"A team of archaeologists confirmed Monday that ancient remains found under a parking lot belong to long-lost King Richard III..."

"The verification came after scientific tests were used to match DNA samples taken from Canadian-born Michael Ibsen, a direct descendent of Anne of York, Richard’s elder sister."

Richard III supporters such as Philippa Langley, a screenwriter and member of the Richard III Society, were driven to find the lost king’s remains by a desire to reopen the debate over his place in history....

“I think the discovery brought the real Richard into sharp focus,” Langley said. “People are realizing that a lot of what they thought they knew about Richard III was pretty much propaganda and myth building.”

Why does finding the body have anything to do with the historical project of finding out what really happened in the past? There's something in the human psyche that makes us care about an ancient controversy because we are confronted with the man's bones. But there is also some relevant evidence:

Trauma analysis of the skeleton found 10 battle wounds, eight on the skull and two on the body, which were inflicted around the time of death, according to Jo Appleby, project osteologist of the University of Leicester. Many of the wounds provided evidence of “post-mortem humiliation injuries,” exacted on Richard III after death by his adversaries.

It looked a little something like this:



Warning: That was propaganda. And Class A scenery chewing.

By the way: As I was setting up that clip for the embed, Meade came over and said: "From just the audio, I couldn't tell if that was Laurence Olivier or a Monty Python parody."

ADDED: There's a Richard III ward in the Hospital for Overacting:

"The tears coursed down her cheeks — not freely, however..."

"... for when they came into contact with her heavily beaded eyelashes they assumed an inky color, and pursued the rest of their way in slow black rivulets."

That's the sentence from "The Great Gatsby" today, in the "Gatsby" project.

Tears coursed. The subject and the predicate are right up there at the outset. No teasing about where the foundation of this sentence is. Course is a strange verb for ran. There are reasons to choose the odder word. Course, for example, is more woody, less tinny than ran. The tears coursed, but not freely, because they got stuck on the woman's mascaraed eyelashes. It's thickly applied black mascara. We know it's thickly applied, because it's the excess blobs of mascara that give the impression of beads, and inky means black. So the tears got stuck on the blobs and became a coagulated black liquid, slowed down, but still, on each cheek, a little river, a rivulet.

Is rivulet a strange word? Classical Latin had the word rīvulus and there's rivoletto in Italian. John Milton used rivulet, in 1667, in "Paradise Lost," one of the books my readers urge upon me as they imagine they see the light at the end of the "Gatsby" tunnel. "As my train emerged from the tunnel into sunlight...," I found the rivulet sentence in "Paradise Lost":

In Bowre and Field he sought, where any tuft
Of Grove or Garden-Plot more pleasant lay,
Thir tendance or Plantation for delight,
By Fountain or by shadie Rivulet
He sought them both, but wish'd his hap might find
EVE separate, he wish'd, but not with hope
Of what so seldom chanc'd, when to his wish,
Beyond his hope, EVE separate he spies,
Veild in a Cloud of Fragrance, where she stood,
Half spi'd, so thick the Roses bushing round
About her glowd, oft stooping to support
Each Flour of slender stalk, whose head though gay
Carnation, Purple, Azure, or spect with Gold,
Hung drooping unsustaind, them she upstaies
Gently with Mirtle band, mindless the while,
Her self, though fairest unsupported Flour,
From her best prop so farr, and storn so nigh.

Oh, come on now! That sentence is absurdly long! And the spelling is so perverse — Bowre and Flour for bower and flower. I like the Roses bushing round as the Snake finds EVE alone. The gay flowers — flours — drooping... interestingly vulnerable. But storn... what is it? Storn! I know it's woody.

No, no, no! I'm too smart to succumb to that temptation. I am not a stooping, drooping blogger. I'm shrinking back into my "Gatsby" tunnel. Tomorrow is Groundhog Day, but I've seen my shadie shadow this evening. I'm frightened, terrified. The unfree tears course down my cheeks, slowed by the speed bumps of inky mascara.

"Althouse, 'embarrassed' by flashing her... 'its'?"

Observes EDH... with an apt clip.

"Palin Rejects 'Seventh Python' Claim in Court Case."

That's Michael Palin... testifying in a case about whether the producer of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" deserves a share of the profits from "Spamalot," the Broadway show based on the movie.

Of [Mark] Forstater, Palin said: "He was not the creator of the film. The film had been created by the Python team entirely. Mark was not part of our team."...

[Eric] Idle and [Terry] Jones, who sat at the back of the small, modern courtroom in central London, occasionally chuckled at what was being said, but mostly Idle had his eyes closed and Jones could not resist a yawn.

How do you know he couldn't resist?

"President Obama on Monday unveiled a $3.8 trillion spending plan that seeks to pump billions of dollars into the economy while raising taxes on the rich..."

"... to tame a soaring national debt now projected to grow significantly faster than previously forecast."

President Obama, the debt-tamer.

Deadline Hollywood summarizes the movie and TV history of men dressed as women...

On the occasion of the new TV show "Work It" (which we talked about yesterday):

While it may have deeper implications today than it did decades ago, men dressing like women is one of the oldest forms of comedy. It is at the heart of one of the best feature comedies ever made, Some Like It Hot, as well as several other classic comedy films, Tootsie, Mrs. Doubtfire and The Birdcage, and it has had a presence on TV, most notably with the 1980 series Bosom Buddies starring Tom Hanks, and Saturday Night Live where male cast members regularly impersonate female celebrities. And then there is the British school of comedy with Monty Python and Benny Hill. ABC’s president Paul Lee brought up his heritage when explaining his decision to pick up Work It to critics at the summer TCA press tour. “I’m a Brit, it is in my contract that I have to do one cross-dressing show a year,” he said. “I was brought up on Monty Python. What can I do?” As a fellow European who also grew up with Monty Python and Benny Hill, I can actually relate to that...."

I can see the Brit excuse, but it's really awful, if you're going to indulge in argument by listmaking like that, to leave out the most prominent — in more ways than one — cross-dresser in the history of television, the man who was called Mr. Television, Milton Berle.

Here's a great clip of Berle in drag — in a guest spot on Lucille Ball's show.  (If you've only got 2 seconds to spare, click here.)



By the way, what a concentration of comic acting in that 5-minute clip, from everybody involved, including Desi Arnaz, who, if he showed up on TV today, would probably elicit criticism from some dignity-protecting group that doesn't care whether or not comedy has room to breathe.

Stanley Fish finds "a unity" to Sarah Palin book "America by Heart," but "it is not one Palin proclaims or works out discursively."

NYT readers will have their Sarah Palin processed through the Mind of Fish:

Rather, the unity is conveyed by the quotations that carry the argument, long (sometimes two-page) quotations from an impressive variety of authors, quotations that are strong in isolation and even stronger when they are laid next to one another. The book is really an anthology. The author does not present herself as controlling or magisterial; she gives her authorities space and then she gets out of the way. Her performance mimes the book’s lesson: rather than acting as a central authority, she lets individual voices speak for themselves. Humility is not something Palin is usually credited with, but here she enacts it by yielding the stage as others proclaims the truths she wants us to carry away.

Sarah Palin is doing something that is, perhaps, pure genius, and it takes the brilliant professor to say what she is doing so that the ideas are apparent even to New York Times readers, who are well-defended against the notion that Palin is anything but stupid. Even slapped in the face by Fish...



... they resist. I'll be the professor translating the diverse items into a unity for your easy consumption: NOOOOOOOOO! Favorite way of saying "no": surely, the book was actually written by Bill Ayers some ghostwriter.

"He's clearly made a terrible mistake. It was the endorsement of Sarah Palin he was after — not that of Michael Palin."

"I'm surprised that a former U.S. Attorney isn't aware of his copyright infringement when he uses our material without permission."

"As you get older you laugh less, because you’ve heard most of the jokes before."

Says John Cleese. I don't think that's true, perhaps because I've never seen jokes as the main source of laughs.

At the Lupin Café...

... you will most surely reference this Monty Python sketch, but please proceed to discuss whatever strikes your fancy this Tuesday midday.

"Gilliam... was standing outside a restaurant in Soho when a car backed into him. 'Yes, a man can fly,' observed a bystander as he flew past."

Hilarious assholes they have in England, it seems.

He broke his back, but seems fine now, despite a cracked vertebra and dislodged disc. "Yeah, I'm a lizard," he says, cackling.

From an article on Terry Gilliam's seemingly cursed movie "The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus." Other problems: The producer died suddenly. And so did the star — Heath Ledger.

"It just isn't possible that he's dead," [said Gilliam.] "There's nothing he can't do, it just flows out of him with ease and grace. He lifted everybody. He wasn't like Marlon Brando or James Dean or any of the more neurotic actors, his was all positive energy. I knew he was tired but that Saturday he had been doing all his own stunts, he was leaping off wagons, indestructible. On no level did his death make sense.... "

We're not all flying men/lizards.

"I ... looked at how to do the remaining scenes without Heath, and realised that, since his character goes through a magic mirror three times, we could get three actors to play the role."

He got Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell, who are all donating their compensation to Ledger's 3-year-old child Matilda.

Other interesting things in the linked article:

1. George Harrison believed that the soul of The Beatles transmigrated into Monty Python when The Beatles died.

2. Monty Python broke up because the guys "got bored of each other."

3. "[Gilliam] renounced his American citizenship in 'disillusionment' with the Bush years, but he retains a pigtail which makes him look like an ageing hippy." You know what I don't understand? The role of "but" in that sentence.

4. Gilliam has never taken drugs, out of sheer fear of losing the distinction "between fantasy and reality." "It was only 15 years ago that I discovered I couldn't fly. I have such a 'sense memory' of flying around the world at the height of a table that when someone asked me to show them, I really thought I could do it."

5. In lieu of drugs: Dali, Ernst, Breughel, Bosch, and Mad magazine.

"I can't tell the difference between Whizzo Butter and a dead crab."

This came up...



... back here (where we talking about the contrived outrage over the "Whooper Virgins" taste test).

Of course, it was our wonderful Bissage again.

Surely, you can tell the difference between Bissage...

... and Quayle...

I hate [when people say something is just so wrong on so many levels that they can't even begin to explain why] because people that say that all the time always try to imply that they deal with multitudes of levels all the time.

But seriously – how many levels are there?

Two? Maybe three, tops?

I actually know a guy that commonly dealt with five levels, but he was from Bayonne, New Jersey.

But this idea that there are so many levels is pure post-modern, crit-studies rubbish.

It is all an urban myth that has its origins in a particular budget fight in the humanities department of an well-known Ivy League University.

... and Chip Ahoy...

The contrived outrage is ridiculous on so many levels I must put down my game of multi-dimensional chess and set aside my 3-D puzzle for the moment and stop multi-tasking this four-course luncheon while responding to this blog entry while doing laundry while simultaneously playing with my puppy to respond to this while keeping open ten other windows and holding three conversations through instant messaging and solving this crossword puzzle.

1) the contrived outrage is ridiculous on the psychological level

2) the contrived outrage is ridiculous on the political level

3) the contrived outrage is ridiculous on the sociological level

4) the contrived outrage is ridiculous on the economic level

4) the contrived outrage is ridiculous on the international level

5) the contrived outrage is ridiculous on the sexual level

6) the contrived outrage is ridiculous on the contrivance level

Monty Python goes to war against YouTube.

Pie.

(Via Drudge.)

IN THE COMMENTS: Peter Hoh said:

Soon after Drudge released this tape, Obama was quoted saying, "Well, I’m very very pleased to be cleared of saying anything about pie, any hint of any kind of references to baked goods there."

AND: If this post has you trying to remember the old "Pie in the Sky" song, you can listen to it by Michael Hurley here and read about it, including the lyrics, here.

MORE: There must be a hundred songs about pie: "American Pie," "Honey Pie"....

And there must be a million comic pie routines. For example, compare these 2 and then take a poll:

Vote:
	Monty Python
	3 Stooges
pollcode.com free polls

Hmmmm.... As a control:

Vote!
	Barack Obama
	John McCain
pollcode.com free polls

YET MORE:

Match the comedy and the politician.
	Obama prefers Monty Python and McCain the 3 Stooges
	Obama prefers the 3 Stooges and McCain Monty Python
	Both prefer Monty Python
	Both prefer the 3 Stooges
pollcode.com free polls

"Portuguese opera stars, dressed as vacuum cleaners, singing in English..."

"... about conquering the world."

IN THE COMMENTS: Our house ghost, Sir Archy pays a visit:

Spectatum admissi risum teneatis?
—Hor.

To Professor Althouse.

Madam,

As the Ghost of a Person dead these 250 Years and more, you may imagine the Vagaries of Taste & Fashion to which I have been Witness. Nowhere is the World chang'd more sensibly than in the noble Art of Musick. In my Day, we thought harmonis'd Musick sweet; whereas the Present World seems continually bath'd in a Cacophony fitter to the Cataract at Niagra, than to sooth and ennoble the Soul of a rational Person.

So it is among the infinite Varities of Musick at the present Time, there are several that may be known as 'Contemporary Classical,' or 'Serious Musick,' or, to the Connoisseur, simply 'Modern Musick.' I will not play the Etymologist, and try Definitions of these upon your tiring Readers; suffice it to say that Musick of these Kinds will be fitt'd out with all manner of Squeaks, Honks, Knocks & Groans, not to mention every odd Thing that may be play'd upon any & all Instruments that Ingenuity may furnish.

I suppose, Madam, that I should be gratified that the Opera, irrational Entertainment as it may be, hath persisted from my Day to this. What are we suppos'd to make, then, of Operas, which were a bad enough Pastime in my Youth, now gone from the harmlessly Ridiculous to a Degree of Absurdity that only a Madman could compass? The Example you quote, Madam, seems to have been written by an Inmate of some Latter-Day Bedlam, but without, perhaps, the Common Sense of many a Lunatick I remember from that Institution. That an Opera may be written after the Manner of Modern Musick mentioned above, fill'd with Shrieks instead of Song, must be either a Sign of Madness, a Comick Pose, or, what is worse, that the Composer is pretending to a Humourous Irony.

The Portuguese are a lugubrious Nation. So it may be that, not having a form'd Taste for the refinements of Satire, they mistake what is Silly for Wit. That Monty Python have caus'd many Another to do so, may have lent Weight to the Pretense that, like the famous uncloath'd Chinese Emperor, Mr. Jones may be a Composer.


Before I close, Madam, I should like to quote Mr. Addison, writing in the Sixth Number of the Spectator, on Mynheer Handel's Opera of Rinaldo:

An Opera may be allowed to be extravagantly lavish in its Decorations,
as its only Design is to gratify the Senses, and keep up an indolent
Attention in the Audience. Common Sense however requires that there
should be nothing in the Scenes and Machines which may appear Childish
and Absurd. How would the Wits of King Charles's time have laughed to
have seen Nicolini exposed to a Tempest in Robes of Ermin, and sailing
in an open Boat upon a Sea of Paste-Board? What a Field of Raillery
would they have been let into, had they been entertain'd with painted
Dragons spitting Wild-fire, enchanted Chariots drawn by Flanders
Mares, and real Cascades in artificial Land-skips?

What a Field, indeed, had they my ghostly Fortune to be entertain'd by singing Kitchen Implements and dancing Auto-Mobiles.

Sensible of the Difficulties of Anyone who would play the Musick Critick,

I remain, Madam,

Your most humble & obt. Servant,

Sir Archy

Bloggership Linkership.

Ian Best has a comprehensive collection of links about last Friday's "Bloggership" conference. Let's follow some of them.

I see Harvard lawprof Charles Nesson is making a bid for a spot in my banner by calling me "The glint on the edge of Solomon's Sword." That refers to something I wrote a long time ago, which I don't have a link for, but if you've got Lexis, search the law review file for his name and mine.

Daniel Solove did a nice bloggerly job of condensing everyone's talk into a one-liner.

Howard Bashman has this to say:

At a conference chock-full of law professor bloggers, you might expect that among the presenters the ratio of law geeks to non-law geeks would be quite high. In that respect, I found it interesting to observe first-hand that the coolness (or lack of coolness) of a given law professor's blog did not reliably indicate the coolness (or lack of coolness) of the blog's author. Not surprisingly, however, with Ann she was every bit as cool as her blog....

I wonder who the sentence before the sentence about me refers to. Who's the uncool lawprof with the cool blog and who's the cool lawprof with the uncool blog?

Timothy Armstrong sure took detailed notes. Thanks for reminding me of what I said. I was sort of wondering!

Roger Alford has a list of predictions for the future of law professors, e.g., "Law professors currently target their scholarship to appeal to student editors at major law journals (while also targeting their peers). In future decades, law professors will target their peers directly without intermediaries." Yeah, "disintermediation" -- I learned that word from Larry Solum.

But enough about the Bloggership conference. It's Monday, I'm back in Madison, and it's time to reengage with life here. Oddly, I've got to give a presentation about blogging today, at the "Socio-Legal Studies BrownBag." My colleague Gordon Smith, who was at the conference, is co-presenting, so it might feel a lot like the conference, but I'm thinking it won't be. A different crowd attends a "Socio-Legal Studies BrownBag" in Madison, Wisconsin then attends a conference on blogging and legal scholarship at Harvard. Expect me to reflect on the differences later today. And I've got to attend a Faculty Senate meeting today too. (I'm the Law School's alternate senator.) But what I really need to do is write some exams.

Digression prompted by the word "BrownBag": At the hotel the other day, I was watching some old "Monty Python" episode, and there was a sketch in which Graham Chapman played a man who would put a bag on his head whenever anyone said "mattress." It was typical Python nonsense, but Chapman had a way of putting the bag on his head that was far funnier than anything anyone else did. It was rather mysterious, that comic genius. How amusingly could you put a paper bag on your head? But I will not be putting a bag on my head at the "Socio-Legal Studies BrownBag," even though "Socio-Legal Studies BrownBag" sounds so serioso it makes me want to put a bag on my head.

What song is playing in your head today?

Some commenters are saying that my post title "Always look on the bright side of life" has got them thinking that Monty Python song in their heads.

Funny, I've got a song stuck in my head this morning. It's Lou Reed's "I'm So Free":

Oh, please, Saint Germain
I have come this way
Do you remember the shape I was in
I had horns and fins

I'm so free
I'm so free

Do you remember the silver walks
you used to shiver and I used to talk
Then we went down to Times Square
and ever since I've been hangin' round there

I get this song in my head every time I read United States v. Ballard:

Respondents were indicted and convicted for using, and conspiring to use, the mails to defraud. 215 Criminal Code, 18 U.S.C. 338, 18 U.S.C. A. 338; 37 Criminal Code, 18 U.S.C. 88, 18 U.S.C.A. 88. The indictment was in twelve counts. It charged a scheme to defraud by organizing and promoting the I Am movement through the use of the mails. The charge was that certain designated corporations were formed, literature distributed and sold, funds solicited, and memberships in the I Am movement sought 'by means of false and fraudulent representations, pretenses and promises'. The false representations charged were eighteen in number. It is sufficient at this point to say that they covered respondents' alleged religious doctrines or beliefs. They were all set forth in the first count. The following are representative:

'that Guy W. Ballard, now deceased, alias Saint Germain, Jesus, George Washington, and Godfre Ray King, had been selected and thereby designated by the alleged 'ascertained masters,' Saint Germain, as a divine messenger; and that the words of 'ascended masters' and the words of the alleged divine entity, Saint Germain, would be transmitted to mankind through the medium of the said Guy W. Ballard;

'that Guy W. Ballard, during his lifetime, and Edna W. Ballard, and Donald Ballard, by reason of their alleged high spiritual attainments and righteous conduct, had been selected as divine messengers through which the words of the alleged 'ascended masters,' including the alleged Saint Germain, would be communicated to mankind under the teachings commonly known as the 'I Am' movement;

'that Guy W. Ballard, during his lifetime, and Edna W. Ballard and Donald Ballard had, by reason of supernatural attainments, the power to heal persons of ailments and diseases and to make well persons afflicted with any diseases, injuries, or ailments, and did falsely represent to persons intended to be defrauded that the three designated persons had the ability and power to cure persons of those diseases normally classified as curable and also of diseases which are ordinarily classified by the medical profession as being incurable diseases; and did further represent that the three designated persons had in fact cured either by the activity of one, either, or all of said persons, hundreds of persons afflicted with diseases and ailments;'

Each of the representations enumerated in the indictment was followed by the charge that respondents 'well knew' it was false.

It's a case about how you really don't want the government delving into the question of whether religious beliefs are false.

The miracles of the New Testament, the Divinity of Christ, life after death, the power of prayer are deep in the religious convictions of many. If one could be sent to jail because a jury in a hostile environment found those teachings false, little indeed would be left of religious freedom.

The conviction is upheld, however, because the trial judge excluded this evidence and asked the jury to decide only whether the defendants believed these things. But how do you think about whether they believe something without thinking about whether it's believable? Justice Jackson dissented, in an opinion that's one of my favorites, containing a delightful snark about judges:

I do not know what degree of skepticism or disbelief in a religious representation amounts to actionable fraud. [William] James points out that 'Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is theoretically possible.' Belief in what one may demonstrate to the senses is not faith. All schools of religious thought make enormous assumptions, generally on the basis of revelations authenticated by some sign or miracle. The appeal in such matters is to a very different plane of credility than is invoked by representations of secular fact in commerce. Some who profess belief in the Bible read literally what others read as allegory or metaphor, as they read Aesop's fables. Religious symbolism is even used by some with the same mental reservations one has in teaching of Santa Claus or Uncle Sam or Easter bunnies or dispassionate judges. It is hard in matters so mystical to say how literally one is bound to believe the doctrine he teaches and even more difficult to say how far it is reliance upon a teacher's literal belief which induces followers to give him money.

UPDATE: I've changed the link for the "I'm So Free" lyrics and changed "horns that bent" to "horns and fins." One of the commenters said he thought it was "horns and fins," and that was what I'd always heard too. There are lots of lyrics sites, but how do they know the lyrics? They aren't really authoritative. I'm changing the spelling of "Germaine" to "Germain" too, even though both lyrics sites have the "e." A Google search convinces me that "Germain" is correct. But who is Saint Germain? I assume the references are to the Count of St. Germain: "a courtier, adventurer, inventor, amateur scientist, violinist, amateur composer, and generally mysterious gentleman."

''This is only the second show that's a comedy about the South -- this and 'Andy Griffith' -- that doesn't make fun of Southerners."

Who watches "King of the Hill"? According to this NYT piece: "men between the ages of 18 and 49, and almost a quarter of those men own pickup trucks." The theory of the article is that "King of the Hill" offers Democrats insight into how to appeal to young Southern/rural voters -- sort of like the way "South Park" gives Republicans insight into how to appeal to young, non-socially-conservative voters:

[The Democratic Governor of North Carolina, Mike Easley,] says he thinks that understanding the show's viewers might resolve some of the mysteries confronting his party about the vast swaths of red on the electoral map.... When the governor, a former prosecutor, prepares to make his case on a partisan issue, he likes to imagine that he's explaining his position to Hank -- an exercise that might be useful for his colleagues in Washington too. For instance, Easley told me that Hank would never support a budget like the one North Carolina's Senate recently passed, which would drop some 65,000 mostly elderly citizens from the Medicaid rolls; Hank, after all, has pitched in to support his own father, a brutish war veteran, and he would never condone a community's walking away from its ailing parents. Similarly, Hank may be a lover of the environment -- he was furious when kids trashed the local campground -- but he resents self-righteous environmentalists like the ones who forced Arlen to install those annoying low-flow toilets. Voters like Hank, if they had heard about it on the evening news, would have supported Easley's ''Clean Smokestacks'' law, which forced North Carolina's coal-powered electric plants to burn cleaner, but only because industry was a partner in the final bill, rather than its target.

Well, then, Easley's use of "King of the Hill" is to figure out how to sell the Democrat's usual policies to people like this, not to critique any of his party's settled assumptions. Is that the way "South Park" is used by conservatives? It seems to me "South Park" criticizes all sorts of adult follies, and any Republicans watching that show for insight into how to appeal to its young audience ought to be learning that they need to become more libertarian and less socially conservative. "South Park" has plenty of advice for Democrats too -- but it's advice about changing yourselves, not just how to improve your rhetoric.

The Democratic interest in "King of the Hill" is that it portrays voters in a region where the Democrats have a big problem. So then, tell me, what does "King of the Hill" have to say about how Democrats should actually change their policies? I haven't watched enough of "King of the Hill" to be able to answer that question, so help me out in the comments if you can.

In the meantime, here's a post from Half-Bakered that says the NYT got the show all wrong:

[The show is] about renewal of traditional values in the face of the transformative. Every time Hank encounters the kind of "transformation" that Democrats and bureaucrats and the PC peddle, he defeats them -- often using their own internal problems and philosophies against them...

Hank is a rock-ribbed Republican, I tell ya whut. Dale Gribble, his neighbor, is a Libertarian. Boomhauer is a Republican, but doesn't much care, I'm sure. Only Bill will likely vote Democrat sometime, but only because he's a softie who falls for a good line; if he admitted it to his friends, they'd blast him.

Bai [the NYT writer] also somehow manages to quote or mention pretty much only Democrats in the piece. Go read it; it's a hoot. He's either clueless or delusional.

Or as Hank would put it, "That boy ain't right."

(Via Signifying Nothing via Memeorandum.)

UPDATE: Lot's of good discussion in the comments. Makes me decide to TiVo "King of the Hill."

Also, here's the NYT review of the book "South Park Conservatives." The reviewer, Liesl Schillinger, an arts editor from The New Yorker, doesn't seem to know much about "South Park." She seems to think it represents "a new generation of Americans who refuse to accept public censure for their scornful attitudes toward gay men and lesbians, Native Americans, environmentalism and abortion rights." I say "seems" because she seems to attribute this characterization to the author of of the book. Actually, I'm really not sure what Schillinger is babbling about here. She doesn't seem to have put much effort into understanding the things she's criticizing, and the very short review is padded with irrelevant blather about "Monty Python."

Schillinger sniffs:

[T]his book isn't intended for readers of The Times and The Economist and watchers of CNN. It's for the people who are sick and tired of mainstream media and are fans of the blogs and right-wing commentators [the author Brian C. Anderson] cites so abundantly.

Blogs!

Oh, yeah, they're horrible. Horrible! They just take idiotic unfair slams at the good people who write for mainstream media. Why they'd even slam an arts editor who works at The New Yorker! The New Yorker! Where we know what we're talking about. We know "South Park" is anti-gay... uh, right? Isn't it?

ANOTHER UPDATE: I TiVo'd and watched an episode of "King of the Hill." The episode -- "The Petriot Act" -- involved taking care of a pet for a soldier who'd gone overseas. Hank feels the call of duty to take care of a dog, as a friend of his is doing, but he signs a contract that turns out to require him to take care of a cat, which turns out to be annoying and sick, and because he's agreed to use a particular, expensive vet, costs him the money he'd saved for the family vacation. He does his duty, without being particularly grumpy or cheerful about it, and in the end the family settles for a dinner out in a modest restaurant, all they have money left for. This is a very straightforward tale about living up to one's obligations. There is a scene where Hank stands up to the vet who is overcharging him, which is the sort of thing it seems Easley was grabbing onto. Hank gets mad when another man is not being fair and honest, so I suppose that shows that Hank-types can be activated by stories about people who cheat and take advantage. The whole "King of the Hill" concept, based on that episode, seemed to be about being solidly responsible and upstanding.

10 best rock movies.

Here's the AFI list of the ten best rock movies ever made. (Do I have to say "via Blogdex"? I got the link via Blogdex, but I'm irked at Blogdex for not tracking my blog. I've tried reentering my blog address and even emailing them -- more than once! -- but they never pick up my links. They never answer the email either.)

[CORRECTION: It's not the AFI's list, but a really good list by a music critic. Sorry. The AFI is mentioned in the article, and they do have their lists. This isn't one of them.]

One thing about the list is that the only movie on it I haven't seen is the one they place first, "Almost Famous." I've never cared about seeing that. It's always looked to me to be mainly about how cute Kate Hudson is. But since I don't at all respond to the putative cuteness of Kate Hudson -- not positively anyway -- I've steered clear.

Of the remaining nine, I even have seven on DVD. I don't have "Hail, Hail Rock and Roll," because it's not available on DVD, and I don't have "The Rutles," because frankly, it's not very good. I remember when it first came out. It was just a TV movie. We loved both The Beatles (who were being spoofed) and Monty Python (who did the spoofing), but we could barely sit through it. It just wasn't very funny. The closest thing to funny is that the John character is named Nasty. "The Rutles" is nothing compared to "This Is Spinal Tap."

I looked over my DVDs to see what I'd suggest that wasn't on the list. I have "The Filth and the Fury," but it's not all that great, and "Sid and Nancy" is already on the list and much better. The one I'd suggest is "Nico Icon," and I thought to write that before it occurred to me how underrepresented women are on this list. Women are underrepresented in rock music, of course, but to have the only significant women characters on the list be groupies -- the Kate Hudson character and Nancy Spungen -- is a bit galling, especially considering that one of the greatest of all rock stars is Madonna and she really did make a great movie ("Truth or Dare").

UPDATE: Writing a lot and publishing instantaneously and without an editor, I still work hard at cutting verbosity. I regret missing the last two words of that phrase "the ten best rock movies ever made." How did that idiotic usage get started? There's no possibility of ranking movies that have not been made. I suppose it's an alternative to "of all time." Which is a stupid thing to say about movies generally and rock movies especially.