed dead in Raiders. Every indication is that the Ark and the Crystal Skull are going to be spending some quality time together.

After reading the tea leaves, I’ve concluded that we’re going to be told that aliens dropped off the Ark to ancient Israel, and now they want it back. So it wasn’t the power of God that fried the Nazis – it was some bug-eyed dudes from Alpha Centauri. And all of Judeo-Christian tradition was planted here by weirdos from another planet. Suddenly, Indy is vindicated – the world is rational after all. It’s no fair, and it’s no fun. I’m not too thrilled about an Indiana Jones universe where there’s no room for wonder.

That’s not to say that I don’t like the Chariots of the Gods motif when done properly – I’m a huge Battlestar Galactica fan, which covered this ground well, and certainly elements of my own faith have been interpreted in a “weirdos from another planet” way. (I think we Mormons get a bad rap on this, though, but I digress.) The problem is that these ideas are being inflicted on established Indiana Jones continuity, and they’re going to inform how we view the previous films. I don’t think the Raiders ending is as much fun if we learn that the Ark’s “unspeakable power” comes from the planet Vordon. The series was built on a different premise, and KOTCS is coming along and changing the rules in the middle of the game.

In the end, though, I’ll still be cheering. There will surely be great action sequences, and it’s going to be fun to see Karen Allen as Marion Ravenwood again. I’m not sure if I’m as excited to see Shia TheBeef as Indy’s son, but I’ll reserve judgment. That’s a plot change that could work. Aliens drinking out of the Holy Grail is not.

Of course, all that could go out the window when they finally get around to making Indiana Jones and the Unpleasant Prostate Exam.

Kicking Back at Huckabee

In my first month as a 19-year-old Mormon missionary in Scotland, I remember standing outside a grocery store, and a two or three year-old rugrat came up to me, kicked my leg as hard as he could, and said, loudly, “Get a f$&*ing job.”

It was then that I learned, if I didn’t know it before, that Mormons are universally less than beloved.

As the Mitt speech gets ingested into the national consciousness, I’m reminded of the fact that my faith makes me weirder and more of an outsider to the world at large than I want to admit. Almost everyone agrees the speech was terrific, but it doesn’t seem to be translating into support. The action line is “Mitt gave a great speech; he’s still a freak, though.” Swell.

Consequently, I’m becoming increasingly annoyed with Huckabee for reasons that are only partly rational. He’s been very Clintonian about the whole religion thing. He has to know that he’s riding a wave of anti-Mormon sentiment that he welcomes because of its usefulness. In my mind, he’s not very far removed from that stupid little Scottish kid, and I get the feeling that if Mike Huckabee had a chance to kick me in the leg, he probably would.

It turns my stomach that my so-called political allies are made up of people that are willing to spread distortions, slander, and outright lies to destroy my faith. Every time I go to a conservative website that allows comments – lucianne.com comes to mind – my fellow Republicans rail on my church with barely contained fury, and I wonder if Hillary and her ilk could be any worse. Harry Reid doesn’t seem to get this kind of treatment from his fellow Democrats. Are we really so intolerant as a party? It boggles the mind.

I could go into martyr mode, I guess – the Savior talked about how blessed we are if people persecute us and such. Looking through history, I can’t seem to find a time when the Lord’s people were treated with respect by the rest of the world. I should take solace in that. But it bugs me all the same.

I’m a Mitt guy, but I could support Thompson. Or, holding my nose, Rudy. McCain? No. He’s nuts. Huckabee? At this point, no. I just don’t see how I can back a guy who encourages slanders about my faith. How could he be any worse than Hillary?

Dumb question. Of course Hillary’s worse, and of course I’d vote for Huckabee if he were the nominee. But I sure as hell am not going to be happy about it.

Maybe I’m not a Christian, after all. When Huckabee rallies his anti-Mormon army, instead of turning the other cheek, I kind of want to kick back.

Bad Sportsmanship

Thursday night was Corbin and Cornelius’ first basketball game. If you read the sad-but-true story of their last practice, then you won’t be surprised to learn that the actual game wasn’t all that pretty. The final score was 12-10 – and my boys were on the losing side.

My boys do not like to lose.

The started to tear up when the score was announced, and one of the mothers on the team noticed and said, “Look! Isn’t it great how emotionally invested they are in the game? How cute!”

To which Mrs. Cornell, who knows our sons all too well, said, “It won’t be cute in a moment.”

And then the moment came.

“CHEATERS!!” screamed Corbin at the top of his lungs. “DIRTY ROTTEN CHEATERS!!”

Cornelius got in on the action, too, both of them hectoring the winning team, who stared at my boys with looks ranging from befuddlement to barely stifled laughter. As the two losers were dragged forcibly down the stairs of the gym and out to the parking lot, the screams continued and amplified in intensity.

The boys went to bed two hours early, and still, they cried themselves to sleep. “Why can’t we just play soccer?” Cornelius asked. “We always win soccer.”

The Cornells need a lesson in sportsmanship. They should probably learn at the feet of my daughter Chloe, who played her basketball game this morning. They lost, too.

The score was 54-4.

Chloe came home cheerful and went off and played with her American Girl dolls. (If you are looking for the NBA stars of tomorrow, I would advise you not to turn your attention to the Cornell family.)

I asked Cornelius how he knew the other team cheated. "Because they won," he answered. 

It's worse than I thought. Not only is my boy a bad sport; he's also a Democrat.

Romney Speech Reaction...

...is better than I think the Romney campaign could have hoped for. Rush Limbaugh has spent his entire show praising the speech, and he keeps having to remind people that he's not endorsing any candidate for the primary. Although if he were to endorse someone, I doubt Rush could match the glowing accolades that he is showering on Romney.

If you haven't seen the speech yet, watch it here.



Over at The Corner on National Review Online, reaction is more mixed. Mona Charen calls it arguably "the best political speech of the year," and Kate O'Bierne said "I predict it will get rave reviews." Even Chris Matthews has said that he "heard greatness this morning" in Romney's speech.

That's the good stuff. But much of the NRO Corner contingent is upset that the speech left out atheists, which strikes me as a pretty petty criticism. David Frum, who wrote such a persuasive analysis of why the speech would fail, is convinced it did, because he thinks Romney opened the door to questions about the loonier aspects of his faith. (I think he was dead right with his first article and dead wrong with this one.)

Every indication in the evangelical community seems to suggest that the speech was well-received. Two evangelical leaders in Iowa have had good things to say, and the folks at evangelicalsformitt.com have called it a grand-slam home run.

Three-plus hours after the speech, I remain convinced that my initial impression was right. I also think it makes my initial election predictions more likely. After this speech, Romney stands a good chance of winning Iowa again, and if he does, that will effectively end the Huckaboom, defy expectations, and get Mitt the momentum he needs to power through the primaries to the nomination. He's ironically in a better position than he was when he was the presumptive Iowa caucus winner, because now an Iowa victory will actually mean something. (I also think that Romney's organization is so superior to Huckabee's that he could very well have won Iowa without this speech, which would have shocked the world, too.)

Good day for the Romney campaign.

Mitt just finished his speech...

Watched it on TV. Haven't seen the pundit's reactions yet, and I should probably wait to let the thing sink in before I render my own final verdict. 

My initial reaction, though, is that he nailed it. He was certainly more passionate and sincere than I've ever seen him, very near tears at a number of points. He seemed very much like a human being. Indeed, he seemed like a President of the United States. He had a gravitas that I hadn't seen before - he didn't look like a bloodless CEO.

As for the content of the speech, it's hard for me to judge. He made the right promises - interesting that he said his oath "on the Bible" would be his "highest oath." Thought it was a little risky to say we're all "children of God," as that plays into a Mormon theological criticism. I initially thought he was going to avoid using the word Mormon, and I'm glad he didn't. He didn't try to downplay his faith at all, although I didn't expect him to, and he looked like someone with real convictions, which is not how he often appears in debates. 

There was a bit of an implicit assumption that those who reject him on the basis of faith are bigots, but it appealed to the better angels of our nature, in the sense that he included evangelicals and others in the "great symphony of faith."

All in all, I don't know if he or anyone else could have done any better. The question still remains, though - is it enough?

Mind Lint

There is some sinister force in my home that burns out lightbulbs before their time. 

Changing poopy diapers never gets fun. 

THe iSight camera on my Mac doesn't work. This is probably the fifth time I've had to take it in. If I hadn't bought AppleCare, I'd have spent more money on repairs than on the computer. 

Dyson vacuums are worth the money. 

Eating a piece of Little Caesar's Pizza is like eating the side of corrugated cardboard box. 

Nintendo ought to come up with enough Wiis to meet demand by now. I saw one sell on eBay yesterday for $640, plus $50 shipping. 

I could live for years on nothing but tortilla chips and Pace picante sauce. 

The Simpsons remains funny. Family Guy is too crude. 

I have no respect for Kwanzaa or for those who observe it. It's a made-up holiday designed to insult Christmas, and I say phooey on Kwanzaa. I've never met anyone who observes Kwanzaa, but I know, in advance, that I don't respect them. 

Every time I think Scientologists are freakin' weirdos, I remember that people say the same thing about Mormons. Then I go right on thinking that Scientologists are freakin' weirdos. 

I don't consider "damn" and "hell" swear words. Both are intensely Biblical, and they ought to be given a pass. "Ass" is borderline. 

They just shut down a business in Utah that sells edited versions of movies. The fact that Hollywood refuses to release the airline versions of movies for sale and rental proves they are the Satan's minions. Or Scientologists. Or Kwanzaa observers. Same thing, really. 

Doonesbury used to be funny about twenty years ago. Now it's didactic, mean, and ignorant. 

I have never laughed aloud when reading a Family Circus cartoon. Ever. And I never will. 

I never learned how to type. I can type pretty fast with my hunt-and-peck method, but it's not the right way to go about it, according to the professionals. I type primarily with the first three fingers of my  right hand, and I use the index finger on my left hand. That's about it. 

I'm very anal about making sure that burned out Christmas lights are replaced. I climbed up a ladder in the snow to replace a bulb right below the second-story eaves. I'm not really anal about anything else. If anything, my anus is disturbingly loose. 

Hugo Chavez will rig a vote and become dictator-for-life before he's supposed to leave office.

The proof that Western-style government is superior to communism/totalitarianism is Mahatma Gandhi and/or Martin Luther King. Both of them would have been executed quickly and discreetly if they did the same thing in China or the Soviet Union. 

I don't believe in conspiracies. Remember, the same government that supposedly faked the moon landing, ordered the Kennedy assassination and covered up the alien landing in Roswell is the government that attempts - and fails - to deliver the mail in a timely fashion. 

Correction: I do believe in one conspiracy, if you can call it that - William Shakespeare is the pseudonym of Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford. Yes, I believe Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare, just like I believe Mark Twain wrote Mark Twain. I also believe that Twain and Shakespeare were both pen names, and that the plays and poems were not authored by the butcher's apprentice from Stratford. 

A messy trumpet is always funny. 

The end. 

Giving "Christmas Shoes" the Boot

Imagine I'm standing in line and some filthy urchin sings the following song to me:

Sir, I want to buy these shoes for my Mama, please
It's Christmas Eve and these shoes are just her size
Could you hurry, sir, Daddy says there's not much time
You see she's been sick for quite a while
And I know these shoes would make her smile
And I want her to look beautiful if Mama meets Jesus tonight
- "Christmas Shoes" by NewSong

Here's how I would answer.

Excuse me, son, but what is your problem?

If your mother is dying tonight, why the Sam Hill aren't you at her bedside savoring your last moments together instead of standing in line at JC Penney buying shoes? And if she's bedridden, what does she need your stupid shoes for? And do you really think when she kicks the bucket, Jesus is going to look down on her corpse and say "Whoa! Nice shoes!"

I'm not a very sentimental fellow.

More Mitt Mormon Stuff

The Mitt/Mormon issue is buzzing all around me. A friend of mine forwarded a link to an article from David Frum at National Review which makes the case that Mitt’s speech is going to cause him a whole lot of problems. Jonah Goldberg, at NRO’s Corner, has received a host of emails from evangelicals who maintain that Mitt would do nothing objectionable as president, but the mere fact that he’s a Mormon is enough to disqualify him, because a Mormon president would, just by his very existence, make Mormonism acceptable to more people, and therefore inadvertently drag more deluded souls down to the bowels of hell.

Nice.

I have a few thoughts. The speech I wrote isn’t the speech Mitt needs to give at this point – and I do think he needs to give a speech, and that now is the time to do it – but the general principles I tried to follow still hold true. Mitt cannot get drawn into discussions of theology. Nor can he insist that he’s a Christian, and that all you evangelicals are just going to have to accept that. Even more importantly, he can’t call everyone bigots and shame them into voting for him.

For some reason, this whole thing reminds me of when I went to Jackson Hole to run a theatre and decided to do highbrow stuff like The Mystery of Edwin Drood instead of pandering to the Wild West yahoos with crap like Annie Get Your Gun. Turns out the yahoos refused to come see my high-minded crap, and when I broke down and did the Western stuff they wanted, I had a full house. I learned that audiences don’t want to be educated, or at the very least, they don’t want to be educated by the likes of me. Similarly, voters don’t take kindly to being scolded. And if Mitt’s going to say “Tsk! Tsk, you anti-Mormon Philistines!” and hope that his high-mindedness will yield evangelical votes, he’s going to find himself with a lot of time on his hands come February or so.

Frum makes the case that most Americans already know that Mormons are good citizens, and the challenges Romney faces are very different from the ones faced by a Catholic Kennedy in 1960. If he can’t defend doctrine – which he can’t – and he can’t resort to indignation – which I hope he won’t – then, Frum asks, what’s left?

The answer is Mitt Romney. He’s what’s left. He needs to get people to think of him as Mitt Romney, not just the Mormon guy running for president.

What do I mean by that?

Well, look at the generic polling. When pollsters ask “do you want a Democrat or a Republican to win the White House in 2008?” the numbers come back overwhelmingly in favor of the Dems. But when you start putting actual people into the mix, the numbers change considerably. How can that be? Because Hillary Clinton isn’t just a Democrat. She’s also Hillary Clinton, and her party affiliation just becomes one element of the whole poisoned brew that people have to swallow when they consider her as the next president.

So we’ve all heard the stats that people won’t vote for a Mormon. But did you know that even more people say they won’t vote for a man over 70? If McCain were to join the Church, he’d be in bigger trouble than he already is.

Mitt needs to make it personal. He needs to talk about how his faith has guided him, how he could no sooner walk away from it then cut off his own arm. One of Mitt’s biggest weaknesses as a candidate, apart from his religious affiliation, is his lack of authenticity, which comes from his unwillingness to open up about his faith for fear of causing political problems. He needs to go whole hog – say why he’s a Mormon, and why that makes him uniquely suited to champion the issues dear to the hearts of those who oppose him theologically. And then he needs to go further – blend all of his career and his accomplishments into a single, cohesive whole. He needs evangelicals to say, “I don’t like Mormonism, but I like Mitt.” If he can do that, he’s the next President of the United States.

Right now, most people see Mitt as The Mormon Guy, if they see him as anything at all. This speech runs the risk of reinforcing that perception rather than refuting it. But it’s also the only way to get people to see him as a person and not as a proselyting tool. It’s not just a chance to defend his faith – it’s a chance to define himself. Very few candidates get a chance to do that with the world watching. Mitt’s got it. Will he use it, or will he blow it by playing too cautious, too guarded, the way he’s been campaigning thus far?

It’s all about Mitt now. He’s taking a huge risk. And the only way to get great returns is to take huge risks.

Surging Huckabee, Floundering Mitt

I’m beginning to think that if Mitt weren’t a Mormon, I probably wouldn’t be as excited about him.

Better writers than I have plumbed the depths of CNN’s perfidy in their plant-ridden YouTube debate, which I thought was a disgrace from beginning to end. And I was also deeply disappointed in the performance of all the candidates. Huckabee had far and away the best showing of the night, which doesn’t say a lot about the prickly Giuliani, the plastic Romney, the Manchurian McCain, and the somnambulant, drooling Thompson. (They’re the only candidates that matter. Paul is a novelty; Tancredo and Hunter are wastes of space.) It’s also somewhat irksome that Huckabee seems to be riding the crest of a whispering anti-Mormon campaign, which is disappointing but hardly surprising.

Mitt, however, isn’t doing himself any favors.

The defining moment came when CNN found a Unabomber wannabe who brandished a Bible and, with a zombified glare, demanded that all the candidates swear eternal fealty to “every word” in the Good Book. Even Huckabee, the self-proclaimed “Christian candidate,” was wise enough to point out that the Bible contains allegorical passages, citing Christ’s injunction to “pluck out thine eye if it offend thee” as something we ought not take literally. Giuliani did the same, albeit less artfully.

But all Mitt could say was “I believe the Bible to be the Word of God.”



A nice, safe answer, yes? Yes. And it didn’t hold up to scrutiny. Do you believe every word in the Bible? I believe the Bible to be the word of God. But what does that mean? It means I believe the Bible to be the word of God. Every word? Well, I believe the Bible is the Word of God and I try to live by its teachings. Great, Mitt. You also try to dodge difficult questions with stock answers.

The best answer to that question comes from Brigham Young, who would have responded to Mr. Unabomber thusly:

I have heard ministers of the gospel declare that they believed every word in the Bible was the word of God. I have said to them “You believe more than I do.” I believe the words of God are there; I believe the words of the Devil are there; I believe that the words of men and the words of angels are there; and that is not all – I believe that the words of a dumb brute are there. I recollect one of the prophets riding, and prophesying against Israel, and the animal he rode rebuked his madness. (See Discourses of Brigham Young, edited by John A. Widtsoe, pp. 192-193)

That wouldn’t have gone over so well, though. Neither would a recitation of the LDS Church’s eighth Article of Faith, which includes the line “We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly.” But a discussion of the allegorical concept that was co-opted by Giuliani and Huckabee would have gone a long way toward making Romney look less mechanical and evasive.

Word has come down that Romney will soon be giving “The Speech,” wherein he addresses his Mormon faith directly and tries to assuage the fears of a wary electorate. It’s a risky thing to do, but Huckabee’s surge, fueled largely by antipathy to Mitt’s faith, leaves Romney with no choice. He hasn’t contacted me to tell me if he’s going to use my speech, but he’s welcome to it at this point. I’m not sure if it would do him much good.

If Mitt loses Iowa, he’s in serious, serious trouble.

Jingle Bells, Batman Smells...

Several uncredited elementary school ditties have been with us for generations. Who can forget "My Eyes Have Seen the Glory of the Burning of the School" or "Great Green Gobs of Greasy Grimy Gopher Guts?"

But perhaps my personal favorite is this Christmas classic about the Caped Crusader who cuts the cheese:

Jingle Bells, Batman smells
Robin laid an egg
The Batmobile lost its wheel
And the Joker got away

That's not the way I learned it, though. For some reason, the way my brother taught it to me swapped out "And the Joker got away" with "And the Commissioner broke his leg." Not sure what the good Commissioner was doing when he incurred his injury - rock climbing, perhaps? - but "leg" does rhyme with "egg," whereas "away" does not. I've always been partial to the broken leg version, despite the fact that it has too many syllables to scan properly, given the established "Jingle Bells" meter.

Besides, Robert Goulet recorded it with the traditional lyrics, so the argument was over before it had even begun.



As far as I'm concerned, it's a dead issue, over and done. But then my son Cornelius came home with a new, even stranger version, which is making the rounds in the schoolyards of today.

Jingle Bells, Batman smells
Robin laid a gun
Shot a tree and made it pee
In 1981

Now, I must admit this fits the meter perfectly, and the rhyme scheme is flawless. Why Robin would "lay a gun" escapes me for the moment, but it has a vaguely postmodern feel to it, as does the idea of urinating trees from the early Eighties.

Could we be looking at a new Christmas classic? Or is it just sad that Robert Goulet never got a chance to record "Greasy Grimy Gopher Guts" in his lifetime?