A Few of FR's Finest....Every Day...08-19-04..."All this was seared in his memory, before it wasn't"

Johnhuang2, Dutchess, billie | JohnHuang2

[dutchess]

A Few of FR's Finest....Every Day

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All this was seared in his memory, before it wasn't

by JohnHuang2

What a mess. With turmoil rampant, plans to stabilize the place lay in tatters. And the political upheaval only gets worse. The place is just ungovernable. Anybody will tell you that. The ruling authority, despite a promising start, is now seen by most as illegitimate. It's credibility has, almost overnight, utterly crumbled. As the crisis deepens, the political vacuum at the top is staggering! Amid the growing turbulence, the mood is grim and growing grimmer. With the opposition newly emboldened, calls for the government's immediate resignation and for special elections grow louder by the hour. Let the voters decide -- now, not next year, opponents clamor.

How long will the current standoff last? Will the government buckle under pressure? Will it be toppled? Or can Gov. McGreevey hang on? (You didn't think I was talking about Iraq, did you?) As the political tumult escalates, "High level New Jersey Democrats said Sunday that pressure is building among members of (McGreevey's) own party for him to step down before his announced Nov. 15 resignation date," the AP reports, quoting one unnamed Democrat consultant saying party leaders are worried "that it will get uglier and more damaging to the party. It's pressure for sooner rather than later." They're afraid this story has legs, really hairy legs, especially charges the governor wasn't just *doing* his mistress, er, misteress, but the taxpayers too -- to the tune of $110,000 in annual salary to a poet named Golan Cipel who was giving the governor a hand with anti-terror advice. (This is what Democrats mean by a more 'sensitive war on terror,' though there's nothing soft about this approach, Dems insist.) It turns out that McGreevey gave Cipel more than he could handle, given that Cipel was unqualified to service in such a sensitive position. (Cipel is a foreigner, meaning no security clearance for the hard assignment. This is what Democrats mean by reaching out to other nations.)

But Cipel claims that, rather than being on the sharp lookout for al-Qaeda making unwanted advances into skyscrapers, his time was taken up keeping an eye out for McGreevey making unwanted advances of a sexual nature. It wasn't terrorism, says Cipel, but he felt very terrorized, telling an Israeli newspaper Sunday that he felt so terrorized at the sight of McGreevey, "I got to a point where I was afraid to stay with him alone." (Who would expect something like this would rear its ugly head in the workplace?) Intimidated by the size of the governor's political clout, Cipel says he kept his mouth shut. The whole time. McGreevey found Cipel an apartment close to McGreevey's place, not to give Cipel a commanding view of al-Qaeda, but a commanding view of McGreevey. The governor says he needed Cipel on call, 24/7, just in case he got the urge for a briefing on the terrorist threat. (The couple first met in Israel in 2000.) For the record, Cipel denies being gay. In fact, he's pretty depressed about the whole affair. He has that memory which is seared -- seared -- in him.

(Having gay sex with subordinates is what McGreevey Democrats mean by 'standing up for the working man'.)

"At first," Cipel explains, "it didn't occur to me that he was homosexual." (Cipel probably thought that when McGreevey told him, 'I am gay', the governor meant he was happily married. When McGreevey pointed towards the bedroom, he probably just meant taking a nap, who knows.) Well, that big, fat misunderstanding led to another, then another, till finally Cipel couldn't take it anymore, says Cipel. He's set to file a lawsuit charging sexual harassment. The airing of dirty laundry has only begun. It could drag on forever.

Hence, the idea is to have a quickie election and be rid of this sticky mess. The hope is to stabilize New Jersey and firm up Kerry's position there, in view of some polls showing the contest tighter-than-expected. (One poll had Bush and Kerry in a dead heat.) McGreevey says he won't step down -- not before November, dealing a hard blow to party hopes. (You'll sooner democratize Iraq than New Jersey politics.) Complicating matters further, a weekend poll showed McGreevey getting a bigger bounce after admitting getting into Cipel's pants seeking terror advice than Kerry got after a convention week of 'Shove it', bunny-suits and papers getting into Sandy Berger's pants. The governor, even without Viagra, rose 2 percentage points -- about the size of the gay population.

McGreevey heatedly denies not having an affair with Cipel ('I DID have sexual relations with that man, Mr. Cipel!'). His spokesman, Micah Rasmussen, calls Cipel a liar, "a person trying to exploit his relationship with the governor." (McGreevey dishonored his office, humiliated his wife, humiliated his children, disgraced them and his parents before the whole nation. Clearly, McGreevey is the victim.) McGreevey aides say Cipel tried to blackmail the governor for millions of dollars, threatening to *out* him as a homosexual. (Democrats say this just goes to show why homosexuals belong in the military and CIA.)

McGreevey says he's resigning because he can't function effectively as governor any longer but he can't resign immediately because he needs to function ineffectively till Nov. 15. (Transitions high up at the governor's level require time -- this is not some lowly office like the presidency). So, McGreevey says he can't be effective in office because he's gay. Gays say this is why they're so proud of McGreevey.

On Nov. 15, under state election law, the Senate President takes over as acting governor to replace the governor no longer acting -- acting as heterosexual. His term expires in January 2006. But if McGreevey steps down now, a special election is called.

"The fact that I have chosen to leave office before the end of my term only heightens my responsibilities to the citizens of New Jersey," wrote McGreevey Tuesday in USA Today. These "responsibilities" include overseeing "an orderly transition of power." He needs time to teach a rookie the ropes -- paying kickbacks, bribes, looting ... you don't learn these things overnight, so get real. (Let's name a hurricane after McGreevey.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Speaking of natural disasters, has anyone seen Kerry lately? If this were January, I'd guess he'd be aboard a swift boat celebrating Christmas Eve in Cambodia with those wonderful Christians, the Khmer Rouge -- but it's August. Did you see that dirty trick Nixon played on Kerry back in '68? You'll notice that Kerry hardly mentions Vietnam, but in a Boston Herald piece in 1979, Kerry wrote this: "I remember spending Christmas eve of 1968 five miles across the Cambodian border being shot at by our South Vietnamese allies who were drunk and celebrating Christmas" -- a holiday in Christian lands like Cambodia and Vietnam. Continuing: "The absurdity of almost being killed by our own allies in a country which President Nixon claimed there were no American troops was very real." Nixon wasn't President yet, so evidently Tricky Dick misled Kerry into thinking he was (and misled Kerry into invading Cambodia.) In March of 1986, Kerry told a Senate hearing, "I remember Christmas of 1968 sitting on a gunboat in Cambodia. I remember what it was like to be shot at by Vietnamese and Khmer Rouge and Cambodians (that Christmas Eve), and having the president of the United States" -- a Buddhist country -- "telling the American people that I was not there; the troops were not in Cambodia. I have that memory which has been seared -- seared -- in me."

But Adm. Roy Hoffman, Swift Boat commander of Kerry's unit at the time, and Steve Gardner, fellow Kerry crew-member, both deny going into Cambodia Christmas Eve. So Kerry now says that his memory, while seared, was seared imprecisely. That he did go into Cambodia on Christmas Eve, but it was in January or February. And that he forgot to mention this in his journal because he was at Sa Dec -- 50 miles from Cambodia -- when he invaded Cambodia on Christmas Eve. (Kerry can only be in two places at once.)

Gardner and Hoffman are part of the group, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, whose devastating TV ad, airing in key battleground states, is giving the Kerry folks conniption fits. The book, Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry, co-authored by John O'Neill, who succeeded Kerry as Swift-Boat captain, lays it all out in meticulous detail. Through exhaustive documentation, it shreds Kerry's claims apart into tiny fragments and seriously calls into question his character and credibility. The book is the No. 1 best-seller in America. The Kerry people say the veterans cited in the book served far, far from Kerry (like a few feet away in the boat right next to Kerry's).

The book notes that "all the living commanders in Kerry's chain of command" contend that "Kerry would have been seriously disciplined or court-martialed had he gone" where he said he went, when he said he went. The Kerry folks insist Kerry did invade Cambodia, crossing the Mekong River which separated Vietnam and Cambodia before Nixon moved the Mekong River many miles away from the border just to make Kerry look bad.

Kerry maintains that only someone with extensive, four-month combat experience, like him, has the skill to lead a nation to war (now we know why FDR bungled WWII). Having made his seared Vietnam service the center-piece of his campaign, Kerry is stunned why anyone would raise a ruckus just because he can't remember if it was Christmas or not, if it was Cambodia or not, if it was Nixon or not.

Last week, he spoke to a convention of minority journalists where, for the first time, he criticized Bush's immediate response to 9/11. He criticized it for not being immediate enough. (Three years after 9/11, Kerry just discovered he didn't agree with Bush's response to 9/11. I question the timing of this.) Kerry said he would not have spent 7 minutes reading to those elementary school children. Instead, he'd have moved quickly and decisively to spend 40 minutes hanging out with Barbara Boxer and Harry Reid realizing "nobody could think." It's an inspiring account of heroism Kerry shared with Larry King on July 8. All this was seared in his memory.

Anyway, that's...

My two cents

THIS WEEK'S THREADS 08-16-04...Military Monday 08-17-04...Blame it on St.Louie (What was your worst date?) 08-18-04...Colorado ~ "Nothing Without the Diety"

Opinions by our own 'King of Ping' The guy's good, folks!

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[GailA]

He'll like that, he went to the groomers Tuesday...looky mighty handsome.

[GailA]

Thanks for the good birthday wishes...boo, hoo, my library time is up in 3 mins.

[Pippin]

((((LOUIE)))))!

[Pippin]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GAIL!!!!

[jwfiv]

Great pics, Miss Dutchess ... love Dubya giving ol' Horseface the boot.

JH2 ... thank you, kind sir ... just great.

Regards to all the Finest on this very fine day.

[Aeronaut]

Hopefully it's like getting back on a bicycle!

Almost... not quite.

[Mama_Bear]

Bravo!!! Another excellent commentary from our Finest JH2! Thank you, dutchess. Thank you, John. This is one of your very best. :-)

[Mama_Bear]

I'm 21 again...

You too? ;-)

Have a wonderful day, birthday girl.

[Kitty Mittens]

Thank you for the thread, Dutchess! John Huang's Essays are always Fantastic!

[Kitty Mittens]

HAPPY BIRHTDAY GAIL!

[dutchess]

Hi dave. Cute bday card for gail. Bummer she's computer impaired. Don't you just hate when that happens??? So when do the little grandbabies start school? Can't believe schools around here start Monday. Time flies!

[dutchess]

Oh dansy...so great to see you and get an "official" dansy hug. Miss you here! (((((dansy)))))))

[dutchess]

'evening Louie....glad you were able to spend some time here "spreading your charm".....(((((wolfie)))))))

[dutchess]

Great pics, Miss Dutchess ... love Dubya giving ol' Horseface the boot.

I love that picture too...wish I could credit the person who came up with it....So much talent on FR!...including you :o)

[dutchess]

Hi Kitty Mittens....Saw that picture of GW with the darling baby the first time yesterday and uploaded it for a special moment. Thanks for posting it.

Okay...now I'm going to have to go in my files and post another one. With all the Kerry leftest bush bashing going on today...maybe time for a GW lovefest GailA bday/party!

Gail...you can catch up tomorrow at the library. Been there done that (and it's NO fun!)

[dutchess]

Hopefully it's like getting back on a bicycle!

Almost... not quite.

I thought not...am a little nervous after having such a "great" lesson a few weeks ago where I passed several hurdles.As always...appreciate your encouragement.

[dutchess]

Kerry can say all he wants. He is the real deal!!!!

[Aquamarine]

Happy Birthday Gail!

Sorry that your puter's sick.

[Diver Dave]

Hi dutchess. Christian started back-to-school yesterday. Logan's got a couple of years to go before he starts. In the meantime, since I get to be his sitter, he's getting a flag-waving education from Poppy.

[Dubya]

‘Benji’ movie seeks to raise quality of family entertainment
By Dwayne Hastings
Aug 19, 2004

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--After a 16-year hiatus from the big screen, Benji is back. A new movie starring the winsome pup -- actually the fourth dog to be cast as Benji -- will be in theaters starting Friday, Aug. 20.

Understandably, Joe Camp, creator and producer of “Benji: Off the Leash!” and all of its predecessors, is asking that people yearning for family entertainment go see the movie, especially this weekend. In doing so, they will send a message to Hollywood that wholesome movies can be successful, said Camp, who spent three months traveling the country looking for the next Benji in animal shelters.

He discovered the brown-eyed star of the latest Benji movie in a humane society shelter in Gulfport, Miss., and he believes he has the best Benji yet. The film spotlights three unassuming heroes -- a soft-hearted dog catcher, a determined boy and a lovable stray, played of course by Benji.

Camp planned for the movie to have a holiday theme; he had already written a Christmas script. Yet when he met this Benji, he said God convinced him to scrap the original script and craft a screenplay that conjectures how this little mixed breed ended up in a dog pound.

“The dialogue is all in the eyes of the animals,” Camp said. There are no computer-generated or talking animals in the movie -- except a loudmouth cockatoo who does her own speaking. Although handling some tough subjects like puppy mills and abusive households, Camp said the film depicts an entertaining and fun adventure of Benji and his canine sidekick, Lizard Tongue. (Both dogs have become the Camp family’s pets.)

One of the movie’s central themes is perseverance, a character trait Camp is intimately familiar with after being rebuffed in marketing the screenplay in Hollywood.

It wasn’t that Hollywood wasn’t interested in handling the movie, Camp said; it was that studio executives wanted to have their hands all over what the Benji film eventually would look like. “They wanted to do the movie, but only if they could have control and put in the stuff they deem necessary for an economic bottom line.”

No way, Camp said.

“Hollywood is consistently lowering the bar for what they, not we, think is appropriate for family entertainment,” he said, explaining that he was not going to let any Benji film be trashed by references to bodily functions or the like. That is the norm in many contemporary children’s films, he added.

“One studio exec told me you had to have that stuff in there to make money. He said the kids want it and if you want to make money on a movie, it has to have the language, the potty humor and sexual innuendo,” Camp said.

But Camp stood his ground and turned his back on Hollywood. With the aid of his co-producer, Margaret Loesch, he eventually secured financing for the film. That’s why he is so insistent that families go to theaters this weekend to see the film; he promises they won’t be disappointed.

“If Hollywood sees there is a strong economic bottom line from the release of a good family movie that doesn’t have those kinds of things in it, it will be a lot easier for those of us who care about making that kind of movie to get it financed and keep creative control,” Camp said.

“As long as people keep going to so-called family movies with inappropriate material, Hollywood will keep making them,” he continued, describing the entertainment industry as committed to “lowering the bar until there is none.”

Noting how critical it is for the movie to have a good opening weekend, Camp said it otherwise might become its last weekend in theaters. Major studios can force theater owners to hold a poor-performing movie over by threatening to withhold the right to air the studio’s next blockbuster, but Camp doesn’t have that leverage. Rather, his focus is on the millions of parents who want to be able to take their children to a real family movie.

Mel Gibson’s success with “The Passion of the Christ” showed the impact of individual moviegoers, Camp said. “People got out and went to the film because they cared about the product,” he said, noting like Gibson, he was steadfast in not giving in to the demands of the movie studios.

Camp said he doesn’t have the $30 million Warner Brothers spent just on television advertising for the movie “Garfield,” a movie he says that was identified as a family movie but wasn’t really appropriate for children.

“As consumers, we have to make hard decisions to support the things that are right and not support the things that aren’t,” Camp said. “That’s a message Hollywood has to hear.”
--30--
For more information on Joe Camp and Benji, visit www.benji.com.