Curious about reaction to "Finding Neverland"

Just finished watching "Finding Neverland" with my wife and we were both moved by it. (gotta love those Academy Screening DVDs)

I am curious, as this is the first real tear-jerker we have seen since the birth of Grace, but is my (and her) blubbery reaction to it heightened because I am a new parent (if you haven't seen it, it features several children in very important roles) or was it simply a great movie? I am worried that I will now fall apart at any sentimental offering from Hollywood. My initial feeling is that it was simply a fine movie and I haven't become like that girl who used to work for me that lost it nearly every day.

The movie kind of reminded me of Shadowlands, an extremely underrated movie about CS Lewis starring Anthony Hopkins & Debra Winger.

Here is the ad I was referring to in the previous post

If they think this is going to work, then I have a quote for them:
"You're dumber than you think I think you are."

Let's sick Wilford Brimley on them

Apparently, the folks who brought you the Swift Boat Veterans have set their sights on the AARP.

According to today's NY Times, the President of USANext, (whose spokesman is Art Linkletter, and yes, I too thought he was either dead or stuck in one of those recliner beds in Scottsdale) speaking about the AARP, was quoted thusly:

"They are the boulder in the middle of the highway to personal savings accounts," said Charlie Jarvis, president of USA Next and former deputy under secretary of the interior in the Reagan and first Bush administrations. "We will be the dynamite that removes them."

I am by no means the first to make the connection, but this is the thanks they get for backing Bush's bloated Medicare drug prescription bill. This is furhter proof that these folks need to be opposed on EVERYTHING they propose.

And how do they plan on smearing the senior citizens of America? By claiming that the AARP doesn't support our troops, but does support gay marriage.

I'm not kidding. If I was smarter, I could figure out a way to post the ad of theirs, but it's an animated GIF file and I'm stupid. So CLICK HERE to see the ad. Truly mind-boggling.

You read it here first

The White House is readying their defense for when this Jeff Gannon Jim Guckert story explodes. It's buried in the last sentence of an article on Page A22 of today's NY Times:

"The credentialing is all handled at the staff assistant level," Mr. McClellan.

It will all be laid at the crotch of some low level staff person, sort of like Abu Ghraib.

2 names

Recent people in the news with more than one name:

Jeff Gannon=James D. Guckert

Mahmood Abbas= Abu Mazen

The challenge of parenting

There is a sobering article in today's New York Times about Christopher DiMeo, the young man accused in a string of jewelry store robbery/murders in the New York area. This passage was especially jarring:

Ms. Taylor and Christopher's father married, but their relationship was bitter and strained by drug and alcohol abuse, relatives said. Ms. Taylor taunted her husband by threatening to cheat on him while he committed petty thefts and started fights for sport, acquaintances said.

Scott DiMeo left when Christopher was a toddler, was arrested for armed robbery in Florida and saw little of his son. He drifted across the country and died in Iowa in 2002, said his mother, Ms. Cummings.

Ms. Taylor remarried, this time to a man who woke Christopher up at 4 a.m. to walk the family dogs, forced him to kill raccoons and sometimes beat him, said Barbara Jaklitsch, Ms. Taylor's mother.

Ms. Taylor continued using drugs and often lost track of her son. Ms. Cummings said she once visited to find Ms. Taylor strung out on drugs at home and 9-year-old Christopher fishing on a pier, alone.

I have no illusions about this kid and what he's done. He deserves to spend the rest of his life in jail. But that old saying that killers aren't born, they're made, seems sadly appropriate with regards to DiMeo.

The End is Near

When you think it can't get any worse, it does.
If you ever wanted to actually eat trivia,
the wait is over.