The War on Muslims
Last year, President Obama strode into the Oval Office as occupant, took an insider's glimpse into George Bush's policy on civil liberties, not only affirmed the eavesdropping and the torture, but expanded the policy to places that even the hideously inhumane Bush failed to go-- most notably, the sanctioned murder of American citizens without any judicial oversight or the due process of law. New Mexico-born Anwar al-Awaki, a Muslim cleric who has has never been indicted of a terrorism-related crime, nevertheless finds himself a target for execution by the CIA with the full backing of the Obama Justice Department. Earlier today, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights
sued to block this executive assassination order.
Obama's Treasury Department has designated al-Awaki-- again, a man never indicted of a terror-related crime-- a terrorist, and they have been denying a "license" to groups that have attempted to provide legal counsel to the man while he's in hiding in Yemen, a country with which the United States is not at war. The president has also expanded the Bush/Cheney war effort against Muslims to include missile strikes on Pakistan, attacks that have killed hundreds.
Believe it-- this
is a war on Muslims in that a majority of Americans are willing to step in line behind any vague accusations or pointed CIA leaks, and are willing to dismiss virtually every amendment of the Constitution provided only that the suspect in question has a Muslim name. Orwell couldn't dream this shit. Meanwhile, the concept of Freedom of Religion is now as unpopular in
Murfreesboro, Tennessee as it is at Ground Zero, and Christian terrorists are stabbing cab drivers in the throat. Along with his predecessor, Obama should be tried as a war criminal in an international court, and Americans should feel deeply ashamed of both the leaders they've chosen and themselves.
The 40-hour workweek is wrecking the economy
Since World War II, worker productivity in the United States has gone through the roof. According to U.S. Bureau of Labor
statistics, the average American is able to accomplish in an 11 hour week what took him or her 40 hours in 1950. Additionally, related "polls and surveys have shown that people in countries with the standard of living that the U.S. enjoyed in the 1950s are no less satisfied than today's Americans." In other words, there's no evidence that above a certain level of work to afford the basic necessities, there's any appreciable gain in happiness or contentedness, according to people's attitudes.
Last night, I watched the documentary film "Food, Inc" online. Watching the images of hogs and cattle crammed into confined spaces trudging through piles of their excrement, it was hard not to think also of the American worker. Our conditioning in the workplace, as it serves the interests of Corporate America, is likewise counter to the march of evolution, and it's increasingly killing us. Too much work makes us sicker and more prone to disease. Measurable worker productivity has nearly quadrupled in half a century, yet there have been no concessions by management during this time in return for our backbreaking and often soul-crushing service.
Why are their millions out of work? Well, in addition to the real loss of manufacturing-related jobs and others, consider the proposition that there's simply not as much work to go around when so many of us are being forced to hog it for ourselves. Coupled with a fucked-up health care system geared towards maximizing profit, living costs heightened by overwork have skyrocketed, and increased work hours means higher energy costs also for both businesses and their employees.
Two weeks of paid vacation time annually is ludicrous when we compare it with the six weeks that is customary for workers in Germany. Plainly put, Germans live better than we do. And why is this? Turns out that it has a lot to do with the United States and the New Deal. Chicago attorney and author Thomas Geoghegan has just written a book that
outlines how Germany and much of the rest of Europe was rebuilt in our (better) image after the Allied victory. They got it right, and somewhere along the way, we lost it. As their societies were being rebuilt, ours was being dismantled by "neoliberalist" greed. German workers are better paid, their health coverage is better, they work less, they're more unionized, their education costs less,
and they're beating us senseless in business to boot, according to Geoghegan. Germany leads the world in exports. America's business leaders still operate under the premise that robbing from your workers helps to grow the store. Statistics say otherwise.
The recluses
Lots of reading for you tonight...
I had two fascinating online stories separately referred to me this week. Their subjects are technically unconnected, yet there are some remarkable parallels.
The first story is about an Indian in the Brazilian Amazon living now entirely on his own within a 31-square mile area that's protected by the Brazilian government, much for his sake, against building development.
The second is about a wealthy heiress in the United States, now 104 years old, who has chosen a life of extreme solitude. This child of the Gilded Age owns three multi-million dollar homes-- one she hasn't visited in 50 years (though it maintains a full staff of caretakers) and another in which he has never spent a night-- not since its purchase in 1952. The woman, thought to be living in complete privacy now in a Manhattan hospital, is thought to have gone since 1930 without having her picture taken.
Though the lives of these two human subjects could not be more vastly different in terms of means and resource, they have lived arguably similarly-
themed lives. Though it's easy for me to sympathize with an abandoned Indian living deep in the jungle, holding off the march of modern civilization with a simple bow and arrow and some guile, I find myself holding virtually no sympathy or concern for the woman born of such vulgar privilege, regardless of the status of her well-being. Whether or not the purportedly-still-childlike heiress is being robbed of her fortune in her centenarian years, it's hard to imagine a reality in this life in which the only moral action justified by the public isn't the confiscation of her money and her mansions and having her father's loot given back to the American people it was stolen from even before her birth. Call me a Trotskyist, I guess, but this story of her life is downright insane.
Despite noble actions being attempted by the Brazilian government in regards to the former, both narratives wind up being case studies into how sacrosanct property rights are in this world compared with human rights.
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An Iowan best known for participating in the state's annual coast-to-coast bicycle event, RAGBRAI, in the nude, and providing free beer to other riders at each stop along the route, is running for a seat in the state senate. The hypothesis reinforced by
"the Chickenman's" story is that the traditional news media will treat any political campaign with sober respect provided only that the candidate runs with a (D) or an (R) behind his or her name.
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Sammy Sosa's not done with Chicago, even if Chicago behaves as if it's done with him. Reading
this new magazine profile of Sosa makes me grateful to Tony LaRussa, the Cardinals, and their fans for the way they've treated Sosa's doppelganger Mark McGwire since
his retirement. Mac ventured out into the void-- self-imposed-- for a while, but he was invited back to honor the old ballpark, his uniform number 25 was kept out of circulation, and now he's claimed it back.
Don't expect Sosa to be welcomed back by the Cubs any time soon either if Ryne Sandberg inherits the club's managerial position next year. Sandberg made his feelings about Sosa known several times, even during his Hall of Fame induction speech.
These guys will fight to the death, if you let them, to lay claim to that unofficial "Mr. Cub" designation, and never underestimate the importance of who controls the music on the clubhouse boombox at any given time.
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Incidentally, as you read the Sosa piece, note the eloquent words of sports pundit Jay Mariotti, who says that "(he) feels like an idiot because of Sammy Sosa" and the slugger's home run exploits. Mariotti, you see, is arguably even
more unpopular among
his colleagues than Sosa is among his, and this Sosa piece must have been filed before Mariotti had himself
a rough weekend. Maybe Jay Mariotti should feel like an idiot because of Jay Mariotti.
The undercover investigation
Yes, my email address/account was pirated this week, and used towards unscrupulous ends, but the otherwise-troubling theft of my identity and my sense of personal security allowed me the opportunity to once again employ my favored undercover investigator, a top man-- Jay Alphonse Pierson, Esquire.
Pierson is a cipher. As one of the "contacts" on the compromised email account, he was the recipient of the fraudulent solicitation email that many of you received from the impostor "Chris". He sprung immediately to action.
The following is the real email exchange between the email hijacker and Pierson that I discovered after Pierson's actions allowed me to regain entry into my email account. Many of you readers, as fellow contacts on the email list, will recognize the criminal mastermind's opening volley-- a phony story about being stranded at England's largest city. The conversation descends into anarchy from there. Pierson has given me permission to reprint the conversation in its entirety so that the world can better understand how the criminal mind works:
(all [sic])
THE CHRIS IMPOSTOR (Wed, 6:44am):
Hi, Sorry to disturb with this mail but I'm urgently out of the country in London on a sudden trip and found myself in a situation which i really need to take care of now.I need a loan of $1,500 I'll explain better and refund the money back to you immediately i get back next week.If you can help out with the money or whatever amount you can come up with I will really appreciate if you get back to me as soon as you get this email.Please keep this between us. ChrisPIERSON (Wed, 11:12am):
No problem, bloke. Just tell me where to send the cash, sorry to hear about your problems. If you need more than $1,500, just let me know.
Best Regards,
Jay Alphonse Pierson, Esq.CHRIS IMPOSTOR (Wed, 2:02pm):
Thanks a lot for getting back to me.I was mugged out of my belongings including my bank cards,i will explain better to you once i get back.I hope it won't be too much trouble.I need you to send the money to me via Western Union money Transfer I am at this Address:60 Hyde Park Gate - Kensington London sw7 5bb UK.Please send an email with the Money Transfer Control Number (MTCN) on the receipt,i need it to pick up the money,this is important.I will refund you the money you loan me including the WU charge once I get back home.I really appreciate. Chris.PIERSON (Wed, 2:41pm):
OMG! That sounds awful! How did you get mugged? Did you get hurt? I am going to try and head to the bank this afternoon depending on how work goes the rest of the day. I've never used a money transfer before, so I guess it has to be done at the bank also? Hopefully I have enough money in my account to cover all the expenses. I'm sure you realize how expensive it is to get kidney dialysis since we no longer have health insurance.
I haven't said a word of this to your family. With the recent death of your oldest son, I'm sure they don't need to worry any more about you, right?
~jCHRIS IMPOSTOR (Thu, 4:07am):
I am OK just some minor Bruce's please i am still waiting get back to me the information.PIERSON (Thu, 7:56am):
Sorry about the delay, but the Western Union office was closed today. I am glad to hear your injuries are minor despite several Bruce's. I will try to make it to the Western Union office today, time has been incredibly scarce as of late since it is shrimping season, and I have been quite busy this year with all of the oil from that damned oil company, BP.
I still can't believe you still work for them, but in this rough economy, I understand you wanting to earn a decent living.
If you don't hear from me by this afternoon, please remind me to get to the Western Union office ASAP.
Shine On,
~jayIt was at this point in the conversation that I was able to gain access again to my account and set a new password. A greater tragedy was averted thanks to P.I. Pierson. The investigator has asked to remain anonymous, but if any of you wish to be in contact, or desire his professional services, please contact me at my new email address: christophermmoeller@gmail.com. Shine on.
Email change
Dear Reader,
If your email address was stored in my online account, you may have received an email from "me" overnight suggesting that I've become stranded in London and that I need a $1,500 loan from you to get myself back to the Colonies. I apologize if you got this. Obviously it's not true. I won't pay you back.
All quips aside, my long-time MSN/Hotmail address has clearly been hijacked by shadowy interests. The password had been changed this morning. Later, a friend told me he had responded back to my email address in jest, an action that precipitated a personalized response from the offender. It's evident that some Tom Ripley-wanna-be is now posing as me in an attempt to bleed my financially-prosperous affiliates, and therefore, I've decided to change my email address before the man bludgeons me to death with a boat oar and dicks with my passport.
Little did this cowardly shyster with a small penis realize, however, that even without access to my email address book, I'm still able to alert millions of you to his scam through this blog. Do not-- I repeat-- DO NOT send money. I'm currently safe at home in my Des Moines apartment with the kitchen door deadbolted. I could
never be stranded in London. I know a longshoreman there with both a crippling Vicodin addiction and a gambling habit that would always be willing to help stow me away aboard a luxury ocean liner of my choosing.
Again, sorry for your needless fretting over my physical and emotional well-being. My new email address is: christophermmoeller@gmail.com.
Chris
"I worship the void. The mystery": The near death of a committed atheist
I've linked articles by Christopher Hitchens quite a few times over the years. Whether I share the journalist's general attitude or not (and I do more often--
Jerry Falwell,
Bill Clinton,
Pope Benedict-- than I don't--
the War on Iraq), he's always worth the engagement for he's an intellectual in the grandest tradition, a man of reason in a world starved of them.
Now Hitchens is battling cancer, and the prospect of one of the world's most emboldened atheists dying a painful, debilitating death is just too perfect a plot twist for some contemptible persons within the more cynical religious faiths. Leave it to author Roger Ebert, instead, to give us
the perfect literary insight partially into the man, but mostly into the man's challenge.
---
Holy smokes.
This guy sure whines a lot.
Socialism continues to thrive. Right here.
A very happy 75th birthday this weekend to the our nation's extraordinary Social Security program, which was signed into law by President Roosevelt way back on August 14th, 1935.
A report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
estimates that the entitlement program is currently keeping $20 million Americans out of poverty. Without Social Security, 45% of elderly Americans would have incomes below the poverty line, instead of the current 9.7%. Additionally, a separate think tank
has it that the S.S. trust fund will have a $4.3 trillion surplus by 2023. It's time to expand the program-- just think of what we could do for the other 9.7%, and even for younger Americans, if we abandoned our two wars and re-invested in our people.
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The annual Iowa State Fair started yesterday just across town, but I won't be going again this year. I'm still waiting for that apology from Fair officials for their
embarrassing and ungrateful slap last year at Michael Jackson, a performer who once appeared at the Iowa State Fair. As a kid, I always possessed the general impression that the Fair was only for rednecks, despite their repeated claims that it was for everybody, and despite my contributions as a taxpayer. Now as I settle into an adulthood of frequent contemplation, I have to believe that my first impressions were correct. It's a pretty pathetic move to defame a guy-- a just-recently-
dead guy-- even as you attempt to cash in on his spectacular popularity with a self-promotional "poll." Fuck you, State Fair, that still makes me mad. Besides, from a purely practical standpoint, it's a waste of time for me as a consumer-- an entertainment venue simply can't be considered a cool entertainment venue if it doesn't recognize the brilliant legacy of Michael. He
embodied cool. And so I won't go. Vincent Price warned y'all long ago, and you should have paid him some heed:
Whoever shall be found/Without the soul for getting down/Must stand and face the hounds of hell/And rot inside a corpse's shell.
Doesn't like us? How can anybody not like us?
Damn, you gotta love ya' some baseball. Come on, people. Cardinals versus the Reds in Cincinnati? Harsh words and intensity Monday spilled over into a 1st inning brawl Tuesday. It's Tony LaRussa versus Dusty Baker again. Moeller Twin versus Moeller Twin. The magnificent Yadier Molina-- a most important Cardinal-- making himself a hero once more, both with his bat and his initiative.
Here are some random thoughts on
the vulgar words of the Reds' Brandon Phillips towards the Cardinals and Tuesday's 1st inning dust-up at and behind home plate.
-- This is not just a Moeller family thing. This is big brother versus little brother down to the soles. It's one side on top in the pecking order (get it?) until they get knocked off their bat. The Birds have been bullies in the division standings for 10 full years. The only three seasons in the past decade that the Cardinals have failed to win the Central were the three years ('03, '07, '08) that mound ace Chris Carpenter sat mending his arm, and the Reds haven't finished above the Cards in the standings since 1999. Phillips' comments Monday suggested a player who has never played in a big series-- and he hadn't.
-- It's hard for me to be mad at the guy for his wide receiver-style "smack" when it was so clearly an attempt at team motivation and self-assertion. Phillips has been with the Reds long enough to be keyed up by the team's present opportunity, and his teammate over at first base, a grown man who goes by the name "Joey," announced during the All-Star Break that
he hated the Cubs. Hardly an eyebrow had been raised in response to that. Which leads us to the next point...
-- Someone from the Cards' P.R. office needs to send a memo to all television and online media informing them that the team's anger with Phillips has nothing to do with his saying he "hates" them. It's possible that no human other than Ralph Nader cares less about what people think of him than team skipper Tony LaRussa. This should have been clear long ago. What it has to do with, now, is being called "little bitches." I'm not close to the world of professional wrestling or the mixed-martial arts, but I recognize that you can't throw borderline slurs around like that and expect to buddy up with the other side immediately afterward.
-- Let's hope the Commissioner's office suffers a bout of inconsistency by its previous actions when it comes time to level suspensions in connection with Tuesday's brawl-- on both sides. The division and pennant races should be settled on the field. Kudos to the series' umpiring crew for keeping all the ballplayers in Tuesday's game. Both managers were ejected, but as LaRussa said after the game, the managers are the least important participants. The beauty of the game of baseball is that it allows the participants to police it themselves. Fortunately for the Cardinals, there are plenty of ways you can "get to" a middle-infield pivot-man who comes to bat four to five times every game. Also, for hypocrisy's case, it would be good for the commissioner's minions to acknowledge that the brawl will be very good for business in two different towns.
-- It's annoying that the ever-"family-friendly" traditional news media continues to clean up Phillips' comments for him. Each time they do, they let him off the hook and it misrepresents the story. The bottom-of-the-screen crawl on ESPN all day yesterday said Phillips called the Cardinals "complainers" (my quotes), and Aaron saw a headline that said "crybabies." No, Phillips said "bitches"-- "little bitches." There are degrees of severity there. Being called a complainer is not quite the same thing. Thanks for being mindful of the children, but get it right.
-- I would not change one word of any of LaRussa's
various responses this week. They seemed carefully-crafted, but cutting. Superb, Skip, superb. I swear I don't understand how anyone cannot like you?
-- I don't give a toot what Bobby Valentine thinks. The "Baseball Tonight" analyst commended Yadi Molina's actions on the air Tuesday night, but even as he offered that "a lot of people agree with Phillips" in regards to the Cardinals. There are plenty of baseball people who despise Valentine, incidentally, who is so "whiny" himself that he once refused to accept an umpire's ejection and snuck back into the dugout to manage his team wearing a fake mustache. Every action that guy has taken this year, including the acceptance of his ESPN gig and his comments Tuesday, have been steered to the same end-- his highly-orchestrated campaign to be awarded the Chicago Cubs' open managerial position this coming off-season. And I hope they pick him.
-- Albert Pujols, Scott Rolen, Jim Edmonds, Chris Carpenter, Adam Wainwright, and Yadier Molina all used to play on the
same team?! Yeah, right-- an
All-Star team, maybe.
-- Major props to Cardinals' rookie starting pitcher Jaime Garcia. On Monday, starter Carpenter stomped around on the mound and chewed out a teammate after his 1st inning mound preparation was thrown off by a shortstop arriving late on the field, a reaction I make no judgment upon whatsoever. But on Tuesday, Garcia's 1st inning prep was disrupted by a full seven-minute bench-clearing brawl. The kid battled into the sixth inning, allowing only two hits, and won his 10th game of the season.
--
Quote of the day: There are some beauties to choose from, but how about this text message from St. Louis broadcaster J.C. Corcoran to Post-Dispatch columnist Bernie Miklasz,
"I haven't seen that much pushing and shoving in Cincinnati since The Who concert in 1979."
Freshen up your Jim Edmonds haikus
A marvelous pennant race in the National League Central got even better this morning when former Cardinals, Cubs, and Brewers outfielder Jim Edmonds joined the Cincinnati Reds in time for a three-game series in Cincy between the Redbirds and the Redlegs. For some pouty Cards fans, Jim's post-Cards trip through the home team clubhouses of the Central Division is uniform jersey heresy, but I think it's clear now that Jim just likes to play for these particular teams so that he can return often to St. Louis, where he still makes a home, and where
his downtown restaurant is crying out for more hands-on supervision. And besides, he can't be blamed for being
traded to Cincinnati from Milwaukee, even if he's not crying himself to sleep over the transaction.
I call your attention back to a spring evening two years ago when Edmonds joined the rival Cubs. That night, a few of us
found time to offer up some Jim Edmonds-related haikus in tribute.
Mine were all swiped from source material online...
Fists pumped in the air
Walk-off home run in Game Six
Oh, the memories
Dive, young Jimmy, Dive
Gliding swan-like through the air
Wearing your half-shirt
But pal David Levenhagen, a Cubs fan, gave us some originals...
Jim is now a Cub
If he's not a total flub
He will have my lub
Cubs fans are fickle
If Jim doesn't impress us
July, he'll be home
And Brother Aaron, a Reds fan, gave us...
Cubs won in oh-eight
Now it's two thousand and eight
Everybody's dead
...which is kind of fun if not really Jim Edmonds-related. I'll bet he's regretting this one now though...
Famous for his glove
Jim had a gift for making
Easy plays look hard
Time to crank up the haiku machine again. How about...?
Reds' Jocketty plots
To capture the division
With Cardinals ghosts
Rolen, now Edmonds?
Walt's "Cards" plan makes sense, but for
Jason Isringhausen
Jim's comeback tour shifts
At least the colors are right
It's the Cubs I hate.
This is not 'Saturday Night Live'
Minnesota Senator Al Franken was scolded by fellow Senator Mitch McConnell earlier today after Franken reportedly mocked his colleague during a solemn speech by McConnell regarding the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagen. Franken made faces and physical gestures that mocked the comments of McConnell, then was confronted by the speaker after he left the dais. "This is not 'Saturday Night Live,'" McConnell cleverly scolded, marking reference to Franken's former career as a writer and performer on the late-night comedy series. Franken said he later sent McConnell a letter of apology.
First of all, the Senate is not "Saturday Night Live." McConnell is exactly right about that. If it were, the participants would be livelier and much better looking, the sex scandals more heterosexual in nature, the fiscal outlook markedly superior, and most importantly, Franken would be guilty of hijacking Chevy Chase's classic bit.
Secondly, on the list of Planet Earth's chief survival concerns, the preservation of United States Senate chamber "decorum" ranks #13,632, just ahead of the wobbly status of Tom Cruise's box office bona fides. That august body would surely run
more efficiently and effectively if it were filled with more professional (or
former professional) clowns like Franken and fewer unintentional ones like McConnell. I'll choose childish, personal attacks between its members over the insincere flattery that otherwise stands as tradition.
I defended Rep. Joe Wilson also when he yelled "You lie," at President Obama during the State of the Union address, that annual pontification of deceit that more often than not involves both parties in conspiracy. Such outbursts of bluntness, just or not, at least serve to burst the bubble of phony propriety behind which the vast majority of members are robbing Peter to buy personal real estate.
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Speaking of the North Star State, good for those activists
who are calling the Minneapolis-based Target Corporation to task for the company's political donations to the anti-gay rights cause. In the wake of the dreadful Supreme Court ruling in the Citizens United case earlier this year, it's imperative that as much public light as possible be shown upon the financial contributions of corporations to political action committees and candidate campaigns. The research efforts connected with this story also help put to sleep the myth that Target stores are the "liberals' alternative" to Walmart.
Come On-a God's House
One New York City evening during the 1970s, as chronicled in Pete Hamill's book "Why Sinatra Matters," Frank Sinatra and group of pallies were gathered at P.J. Clarke's saloon. Present were Hamill, FS,
Jilly Rizzo, Clarke's manager Danny Lavezzo, the disc jockey William B. Williams, and sportswriter Jimmy Cannon. The conversation steered towards the topic: worst living Americans. Candidates were drawn, such as Walter O'Malley and Richard Nixon. The group finally settled on fighter Jake LaMotta-- "He dumped the fight to Billy Fox, and never told his father, who bet his life savings on Jake," Hamill reports Sinatra to have argued. "Lower than whale shit."
Every time I come back to the book, and to the idea of that conversation, I think specifically of another name said by Hamill to have been slipped into the conversation that night-- that of Mitch Miller. Who is Mitch Miller, I wondered the first time I read the anecdote a decade ago?
Mitch Miller, to find out, was the musical butcher of Columbia Records in the early 1950s, a champion of novelty songs and of the sort of middle-of-the-road pop music banalities that nearly derailed Sinatra's-- as well as several other-- promising recording careers. Miller did however pave the way for rock and roll music to come plowing through the artistic void. He was no Jake LaMotta. He died Monday morning at the age of 99.
At the lowest ebb of the singer's career, Miller had FS barking like a dog on
a recorded duet with curvy actress Dagmar. He had talented young chanteuse Rosemary Clooney laying down vocals on the horrendous
"Come On-A My House", and Patti Page had a hit with
"How Much is That Doggie in the Window?"-- and those were the hits! If he was still mentally alert on Sunday night, Miller could have seen the TV show "Mad Men" reintroduce "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus"-- his 1952 hit with Jimmy Boyd.
Sinatra once fired off a telegram to a member of the Senate Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee claiming that the producer had denied him "freedom of selection." Sinatra claimed that the producer had admitted accepting payola from songwriters for songs recorded at Columbia. What we know for fact about Miller is that he now stands as representative of an era in music in which artists were forced to succumb almost entirely to the whims of music executives, and most of the man's music is all but forgotten today. He told
Time Magazine in 1951 that he didn't particularly care for the gimmicky songs that were his trademark. "I wouldn't buy that stuff for myself," he said, "There's no real artistic satisfaction in this job. I satisfy my musical ego elsewhere." So it turns out it wasn't only the music that Miller devalued, it was its listeners.
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Mitch Miller did manage to outlive the rock and roll that helped to shepherd him out of the recording industry.
The musical genre died July 23rd at the age of 63.
Wedding weekend
The wedding day of America's favorite little girl arrived today-- August 1, 2010. No, I'm not talking about Chelsea Clinton, and I'm not talking about Alicia Keys, though both those women were married this weekend. I'm talking instead about little Lisa Simpson.
It was predicted by a fortune-teller during an episode of "The Simpsons" 15 years ago that Lisa would walk down the aisle to marry sophisticated Brit Hugh Parkfield at one o'clock Springfield Standard Time
on this date.
The ceremony never actually came off. The bride refused to cede to her beau's wishes that she abandon her family forever, and the fortune-teller finally admitted that she "specializes in foretelling relationships where you get jerked around," but the nuptials provided the backdrop for one of the most touching episodes in the series' run. "Lisa's Wedding" won the Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program in 1995, it has made multiple ten-best lists, with creator James L. Brooks calling it his favorite, and it even became study material for a University of California Berkeley sociology course.
Here's a YouTube tribute to daughters inspired by the episode.
