Daily Archives: May 2, 2008

Obama, Clinton and a Positive Vote

Politics

Kotori magazine editor-in-chief Wasim Muklashy has weighed in on the battle for the Democratic presidential nomination, and in particular the inherent difference a lot of people feel between a vote for Hillary Clinton and a vote for Barack Obama, with the implication being that he’s cast the former, but now feels a twinge of regret. “I love my country,” Muklashy writes. “Although I hate and abhor
some of the things it has done and continues to do, I do… I love my
country. Yet even more importantly than that, and undoubtedly more
patriotic than simply loving my country, I love what our country still
has the opportunity to be.” That hope, and chance for something different, Muklashy argues, resides in the junior senator from Illinois.

Yes, there’s no doubt that some of the golden sheen of Obama as an avatar of the new has been diminished by the Reverend Jeremiah Wright dust-up. And future issues will further bring Obama down to Earth. Both the reptilian nastiness of general election fear-mongering and the gear shifts of imposing practicality in governance will do that. But Muklashy gets it, what a lot of people — particularly younger voters and those drawn into the process for the first time in a long time, if ever — feel about the double weight of a positive vote. That is to say not just against one candidate, but heartily for another — and the collective, surging sense of societal optimism which that in turn can elicit. Pooh-poohers will continue to deride this as only ephemeral, but there are real-world consequences to taking new roads, and making bold choices, especially when it comes to getting America’s best and brightest again interested in public service over private sector lucre, and invested in politics as a honest, forward-leaning tool for societal betterment, not personal power and gain.

Chuck Norris Solves Immigration Problem

Amusements

Wait a second… so Chuck Norris actually has a syndicated column? Like, for reals? And his last-resort, “Texas-tough” immigration solution is really to slap up “deadly force authorized” signs and police the border with armed military personnel who’ve taken their ROE from first-person videogame shooters? Wouldn’t it be more in keeping with the groundbreaking Norris Doctrine of Foot-Fist Judgment (1993) to train said illegals in the ways of the roundhouse and unleash them upon portly drug runners, wife-beaters and then finally Al Qaeda?

Tom Cruise Drops Back-to-Back Oprah Sequels

Amusements, Ephemera

Set your TiVos (TiVoes?)… or not. Tom Cruise is slated for a double-booking on Oprah Winfrey’s show, set to air Friday and Monday. We all remember how this ended last time, though Cruise reportedly is much more subdued this time around, according to audience members who attended the taping. So he’s there for what — some career rehab, and to celebrate/commemorate the 25th anniversary of Risky Business? Errr… OK, fine. One thing I can tell you is that Cruise’s gloriously profane supporting turn in Tropic Thunder, due out this August, may be his real career-saver. More on that maybe over the weekend.

Jonah Hill Set to Transform?

Casting About, Musings

So Jonah Hill, who broke big in Superbad and recently popped up in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, trading on the same sort of man-crush riff that he worked into Evan Almighty, is allegedly set to join Shia LaBeouf in the sequel to Transformers, according to an “early negotiations” leak sourced to Nicole Sperling at Entertainment Weekly. For the moment Michael Bay is denying casting/character reports, but that’s what you do when something like this breaks, right? Rightly or wrongly, this sentiment is already bubbling to the surface, and I can tell you that this news, if/when true, will likely prove a jump-the-shark moment for Hill, who needs a reinvention… already, at age 24. Transformers 2 certainly won’t give him an opportunity to do anything different (squint and you can already see him — bewildered, sardonic, chubby, rocking the porkpie hat), and when it does the requisite huge business, the Internet haters will crawl out from behind their computers with pitchforks, and convince their more genteel moviegoer friends to turn on this guy as well.

Sienna Miller’s Sexual Preference

Amusements

Who does Sienna Miller sleep with?

Well, clearly Interview — multi-hyphenate Steve Buscemi’s adaptation of murdered Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh’s original
movie of the same name, in which Miller plays a spoiled brat actress as famous for her wild offscreen life as any actual work she’s done — provides some clues. But currently it’s supposedly… Rhys Ifans? Yeah… who’da thunk it?