This is just such an awesome idea on so many levels. For one thing, it taps into our early history as a continent-filling, westward-moving inevitability. Useful ideas don't go away; they just change. How would it be if the city of Fort Wayne just bought an empty building downtown and said, "Send us your ideas for using this space, your business plans, your financing proposals, and we'll give the building to the winner"?
If you like mysteries, it never got much better than this on TV. What made it special, other than the commanding presence of Peter Falk, was the central premise. Viewers knew from the beginning of the episode who committed the murder; the joy was not just watching Columbo catch up with us as he built a case, but also learning what it was that made him zero in on the right suspect despite a lack of any obvious evidence.
First, Pat Robertson said he was misquoted and didn't really mean "assassinate him" when he said "take him out." Given the transcript of his remarks, that seems doubtful, so he finally apologized for his bonehead remarks, but not before galavanting busybody Jesse Jackson got into the act.
Too bad. I had already been trying to figure out exactly what Robertson meant by "take him out":
Maybe we're still dim in Fort Wayne (America's stupidest city, Men's Health magazine, this year), but we're probably not quite as fat as we used to be (America's fourth-fattest city, Centers for Disease Control, 2003), at least if we're following the state's trend. Indiana is now ranked ninth in the percentage of adults regarded as obese. On second thought, maybe we shouldn't be throwing around words like "fat."
One of the Rants in last night's paper was mean to me:
I read Leo Morris' column about class reunions. I think he was a little disrespectful saying the "band geeks" were huddled in one corner and the "school newspaper nerds" were gathered in another.
After getting nice mentions in a couple of attempts to rank the best colleges, Indiana University again makes the list of Top Ten party schools. Yeah, it's just a gimmick, but it still says something we ought to pay attention to, And, granted that college drinking is a problem, I'm not sure this is the answer.
I hope I can say that Pat Robertson sometimes talks like an idiot without angering Christian Conservatives, because, well, Pat Robertson sometimes talks like an idiot. A lot of the righty blogs are expressing outrage because the mainstream press is piling on Roberts without bothering to mention that El Presidente Chavez is, indeed, a tinpot dictator whose continued existence above the ground is not in the best interests of the United States. OK, fine, point taken.
I shouldn't speak ill of the dead, but the victim of this crime must have been really clueless. "The police investigation revealed that without her husband knowing it, Martha Freeman had allowed her boyfriend, Rafael DeJesus Rocha-Perez, to live in the couple's bedroom closet for several weeks before the murder."
See, it's not just me whose trying to get the Condi Rice For President bandwagon going. Not sure who'd I'd want for vice president. Whatever sentiment I had for Jeb Bush was wiped out when he went after Michael Schiavo. Rudy Guiliani is too liberal for my taste. John McCain, the media darling? Please.
Another dispatch from the field by Libertarian correspondent Mike Sylvester:
Tomorrow night, the Biography Channel (which really should probably be called the Celebrity Channel, for the same reason that "The Antiques Road Show" should probably be called "The Collectibles Road Show"), will feature the mother-daughter duo The Judds. The Judds are very special to me, because I finally had to admit I had turned the age corner when they burst upon the scene and I realized I had the hots for the mother rather than the daughter.
What a mean man. George Bush won't meet with the NAACP, won't talk with Cindy Sheehan and, now, apparently, will be the first president since Calvin Coolidge who won't go here. He left his heart in Crawford. Or was it Connecticut?
The top three in Fort Wayne radio these days: 1. Oldies rock, 2. Country, 3. Talk, which is a change (hat tip to Nathan, whose noticing of it called my attention to it). But talk fatigue isn't just happening here. This is the one year in four in Indiana in which we have no elections at any level, and people are probably taking a needed break from politics.
With Cindy Sheehan's protest getting reverential treatment by the press and Republicans like Chuck Hagel pounding President Bush over Iraq, the split within the GOP is getting most of the attention these days. But Democrats aren't exactly one big, happy family, either. As The Washington Post reports, they are themselves bitterly divided over Iraq.
Such a brilliant idea: With all the pubs closing at 11 p.m., all the drunks start for home at once, so let's allow the pubs stay open longer, thereby, um, staggering the drunks. Now, British officials aren't so sure about the idea:
"You don't own anything anymore. The government owns it and can do anything they want to with it." Welcome to post-Kelo America.
I tend to agree with those who think this is a crime against nature. Here it is still the middle of summer, and already I have to watch out for the kiddies on the way to school. They should still be somewhere with their parents, sweating in the back seat and whining, "Are we there yet?" Labor day, start of school -- the sensible order of things.
Hunter Thompson was one of a kind. Where is he now that we need him to cover an absurd memorial service with the snarling cynicism it deserves?
Mitch makes a good point about the dangers of declaring war on abstract concepts (see original post and his comments here). I'd certainly agree when it comes to trying to right wrongs that are more or less part of the human condition. Neither poverty nor hunger, for example, are likely to ever be "defeated," no matter how many villains we think we've found.
