God save us the queen
Can we stop sucking up to the Queen of England now? Once again, our yokel president was beneath the diplomatic challenge of reading from a prepared speech, but Bush has been guilty of far greater offenses than simply inferring that Elizabeth II is 230 years old. He showed much worse manners, for example, towards Virginia Senator Jim Webb.Nobody on this planet has to walk on eggshells around the Queen of England. Just because she wears a fancy hat? She came packed on this trip with 15 "protocol consultants" from Buckingham Palace. Are we supposed to bow or curtsy? Can we speak if not spoken to? We fought a revolution to rid ourselves of this garbage. Has she come to apologize? The Brits may throw away 37.4 million pounds a year on the Queen and her inbred clan, but American commoners don't owe her squat. In the United States, the phrase "your majesty" doesn't roll off a tongue unless it's drenched in sarcasm, and with the Bushes and the Clintons, we know enough to alternate between our royal families!
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Here's one more notice: check out Slate.com for their ongoing discussion of "The Sopranos" final season. NBC news anchor Brian Williams (?) joined the conversation this week. He's hilarious.
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I had another great idea-- this one for a killer radio program-- Fever and Flytrap at Five: "Five o'clock drivetime hour every evening: the best of WKRP's music catalogue-- the music you won't hear on the brand new WKRP DVD."
Actually, I'm really enjoying the DVD about two-thirds through the season. The editing was more meticulous than I expected. If you haven't seen the show in a while, and you never memorized the music, you won't hardly know what you're missing. Seasons 2 through 4 could still be very different, however. The best episodes are still to come. The stakes are rising.
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What a shocker! Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani became the first mayor in history to collect a World Series ring-- four of them, to be exact, valued now at a collective worth of at least $200,000, and all the New York Yankees got in return from Rudy were a brand-new stadium on the city's west side, another $71 million ballpark for their low level minor league club on Staten Island, half-owned by George Steinbrenner's son, a legal maneuver that stopped a referendum opposing a new Yankee Stadium, and five lease amendments on their current venue that reduced the team's annual rent owed to the city to a meager $100,000.
The Village Voice investigation linked above estimates that Giuliani's box tickets and "Legends" seats, at an average of eight guests a game, a minimum of 20 games a year, plus the more expensive post-season games Giuliani "never missed" would have cost others an estimated $120,000 a year. For a public servant making $150,000 annually. Corruption at the highest level.
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At the end of this news feature, actors James Gandolfini and Tony Sirico reveal how "The Sopranos" series will conclude. Read at your own peril.
posted by CM @ 8:27 PM
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