The Department of Justice reportedly filed papers today asking the court to set aside Ted Stevens’ conviction on the grounds of prosecutorial misconduct — DOJ withheld potentially helpful evidence from the defense. DOJ now says that it will not seek to try Stevens again. Regardless of your views about Ted Stevens, there is no denying that this case was a travesty, and a pretty scary object lesson about over-zealous prosecutors. It’s good to see the Obama Justice Department has done the right thing here by moving to set aside the conviction and dismiss the charges. But let’s remember that this is a case where the Justice Department first ruined a man and then said, “Oh, never mind” after it got caught. And let’s not write this off as just an isolated case, or the product of a lawless Bush Administration department. There have been federal and state prosecutors and other government inquisitors before who have sought to make careers out of destroying people’s lives. Most of them couldn’t even claim the ideological sincerity of Robespierre. They were just megalomaniacs, with no moral center and no compass except their own narrow self-interest. They rose on currents of fear, apathy, and ignorance, and, in most cases, were brought down by their own ambition and hubris. Even in disgrace, seldom have they been called to account. Will this time be different?
I just had my first colonoscopy. This is a rite of passage for many people of my age. Kind of the 50-year-old’s version of the Bar Mitzvah, except there’s no band and, instead, you get a camera up your butt. It’s actually a two-step process. Instead of spending months learning your Torah portion and writing some mindless drivel about it, you spend about 24 hours starving and have several rounds of a liquid that makes your colon clean enough to eat off of. (Note the use of a preposition to end the previous sentence. This is the “internets,” after all.) The liquid, by the way, is not nearly as putrid as all the whiners said it would be. Then you go to a nice place with nice people who give you very pleasant medicine to make you unconcerned about the anal probe you are about to experience. You then can watch the examination if you are so inclined, which I definitely was. It was like TV, only it was my colon. I thought the entire process was fascinating. I even liked the purge part, which was disgusting. Better than any fart or poop joke I could think of, because it was real and the sound effects couldn’t be beat (or imitated, except if you are in proximity to a sink with running water). The big dilemma for me was whether I should ever eat again. After all, I was so . . . clean. I am the kind of person who does not wear new clothes for weeks after I purchase them, because — well — they’re so clean! Could I foul my newly pristine colon with food? It was quite a head scratcher, until the nice people at the colon place presented me with a handful of Animal Crackers (after I completed my assigned gas-passing). There were bunnies and owls and all kinds of critter crackers I hadn’t remembered seeing before. Oh well. They were nothing that a few spoonfuls of Metamucil couldn’t fix. Yummy.
Saw the new Spike Jonz movie that’s got the critics and hipsters so delirious. Hated it. It’s difficult to know where to begin. Well, let’s start with how completely unaffecting it is. The little protagonist, Max, is an infantile, narcissistic, Hitler-wannabe with a Napoleon complex. Oh, and he’s got serious impulse control problems. He’d like to rule the world and destroy it at the same time. Very profound. Frustrated that he can’t impose his will on his world — especially his big sister, with whom he’s got some serious issues — he wrecks her room, bites his mother, and runs away. Mom gives chase for a couple blocks, but, in the wisest moment in the film, gives up and goes back home. If you had to live with Max, you’d wouldn’t try that hard to get him back, either. The little monster then sails off to an island where he meets other monsters: infantile incarnations of various infantile parts of himself. Yeah, really deep. Then, the movie gets completely boring. Of course, in fairness, the movie was boring from the beginning. In fact, in the beginning, I found myself thinking “Well, it will be good when Max meets the wild things.” Then, when he met the wild things, became their king, and announced a “rumpus,” I found myself thinking, “Well, it will be good when something profound happens.” Then, as the scenes on the island went on and on and on, I found myself thinking, “Well, it will be good when he gets back home and shows some growth.” Finally, when that didn’t pan out either, I found myself thinking, “Well, it will be good when we get to leave.” We’d have walked out half way through, but our escape routes on either side of our row were blocked by other victims . . . I mean audience members. So we had to stay to the bitter, sucky, learned-nothing, still-a-psychopathic-little-brat end. Like “Lost in Translation” — another much-buzz film that left us cold and wishing for a rope to drop from the ceiling and haul our asses out of the theater — this movie had us wondering, “Why did so many critics go agog over this silly half-assed, plotless piece of crap?”
So if you hated this movie, and don’t understand what the buzz is about, you’re not alone. And don’t let anyone start lecturing you about the brilliant Freudian symbolic economy of the movie, and its “subtle” use of foreshadowing, its stunning visual appeal (Not!), or whatever other crap its defenders will come up with. Just smile and tell them the truth: The movie is overblown and flacid, and as subtle as a trainwreck.
And then make sure to lock your bedroom door, because they’ll try to wreck your room.