Link: Prince Charles’s Dinner Companions and Their Companions
After reading through the guest list for tonight’s "social dinner" for the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall three things come to mind: 1.) This is the best they could do for the future King England? 2.) I knew there was a reason I stopped liking Kelsey Grammer; and 3.) I thought Herman Wouk was dead.
No, I don’t like Kelsey Grammer because he’s a Republican. He just stopped being funny about three years before Frasier ended.
Link: Michael Shanks: "I’m A Free Agent"
You know, the 10th season of Stargate: SG-1 is starting look a little FUBAR. Amanda Tapping is unsure what role she will be playing and now Michael Shanks is saying he’s yet to sign a contract. Season 9, in my opinion, really struggled to find its footing with Richard Dean Anderson gone. We still have the 2nd half of season 9 to go, but my expectations are low. Personally, I’m no fan of Michael Shanks. His character. Dr. Daniel Jackson, wore thin a long time ago. With Anderson gone, the writers seemed to go out of their way to make Jackson the hero of many episodes, which is seriously underusing a great actor like Ben Browder. If he left, I think the show would improve. In fact, I rather liked Corin Nemic’s character of Jonah, who stepped when Shanks left once before. He was rather unceremoniously dropped when Shanks decided to return so I doubt they could get him, but his career is pretty much non-existent, so it could happen.
Update: Now, if the producers are thinking they will split Tapping between SG-1 and Atlantis so they can bring Claudia Black on full time, that might be a good decision. Her interaction with Shanks’ Daniel Jackson was quite fun to watch, not to mention she was the best thing about the first few episodes.
Link: Democrats Force Secret Senate Session
Whiny Republicans seems to think Minority Leader Harry Reid violated the Senate’s long tradition of "courtesy and consent"! What a bunch of hypocrites! This group whining about courtesy and consent is laughable, especially two people like Bill Frist and Trent Lott.
I haven’t been watching Boston Legal this season. Choosing instead to watch a new show, Close to Home. However, after seeing the previews for last night’s episode I decided to take a look, and I wasn’t disappointed. There were two main plots: 1.) a young woman whose brother was killed in Iraq after he wasn’t allowed to leave decides to sue the government for fraud; and 2.) a Christian and a Wiccan couple come together to get Halloween taken out of their school. Of course, the show reeked of Liberal bias that even I questioned, but it still turned out to be a very good episode.
In the Iraq soldier story, a young woman’s brother enlists in Army; he supports the war in Iraq; but after his year is up he is kept in Iraq under the current stop-loss policy and gets re-assigned to combat duty. The sister claims her brother was promised he would never see combat and that he wasn’t trained for the duty that killed him. So, she asks Alan Shore (James Spader) to sue the government for fraud. Shore is reluctant to take the case, but it moved enough by the sister’s plea to go ahead and try. Of course, this pits Shore against his friend, Denny Crane (William Shatner), who is a stereotypical Republican who equates dissent with "near treason." It also brings up the fact that Brad Chase (Mark Valley) served in the first Gulf War. He thinks Shore and the soldier’s sister are dishonoring the memory of the dead and those who continue to serve. While I thought this was a little over the top, I also thought it was a realistic reaction by a Conservative former military person. The writers attempt to drape this storyline in support for the troops, but at its heart it’s a very anti-war plot line. Shore’s closing argument turns into a screed against the administration’s handling of the war, the lies told to those who were enlisting, and the fact that our sons and daughters are being sent to war without proper equipment or proper training. The speech was very impassioned and right on the money, but if they were attempting to be even-handed they failed.
At the heart of this storyline is also the fact that Denny Crane wants nothing to do with Shore because he takes this case. He thinks it’s wrong to speak out against the government in a time of war. Shore, on the other hand, thinks two friends who disagree ought to be able to talk about it without losing their friendship. That’s what freedom stands for, after all.
The second storyline involved a case in which a Conservative Christian couple and a Wiccan couple combine forces to sue their public school in order to stop them from celebrating Halloween. The Christian couple feels Halloween celebrates Satan; the Wiccan couple feels Halloween celebrates negative stereotypes of their faith. It’s in this storyline that I feel the writers were a little over the top in their biases because it’s the Christian couple that really comes off looking stupid. Of course, the storyline is meant to be humorous, and the judge’s ruling makes that point. He tells both sets of parents to lighten up. Halloween is a secular holiday that celebrates scary things, make believe, and above all candy. This storyline was very timely considering that many schools across the US are canceling Halloween celebrations for one reason or another. As I said then, I don’t see a problem with this. These are public schools, after all. They now educate many students whose religious beliefs don’t condone the celebration of Halloween. And I don’t think this is bringing religion into schools; it’s understanding that not everyone likes it — for whatever reason.
Link: Pentagon: Top al-Qaida Operative Escaped
In reading this article, one would come away thinking the most terrible thing that happened was that a detainee could not testify in an abuse trial. Not that a former second lieutenant of Osama bin Laden is back on the loose!