"Well, allow me to retort."

The State of the Union was great. A+ for the President, although part of that grade may come from the fact that he can string sentences together and pronounce words correctly. I've missed that.

Then came Bobby Jindal, rising star of the Republican Party. Rising for some unknown reason, given his sad little rebuttal performance last night. Is it because he's "ethnic-looking"? Do the Republicans really think that if they just copy all the superficial aspects of Obama ("Weird name? Check. Dark skin? Check! Young guy? Check.") they can take the White House?

You heard it here first, folks: Jindal will never be President.

First, he has none of that charm that Obama has. He comes across as smarmy and lame, and that--I believe the proper term is "shit-eating"--grin he had plastered on his face as he approached the podium was just disturbing. Plus, what is he, 37? He graduated high school in 1990. That puts him in nearly my sphere of educational experience (Rhodes scholarship aside) which makes me think he has even less authority than the governor of a backwards-ass state more than $2 billion in debt.

But let's assume he can image himself up a little bit better. He remains a GOP talking point with no sense of personal responsibility, or party responsibility, whatsoever. Let's look at the "mea culpa" he delivered last night:

In recent years, these distinctions in philosophy became less clear -- our party got away from its principles. You elected Republicans to champion limited government, fiscal discipline and personal responsibility. Instead, Republicans went along with earmarks and big government spending in Washington. Republicans lost your trust -- and rightly so.

The Republicans can't even take responsibility for what happened when they controlled all three branches of government. Republicans "went along with earmarks"? THEY PUT THEM THERE. He makes it sound as if they fell asleep at the switch, and some legislation gnomes slipped into Congress and loaded all the bills with pork.

Then, Jindal takes Obama to task for implying that we (America/Americans) won't persevere through this economic crisis. Let's note first that Obama said "we may not be able to reverse" our economic slide if the stimulus plan isn't passed. If we do nothing, and simply pray that things get better, then it is quite possible we will collapse. A fair point, but not what Jindal quoted:

You know, a few weeks ago, the president warned that our nation is facing a crisis that he said "we may not be able to reverse." Our troubles are real, to be sure. But don't let anyone tell you that we cannot recover. Don't let anyone tell you that America's best days are behind her. This is the nation that cast off the scourge of slavery, overcame the Great Depression, prevailed in two World Wars, won the struggle for civil rights, defeated the Soviet menace, and responded with determined courage to the attacks of September 11, 2001. The American spirit has triumphed over almost every form of adversity known to man, and the American spirit will triumph again.

But actually, that's just the usual skewing of your opponents position. Weasely, for sure, but not all that out of the ordinary. I thought it was even worse that Jindal's litany of triumphs was so jumbled. We "cast off the scourge of slavery", did we? And who was it that put that scourge upon us in the first place? We had to fight a war with ourselves to get rid of slavery. And the Great Depression? Has he not read a history book? Again, a creation of our own selfishness and greed. The struggle for civil rights: fought, and won, by the liberals of this country against the conservatives.

The American spirit isn't a genetic by-product of being born in America. It is, more accurately, the human spirit. The freedoms given to us by our Constitution allow the human spirit to thrive, so it is understandable that we would begin equating the ingenuity and perseverance of Americans to some sort of nation-specific gift. But let's not make the mistake of thinking that it is something only Americans can do.

Hey, How 'Bout Those Awards

I "watched" (left on in the background while I screwed around on the computer) the Academy Awards last night. Not the entire show; I missed the beginning and the first few awards, but generally saw the rest.

Milk Was Great
Sean Penn deserves that Oscar. Of course, I haven't seen any of the other nominees--I'm sure they were all great--but Sean Penn elevated an already outstanding movie. And I'm not just saying that because I live in the Bay Area.

Non-Shocking Ledger Win
I'm not against it, necessarily; Brolin didn't have quite enough to do in Milk to make his performance Oscar-worthy, and Phillip Seymour Hoffman is going to get like, 15 more Oscars over the years, so it's valid. It is strange, to me, how many of the actors were nominated for playing well outside the "norm". Downey as an Australian as a black guy, Ledger as the Joker, Hoffman as a (apparently) pedophilic priest, and Brolin as that crazy bastard that shot Harvey Milk. I mean, maybe it's a bit of a stretch, but there is a distinction between great acting and great mimicking. Or, to be more specific, between great acting and a role that has such an obvious lightning rod element (Downey being in black face, for example) that you have to actually look HARDER to evaluate whether the actor actually acted well.

Not that Ledger, or Downey, or any of these guys did not act well. I'm just saying it can be difficult to look past the Joker make-up and crazy voice and say, "Was Heath Ledger the best supporting actor in 2008?"

Actors Describing Actors
The whole "former winners introduce current nominees" thing was interesting. At times, I thought it was really well conceived. Shirley McLaine's description of Anne Hathaway was particularly good; she spoke right to her and had that "grand dame of Hollywood" attitude that made it sound as if she really thought Hathaway was great and wasn't just reading prepared material. And watching DeNiro describe Sean Penn was pretty great too. Others were a bit leaden (it would appear that, unlike other Best Actresses, making Angelina Jolie misty-eyed is a more formidable task than mortal man can hope to achieve).

In Summation
WALL-E is the most underrated (by Academy nominations, anyhow) movie of the year.

2 Cents: The Octuplet Lady

I am a few weeks late on this, but I watched the Dateline (or whoever) special last weekend and, as I watched, I thought that I would probably have to lay out some sort of blog post on the Crazy Baby Factory Lady.

(see, e.g., this article if you're unclear as to what I'm talking about)

The interview she did with Ann Curry helped make her seem less whack-job crazy, and more standard-style crazy like most of us. I think you have to break down her issues into two distinct categories: Wanting To Have Kids and then Raising 14 Bloody Children.

Wanting to Have Kids
Nadya Suleman wanted to have a big family. There are many reasons for this, and it sounds as if the way she was raised had a big influence on this desire. She underwent in vitro fertilization (or something similar) 5 times, and ended up with 6 kids because the last pregnancy resulted in twins. Then, according to her interview, she was happy and done.

But she had potential eggs left over at the clinic. And, she's religious or spiritual in such a way that she wanted to give those eggs a shot. I can respect that, even if my own opinion on the matter would be significantly different. I'm a bit fuzzy on the details but the doctors gave one more go at pregnancy (for a presumably 7th or 7th/8th child) and BAM. A friggin' percussion section takes up residence in her uterus.

Now, I don't "agree" with someone who wants to have any more than say, 3 kids on their own. 2 or 3 children, as a single parent who is still pursuing her education, already taxes my conscience. 5 or 6 is downright silly. But I'm also aware that it's my opinion and I don't think there is anything inherently immoral about it. Especially after seeing her interviewed, where she came across as tired and a bit exasperated but not unduly nuts.

Her worst decision was in having "one more go" at her remaining ova. I can see the moral significance--if you believe that every "life" deserves a chance, you'd want to give these eggs a shot--but maybe they should have been donated to another infertile couple instead.

Raising 14 Bloody Children
So she got pregnant with what she thought was 7 kids (the 8th was a surprise during delivery). It is possible to selectively abort multiple fetuses in this situation, but after reading the above rationale for having the babies, why on earth would anyone expect her to do this? She wanted to give those eggs a shot, and boy howdy did they take her up on the offer.

But what's done is done, and I can't really fault her for not terminating any of the fetuses. Moreover, she now has 14 kids. Should she select some to give up for adoption? That seems arbitrary. Everybody is calling on various companies to boycott her, but while I believe she has been guilty of poor decision making, once the kids are out of the womb and walking around, my greater sense of charity towards the children overrides any sense that she should be punished. Because let's be honest, punishing Suleman is just punishing her children, who didn't do anything wrong here.

So I think anybody who wants to send them diapers or crates of baby clothes should go ahead and do so. Whether or not it "encourages" this kind of behavior is irrelevant; the behavior happened and now there are 14 kids that need assistance.

Final Tally
For those keeping score at home, here were Ms. Suleman's objective mistakes:

1. One of her first 6 children -- the 4th, I believe -- is autistic. That right there should have been the end of the line as far as having more babies; raising an autistic child has got be as taxing as 2 or 3 developmentally normal children.

2. ADOPTION, lady. One of her common refrains to Ann Curry is that she just wanted to have a big family like she didn't have, and that she wanted to have children all her own. I can respect that. I can even respect having one or two kids biologically to sate that desire. But after that? There are SO many children that could use a better home, why on earth would you have even 2 or 3 more on purpose when you could just adopt?

Notes

Whenever people are arguing politics, someone inevitably attempts to argue that a policy or action is okay by noting how "up-in-arms" the other side would be if the roles were reversed.

That is, the argument is not that Policy A is okay, it's that it's "not as bad as when the other side did Policy Z!"

This is dumb. It goes for all ideologies and parties--unless you have a direct 1:1 correspondence in policy, it's a stupid argument to make. It rarely has something to do with the policy, and is really just an ad hominem attack, without a specific... um, hominem.

You CAN make this argument where people are being hypocrites. Flip-flopping on issues and such is a perfectly acceptable target for criticism. But the less similar the situation--and as they become dissimilar, the drop-off is quick--the lamer your argument becomes.

(This is a vague response to the story that Sen. Judd Gregg, Republican, wants a GOP to replace him if he takes the job of Commerce Secretary in Obama's administration; I am not against him, or his demand/request, but I see Democrats saying "He's not allowed to make this demand! Can you imagine how Republicans would howl if a Dem made this demand?!"

Short answer: yes, I can imagine it. I can imagine a unicorn-powered spaceship too, but that's not really the point is it?)

.....

Chicago is a great city. A cold city, to be sure, but a pretty great town overall. I will go back.

.....

People at the Denver International Airport are not fans of the Steelers. I'm not sure they're fans of the Cardinals, but they were super jazzed when Arizona pulled ahead. And super depressed when the Steelers pulled out a win. That was a helluva 4th quarter, man. I'm glad my layover allowed me to see it.

.....

Today UPS delivered a package that was literally mailed LAST YEAR. Good work UPS. Way to keep up the quality of service in these demanding economic times.