Jeff Wilder's Soapbox

Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right

The election primaries aren't even through, yet the mud-slinging between the Democrats and Republicans is already starting to take off.

Exhibit A: The Dean incident. After Dean's famous gaffe during the Iowa caucus the media jumped all over him. From unknown to rising star to loser.

Exhibit B: The war records debate. It's a well-known fact that John Kerry actually did serve in Vietnam, only to protest the war upon returning. The classic Baby Boomer take on Vietnam as Joe Queenan put it.

And of course, there is the matter of how Fortunate Son GW Bush managed to avoid actual service in Vietnam and the matter of his national guard records. To me, the matter isn't relevant at this point. However, I do wonder about many Republicans who cry about this being unfair, yet had no problem pummeling Clinton over his draft dodging.

Memo to both parties: Make up your minds about Vietnam.

(On a side note, I read a Charles Krauthammer piece in this weeks issue of Time that addressed the Presidential War Experience issue. I enjoyed the piece overall, yet I did notice a minor factual error in it. Krauthammer wrote that it was JFK who got us into the Vietnam conflict in the first place and he made note of the fact that Kennedy had war experience and was a Democrat. Actually Charles, it was Eisenhower (a Republican by the way) who pointed the way toward American involvement in Vietnam when he first started sending military advisors (Truman sent some too) there. Kennedy continued that build-up for a while until he realized that it was futile to get involved in a land war there and started to pull out before his death. LBJ was the one who actually got us into the shooting war with his Gulf Of Tonkin resolution.)

One noticeable side effect that will doubtlessly increase as the election heats up is the amount of political junk mail I have received. Over the past few days I have received several e-mails from the John Edwards Campaign as well as a few from some "Committee To Ensure The Re-Election Of Bush". I suspect that the latter added me on thanks to a piece I wrote some time back in which I decried the paucity of actual mainstream candidates. No can do as far as Bush voting goes, yet the Democrats are pitiful.

At the rate things are going now, it looks like my vote will go to Libertarian candidate Aaron Russo.

In an interstellar burst, I'm back to save the universe.

Didn't do much of anything today. Just relaxed mainly. Gotta get out of this house more than I have over the past couple days or so.

Looking back on my decision to not complete college (at least regular college) and my disastrous flame-out with college level math, I find myself realizing what I had long suspected. I'm not a team player. I do not take kindly to being arbitrarily given orders by people and I have no appreciation at all for busywork. When I was in college, I was studying in journalism and the visual arts, namely radio/TV. So why was college level math mandatory for my major? Why is it mandatory for ANY major that doesn't specifically require it?

While browsing at Borders the other day, I happened across a paperback biography of the late comedian Bill Hicks. Up until a few years ago, all I knew of Hicks was that he was a major influence on Tool, one of my favorite bands. Until I listened to a few of his albums and realized that he's very close to being the HL Mencken of stand-up comedy. So I started flipping through his biography (along with one of Lenny Bruce) and found him to be an outsider of sorts from the beginning and that he felt the same way about certain things (College, Social Conservatism) that I do.

That's all for today.

Upcoming Hollywood Movies

Having focused on the good in Hollywood last time in this space, I decided this time to focus on some of the annoyances.

1: When I went to see Monster two weeks ago, I saw previews for utterly pointless remakes of The Manchurian Candidate and Stepford Wives as well as an unnecessary sequel to Dirty Dancing. I wonder: Why is it necessary to make a sequel to a film that is now 17 years old and had no great need for a sequel anyway. A sequel made sense in 1988. It doesn't make any sense now. The idea that it may be a means of revitalizing Patrick Swayze's career is suspect, seeing as the Texan is only in the movie for a few minutes.

2: Today I saw a preview on TV for an upcoming Starsky And Hutch movie. If that isn't a sign that Hollywood has run out of ideas, nothing is.

Starsky and Hutch this year. SWAT last year. In 2002, we had Scooby-Doo and I Spy and in 2001 it was Josie And The Pussycats. The year before that I forgot. But there were Hollywood remakes of old TV shows. Now Hollywood is remaking shows that haven't even been in syndication in years! Last year we had SWAT. I have had cable for most of my life and I do not recall ever coming across a rerun of SWAT. Last time I saw Starsky and Hutch on TV was in 1995.

Hollywood needs to get its act together and soon or else we might be suffering through big-screen remakes of Three's Company and Roseanne and (GAG) Charles In Charge.

So my plea to Hollywood: STOP WITH THE DAMN TV REMAKES ALREADY!!!!

Having now seen Lost In Translation, I decided it was time write the official

Jeff Wilder's List Of The Best Movies Of 2003

1: Mystic River. Clint Eastwood's directorial expertise. Fine acting by Sean Penn, Tim Robbins and Kevin Bacon. An engrossing story. How could it miss? This treatise on urban violence in America and how what we do in life echoes in eternity needs to win some Oscars.

2: Lost In Translation. Doing for loneliness and uncertainty what the previous film did for violence, the Sofia Coppola helmed film resurrects Bill Murray's career and makes a star out of the lovely Scarlett Johansson.

3: Monster. This brilliant, evocative and disturbing portrait of serial killer Aileen Wuornos offers an Oscar worthy performance from Charlize Theron, who portrays Wuornos as neither a misunderstood innocent nor a Hannibal Lechter like comic book caricature. Perfect, aside from the wrong choice of song to close the movie. "Bittersweet Symphony" by the Verve would have been better.

4: Looney Tunes: Back In Action. I don't know many other critics who are putting this one in their top ten list. But it's a very good live action/animated comedy. You still can't go wrong with Looney Tunes, even when Bugs and Daffy come close to getting upstaged by Brendan Fraser and Jenna Elfman as the human co-stars.

5: Kill Bill Vol 1. This one proved that Tarantino still has it. The only drawback is that the novelty of releasing two parts of a film separately may inspire other filmmakers to do the same.

6: Finding Nemo. You can't go wrong with Pixar. Right up there with Shrek and Monsters Inc sits this one.

7: Bad Santa. Easily the funniest movie of the year.

8: Holes. In a year of treacly family fare, it was good to see a film that offered something for all. Based on Louis Sachar's novel, Holes is that film.

Honorable mentions go to The Italian Job and Terminator 3. The former is a great heist flick, while the latter was a high note for Arnold Schwarzenegger to exit the movie arena on.

(Note 1: You can read my reviews of most of these films at Epinions.com)

(Note 2: I have not yet seen LOTR Return Of The King, which explains its absence from this list.)

I wound up not making a worst of list, because I managed to pull off staying away from most of the really bad movies out there like Gigli and From Justin To Kelly. At one time I might have seen them just to shred them in a review. But money is too short to waste it.

Social Conservative Authoritarians

If this whole Jackson/Timberlake business proves nothing else, it's that social conservatives are the biggest hypocrites on the planet.

Yes, I mean social not fiscal conservatives. Social conservatives claim that they don't want the government meddling in the people's business until something such as last Sunday's Super Bowl Half-Time show occurs. Now I've seen some social conservative commentators castigating Howard Dean for not making pop culture issues like this an integral part of the year's election.

In other words: We feel it must be up to OUR standards and if it's not the government should be involved.

It is reasons like this that keep me fro voting for either party. I myself am socially liberal, yet fiscally conservative on many issues. Since my voter registration reads No Party Affiliation, which in Florida means Independent, I always thought of myself as a liberal with strong Libertarian leanings or more accurately, a classical liberal. As liberals used to be before certain idiots started giving them a bad name. As far as actual political affiliation goes, my political philosophy is probably closest to that of the Libertarian Party, although I am not officially a member right now.

Well today was a fairly busy day for me. First off, I completed my work evaluations. Based on that I shall soon be going to get computer certification for a job as a Court Clerk. That should work well as a job to pay the bills and also as an entry level job into journalism, radio etc.

Went out with some friends for a birthday dinner. These friends, who got married last October, joined me at Joe's Crab Shack. First time I'd eaten there and the atmosphere is like that of a bar albeit not so violent.

One thing I noticed was the ahem subversive nature of much of the items sold in the restaurants store. For instance, there was a T-shirt that had "Peace Love And Crabs" written on the back. Considering that many members of the Peace And Love generation later got Crabs, that short is appropriate in a rather sick way.

Let's just hope the social conservatives screaming for Janet Jackson's head on account of the Super Bowl halftime show don't ever venture into a Joe's Crab Shack.

What is really disturbing is the fact that everyone is getting so worked up over the whole boob flash (We got trouble. Real trouble. Trouble with a capital T and that rhymes with B and that stands for boobs), yet there is an incident down here in Florida that should provoke REAL outrage. What am I speaking about you ask? Here's the full story from Yahoo news:

SARASOTA, Fla. - A tattooed mechanic with a long rap sheet was charged with murder Friday after authorities found the body of an 11-year-old girl whose kidnapping was captured on a carwash surveillance camera.

Police said Joseph P. Smith told a witness that he had kidnapped and killed Carlie Brucia, and authorities used that information to find the sixth-grader's body in a church parking lot a few miles from the carwash.

Investigators refused to say how the girl was killed or whether she had been raped. The arrest report said only that she died "as a result of homicidal violence."

"He will pay the ultimate price for what he did to her," sheriff's Capt. Jeff Bell said. Investigators would not give details on the witness who helped them.

Smith, 37, is believed to be the man seen on the surveillance video in a mechanic's shirt with a name patch, leading Carlie away by the arm Sunday as she walked home from a slumber party. Investigators said the man on the tape had tattoos on both forearms; Smith has many tattoos on his arms.

The police report said "numerous phone calls were received identifying the defendant as the subject depicted in the video."

The kidnapping set off a frantic search for the former Girl Scout, and the tape was beamed across the nation as Carlie's family and authorities pleaded for her safe return.

Investigators were led to Smith after a tipster identified him as the man in the video. Authorities said he had a Buick station wagon that was seen in the surveillance footage shortly before the kidnapping.

Investigators had called on NASA (news - web sites) to sharpen and enlarge images of the abduction, but they said the quality wasn't much better than what they already had.

Smith was charged with first-degree murder and kidnapping, and could face the death penalty if convicted. His public defender, Adam Tebrugge, did not immediately return calls for comment.

Carlie's body was found beneath thick underbrush near the Central Church of Christ. While investigators in white coveralls searched the area for evidence, Carlie's friends and family gathered outside the church. Her stepfather, Steven Kansler, and some friends knelt in a prayer circle.

"She's in a better place. She got there in a horrific manner, but now she's watching me all the time," said her father, Joe Brucia.

Smith has been arrested at least 13 times in Florida since 1993.

He served 17 months in prison in 2001 and 2002 for heroin possession and prescription drug fraud. Eight days after he got out, he was arrested for cocaine possession and placed on probation for three years. He also got probation for aggravated battery in 1993 and heroin charges in 1999.

A state correction official, Joe Papy, said that a probation officer had asked a judge on Dec. 30 to declare Smith in violation of his probation because he had not paid all his fines and court costs.

Papy said Circuit Judge Harry Rapkin declined to find Smith in violation, which could have returned him to jail. The judge defended his decision Friday, saying the probation officer never sent him the evidence he requested that Smith had willfully refused to pay.

Carlie's family questioned why Smith was allowed to be free.

"In my opinion he should have never been out on the street," Carlie's father said.

Neighbors said Smith and his wife had separated recently and he had moved out of the house.

Linda Thompson, who lives next door to the Smith family, described Smith as a good father to his three daughters. She remembered him playing with them in the yard, buying them a puppy and building a goldfish pond for them in the front of the house.

"That's the Joe we saw, so when this started it was hard to believe that there's a different side," Thompson said.

A small group of supporters kept up a vigil outside Carlie's ranch-style house, which is decorated with banners and posters reading, "We love you, Carlie."

Carlie's friends said the blonde, blue-eyed girl idolized Jennifer Lopez and enjoyed going to the mall and hanging out with friends. She had a cat named Charlie and a 6-year-old half brother and a 10-year-old stepbrother.

"She was loving and caring. She doesn't like to see other people hurt. She'd be really crying if this was one of us or someone else she knows," said Tiffany Meeks, a friend at school who placed flowers along a memorial at the car wash. "It's just hard to talk about."

Now let's compare that with the whole Super Bowl incident. One was a rather amusing case of titillation while the other is a sickening crime so deplorable that it almost defies description. Add to that the fact that the brutal maniac who committed it should never have been let out of prison. That is something to get REALLY enraged about.